001emically we're so pleased to see great signs of recovery but also know how important these Improvement plans are to set goals and monitor them we see this in our Benchmark data in the amount of referrals being made to our guidance office in how teachers have restr ured their daily class routines to incl include more mindfulness activities and social emotional lessons and a cing room addition to our school we continue to help our students and their families maintain a very important sense of stability every single staff member recognizes the importance of building strong relationships with their students and at any time you will see staff members go out of their way to check in with a student or a family to ensure that they have what they need just this fall of this school year we
002partnered with cradles to crayons gave each student a backpack filled with school supplies 40 pairs of new Nike sneakers were given to our families through the organization shoes that fit donated by Nordstrom 45 of our Atherton how families received a Thanksgiving dinner recently courtesy of walberer and countless winter coats and winter clothing was distributed from cradles to crayons we just finished our first term of school and we recognized 83 students K to 5 that have been to school every day of this term that's 33% of our students we tell our students and our families every day they hear me say it every morning on the announcements we're happy to see them and we're glad that they're there our student perceptions of our school climate is also important as you can see our vocal data from
003grade four and five is relatively consistent from the year before students feel cared about know their teachers are proud of them and support them even when their work is not their best the dips this year in the data are noted from deciding school rules students feeling comfortable talking about something that's bothering them and controlling their feelings if you're becoming more familiar with the new IEP format you know an important component is having the student Vision included in addition to the family and team vision recently at an IEP annual review meeting I attended a primary student's Vision was shared in response to this year I want to learn it was I want to learn about division and multiplication addition and subtraction are too easy I also want to learn more about emotions and how two emotions
004go together like when you're F frustrated it's a feeling of sadness and anger and in response to by the time I finish Elementary or middle midd School the student said I want to learn more about science and become a scientist when I am older and I would like to build a robot We Know by listening to our students their needs their voice support sustaining a positive School climate and significantly impacts learning by creating a safe and supportive environment where students feel valued leading to increased engagement with families better attendance improved academic performance in a great G sense of belonging you probably know that we're the smallest Elementary School in quinsey we have 18 classes 10 of those classes are general education classes and eight are substantially separate classes for the general education classes we have
005two classes at grades 1 two four and five one general education kindergarten and a unique split of grade three students are split for academic content in smaller groups and combined for home room and academic programs our eight substantially separate classes include both classes as of the transitional kindergarten program and six classes as part of the Citywide language development program our Citywide substantially separate classes include 26% of our student enrollment I always like to acknowledge this as it illustrates the amount of special education students at each grade particularly the number of those students participating in our Benchmark in Statewide assessments and as you review our goal reflection it's helpful to understand this collaborative effort and planning between general education teachers and special education teachers throughout the school in addition we all work to support a positive
006learning environment we plan important action steps that take considerable collaboration and intentional planning this includes important considerations in our schedule building a win intervention block coordinating with Services service providers support blocks and resources and having our school goals and action steps as important components for our teachers as they set their own professional and student learning goals I'd like to share some takeaways of last year's goals as we move into this year if time allows okay specifically for ELA as you can read in the goal analysis we had an mcast map and mcast goal for ELA last year similar to what we've set forth in this school Improvement plan as you can read in the goal analysis we met our K to3 mclass goal in grades one in grades kindergarten first and second by significantly decreasing
007the amount of students in the well below risk level our goal was to see a 5% decrease in grade three however we did not meet this goal in grade three we had a 2% increase for map I had shared last year we are spending a lot of time looking at the school profile achievement reports in math in looking to reduce the number of students in our lowest percentile bands so we've set goals in um reading and math using these reports um we did not meet this goal for ELA based on map Performance we do spend a lot of time looking at these reports we use them in our ilt meetings to help tier students along with other data points for ELA or reading our goal was to move at least 15% of students out of
008the lowest percentile at the beginning of the year 50% of our students in grades 2 three four and five were in the 40th percentile at the end of the year a decrease of 2% 48% we're scoring in the 40th percentile or below we did set a similar math goal I'm just going to show that to you visually we did meet our math goal for moving our students out of the lowest percentiles we were looking again to move 15% out of the red and the orange or the lowest 40% we did meet this goal in math with 19% or 31 students moved out of these lowest percentile bands similar to ELA we also set a goal for map Inu in grades 2 through five to demonstrate Positive Growth as measured by the RIT score from the
009fall to the spring in all grades two to two through five met or exceeded their R growth goal in reading and math we are going to continue with the um School achievement um profile reports for this year for mcast for both Ela and math we focused on raising profic Proficiency in the percentage of student of percentage of points specifically earned on selected response items our goal was an increase of 4% at each grade we made our goal in grade four for ELA however we saw a decrease in grades three and five for ELA and at all tested grades in math as you can see we are hoping to keep this goal for selected response for raising for increasing proficiency for this school year we were disappointed to see our mcast proficiency level decrease from the
010last few years as we were making solid gains in earning proficiency levels in science closer to the district and state while we did meet our map goal for science in grade five and we just missed it by a tenth of a point in grade four we continue to en hands and dedicate our efforts in science instruction at all grades so while we celebrate many glows we're committed to continue to grow as you can see many similar goals are proposed this year I'm proud to present this school Improvement plan as a result of meaningful planning and collaboration you may have noticed if you received the school Improvement plan in color um a picture of many of our staff at our first assessment team meeting this year wearing pink as we support one of our fine colleagues
011out this year on medical leave you'll also see a page of pictures highlighting action steps already in full force for term one we are doing hard work every day we are also thrilled with the many physical improvements in the school building this year as well the school is bright and bursting with positive energy and we're happy for you to visit any time and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you any questions from colleagues I'm Miss Pros thank you so much for the plan for preparing the plan and for uh presenting it to us tonight um just had some questions was there um the the the percentage of your students that are receiving special ed services or in sub separate classrooms are they um is it higher than in years past it has always been
012uh well I guess within the last three to four years you know we have increased the number of substantially separate classes um but we've always kind of wavered between 20 and 25% okay I'm just trying to um you know to make sense of and you're not alone in this where the map data is showing a lot of growth but the mcast data is just it's going down to a point where when you compare it to the state it's starting to get far enough away that it makes me a little uncomfortable and I'm wondering if um having such a population in your school that's going to affect test scores right I mean that's and maybe this is more of a question for Dr Perkins I'm wondering would it make sense to separate out and just do
013um test scores for the General Ed classes would anything like that make sense so that it would be easier to sort of see what's you know to be able to Target um any gains because you can't teach it the same way right the same goal shouldn't apply in a general it's a great question and um we actually are able to do that um through the DC portal the Edwin analytics we're able to kind of um drill down and look better at our population students with disabilities and students without disabilities so we usually as we put forth goals it's usually a schoolwide goal of you know all grade three or all grade four but when we look at it at assessment teams when we look at it by class or gened we do look at it
014that way okay to get a better handle on our proficient levels and where our needs are for sure I think that would be really helpful to kind of see if that's what's causing that a little bit which would be a little like I say a little more understandable a little bit um I could make sense of that a little bit more where it seems like the action steps seem solid you know what I mean I and it's just um like you say you had made really good gains and um just seeing some of those drop or like cut in half you know from last year was I'm sure you know frustrating for you but also just trying to delve into why and you know maybe look at the numbers a little differently could help with
015us um understanding that a little bit better um and then just uh you know your vocal data seemed you know similar in line with the the district just I did show a little bit of you know student peer interaction but that seemed to be districtwide um so that's uh something I think we all have to work all the schools probably are shooting to Target and focus on um and then I think my only other question um just kind of blow through here sorry wrote them all down ear today um you had for your class uh class sizes you had um that they had that you had all pretty low class sizes but um I Heard kind of anecdotally that there is a class of um in grade three that might be a little larger that's
016not reflected on there could you maybe talk about that a little bit yep it's it's listed in the notes there that um our grade three oh I'm sorry I didn't see oh that's okay it's it's under there um so our grade three general education class currently has 26 students um it has fluctuated since kindergarten um increasing and decreasing so when we were leaving in the spring um we were keeping a good eye on those numbers and um short of having two home rooms of 13 students what we did was got creative with our resources um and all of the 26 students are in one Home Room um they travel together for their academic programs you know music fed Library they're at lunch together recess um but then we split them in small groups for all
017the content math reading science and social studies um doing that um it might not seem like a lot of time to have them go to specialist and every home room together but it allows us to use that other third grade teacher to support um our fourth grade for some additional math Intervention which we needed okay yeah I just didn't know if you needed any support in that area but if you're feeling like that's you're good there then yeah I mean we're keeping an eye on the numbers and um so far it's working out well and we're happy to have that other teacher freed up a little bit to support grade four okay thank you appreciate it thank you so much um I just have a couple of comments and questions one one question I don't
