001excuse me I'd like to call the teaching and learning subcommittee meeting of November 25th to order and at this time I'll turn it over to mrar to tell us about Broad Meadows thank you so much uh thank you chair Libo and members of the quinsey school committee uh let me Begin by thanking you for this opportunity to present our 2024 2025 Broad Meadows School Improv plan it is my honor to be in my second year as a principal of Broad Meadows Middle School working along with a dedicated and caring staff of teachers and support Personnel to serve the students and families of the Meadows Community this evening I look forward to sharing with you our Reflections on our progress from last year as well as our considerations for our next steps what continues to be
002at the Cornerstone of my work over the first year and a quarter has been taking the time to have the conversations with staff students and families to learn about the strengths and needs of our community it is through these relationships and the continued connections that we will understand one another and give us the overall direction of where we are headed giving students and families a voice through these connections will always be a top priority at Broad Meadows reflecting on our prior years data with staff at assessment day we noticed a mix of achievement in areas that needed additional Focus as noted on page six we met map growth projections on reading map assessments for grades 7even and 8 and just miss project expected growth for grade six that said grade six showed much more significant
003achievement on the mcast assessment than grade seven and 8 and overall our growth was in the typical high band in the areas of mathematics we met in Far exceeded growth projections in grades 6 to8 on Spring map assessment on mcast WE noted on aggregate a onepoint decrease in the overall scaled score with our growth falling into the typical low growth category for most subgroups one of our highlights however was growth in our English language arts and Mathematics mcast with our lowest performing subgroup for science all three grades showed modest growth on the science map assessment with just our eighth grade not meeting their maap growth Target that said on mcass we saw a decrease in the average composite scaled score by several points as we learn a new Science mcast assessment although not a formal
004goal but always an area of focus we were happy to see that we met our percentage of English language learner students meeting their proficiency targets for the 2023 2024 school year this is of particular importance to us as we chart a much increasing overlap of students receiving both El and special education services with over 20 students in our LDC program also receiving LDC Services identifying the appropriate services in the school day to support both language acquisition as well as addressing a language-based learning disability are discussions which we are always ongoing we were also pleased to see a significant decrease from the 2022 2023 school year in the number of students coded as chronically absent reducing the number by over 10% last year and noting a significant decrease in all but one subgroup I say to
005students all the time where you are says an awful lot about who you are and having our students with us in school is exactly where we want them to be from an academic standpoint understanding where our students are is always the first step as we complete formative Benchmark and observational Assessments in the fall and rely on summi of data from the spring to assist us in identifying needs of our students beginning on page 11 you will see the identification of specific smart goals related to ELA mathematics and science and finally social and emotional learning that we as a staff feel will work to further support additional growth in our school Community for English language arts we will continue to utilize map as an important Benchmark assessment and will chart growth at each grade level to
006support instruction that said we have chosen to focus our specific goal for the year on the writing process which will be measured through mcast growth students will be writing in response to varied text through use of Mentor texts common scoring guidelines and the continued focus on using text uh based evidence to support claims we hope to see an increase in the overall scores of our students on essay style mcast questions social studies staff will also be supporting this goal with the use of writing prompts which allows students to compare and contrast various themes based on informational readings on page 16 I draw your attention to our schoolwide math goal built very much in the same way as our Ela go goal with a focus on growth using individual map data as a benchmark but placing
007a more specific focus on mcast constructed response style questions this includes building stamina for more complex multi-step problems and placing a specific focus on students explaining their mathematical thinking additions to the year include the use of ST Math in grades six and S and a new small group targeted instruction model for grade eight students in our science goal on page 18 we will also make use of map to chart growth but it placed a specific Focus again on constructed style response questions as we continue to look ahead to the changing mcast assessment piloting opsed curriculums and looking ahead to using gizmos in grades seven and eight with its Interactive Science simulations will allow our students to be better prepared for storyline based inquiry constructed response style questions finally you will see our fourth and final