018even think this is for you it's probably for eron but there are a couple of schools that are having problems with Selective response questions and is it a Content Gap or is it a skill Gap can we figure that out no I yeah I can say too go ahe um well for us we chose selected response last year because you know our proficiency was lower and we were really trying to look carefully at each standard and where we were falling you know um and there really wasn't anything specific I had my math team and my Ela really look through um those reports and we couldn't find anything solid that we were falling apart on it just seemed to be consistently selected response and maybe more test taking skills you know looking for like the red
019herring you know eliminating answers we've been trying to do that a lot even in CK our unit assessments the Assessments in IM you know highlighting keywords and things like that more test taking skills is where we kind of were approaching it okay thank you just couldn't figure out if there was some way we could help with that yeah I I agree with um principal morera I do think it's exposure to that style of question which you know is not kind of typical in what we do um with some of our tests so I do yeah yeah so I do think that it it is exposure and which is why I think a lot of the principles have identified that I think if you asked most of them they would agree not necessarily the content it's
020the idea of like principal morera said Li you know eliminating answers and which one is correct you know they try to throw you some tricky ones in there you know and um I think it's just kids multiple choices we've been doing that for a long time but so yeah the part A Part B you don't then you don't get credit you know if you get half of it right so there it's it's definitely a different style of uh question I know we've been working hard across the district on the writing response and the constructed response this is another skill I guess that it it absolutely is and I think you know um that's why so many of our our principles in schools are working on it those questions why do we need those kind of
021question he would be straightforward I like yeah I like the idea of the maker space too that's terrific that's really a terrific thing uh accountability data The Chronic absenc is was great you really have done a great job with that I'm wondering why there was no e number for progress towards goals where they do have percentage of el students but there's no yeah she I don't think you you had enough she uh principal morera did not have enough to make a subgroup okay to make it I think you have to have 20 in order to make a subgroup so accountability data is good growth is great I mean that you're taking the kids where you find them and you're moving them on so I I'm happy with that I mean the mcast just doesn't reflect
022that at all it really doesn't and it's not accountable you can't it's not a you can't act it's not actionable for the kids who we have in front of you so the other stuff is much more important to me but I'm really happy to see that growth it's really good so I'm going to take a motion from Mrs hoopy to accept the plan can I second that motion is the only other person here was in the committee I'll second that motion and on that we'll we approve your plan thank you very much much thank you thank you h good evening thank you for coming you can go right ahead and present your school's plan thank you good evening I'm Jim Hennessy the proud principal of the wallon elementary school this evening I look forward to
023reflecting on our 2324 School Improvement plan and I'm excited to share our 2425 Plan before I begin I just want to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your dedication to the students of the quiny public schools to the members of the committee superintendent Maly assistant superintendent Perkins and to all the members of the SLT on behalf of the walleston school Community I want to express our sincere appreciation for your constant support and for always putting quiny students first we are appreciative of the many programs resources and Staffing opportunities that you provide I of course I also need to thank our teachers and our staff every day I have the chance to witness their dedication to our students their commitment to high standards and their ability to create a positive learning environment for
024all we so greatly appreciate our students it continues to be an honor to watch the learn and grow each day within the walls of our building we are also so grateful for our parents and Guardians we truly believe that our parents and Guardians are our partners and we are very fortunate to have such a strong partnership with our families and a very supportive PTO our PTO supports so many of our initi initiatives but most importantly they are our partners in building Community by bringing people together our Fun Run was a huge success we had more people than ever at our trunk Retreat and our family bingo nights several weeks ago was a hit we look forward to our Winter Wonderland dance in January our movie Nights our paint nights and many other opportunities to bring
025our community together the success of walleston school is entirely driven by the commitment of our families our staff students Community leaders and the broader Community working together towards a shared goal I'd like to take some time this evening to reflect on our shared goals from last year and our plan for this year during the 23 24 school year our goal was to ensure that all students demonstrated continuous growth in the area of English language arts Math and Science we also wanted our school to continue to be a place that supports and promotes diversity equity and inclusion by providing social emotional learning opportunities for all members of the school Community both during during and after the school day we use the mcass and the map assessments to measure our success as you can see on page
02639 we are proud to report that all tested grades demonstrated growth in the math student growth summary reports from Fall of 23 to Spring of 24 and on page 38 I am proud to report that the percentage of wallston school students who met or exceeded expectations at mcass exceeded the state in all areas and at all grade levels the difference was by a minimum of 12% and as high as over 44% higher than the state we are also proud of the results of the vocal survey and our positive Learning Community the overall School climate score for four and fifth grade students exceeded the state wallston exceeded the state in the era of Engagement safety and environment during the 2425 school year our goal setting reflects our commitment to challenging our students while supporting each individual
027students's social em emotional learning needs we again have set goals in the areas of ela math science social emotional learning and Equity diversity and inclusion we will continue to use the map and the mcast to measure our Pro progress towards these goals in ela each of our grade level teams analyzed the assessment data and established areas of focus as you can see on page 10 this year our K team will be focusing on pheic awareness and phonic fluency our first grade team will be focusing on phonic skills to write complete sentences and our second grade team will be working on enhancing reading fluency to improve reading comprehension our third fourth and fifth grade teams will be mirroring the district and focusing on Improvement and written response we are excited to continue to implement the ccla
028program but we are looking forward to delving even deeper into these units and trying to bring our families into this exciting curriculum even more some of these ccla family engagement events will include the first grade students designing a Flag Day celebration as part of a new nation knowledge unit or creating an art gallery for the early World Civilization units knowledge unit we are ALS will also host a read Around the World celebration on February 5th and Publishing parties and ious grades in mathematics our teams also analyze their data and identified areas of focus as you can see on page 17 our K team will focus on fluently identifying counting and comparing numbers 1 to 20 our first grade team will focus on addition and subtraction fluency 1 to 20 and our second grade team will
029focus on addition and subtraction within 100 our third grade team will focus on measurement data fourth will focus on Geometry plus line plots and patterns and fifth will focus on numbers and operations spe specifically fractions we look forward to continuing to use illustrative math and building our math Community we look forward to continuing math talks and giving our students more opportunities to use manipulatives we also want to incorporate more math projects into math instruction like building a dream house or creating your own Wild West Town should just name a few in science we look forward to seeing our fourth and fifth grade students demonstrating an increase of three RIT points from Fall to spring in the map District summary reports we look forward to an increase in Hands-On learning an increase in engineering projects connecting
030science with writing continuing their use of our Scholastic magazines to provide real world applications of science we have lots of projects and fairs planned this year first grade we we'll have animals and habitats projects second grade we'll be doing insects projects this year third grade is their annual and traditional animal fair and fourth grade we'll be doing engineering projects and fifth grade our biome fair in the area of social emotional learning diversity equity and inclusion wallston school will continue to be a place that supports and promotes diversity Equity inclusion by providing learning opportunities for all members of our school committee both dur during and after the school day some of our action steps include the s'mores newsletter with translation an amazing tool and resource thank you more picture books with focus on Equity diversity and
031inclusion Community circles open parachute communication to tools like seesaw and Class Dojo and talking points social groups lunch groups and check-ins our fifth grade student council second step in kindergarten we just recently hosted Boston verse bullies in our fourth grade exciting to look forward to our K after school kindness clubs and our board game board games clubs to help students build relationships I'm excited for each of these goals but I must admit I am most excited about our school year theme this year wallon school building a brighter future as you know wallston had several building projects completed over the summer we had a new roof an ADA ramp connecting the gym to the basement level and a brand new staff B restroom which was greatly needed these projects came down to the wire in August
032our schoolyard was full of construction materials and on one day over the summer there were more people working on the building than who actually work in the school during the school year it looked like a total construction site with everyone walking around with hard hats I had my doubts about completion as you know I wasn't sure what the first days of school was going to look like we needed to come up with a plan to embrace all of this and we thought about all those hard hats and how the hard hat is not only an important safety tool but it has become a powerful symbol in American history and culture it represents not only the physical protection of workers but also the enduring values of hard work resilience and the pursuit of progress that have
033shaped our country it's symbolic of teamwork of people coming together to build something great and there it was we took our mascot team Wally as you can see we cover on the cover of our school Improvement plan and we created team Wall-E and I am happy to report that everyone did come together and a great deal of work was completed and most of the construction site did clear out it was an outstanding example under the leadership of the superintendent and his team and eron and lots of phone calls the contractors QPS maintenance department that I cannot speak higher of and also Paul Hines everyone came together and we had an outstanding start to the school year after seeing this our goal for this year is to foster a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration among
034students staff and families we believe that by building a strong cohesive team we can Empower our students to achieve their full potential and contribute positively positively to our community each month we' have been highlighting the traits of what it means to be team Wall-E work hard effort believe in yourself and others encourage each other be a friend show optimism respect energy give your energy to your team your classroom motivate yourself and others and show us your enthusiasm incidentally the first letters of each of these words spells out our hidden message to our students we before team and that has been our theme for the year at the beginning of the school year students wore their hard hats put on their construction vest and took their team photos we have embraced the theme students who exemplify
035the trade of the month receive a team they receive their own team Wally hardhead in so many ways we are all under construction this year just like the construction workers came together at wallon we are recognizing our students for laying the foundation of their success and helping to build a brighter future for themselves our school community and our world I thank you for giving me this opportunity we're excited for the school year ahead and the future success of our students thank you thank you Mrs Bros thank you um it was really a joy to read your report I really the amount of things going on the amount of action steps you have is amazing and uh you can see that team spirit kind of throughout your entire School Improvement plan and just the vocal data
036especially the fourth grade group is off the charts so I don't know if that message of team or what whatever happened it seemed like I mean that I know came this year but in the vocal survey was from last year but I can only imagine it's a continuation of kind of that mindset of Team like that and it seemed like it was really coming through in that vocal data um for sure so I love the idea that we're all under construction um so it's not you know just an award that you know you've done it you've made it you're done it's kind of we're all still working um and you're doing this great but keep going because we're all kind of continuing on so I love that um it's a really great message to send
037um and like I said I can't speak highly enough about the action steps Ela your action you had 35 action steps math you had uh 33 science you had 17 and seal you had 23 action steps I mean these are how you're getting these results which the mcast data is phenomenal um you know above the state average is what we can shoot for right I mean mcast data I feel like you have to take it with a grain of salt but that state average these are kids that have all been through covid they've all been through that stuff so if we can try to stay close to that and you're you're doing that and you're um right there and above so um I think it's great I think all those action steps matter and I
038think it's how you're getting the results you're getting so um fantastic work uh I couldn't even find I couldn't even find a question or something that I you know I'm always really critical of just you know everything I ask a lot of questions but for sure like really hit it out of the park so thank you very much Mrs K hi thank you thank you for everything um obviously your work is reflected in your um report so um and you and your team the only thing I would um like to address is some of the facilities um and I think as a team we should be pushing pushing that moving um especially the um I know it was in here last year how many years have we had the the oven in the hallway issue
039a few years now for a while yes yeah I would like to see us put in you know really focus on that in facilities and try and get that moved up the ladder so we can uh put that in an appropriate in an appropriate amazing and greatly appreciated so and I think for me that's probably the the place where we um maybe see some of the needs that you really we need to focus on more so than your um academic and Improvement stuff so but thank you for everything thank you yeah so this will all be moved into the facility subcommittee and especially the security cameras that's a whole another thing that we're looking at separately and the school needs will be moved into budget to see what we can afford those things um Mr
040gutra just want to say Jim you're I mean I found in my time in school committee you're a great leader and and a terrific principal you're you're map data your vocal data your mcast data just off the charts great you know you should be incredibly proud um I love how you embraced the theme I'm sure you had 100% confidence that everything was going to get done at time but embraced the theme and brought the students into it and and you know made it a teachable moment it's been fun a learning moment for that um I you know it I I had two questions and these are usually questions that other folks ask here um in the vocal data only 26% that I read books in class that include people similar to me I didn't know
041if you had any thoughts on that and then only 34% said I feel safe sharing my feelings in class which you know is probably I won't say Universal across the board but um that might be a little lower than some of the others any any thoughts on those two we looked at that deeply and especially looking at the fourth and fifth there was definitely a discrepancy and we you know we talked to the staff and we definitely did strategize a little bit for this coming year and just some of the areas that we need to focus um as far as the open to talking to teachers I don't know I do think there's an openness amongst people and parents are willing to call and we're willing to answer that phone and respond um I'm not
042sure why students felt wrote that um but it's just some we definitely saw that and there's definitely discrepancy between the fourth and fifth so we need to look at that further well you created a great culture at the school I think appreciate your work thank you Mr G yeah I just wanted as a neighbor um and all my neighbors go down to your school and they absolutely couldn't be any happier they really couldn't be any happier it's a real Testament to the neighborhoods you have I I think you have a great staff you have great families but the leadership there is outstanding it really is so thank you very much for that your scores are amazing there's absolutely nothing to be said uh the accountability percentile that might be the highest one we've ever gotten
04385th perc that's amazing I'm proud of it team effort team effort I know you said leadership but it's a team effort and your absentee has went down to 2.5 and it's pretty pretty cool stuff it really is it really is very very good it's a it was a pleasure to read I agree with Mrs pios it was a pleasure to read I know you have a a great Community down there and I was worried all summer about the construction myself as I drove by and they did sneak in a few weekends after school started I noticed to finish St they were great they absolutely were great it was amazing to see that constr is this really going to do it they literally were running at the end I it was I've never seen anything like
044that before they I really appreciate everyone espe like QPS maintenance like they were unbelievable it was they came down to the wire but they did it so that's great great to hear we have so many good people in our district in our city who work on that stuff so it's really great to hear we couldn't do the we couldn't do our work without them doing their work so and it was a lot and they did it it was so impressive so I'm going to entertain a motion for Mrs um Poley to accept your plan I'm going to second that motion all in favor I and you are set thank you so much appreciate it thank you all thank you thank you good evening hello good evening thank you so much for coming we'd love to
045hear your school Improvement plan okay excellent thank you thank you so much for having us um before we delve into the school Improvement plan I just want to take a moment to talk about what defines Clifford Marshall School um and that's the supportive and inclusive culture that defines our community we are beautifully diverse group of families and staff that share a common goal of love acceptance and growth last year was a really difficult one for our school we suffered the tragic loss of our beloved second grade teacher Christine fander and former Marshall student and Son of kindergarten teacher Mrs Troy Matt Troy these two beautiful people we're lost far too young and our community is still dealing with the shock and sadness of their loss though these tragic losses were difficult um you can also
046see the beauty of our resilient Community last year's fun run a spectacular Community event that we celebrated in collaboration with Point Webster was dedicated to the memory of Christine and funds were raised to establish a scholarship in her name team Mighty Marshall raised over $54,000 for Dana Farber as we participated in the annual Jimmy fund walk and the QA held a blood drive this fall and we're currently doing a clothing drive to benefit St Francis House in honor of Christine our school is not defined by the challenges we face but we are defined as how we come together to face those challenges I also wanted to share that our staff has committed to a few goals you won't see in the school Improvement plan but we are going to use these as guiding principles we
047strive to teach like Christine every day she had a unique blend of compassion sense of humor and patience that was truly second to none as you walk around Marshall you'll see the pins reminding us every single day that we will teach like Christine we also took on the challenge of embodying firefighter and Veteran Matt Troy's sense of Duty sense of humor and his never give up on on anyone mentality these guiding principles that we've adopted from Matt and Christine are certainly an important part of our school Improvement and they'll enhance the plan that we're sharing with you tonight as always creating a plan for school Improvement begins with taking a look at our achievement celebrating successes and identifying areas that need Improvement so we'd now like to share a brief overview of our assessment analysis
048and how we use that to create this year's goals and action steps in the era of math our map grow our math growth was very strong across grade levels far exceeding National norms and exceeding last year's School Improvement plan goals we especially want to highlight the tremendous growth of 22 points demonstrated by our third grade students that's double the national Norm our performance on mcass in the area of math was mixed We performed very well in third grade but did not perform as well as we would have expected in grade four we will use common planning time this year to meet regularly with grade level and vertical math teams to monitor student growth and make curriculum adjustments this year we've also adopted the research-based supplemental ST math program building wide we are excited about the
049expected impact of this this program will have on developing critical thinking problem solving and conceptual understanding we feel this program is especially powerful as it is engaging for all students and completely visual requiring no language therefore making it accessible for all students regardless of language ability this year our first school impro Improvement plan focuses on the implementation of stmath across all grade levels we have high expectations for its impact and will use the provided student progress data as well as map mcast and IM assessments to monitor progress and inform instruction in the area of language arts we're thrilled to see growth students showed on the dibl assessment across grades K to2 we began the year with only 50% of our students meeting the meeting or exceeding Benchmark and by the end of the year we
050had 72% as we looked at setting this year's goals for foundational reading skills we wanted to continue to build on that progress but increase the overall growth expectation for each grade level we consistently see more Dibbles growth in grades K and one than in grades two and three because of this one of our action steps is to make adjustments to our intervention model to provide more intense support for those students that are struggling to progress in foundational raing skills in the upper grades we showed mixed results on map and mcast assessments overall our third grade students performed extraordinarily well on both assessments our fourth grade students did not meet our ambitious goal of 10 points of growth on map um alth their seveno growth was just one point under the national Norm of eight we
051also want to celebrate the strong performance in writing in both third and fourth grade on mcass as we looked um for areas of improvement across assessments we identified vocabulary as an area of need and so therefore our third goal is measured by a growth on map assessment with the particular focus in the area of vocabulary our fourth goal will once again focus on social emotional learning we know that Marshall students feel cared for and supported at school and this was reinforced by our vocal data this data also helped us to identify areas of improvement needed to meet social emotional need of our students as we looked at our current PBIS program there were a number of important foundational components that were not as strong as they were prior to covid and during our initial implementation