008goal which is a focus on the overall social and emotional health and wellness of our student body success and challenges for our students in this area can be reflected in so many data points like attendance engagement in extended day activities student safety and discipline reports office referrals and finally through the vocal survey which really includes student voice and takes all these things into consideration we chose the average overall School index of our school on the vocal survey as a measure of our school and planned action steps that reflect an importance on attendance engagement and student safety along with significant supports that we have in place some addition new steps include bringing in the Massachusetts aggression reduction Center or mark for a kickoff assembly in early October to address topics like treating others with kindness how
009to handle conflict and bullying as well as safe online Behavior the message was also intended to empower students to speak up if they see a problem and let a trusted adult know so we can support We are following that up with a second presentation with a similar message on acceptance and kindness through the folks at Sandy Hook promise which is set for later in December we are also AC to have opened our first Broad Meadows Middle School chapter of save students against violence everywhere which is being chaired by health teacher Jane mitton it is through continued messaging direct instruction and student groups like save that we hope to continue to elevate the voice of students at our school communication also continues to be a key to success as we continue our practice of sending weekly
010newsletters to our families highlighting important school events using ourmore system as I have mentioned s'more allows us to translate uh our newsletter supporting many our broad medows families who speak over 20 different languages we are excited to continue our robust extended day program which includes over 70% of our students in grade 6 to 8 through a blend of academic support programs enrichment activities and Inter mural and extral mural Sports we are excited to include so many of our students beyond the bell in the mornings and afternoons we were especially excited to bring back our Broad Meadows drama program last year with the entire School Community coming together to support the production of Annie Jr this year our drama program is back at it in full force looking forward to an early February production of a
011spoof on Shakespeare called something rotten junr you're all more than welcome to attend and as much as I've enjoyed watching our students sing about the Renaissance it is programs like operation day work student council and our newly formed save chapter where students take on leadership roles in our school community that have me most hopeful for the future our students have so many incredible ideas and will undoubtedly change the world we also continue to be grateful for the connections we Forge with our families and involvement they have with our school I'd like to thank our active PTO who supports school events and initiatives already supporting all three grades attending school field trips and certainly looking ahead to supporting more exciting authentic learning experiences for our students moving forward finally I'd like to thank our entire School
012Community including staff students families and business partners for all of their support it has been a wonderful start to the year and I look forward to our continued success working together I thank you for the opportunity to serve the students in families of Broad Meadows and I welcome any questions and feedback you may have regarding our plan thank you Mrs hoodley thank you very much for your presentation um so I just want to say um I love your goals I think you have very strong goals that complement each other and that's great um I love your fourth role especially I think that's that's a really good goal and although I do see that you have 97% of students students that are open to having friends who come from different backgrounds that's fabulous and I also
013see the air um suspension in incident total is low so that's great as well but I do love that you still want to have that goal in there and I think that's that's great um to have that to keep on everything I think that's wonderful um although I uh know that we're going to be moving the um facilities um request um improvements over to our facility subcommittee um and our school needs most of those will probably go into budget um but I did want to ask the floor tiles uh various locations that need repair replacement including the main office is that a safety concern I want to make sure we bring that up ahead of time if it is I would say not an immediate safety concern but one that is uh related to um
014uh abatement in time that would need to be addressed in time I know meeting with uh Mr Hines he's been over to the school so he's uh spoken about a timeline overall for for when to get that done I know a lot of work was done at Atlanta middle school which he had referenced in previous to my time at Broad Meadows a lot of work had been done there as well so my hope is it'll be done um on the sooner side but um not not of immediate concern at the moment okay and I thought we had Chromebooks available and you're saying that you need additional Replacements we told you you don't we don't have Chromebooks so we do um I think the challenge always is um kids are good at going through Chromebooks at
015times to be perfectly Frank um a lot do leave us and come back all the time uh I am not the computer expert Irvin does a great job in getting the Chromebooks back to us uh I would say at the start of the year it was a little bit tighter um we had some computers whether they'd be battery issues or things like that that I think were in the process of kind of going back and forth um even since writing this I know we've had a new influx of um of of previously used Chromebooks in so it's been a great help to us as well um we did have some that were kind of school-based Chromebooks we had a couple of Chromebook cards that were there so we dipped a little bit into that for