052of PBIS we realized that we need to focus more on teaching student expectations Revitalize a schoolwide approach and provide more opportunities to celebrate Student Success our goal and action steps support this relaunch of PBIS by providing things like classroom lessons assemblies and increased opportunities for reinforcement we are so proud of the dramatic Improvement our students showed in reducing our rate of chronic absenteeism we adopted a number of in uh initiatives last year that we will continue to use this year first we want school to be a place that students want to be in and will continue to engage students and create meaningful relationships we will continue to celebrate strong attendance and we will continue to partner with our families to help them understand the impact of attendance and work through any obstacles that may be
053attending school regularly a challenge as we shared previously we have a close-knit school community and part of that is our strong partnership with the PTO we have a shared goal to create strong inclusive connection between families and school we host monthly hybrid PTO meetings with child care provided in an effort to make our meetings accessible for all each month we cover topics that are selected by families such as um curriculum night meet the Specialists social emotional learning night we also work together to provide community events such as Bingo night family dance party of course the Fun Run that I spoke about earlier one of my favorite events is um our International night um we're fortunate to have such tremendous diversity to se celebrate so we share dances food and have the most amazing fashion show
054you can possibly imagine this year we were also honored to be selected as part of the Scholastic United States of readers program where each student is going to select 10 books to add to their own personal home libraries we're so thankful for this program and believe it's going to really help Empower students to select books that make them feel seen and encourage their love of reading it is our honor to represent such a wonderful school and to present our school Improvement plan to you thank you so much for your support and let us know if you have questions thank you thank you so much Mrs holey thank you very much for your presentation appreciate it thank you um we're going to be putting all of the facilities needs and um School needs into the facility
055subcommittee and in the budget subcommittee but I did want to address um room 113 because it needs addressing and as it stated needs addressing so feel like if you're saying it needs addressing I want to hear about it it has been addressed room 113 had um a smell to it a musty odor if you will that was difficult to identify honestly and it it took quite a while um they had to basically tear the room apart the great news is the the issue has been resolved new flooring new carpeting all you know they really did an excellent job new univent it was a it was a water issue the univent had leaked so it has been resolved completely okay I didn't have a check mark so I thought thought it was incomplete it's all set
056thank you very much thank you this is kale thank you thank you for your presentation um you know I think that when I'm looking at your plan um and you talk about the great community that you have a lot of it is when you look at the extended day and your family engagement um all the activities that you have I think really help to solidify that um on a districtwide um comment I'd like to make is that you know I know we've had issues with absenteeism and it seems like this year and we talked about it last year a lot is is all the schools and principls you know Vice principles everyone getting together and putting together initiatives to really find what is effective with the students and families and whatever you've all come up
057with um over the year last year um has been so successful and I really need to you know I want to make sure that we highlight the fact that you've all been working really hard and um the the numbers have been incredible this year so and for your school but for all the schools that have become but you know before us the shares seem to have really been um positive numbers so thank you for the work you're doing there because that obviously is important in our results and um for the work that you do with the community engagement and the after school activities so thank you thank you thank you Mr Gat I too want to commend you on the laudable progress on chronic absenteeism especially I mean in almost all categories you had really
058consequential change so you do doing something right in that regard as well as uh the grade three mcast and the map growth you know pretty impressive stuff and the United States reading program I think we heard about it from another principal that sounds super impressive so looking forward to hearing back next year how how it was uh how it rolls out and what the students think about it and and what that means thank you thank you Mrs Pros thank you um definitely a hard year for you guys and um I'm just so uh you know honored to even be as close to as a part of the community still as I am um having my kids gone through there but um all of my kids had miss my Ander and just the way you know
059not only obviously a friend and colleague to all of you but um the way you've kind of taken it and and made it part of you know making everyone better even better um but you guys have such a fantastic Dynamite team there that um it was funny when I was reading theal goal uh and you evaluated that you partially met that and I I know that's not true um despite not having all the open parachute lessons you may have outlined in your goal you are absolutely Meeting those kids uh social emotional needs every day in that building just knowing every staff member there is just you know totally totally a home run hitter on that so um I wouldn't worry about the number of open parachute lessons you get um on that uh so awesome
060you know good strides on The Chronic ente ISM I think um does what's left um is it impacted a lot by um kids that are out of out of international traveling um going back and forth to Home countries are you seeing that that's still a pretty big impact to what's left on The Chronic absenteeism it it can be um we definitely do experience that quite a bit um if if students are gone for an extended period of time we actually unenroll them and then reenroll them so that has helped a little bit in terms of not having amassed a huge number of absences um but if they're gone for you know even two weeks um you know that's 10 days and then they get the flu you know there are things like that that that
061do sort of impact that overall number yeah yeah I was thinking about that as I was reading that number that but great strides on that um and I'm psyched about the writing strides that you guys have made uh you know I know that's been a focus for so many years even when principal Hearn was there um so that's really great to see that you know you're really seeing the results of that now um a couple things I wanted wanted to um highlight the in the facilities plan the walkway um from Broadway uh to the building that is absolutely a safety concern um it's something that you know when my kiddos were there uh one ice in every parent is going down over there and you know it's a well-used walkway um and that is absolutely
062something that we should be uh making a priority on our safety concern list um wanted to ask about and this question probably isn't for the principles maybe for um Dr Perkins um the Thousand Library stipended um I'm noticing across all of them that it's pretty Universal amount of $1,000 doll but where Marshall's got almost twice the number of kids that the other elementary schools have is there any how does that number get defined and is there a way to kind of have it take note of the fact of how many students are there um I mean I mean I definitely think we can discuss it I think that the library you know I mean yes there are more students but the library you know the sizes of the library I think are pretty equivalent with
063in terms of the number of books um and so I think it's you know not necessarily like the text and learning budget it you know so but I definitely think we can take a look at it for sure okay I was just curious I it sort of just hit me with the number um you know we're I was reading the school improvment plan for AET and how which is you know about half uh what Marshall has I was just wondering if there was a way to divy that up a little bit better um um and I think that was it yeah just um you guys are awesome and international night is so fantastic and if you haven't been to a Clifford Marshall International night you haven't been to an international night it is amazing um
064you get food and shows dancing it's it's the whole package so thank you guys still so so proud to be a part of it still Mr G I just want to say one more thing I want to give a shout out actually to the superintendent because uh both parent as well as the crossing guard pointed out to me that the walk time across sou Street as well as Southern Artery was only 8 seconds but yet it says it's like 14 or 16 seconds and he dispatched folks out there at traffic of parking and they did an incredible job and I know that it's a dangerous place it's AC cross so it's extraordinarily helpful I just want to give you a shout out superintendent thank you Mr G I I have a couple of very minor
065questions just for informational so what is a puzzle goal [Laughter] yes it's a little confusing Kim help us so um ST math is based on puzzles the kids have to solve puzzles and so every grade level is a little bit different in terms of how many puzzles they have to solve in a particular school year so we're trying to move students toward solving as many puzzles as possible without getting bogged down by the numbers so um I understand that the St map really requires the use of the Chromebooks or iPads or something yes and we don't have those for our younger students students so every school that uses it is really pushing to get some more technology in because it's because you don't need language to be able to do that so it's so so
066crucial it really is so crucial um so I I just think it's important that we really pay attention to that I noticed that you didn't have a science goal for this year did you we did not we did not um you know obviously science is important we we teach science don't get me wrong I think when we have four goals only one um grade level fourth grade does that's assessed yeah is assessed in science so I you know we try to look at goals that are a little bit more across the grade levels um and that's why we didn't make a science goal sense it really it's not that we don't teach it I promise I didn't think so and on page 24 there was another question I had here what is RBT for student
067support yeah so an RBT um is a is a trained par that works with specifically with student behavior and support and things like that so yeah we we um you know it would be helpful for our student support teams to have another um parah we did have one in the past she's on maternity leave we're crossing our fingers that she'll be returning to us because she was an incredible asset to our student support team um can work with really specific students that are struggling um across the board and can use that kind level of support okay I think uh this is a great plan motion to accept by Mrs Hy I second it and you are all thank you you you so much than you we didn't even do it on purose un intentionally hello
068good evening thank you so much for coming thank you and we'll allow you to present your plan thank you well thank you for your time I am proud to be the principal of Parker school and to present our school Improvement plan to you this evening when preparing for this evening's presentation I thought of our school song the song begins with the chorus Parker's where my heart is full of love and kindness like a family this is sung quite loudly by our student students at every assembly first Parker's where my heart is Parker is full of love and kindness kindness helps our students both be a friend and make friends this was emphasized at our recent assembly where first graders sang a song about gratitude including being grateful for their friends I certainly am grateful for
069the teachers children and families of Parker kindness is the culture at Parker because of this students are engaged with their friends and their teachers and families are engaged with Parker family engagement activities at Parker include pupsicles on the playground trunk or treat and we are looking forward to our Coco craft night on Friday there are other family activity engagement activities this year including Lunar New Year in our family literacy night because of our our culture of kindness there is a strong sense of community students appreciate and value the diversity that makes Parker such a wonderful place to teach and learn examples of activities celebrating our diversity include our Lunar New Year night our Lunar New Year play and family celebration also our one school one book and family literacy night because of our culture of
070kindness students are engaged beyond the school day we are fortunate to offer many Afterschool clubs including peer leaders box stem Club drama club homework Club in robotics the next verse of our song says I have come to learn and to do my best Parker students come to school every day ready to learn and to do their best our students take pride in their learning and we have very high standards for those students however our high standards are balanced with a high degree of support there's a safety net for students who are in need of intervention our intervention groups are small flexible and data driven our ilt process process allows teams of teachers to work together to identify students in need of additional support and to plan appropriate interventions through the support of the superintendent and
071his leadership team and the school committee we are fortunate to have an extensive support system for Parker students this allows our students to come to learn and to achieve their very best interventionist support at Parker includes two literacy teachers a part-time math interventionist the support of four El teachers as well as small class sizes additionally we have two guidance counselors supporting the social and emotional needs of our students Parker students are responsible and through the support of the superintendent his leadership team and the school committee they have the supports they need to do their best the last verse says though we all are different our goal is the same influence our world for good try to make a change although Parker students are all different they are all working towards a common goal students are
072taught the skills and knowledge they need to be successful and are given the support they need to achieve their best Parker is fortunate to have great a great team of Highly qualified and caring teachers who give their very best at Parker teachers have the support they need to do their very best this includes small class sizes and extensive professional development teachers partner with parents to support students and engage families in their children's education though we all are different teachers students and and families work together to celebrate the rich culture traditions and diversity of Parker try to make a change means committing to continuous Improvement that's why we're here tonight presenting our school Improvement plan and committing to the goals and action steps that will bring about lasting Improvement our students will loudly sing Our Song
073and I agree with them Parker's where my heart is where I want to be Parker students come to school every day to learn and to do their very best and I am proud to do their to be their principal and to share our school Improvement plan with you this evening assessment results provide a snapshot of student performance during the Spring of 2024 and this shows us there's work to be done and we are committed through our action steps towards addressing needs and focusing on Improvement in the area of ela assessment highlights include 44% of third graders are meeting or exceeding expectations this is above the state average by 3% 50% of fourth graders are meeting or exceeding expectations this is above the state average by 16% and shows a 3% increase from 2023 although fifth
074graders are 1% below the state average conventions of Standard English is a relative strength additionally it is hoped that a schoolwide emphasis on writing will address the areas of concern and students will show Improvement in the area of mathematics 51% of third graders are meeting or exceeding expectations which was above the state average by 6% 63% of fourth graders were meeting or exceeding expectations above the state average by 177% 32% of fifth graders were meeting or exceeded expectations and although this represents a decrease an individual strength was noted in the area of fractions where we outperform the state by 133% in the area of science 44% of our students were meeting or exceeding expectations this reflects a 5% increase when comparing to I'm sorry a 5% decrease When comparing results to 2023 but was equal
075to the state average our goals and action steps at Parker are a real team effort teachers work in those teams to analyze data and differentiate instruction to meet individual needs of all students looking ahead Parker teachers will continue to support students academ mic social and emotional growth as we work towards this goal specific Focus will be given to how we can provide intervention and support to accelerate student learning and increase achievement we have proposed ambitious goals using both mcast and map data in Reading Writing mathematics and science to document student progress Parker teacher teams have developed action steps to meet these goals there is an emphasis on writing across the curriculum excuse me an emphasis on writing across the curriculum in our goals and action steps the ELA goal is supported across all subject areas
076key action steps include differentiated reading instruction tailored to meet the diverse needs of students and targeted intervention at each grade level to address specific gaps in learning throughout our school Improvement plan there is a strong emphasis on enhancing students writing skills with a focus on helping them write effectively across genre and subject area writing will be integrated throughout the curriculum providing students with consistent opportunities to apply and refine their skills in meaningful context the math goal places a strong emphasis on Geometry recognizing its importance in building foundational mathematical understanding as teachers continue to refine the implementation of illustrative mathematics our core research it is essential that we collaborate and evaluate pacing to ensure that enough instructional time is dedicated to teaching geometry in depth students will continue to engage with math journals focusing on articulating
077multiple strategies for solving problems which enhances both their problem solving skills as well as their mathematical reasoning teachers across all grade levels are maintaining the use of guided math instruction small group instruction implementing datadriven flexible and differentiated groupings to meet the needs of students students are loving stmath and G the penguin which is our school mascot by the way uh students engage with this research be program to deepen their conceptual understanding and improve overall math achievement additionally we are fortunate to work with a dedicated math interventionist who's providing supported targeted I'm sorry targeted support for students helping them to strengthen their skills in the key areas of mathematics including geometry this comprehensive approach ensures that students receive the instruction and support they need to excel in math our science goal is supported by integrating inquiry
078based Hands-On activities the implementation of engineering is elementary teachers are utilizing the digital components of Savas realized and supplementing with mystery science they're also cross-curricular opportunities within the knowledge strands of cka that teachers are able to use as well highlights of social emotional learning include our continued implementation of open parachute Community circles and restorative circles our one school one book family initiative social and emotional learning supports include continued implementation implementation of PBIS our monthly assemblies guidance lessons in classrooms checkin checkout Etc to conclude Parker school has wonderful students supportive families and caring teachers it is a vibrant School community and I am proud to be the Principal thank you for your time and your continued support in remember Parker is where my heart is where I want to be full of love and kindness like
079a family questions thank you so much Mrs Hy thank you thank you very much um great presentation thank you uh I love your um Family engagement always a wonderful atmosphere being over at Parker love it thank you um the facilities we're going to be moving into the facility subcommittee and school needs moving into budgets we can look at them but I did want to ask if I see there a lot of things that were in place and still in place from last year going into some of them are work in progress what I was going to ask you about the um the leak outside of 20a is that something that's in progress being fixed that is I'm not sure about the progress status of that that involves a cast iron pipe okay um so they've
080replaced not replaced they've repaired but I think the entire pipe needs to be replaced but it has been repaired and ceiling tiles have been replaced okay I wasn't sure if that was a safety concern that we should be of um noting repaired ceiling tiles repaired eventually the entire pipe will need to be replaced the boiler is very much in progress that's what okay great thank you very much thank you Mr G I'm good you good Mrs peros thanks um thank you so much and uh I was I was lucky enough to be able to hear the kiddos sing that song and the Gratitude song at um at M Mrs youngman's um uh dedication a couple weeks back um and I actually took a video of them singing and I showed my kids and my my
081two high schoolers and my middle schooler and they were just like oh my God they're adorable it's so great but they are they just they knew that school song and I mean just it it just the pride in their school you could really see it just even through the videos so um it was really great to be there for that thanks s for that and then um I just had a one I really liked your VOC data that you were kind of um focusing on the categories and just an overall you know score in those categories and trying to go about that that was a really unique way of looking at I thought that was great um the discrepancy between grade four and grade five on the vocal I was noticing on some of these
082and I didn't know if you had any thoughts as to are you doing something different in grade four that you thought might have attributed to that or is there what do you why do you think grade five is a little um grade five definitely was lower both academically and vocal data grade five was much larger than the current fifth grade I'm not sure if the sample size skewed things we um not sure if it is they were closer to covid and re-entry but they were lower academically social emotionally um across the board and we worked hard to push in interventions with last year's fifth grade both guidance and and academic I'm thinking of the literacy push in um we noticed it too um and we're trying yeah no at least it's encourage that grade four
083data this year is really or this right exactly is really encouraging so hopefully uh we'll see those fifth I know right they'll they'll maintain it uh when they're grade when when they take it when they're fifth graders um and just do you think that um with 60% of your student body elel or Fel um how do you feel that you have enough EL support um I noticed like Marshall has the four El teachers and also right but they have an El tutor it said in their staff so I do you feel like you have enough do you feel like you might need additional support there or I feel very fortunate with the El team we have in place okay they also work really closely with the literacy team um and then there's grade level collaboration
084so for now I'm really feeling fortunate with how things are going great thank you appreciate your thanks and just looking at your accountability data you did meet the uh Target for E's not too many people in the district but were able to do that so I think you must I'll cross my fingers to that one too I have a couple of quick questions class size there's a couple of class sizes that look a little large like that fifth grade I'm Feeling Again with our El and literacy model at the instructional groupings feeling like with a lot of push in we're kind of hitting it it so I'm feeling okay so you're not feeling stressed by that what I loved about your goals is I love that you're saying 70% will meet or exceed their projected
085growth I love that I think that's such a simple statement and it says so much more about what's going on for individual kids so I really like it I um the Joan Youngman award I wasn't able to make it to that ceremony so could you just say a little bit something about it and also is the money targeted towards anything yes um Joan Youngman was a teacher for a long time at Parker School who recently passed away late last spring I received a call um from Mr Youngman didn't know Joan didn't know him and he said can I come in my wife taught there and she recently passed sure um and he spoke beautifully about how much she loved Parker and wanted to give back to Parker so I said that's great what do you