016a bit but uh we have since replenished that and we're back in better shape okay and the mounted production replacement bulbs you've been asking for those for a while are they on back order or so no I would say it's something that's a little bit more of a challenge for us in time so the mounted projector bulbs carry a little bit more of a cost and it's they're related actually to the mounted projectors in general uh I think with the switch to a lot of online uh resources they are more and more a real necessity in our school and so um just taking a look at some of the projectors that are in our building some of them are older um they they're kind of on their last legs a little bit and they'll go
017in time and in some ways it's a matter of choosing do we put kind of um money into an older projector to buy a bulb or are we looking at kind of updating the entire projector overall to a newer setup in the classroom so it's kind of that dance back and forth a little bit but I think not having a projector in a classroom now would be a real significant impediment for a classroom teacher right now all of the classrooms do have projectors in them um and one or two where the bulbs are kind of on their last legs we're we're in discussions about whether or not we're going to kind of replenish those bulbs and and look longer range some of the models actually don't you can't even buy the bulbs for them anymore
018so it's really going to be a matter of setting up a desktop projector in time and then looking forward to kind of a greater uh introduction the newer systems going forward I agree that's very important for our teachers to have in that classroom so um thank you thank you very much and thank you for the presentation thank you Mr Mr roli Mrs fos thank you so I've waited uh I've waited 10 years to be able to uh in official capacity say what a great leader we have in Nick um he really is the whole package he was the principal at Marshall when my kids went through there for eight years and uh we were lucky to have him as our principal for my kids and everyone in the point so I know Broad Meadows is
019lucky to have him um you know one of the smartest most inclusive uh principles that I've met uh just full of school spirit and they really the kids know how much you care so I am so excited you're you're you're with Broad Meadows and trying to make a difference there too uh and I'm sure those families are uh appre that you're there um and with that I just have a couple comments not really many questions um I really thought your uh reflection on the vocal data was very thoughtful um I really appreciate it even seeing as an action step in your Ela goal having a diversity of text kind of to sort of go to that uh vocal um information that you had gotten there uh so I like that I liked your comment about
020normalizing discussions around feelings and emotions I think that would go a lot toward uh there's a question the vocal survey about if you feel comfortable sharing uh your thoughts in class or your feelings in class and I think that would that's helpful to normalize that and make that feel um like it did at Marshall uh I like that in your stem fair uh you're focusing on physical science which again was something that linked to your goals thought that was fantastic um I wanted to ask what uh what is Operation days work what do the kiddos do in that so operation days work is uh uh boy if Jim failen were here he' do a better job of giving you the history than I could but uh it's an extended day program I believe there's a
021uh t 15 chapters around the country actually and uh it was brought into Broad Meadows years and years ago and actually our students and operation days work um the background of it is related to um uh really understanding the the the kind of cost of what things are around the world and the impact that a day's work a day's pay can have on some of those actions so actually our Broad Meadows team uh actually uh they work to earn money at certain points uh they'll do certain service projects to to raise money um uh fundraisers around the school and there's also it's it's Grant funded so there's some grant money available as well and they actually make a choice every year I don't know that they've finally decided yet this year but they make a
022choice every year to fund certain grants that come their way through the uh project and uh these are far-reaching projects last year uh they they funded projects uh in Africa related to schools and gardening and in Prior years have um had significant impact on and a small amount of money has had an incredibly significant uh impact around the world and and going up on Friday afternoons and watching these kids have these conversations about what feels like certainly $110,000 is not a small amount of money but it's you know when you talk about building schools and things like that it feels small in relation to what we do but these kids are engaged in these conversations and it's incredible absolutely incredible what they're doing so it's a a a group that meets on Friday afternoons at
023our school and is engaged in those activities that's great thanks um yeah I like seeing how many variety of of programs you had extracurriculars and draa I'm glad that I saw Annie that was fantastic last year I'm looking forward to the production this year um your class size has looked great um it seemed like that was not an area that of need um for you guys and the only thing I wanted to ask and you just happened to be first on this one so um it's sort of my questions comments kind of coming into yours but um the advanced um numbers that we have the advanced demographics I'm wondering if um would it be something that this body might like to see uh the kiddos that are in the APC program at Central kind of