086need and I'm thinking it's a smallest donation and we can always use books for the media center Etc he's like well and he named the amount um a very generous $25,000 donation initially and that he would like that to continue with a $10,000 donation for the next 10 years said oh well books and then some so it's targeted for technology okay um and literacy technology we use to purchase an iPad cart filled it up with iPads which is perfect for the implementation of ST Math particularly at the younger grades we're logging onto the Chromebook Etc is challenging they're getting their puzzle data excuse me puzzle completion in um it's going great and then also literacy so we are looking at he um Mr Youngman felt strongly about digital books ebooks um which is interesting and
087I said well with the ebook you need the device um so we're looking into we have epic and we're looking into some Digital Book subscriptions thank you and that's my only question so I'm going to entertain a motion to approve the plan seconded by me and you are approved thank you so much for coming in thank you thank you I won't break into song for you I might good evening evening good evening thank you so much for coming and please feel free to share your plan with us thank you for having us I'm honored to sit before you to present the marry Mount School Improvement plan I would like to thank the school committee mayor kooch superintendent mvy assistant superintendent Dr Perkins as well as the SLT for their continuous support throughout the school year
088I would also like to thank our talented staff our PTO School councel EDI team families and most importantly our students our students really really make the marry Mount School a truly wonderful place to be every day with guidance from the district Mr Rogan and I work closely with our staff to create this plan overall we were pleased with the progress of that our students made last year and we hope that our goals and action steps this year will target areas to see growth analysis of marmont's mcast results as well as map data show that the action steps and initiatives that our school put into place last year year had a positive impact but we recognize that there are specific areas that we will focus on this school year our Ela goal last year focused on
089literacy and writing our kindergarten through grade three showed amazing growth in early literacy skills as measured by mclass in the spring grades 2 three and five met their projected growth according to map and grade four made significant progress early literacy reading growth will continue to be one of the FOC Focus one of the areas to focus on for the first part of our Ela goal for this school year the second part of our Ela goal focused on writing in grades three to five overall this part of the goal was met based on the school average in the production and distribution of writing this will continue to be a focus for our Ela goal this year as well specific action steps in our plan this year include opportunities to explore writing resources that dovetail nicely with
090C such as the writing Revolution which many of our teachers are already using this year we also hope to increase opportunities for students to use writing as a tool to process and demonstrate their understanding across different subject areas now that we've fully implemented ccla this year we want to really focus on the writing scope and sequence of the program to see where we might need to supplement a little bit Andor support some of our teachers at different grade levels especially some of our newer teachers with writing instruction we've revised and added action steps to support our El Learners we're excited about the implementation of the new e curriculum to support our students currently there are 20 different languages spoken at marmount and our e population has increased even since the beginning of this school year
091in math students showed evidence of growth in the targeted domain stated all grade levels met and in in fact exceeded this goal Although our map math MAP data is solid there is a discrepancy between the growth our student show and map and our mcast scores at the end of the last year we were given the opportunity to Pilot stmath and this school year we committed to the full implementation of the tool the students have embraced GG and we are well on our way to meeting our puzzle goal completion one action step that you will see repeated in our list of action steps is one that asks our staff to analyze and utilize data to provide targeted instruction during win our win or targeted instruction block is not new to our schedule however we really wanted
092to work on strengthening our tier two interventions this year and we have scheduled time for teachers to analyze data and plan on how a targeted intervention block can be used to maximize impact we introduced a planning guide and scheduled six to 8 week cycles that involve frequent assessment um to monitor progress and adjust instruction accordingly it's really been amazing to see how our teachers have worked together to come up with creative ideas for win they've shared resources created fluid and flexible groupings across grade levels for example in grades 3 to five teachers rotate groups during wi we really hope that that this push has an impact on student learning our science goal will again monitor growth using map data new action steps highlight incorporating opportunities for students to experience digital simulations such as virtual Labs
093we also want to provide increased opportunities for overall science literacy with things like Hands-On activities our fourth goal our student support goal focuses on peer relationships it is evident from the spring vocal data that our students feel happy and safe safe at marry Mount however after looking at the data we thought that this goal was a good fit this year we are so fortunate to be working with the educational based nonprofit organization raising Multicultural kids this year the diversity leaders working with grades three and four explore themes celebrating identity Community advocacy Reliance and resilience last month the diversity leaders LED classroom discussions with the book The Girl Who figured it out an inspiring story of the first wheelchair athlete to complete the IR man world champion Triathlon this month the story was Water Crest where
094students explored how the main character was able to connect with her cultural identity next month students will read Jose feeds the world a true story of an award-winning Chef food activist and founder of world the world Central Kitchen a disaster relief organization that uses the power of food to nourish community ities our school will also participate in a community project a food drive as part of this lesson we hope that this partnership encourages self-confidence and empathy builds perspective taking skills gives students the tools to address issues and create productive dialogue about change and recognize that representation matters our staff remains committed to creating a positive School climate and culture we work with students throughout the day to provide a constructive environment that supports academic social and emotional growth our sense of community is strong within
095the walls of our building and that feeling extends Beyond as well in addition to our school-based teams we work closely with our school Community including our school council our PTO our EDI team and really all of our parents and families School celebrations and Gatherings continue to be held throughout the school year to build enrichment and welcome families into the building community events like the trunk Retreat the Fun Run and international light are very well attended our EDI team continues to work hard to expose our students to different themes throughout the year to celebrate our differences in diversity we're committed to the different ways that people work together within our school to improve not only learning but the overall School experience for our students we continue to celebrate our students with weekly PBIS ticket winners and
096recognize students for displaying our month monthly character traits at our monthly PBIS virtual assemblies our fifth grade leadership opportunities Foster self-confidence responsibility adaptability communication skills and more when we look closely at our vocal results we're pleased with the results as they are related to student and adult relationships as Miss shap Connor mentioned some of the areas in need of focus are centered on peer relationships in addition to our open parachute and raising Multicultural kids lessons our Comm community building activities are consistently happening throughout the school day we're also implementing many extended day programs aimed at fostering positive peer relationships I'll be sending out a menu of our winter programs to families on Wednesday and I ask teachers to create their own descriptions of the programs and as I was reading through those a few key
097wordss popped off the page that I'm going to share with you um bonding teamwork team building sportsmanship following rules turn taking cooperation social skills leadership confidence and collaboration we're also introducing a new program called leadership Launchpad which Partners fifth graders with younger students in order to help build positive relationships presenting these opportunities in a less structured environment allows our students to flourish beyond the school day of course none of this would be possible without the support of the entire community of parents students teachers and administrators who work together to to bring it all to life thank you for having us here tonight we welcome any questions or feedback that you have thank you very much Mrs H thank you so much for that presentation that was excellent thank you um the facilities needs are going
098to get put into the facility subcomittee and the school needs moved into the budget but I did want to ask you about there's some things that I see that were from last year still on to this year um and one was the interior window in the main office um so what are the things that we have looked into and we've had um some of uh maintenance come out and look at as well is that it would be nice to H have our secretary have a direct line of sight to the main door and so one of the things that we asked is that if it was a possibility to put a cut a window out and have her move her de desk so that she could see the front door from where she was sitting
099okay and that sounds to me like more of a safety concern so i' would like to see if we can move that more into under a safety level I think that should be kind of high highed a little bit absolutely um and one thing we talk about a lot is the I read books that include people that are similar to me and then I noticed you have a 56 and a 53 and the books you were just reading were talking about are so intriguing yes and wonderful and they I was impressed I was very impressed with hearing hearing about them and that's not reflected here but it is like we were talking about individual students that are going to see themselves in those in the representation because a chef that feeds the world that's that's
100amazing that's a great book I'd like to read that that's sounds great but it's not reflected because only a certain number of kids are going to see that I just want to point that out because we had a really hard time choosing the grade levels that the organization was going to work with because you know it would be great to see them K to five which I think maybe in time that's something that might be able to happen um but we really looked at this students that we thought could benefit and and that's where we we chose the third and the fourth grade um and and so keeping that the thought of increasing um skills that kids could acquire for positive peer relations that's why Mr Rogan and I have talked a lot about the
101Extend A Day program and we have leadership leadership opportunities for grade five but yeah we're really hoping that we see that in our vocal data yes th those are those are great books I love them that's fabulous thank you I agree Mrs Pros thanks thank you very much for being here for the plan um it I thought the um the data reflection you had really good thoughtful um data reflection and I thought you could see that in a lot of the new action steps you guys added um I thought that they were very responsive to kind of what the data showed and you were I could see where you were trying to go with um with finding the you know the the the sensitive spots and try to hit that right um with your um
102new action steps so really thought that was great um I really love seeing the the rolling out of the raising Multicultural kids I loved hearing about what it looked like at snug and what it looks like for you guys um and I'm wondering if that presentation I know Mrs Lio asked about it when um The Snug team was here um I wonder they the raising Multicultural kids group did a presentation that I think it was like the PTO for both of you yes yeah yes and I'm wondering if maybe they could come in to just speak to us about it because I know Mrs Lio had some questions about it and I think it was a great presentation that um I feel like everybody here would benefit from hearing um just to know what they're