024tracing them back to their home schools to see how many of the kids from that would have been um Broad Meadows you know naturally matriculating kids would are in the APC program I'm just wondering if that's something anyone else was I was curious about that as I was reading the advanced numbers and all of the Middle School sips so I didn't know if that was something additional piece of information maybe next year we could um just link back to see how many kids are in the APC program from each of the um does that make sense sure sorry I just want to clarify so are you asking for the kids that currently are at Central linking them to whether is that or you're asking for the high school no no no no the um Central
025program so um so like on page 31 I'm just using again um Nix because it's the first one here um the advanced class enrollment like we have all this data on advanced classes which is fantastic but I'd love to see how many kids from each I basically the other middle schools a lot of their scores reflect uh Central scores reflect having all the APC kids there um I just love to see how many each of the other middle schools have lost how many kiddos we've lost to Central that would have been in this number had they chosen to stay does that make sense yeah that makes sense and I'm just wondering if that's something that I don't want to ask you know unilaterally if that's something anyone else might be interested in seeing as well
026so I'm I'm much more interested in seeing the number of kids we're getting into advanced classes who didn't get into APC or didn't choose to go to Central because I think having put those advanced classes in the middle school has been enormous I mean 84 kids at Broad Meadows are taking advanced classes and I think Miss perio one of the issues was we have kids who are really really bright in one subject and maybe they're English Learners so they can't be really really high Achievers in English right now but we can give them math and science classes so I think doing that is is really I'm much more impressed with this than wondering about who didn't who went up because we're we're still addressing those kids I'm a little concerned about the diversity in those
027numbers I think we I was hoping that reach was going to help that but it's not the diversity is not as diverse as I would like it to be in some of the places but so I I'm not I'm not all that interested knowing who went but I am really glad to see those numbers 84 kids taking advant advantage of advanced classes that didn't get into the APC program yeah how cool is that anything that was it thank you I appreciate it Mr you good um Mrs hu asked my questions so I'm I'm good there and I Echo Mrs pio's initial comments about you Nick and the great job you do thank you very much thank you thank you both I have a couple of questions sure please yeah so on page um on page
02812 and number three in your action steps um or it says allow students to see themselves and materials they are reading in school y um so still only 56% of the kids there say they see themselves so how do you go how are you going to go about doing that so I think uh a lot of that speaks to text complex complexity and text Choice uh I'll use my seventh grade teacher Miss Cronin as just an example so uh there are certain novels that the students will choose to read altogether and then there are also certain Choice novels that she brings in diverse set of of texts to her classroom and she really allows children to make that choice um so I I think just allowing children those choices and those options within the classroom
029um is is certainly one choice um I think also looking at our our reading selections overall um I I think we're constantly um as I was writing this or working with our teachers in writing this plan uh I think so often that reading is breathing in writing is breathing out and looking at the the mcast assessments uh I see this shifting to certainly informational text and there's a lot more down that road which it is just information um so so children choosing to read for fun pleasure and enjoyment and pick up a novel and read I think is so crucially important so seeing somebody like a Miss Cronin uh uh do something like that really matters to us and and I think it's making the kids um uh aware of the different Tech selections that
030are out there for them the choices they can make and then giving them that choice one of the things that uh I thought you might bring up in our vocal survey and is something that we speak to all the time is is um student voice at school it's an area that uh tying a few of those uh uh questions together it's still an area that I struggle with at times things like uh you know students participating in uh planning lessons or or creating rules and they're they're challenging and we want to give students some level of choice it it works so often for kids in general to give them some some level of of involvement in that so I think choice is a great place but also making sure that those resources are available to
031them they they know how to select a text that might be interesting to them and and then being open to discussing it when it's done and talking about how they see thems in that text yeah that's great that is great so you have she has a a small library of text she can use that's exactly it yep and and students are welcome to bring in text from outside as long as they're approved by her as well but um and it's just an example of what that looks like that's happening in other classrooms as well but miss Cronin is certainly a champion of it and you're right about the informational Texs that's being pushed everywhere so yeah kind of takes away from the little more it's a little more kind of to see yourself and something
032like that um on page 14 I just have one comment about your social study goal you know the rest of your goals are great this doesn't look like it's measurable to me sure and I think it's a a really a jump off of our Ela goal overall I think we'll see the reflection in it um I'd love to see a social studies goal I as a former social studies teacher as well I uh I don't know that I celebrate more mcast overall it's a lot um but we are interested I was just looking with Miss Clifford uh at the the uh uh social studies uh mcast from last year and I I there's a lot there there's an awful lot in the Civics world and uh we look forward to kind of uh learning a
033little bit more about that and I think there can be something more measurable in time but right now I think their relationship would be to the the the ELA writing right now and I see also in your social and emotional learning goal you're doing something similar with creating the doop monthly de to be um supported by Academic Program staff so that's great um on page 26 nope I oh yes page 26 your extended day offerings I did not know what the sav chapter was so thank you for telling me yep and that's again Stamp Out uh uh students against violence everywhere and it's it's I would say it's brand new for us we're just learning it um it's a connection to you'll probably hear a little more from my colleagues about um the Sandy Hook
034promise which uh Mrs pil has been instrumental and bringing in this year so it's it's just a wonderful they'll lead with an assembly a little bit later on this year um uh starts with hello and then it actually follows up with a message next year about see something say something and again Mark tied in nicely to that as well so again that speaks to building that student voice a little bit in school and um save is kind of an a student offshoot of that class size is amazing really is amazing I like to see the idea about the summer fly up so as Miss said we're going to put that into our budget thing to see if we can squeeze that into the summer budget I think it's a great idea we welcomed uh students
035from I think eight different elementary schools last year and the sixth grade does a great job of um holding some ass uh some assemblies and uh they do the ropes course they bring the kids together but we'd love to get the kids together over the summer as well and your accountability data is great it really is great so congratulations on your first year thank you your year and a quarter now second year yeah I don't know where that time went feels like Marshall yesterday but thank you very much I take a motion for Mrs hle to approve seconded by Mr regy we approve it thank you so much thank you thank you all good evening thank you for coming and presenting Atlantic's School Improvement plan can you hear me now oh great all right thank
036you so much for the opportunity to present Atlantic Middle School school Improvement plan for the 2024 2025 Academic Year assistant principal Roy and I are excited to be here tonight to share Atlantic's progress present our plan and answer all of your questions Atlantic remains committed to fostering academic Excellence a supportive School culture and a thriving Community for all of our diverse students I am proud to share that this year has begun with positive momentum and you will see that our plan builds upon the successes and the lessons of the previous school year looking back at last school year from a data perspective Atlantic middle school students matched or exceeded State and District averages on the mcast in most subjects and grades we achieved our Ela goal which focused on increases in writing our sixth grade
037did exceptionally well in comparison into the state we were really pleased that we showed increases in our geometry score on the math mcast likely due to our targeted action steps and Innovative instructional strategies grade8 science scores were strong as well particularly in the areas of technology engineering and science practices our commitment to fostering a positive School culture has also yielded measurable results through our vocal data last year's survey revealed significant improvements in areas such as mutual respect among students adherence to classroom expectations and teacher support for students's students facing challenges this is a really positive reflection of our staff's ongoing dedication to creating a respectful and inclusive learning environment in reflecting on the year from a nonata perspective we really had a wonderful year with the Partnerships through our Bella insurance and the Boston Celtics
038we had our first experience with the allstar attendance initiative which is really a lot of fun for everyone as you may know from other schools the program started and ended with large party-like events where students were able to meet Celtics players and be active and during the months in between students were were rewarded with pretty neat prizes for their exceptional attendance it was wonderful to see students so conscientious about coming to school proudly bringing in doctor's notes to keep their attendance streaks to supplement the program we did periodic Home Room versus Home Room attendance challenges or chose the most improved attendance winners randomly and offered an extra gym period or small gift cards while we don't have visits this year from lucky or player Jordan Walsh we have been able to keep our attendance momentum
039going with weekly raffle prizes friendly Home Room competitions and onetoone check-ins and individualized support for students we are concerned about with a preferred adult we were also able to reward the grade six class one day this year when all of our 3 students were present we played music at lunch and it was the most fun lunch experience that they had ever had they were so proud of themselves and surprised to have such an exciting reward as you can see in our goal number four we are committed to maintaining our High attendance data through these schoolwide practices as well as employing personalized check-ins with students who attendance is whose attendance is concerning in addition to the Celtics helping our students get to school we were able to be part of a competition through through fit called