103doing it's great work and it's um it would be great if we could expand it to other schools and other grades uh great map scores and growth um really like seeing that your numbers were over the state average in just about all the categories I really like um it makes me uncomfortable when we get too far from that state average so I really um appreciated you guys were right there and working hard on that uh the fun clubs the cursive club that sounds fun I know they tried that at Point Webster but they didn't have quite enough kids sign up so well there were a lot there were a lot of kids we had to break it up into two sessions because there were so many we did that's awesome they can they'll be able
104to read some of the stuff that now my kids can't read because they don't know how to read cursive so for sure um that sounds fantastic um good class sizes and I was just again noticing and you're not alone on this the discrepancy in the vocal data between the fourth and fifth grade um and hopefully we'll just see that fourth grade like next year's fifth grade vocal data will be outstanding um hopefully I I I don't know what it is you're not alone but I mean there's some significant drops between fourth and fifth and I don't it doesn't seem like anyone's doing anything particularly different but students respecting each other in my school it goes from 46% in fifth grade to 85% in fourth grade so something happens there and I'm not exactly sure what
105but I don't know if you had any thoughts on that either much like what Margaret said earlier this the size of the class is is very different um so it was a really large fifth grade class um and you know Mr Rogan and I have talked about it at length and the only thing we can liken it to is um you know that this the grade level was like a family and sometimes it works and sometimes you know there are challenging times and we really worked with the kids um but in the vocal data it just it was it was hard to see it in in the numbers um because we really felt like the grade level um you know cared so deeply for one another but they also did spend a lot of time
106together and um like a family that can be challenging at times so for sure well thank you I appreciate your Insight on that I'm hoping somebody's figured it out I know Mr Kat I I won't repeat everything but Mrs pero spot on on on a lot of the same sentiments that I have um I also wanted to credit you with the progress on chronic absenteeism which I saw across the board you know uh it it makes a difference and it matters I wanted to uh acknowledge what Mr Rogan said when when looking at the vocal data that you assess that you know the peer-to-peer issues or the issues that you need to look at because I spotted some of the things that Mrs Pio spotted and that you all are already on top of which
107you know is concerning but you've got a plan in place and you're working it out um and then the last thing was that I noticed you had a couple of incidents I know that subsequently we're going to have a discussion in exe executive session about a variety of different incidents so looking forward to hearing more on on that information so thank you for the plan and and the good work you do thank you Mr G I don't have any questions either I mean it's incredible Community I'm there a lot as you know child pickup but it is an incredible Community it really is uh every the teachers are so attend you have one of the best power professionals out of that bus that I've ever seen in my life this lady knows exactly what she's
108doing where everybody belongs it's an amazing thing to see and how how seriously she takes her responsibility and it just it's the whole school is like that it's just it's an amazing place um I I agree I mean the the mcast data is the mcast data I like the uh the map data much better I I think things are going very well there I love the raising Multicultural kids and we I did put that U Mrs Pros into teaching and learning sort of so we'll make sure we get get that presentation because we need that across the district we really do and uh we need to find ways that we can do it appropriately and it sounds like a great plan I with Mrs H I'd love to read those books I would love to
109read them really it would be great um but I have no chronic absen ISM great job on that I mean people want to be there people want to be there it's a fun place and it's a learning place but it is a fun place for all kids so I'm going to entertain a motion to accept the plan by Mrs hoodley secondly by Mr boli and favorite ey and you are all set thank you so much good evening thank you so much for coming in it's exciting to have you here presenting your school the first one thank you for having us well good even good evening everyone it is an honor to be here tonight please join me in welcoming Simone Buckley our incredible Special Education team administrator at rdlc Simone thank you for your dedication
110and for standing beside our team every step of the way we are both so proud to share with you the first school Improvement plan for the RoR Christopher Learning Center I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Maya Koke superintendent mvy assistant superintendent Dr Perkins Julie Graham director of special education and all of you members of the school committee leadership team who have made this possible Opening Our DLC the share has been an incredible journey it certainly has been a highlight of my career to witness this build and come to life your support has been vital in creating a space where every student's individual needs are met with understanding creativity and compassion our Collective efforts create an environment where every child regardless of their unique needs can learn grow and Thrive to reach their
111full potential in a safe and supportive environment thank you for believing in the dream and for working so diligently to make it a reality together we have not just opened a school we open the door to New Opportunities hope and boundless potential for every student who walks through our doors our students and families are fortunate to have such a unique opportunity so close to home in our community I want to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to our parents and Guardians for trusting us with the education and care of your children it is a responsibility we hold with great pride I also want to give a shout out to our extraordinary special staff that dedication compassion and tireless efforts are the backbone of the success at rdlc the rdlc staff is the heart
112of this school and their commitment to our students is an absolute inspiration at rdlc we understand that every student is an individual learner each with their own unique needs strengths and pace of development we are committed to providing the personalized support necessary for every child to progress and succeed we recognize that true growth goes beyond academic achievement while we are committed to supporting our students educational progress we also place a strong emphasis on the development in all aspects of their lives our focus is to nurture each child's progress towards essential daily living skills effective communication and the development of both fine and gross motor skills equally important is supporting positive social behavior and fostering meaningful interactions we believe that their growth is multifaceted and that every step forward deserves to be celebrated by focusing on
113the whole child we create an environment where our students are empowered to reach their fullest potential not only in the classroom but in all settings we have set three focused goals as part of our school Improvement plan for this year these goals reflect our commitment to family engagement Student Success and positive behavior interventions our first goal is to enhance communication and engagement with families we recognize that parents and Guardians play a crucial role in their children's education and we are committed to working together to support Student Success Through regular updates parent workshops and collaborative Partnerships we will celebrate we create a cohesive approach that extends learning and growth beyond the classroom a few of our engagement initiatives include our fall open house parent teacher conferences teacher weekly communication with their families and newsletters we will
114also be hosting a parent Workshop in January focusing on supporting communication in the homes presented by Simone Buckley and one of us speech therapist Rachel archal then in March families will be invited to a workshop to learn about visual support toolkits to utilize in the home we are also planning a touch or trck event and an end of the year art show for our families this goal reflects our commitment to ensuring that every family is a valued partner in our community our second goal for this year focuses on the implementation of the unique Learning System curriculum the unique Learning System uls is a comprehensive standard-based curriculum specifically designed to support the diverse needs of students staff have participated in several trainings to become familiar with the program staff have as also have worked on creating
115student profiles to help effectively differentiate curriculum and instructional materials to meet each student specific learning goals abilities needs goals and abilities you DS has built an assessment tools that allow teachers to track progress set measurable goals and adjust instruction based on individual growth a third and final goal is to provide comprehensive behavioral well training for all staff the well is a new program for us this year and the well emphasizes proactive and positive approaches to behavior management instead of reacting to be behaviors only after they occur the behavior encourages staff to build a learning environment that anticip Ates and prevents challenging behaviors through clear expectations and consistent reinforcement thank you for all your attention and most importantly for your commitment to our students this Improvement plan represents a collective effort and we're excited to see
116its impact at this time Simone is going to share further details with you regarding the unique Learning System and the well Behavior program and she will also share some highlights from the school year thank you Carrie we have been able to work Direct ly with the unique Learning System staff in order to support our staff to receive initial and ongoing training all staff have completed their initial Benchmark assessment with students these benchmarks will be reviewed at our data review meetings throughout the year to look at students individual learning progress with the unique Learning System platform staff are able to assign work to students virtually to be completed individually on the interactive whiteboard to support small group instruction or printed out in paper and pencil version version if that is the most accessible format for that
117student within the uls's platform staff also have access to news to you which gives classrooms easy access to today's weather and current event articles for students and staff also have access to symbol sticks which provide staff the opportunity to make custom communication boards and symbols in regards to well which Carri stated is our Safety Management program staff have received several training sessions from our wellmaster trainer and she has come in to conduct observations and support staff to implement effective strategies in the classroom we also have created a behavior incident form that incorporates the wellp specific behavior scale to create consistent Lang consistent language in the school environment we would like to share a few other moments that we have taken pride in in this school year as a school we strive to create Independence in
118our students we were able to get building staff not just classroom and therapists but our secretary staff nurses security guards to participate in a trick-or-treating practice where each classroom decorated their own bag and went to different um locations in the building and were able to practice skills like knocking on the door waiting turn taking and they were supported with visual lanyards at say trick or treat and thank you that they could turn over um we also had our classrooms participate in a friends giving where students utilize the life skills room to make a variety of foods and then utilize the cafeteria to eat a meal together um some students were able to try new foods which was really exciting the life skills room in particular has been utilized several times by our middle school students
119for cooking related activities and also um our middle school students were able to take a walking field trip to Taco Bell to work on ordering items and table manners as you can see from our school Improvement plan and just some of the exciting activities happening at the rdlc we are committed to providing our student students with the specialized instruction and support they require it is truly a privilege to serve our students and families on a daily basis thank you for listening and we are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about the rdlc thank you so much any questions Mr Gat I'm sorry have congratulations on a super exciting year um so everything has been smooth the start everything is it has it's been exciting exciting it's been smooth um it's exciting
120for us to see no uh facility or School needs in the school Improvement um I had a quick question about capacity it says 45 students I'm just asking about what the capacity is how how many of the students had been out of you know that we sent to other places uh that are now in District at at the Learning Center and are any under out out of district from other districts at the Learning Center now and what's the what's the complete capacity or is it added So currently right now we have the 45 students we have three open classrooms for the potential to move additional students into the district we moved one student back from another program it's been very successful for the pilot this year um the families have been thrilled we've been working
121very closely with the family um we potentially have nine students to come back for next year that we've been working with the team administr and the special ed office to begin those conversations with the families great excellent thank you Mrs holey thank you I was just gonna say thank you so much for the presentation I'm so excited to have you here um for your first plan and um this was such a long time in the making to get you guys to be where you are today that we had talked about the concept of the center for so many years and then to have you here before us with the plan is just awesome um and I love your um engagement your family engagement piece um I know our special needs families this means a lot
122to them and having the opportunity to have the the family engagement and that means so much to them and the touch truck is going to be a fabulous event so excited to go to that thank you so much this is G well we don't have too many questions yet because we want to see how it goes going forward but um you know obviously the facility is amazing right but I'm looking at the um the teacher your teacher list and and I know some of these um teachers and it looks like you have an amazing staff too so with that combination you know we can't we the combination and the work that you have described here you know in the uh academic side um expect it to be a great success and um I think you
123know we're all looking forward to see how the air goes and get some reports next year and and and all the and how everything's going for you but um to my colleagues points you know having this opportunity here in quinsey and not having to send our kids somewhere else is amazing so um thank you for you know your leadership and um it looks like you have an amazing situation between the facility and the staff and can only expect success in the future so thank you for that thank you thank you Mrs kale Mrs prus thank you Mrs kale forgot that I have a thousand questions on everything so I do have some questions but um uh I do Echo her sentiments in that we're really glad that you're here you're open the right people people
124seem to be in place in leadership here and it seems like it's the start of something really great so um starting with that uh but I do have a bunch of different questions mostly because it is the first one so I just want to make sure I'm clear on some things and I just have some questions about the future so my first question is nowhere in here do we talk about prek at all are we completely seeing I know that it's viewed as two schools but I where do they fall how do you see it should it be in here um so we did separate it they presented the PIP the program Improvement plan J lar um last couple weeks ago so we did we separated it for the purposes for the two different programs
125okay so the plan isn't to yeah if I could just add that to that so in even in snug Harbor's plan we separated it out so it's all one Early Childhood Program and so we we we did that for the rdlc as well okay thank you um so that was my first um thank you for that um I noticed in the schedule that uh uls there's supposed to be a parent Academy or parent training or something on uls that's supposed to be happening in December has that happened yet we talked about that a little bit going back and forth and we figured it might be something that we could do a little bit later in the year when we get their first benchmark assessments completed so all the teachers just about last week and the
126week before finished their initial benchmark assessments so it's something when we get all that printed out data that we figured we could share with families and talk about what that means and looks like that was my next question will families get that data automatically or will they have to request that data um it'll be something that we share with them but again it's in the context of we want to make sure they know what what it is we're sending home so that's kind of what we want to meet with them and kind of talk about what that looks like and means but it'll be something that we'll be able to share with them once it's completed that'd be great that's when I was um I was noticing that the assessments were coming up and just
127if if families were going to actually understand so that's great that you're trying to do that in conjunction also um having some kind of Parent Academy on the well Behavior program has that happened yet so they so families understand the concepts um behind that we haven't done anything um in regards to family for the well I mean it's something that we could do just so that they incorporate the principles um or understand kind of how it's going we just need to make sure it's separate from like not training the parents in well um just to differentiate the two so they know what it's like but we're also we don't want to make them think we're training them in that program if that makes sense right for sure I just want them to be sure understand
128what's happening in the building for where it's new um just what their kiddos are going to see because it's different than any other building here so um for sure so just making sure that we're including parents on a lot of that stuff as it's going forward um kind of also on the parent track S I can also add to the newsletter just some information basic information because we do share the information with um for the newsletter as well as handing out handouts to the families as well gotcha thank you sorry um parent engagement activities does it feel like maybe with this particular group of students that um there could be even more opportunities for families to come in and be part of it instead of just getting a newsletter or kind of hearing a presentation
129but more um you mentioning like the life skills where some of the students created a meal that type of stuff it feels like there' be a lot of opportunity for families to maybe come in and engage a little bit more and they may value that because maybe at the out of District placement facilities maybe that is something that's part of their program is there any plan to kind of make families a little more part of that or um yes and we also have invited parents and even when they request they come in to observe like therapy sessions so on an individual basis we've been working through that um I think right now just with the population is really hard to have the parents come into the building right now because some of the students get
130so upset but yes but we we're working really closely with the CPAC as well um to make sure that we include all their events with our families thank you um and you're you're leading my question to the next one like this perfect um is there a plan for a pack or does a pack specific for the or like a PTO for the rdlc or is the CPAC sort of the pack or PTO for we've invited the CPAC to be members of we are definitely trying to expand on our PTO we have preschool representation now as well some parents but just having such a small group so working through the community we definitely is something that we want to continue to expand on and to increase our PTO involvement to get it up and running yeah
131that's great and I know PTO can be a great source of like fundraising and different things that CPAC they're kind of got their own goals of you know advocacy to work on so I just was curious if that that so that sounds great um uh Mr guto asked my questions about uh expanded enrollment so we' brought one out of District student back with nine hopefully or nine cases we're looking at for next year yeah I do just want to add though in addition to the one student that we brought back that was in and out a district placement there was probably a good 15 students that we did not send to add a district placement so I just want to like be clear because I think that can be a little deceiving that we we
132had students that would have gone otherwise if this program had not existed they were absolutely on the track to go to an outof District placement so um thank you for that point yeah no thank you for that that's what I was trying to kind of figure out was to figure out if how many were really impacting by keeping you know improving the family's um experience by keeping them here in quiny so that's great to know that there's so many more um and will we see incident data for the rdlc as well in the executive session when we look at the incident data for all the schools um we don't I mean we can we can I can talk to these guys we don't have that the incident data that we're uh sharing with you is
133the incident data that's reported through the ssdr report which is not available yet for the rdlc because it's new school but uh I certainly can get some I mean I have a pretty good idea on um some of the in es but I um I can certainly get some updates and like kind of share with you what we have so far although it's not you know necessarily official data gotcha um and the last thing I had was just a suggestion um culinary at quinsey high I don't know if there's a good link to you know I know you mentioned that they went over to Taco Bell but maybe a good partnership that maybe there's a way those programs could work together like the life skills and some of the votch programs at the high schools
134it might be a great partnership in the future so just maybe just some idea on the horizon but but um great job and thank you for all I like I said I was going to have a million questions but thank you I appreciate it thank you thank you Mrs perio I don't have any questions I'm so excited to see I love your goals I love that first one being family engagement it's the most important thing we can do for this population is make sure those families understand the kind of care and attention and compassion that they're getting from you and your staff so I think that's that's really I think it's wonderful and we'll keep lots of kids in District and and so much better for them it's so much better for them to be
135here instead of riding on a bus for two hours a day or whatever you know I think just to be in their Community is wonderful and I think it's I just I love your goals and I don't know that much about uls but I almost wish we had it for all curriculum yes it's wonderful so could differentiate for all kids in every school maybe somebody will come up with that soon um yeah and I'd be interested in the wellb stuff too because I'm I'm not I'm not still not sure what that is myself but sort of like ABA or no so I don't know so in a a lot of our districts in the school you might hear CPI um Crisis Prevention intervention so it's a a different form of the Safety Management protocol so
136it's um got similar Concepts but just different principles like a lot of it is based on the entire building so not just like classroom staff so even like secretary security custodia of all seen bits and pieces of the training now there's only certain points that they may be trained up to um but everybody has common language consistent approach so it really really makes like a cohesive team approach with is good that's just amazing I'm I'm so grateful for the mayor because I'm just so grateful for the mayor we would not have gotten this not only using City funds but also the recovery funds and uh really got got this I I really am so grateful for him for our families that that he he can do this so motion to accept the plan by Mrs
137Hoy seconded by Mr boli all in favor I you're all set thank you very much thank you thank you thank motion to adjourn