040fit through for a cause through Boston Scientific we brought several students to the Celtics practice facility to learn about nutrition and fitness with player Derek white and then due to our competitive Spirit we won the overall contest um due to our participation in Virtual workouts our prize was the Admiral fit Zone a new workout space off of our gym it is equipped with Flor to ceiling mirrors Bluetooth speakers weight benches and free weights some cardio equipment and a mounted resistance band system one of the walls is a huge photograph of the TD Garden signed by lucky and Brian scalabrini who were present to work out with our students on a very special opening day the hard work of our students and staff really paid off and we are so thankful to have been part of
041the program during such a historic year for the Celtics last year I spearheaded additional initiatives including a mentoring program for grade seven students as well as nine Saturday school sessions for students who needed additional support to help them achieve success in the classroom these programs yielded personal success for many students it is clear that students greatly benefit from positive relationships in their life and it is wonderful to see their progress and also hold them accountable for work completion it is our hope that these relationships will continue to lead to increase in academic performance self-esteem and emotional development in helping to improve students social emotional development we have continued to reflect on and improve our schoolwide efforts to build community in January our El team organized an Asian Lunar New Year Fair where grade six students
042participated in activities and crafts led by our English learner students during our amp period students engage in activities celebrating Black History Month women's History Month Mental Health Awareness Month pride month and juneth fostering awareness and inclusivity we know that students will want to come to school and participate in academics when they feel comfortable and have something or someone who motivates them as described above our social emotional and Dei Endeavors are designed with that in mind to have all students feel like they belong at Atlantic and feel supported by all the adults in the building another area where we shine is making connections with students and helping them to find that thing that will get them to school student council hosts a variety of Spirit Week dress up days throughout the year which encourages students to
043be creative our extended day activities last year had excellent participation including some new offerings like Korean Club volleyball and basketball clinics and even a Super Smash Brothers tournament our students Grace the stage during our School Musical Moana and our chorus and band students perform masterfully at our winter spring concerts lining the Halls throughout the year is artwork created by our very talented and inspired students our sports teams cross country tennis volleyball swimming and track and field were excellent and we had even better sportsmanship it is always a pleasure to attend sporting events students were constantly in attendance cheering on their classmates our robotics team did very well at fall and spring competitions as well as well in and enjoyed the entire process so how are things going this year um from a social emotional perspective
044we're continuing to reflect on student interests and have tried to incorporate games and art into our monthly schoolwide activities we started off this school year with students creating personal goals and writing them on a paper shoe think Nikes Chuck Taylor so that they can take steps towards achieving them students have learned how to play Laria the Mexican version of Bingo during Hispanic herit month and last year they last week they played the bean game which is a traditional Native American game of chance that also involves a little bit of math as November is Native American heritage month we look forward to additional activities and educational games throughout the next two trimesters through the leadership from our incredible guidance department and the health educator we are also continuing our schoolwide programs and practices like open parachute
045and Community circles which Foster emotional support and peer respect this year we are also adding initiatives such as the Sandy Hook promises start with hello program and expand expanding mental health education through Partnerships with organization like the Nan project additionally we are thrilled that the district's partnership with quy quinci resources has enabled us to have a clinician on site weekly and we also have three interns working with our guidance staff who meet with students for additional checkins it is clear that our students need different levels of social emotional support and we are working hard to meet meet their needs additionally this Wednesday we will be hosting our additional healthy choices day which during which students will participate in a variety of physical team building competitive trivia and community service related activities our staff continues to
046take a look at the students in front of them and plan activities such as this with a combination of tried andrue Atlantic Traditions as well as activities with a new twist we're really excited for the morning in our classrooms enhancing students writing proficiency is our Central academic Focus as you can see from our goals writing is not only a key skill for academic achievement but also a critical tool for real world communication as you can see in our plan all of our academic goals include writing as a primary or secondary Focus ensuring that students practice and refine their skills in every class Ela and reading teachers have received some training regarding writing Revolution strategies and content Area Teachers will receive training in January it is our hope that this will help with student output in
047English classes we have implemented new graphic organizers to help students craft paragraph and essays in a more systematic way to keep their writing organized and full of detail our English learner teachers Implement writing activities with our English Learners on a daily basis including step-by-step modeling and sentence frames and the implementation of their new curriculum called time zones will Aid with building their confidence and competence these are often students students with the biggest potential for growth and our El and general education staff are working really hard to help them find additional successes in our social studies classes grade8 students will be responding in writing to questions that are related to student rights and responsibilities which is going to be the primary focus for the new Civics mcast test this spring so our smart goal for ELA
048is to see a 3% increase in the writing component of the ELA mcast test and as you can see we'll be working hard throughout the year building um achievement towards that goal um writing is also at the core of our math and science action steps in our math classes we are emphasizing constructed response questions to strengthen problem solving and analytical skills Math teachers have participated in professional development over the past year regarding building thinking classrooms and they have been excited to implement some of the learn strategies such as randomized groups and removable whiteboards in order to increase student engagement and learning in classrooms Miss Roy and I consistently hear teachers asking student to explain how they arrive at an answer and what the ACT answer actually means in science our students will participate in Hands-On
049learning experiences around phenomena and then they will apply academic writing academic language and writing to explain what is happening based on the evidence in front of them for example we have students who are currently experimenting with plastic cups seeing which ones may keep drinks colder or warmer and then writing about which features contribute to the changing or static temperature all of our teachers are working tirelessly extremely hard every day to create these wonderful learning experiences they really are masters of their Craft um all of these efforts are designed to not only improve test scores but also Empower students to think critically and communicate effectively skills that will serve them long beyond the middle school or even high school classroom in the age of typing initialisms with thumbs we are striving for students to write solid
050paragraphs with a paper and pencil complete with a claim evidence and some proper punctuation we're making progress every day additionally this year we have strengthened our family engagement through events like our first cultural Fair earlier this month which celebrated the rich diversity of our community and showcased student learning we hosted a tea for teachers with our English learner families earlier this fall and we look forward to traditional family engagement activities throughout the year our very active and supportive pack has some exciting events planned for 2025 that aimed to encourage participation from a variety of families in closing Atlantic Middle School's Improvement plan balances academic riger targeted interventions and a strong commitment to fostering a connected Community with a clear focus on writing we are equipping students with the tools that they need to excel in
051school and in life so thank you for your continued support and partnership in our shared mission of educational Excellence we welcome your questions and look forward to working together to support Atlantic's successes Mr boli thank you Mr Leo um just kudos to you and in your school every parent that have come in contact with talks about Atlantic has nothing but good things to say about it and that's across the board for everything and I'm really impressed with the U attendance uh effort that you guys have made and uh like to see it Sy systemwide but uh again just a great job and really really pleased with what's going on down there thank you we appreciate it Mrs thank you I agree with Mr bolie I've heard only great things so congratulations on what you're doing
052it's great um your goals are wonderful um I love your extended day offerings uh and your cultural experiences offerings are are wonderful that's just great what you're doing there for that as well um so saying we're going to be moving the facilities things into facilities and most of your budgetary items will go into budget but there are a couple I just wanted to point out as if they were um potential safety concerns um so the PA system included with the classroom phones I see that's something that's been asked for for a while is that something that's being worked on or is that a safety issue at all or is that um it's not a safety issue it's it's um something that we would love to have um you know currently we have a a PA
053system in the office where we can buzz into individual classrooms and you know ask for things but everyone in the classroom is able to hear so if there needed to be a more discret message um it would be helpful to have phones um however we we do have two legs and we can walk up to classrooms that is just fine so it's definitely not a safety concern okay and the ramp for the front door um the ramp for the front door would be excellent um we have um another door um at the front of the building where it that is um handicap accessible um we've found that our front door because there is like a little step to get in the building um at arrival at dismissal when the visitors are in the building they
054don't always see um the steps um and we've added signage but um I think ramps would be really helpful okay yeah and to backtrack a little bit on the upage with the um space for your classroom side could you touch a little bit on on I see that you are getting a sixth grade teacher in progress for that correct so the other classrooms that are how how's that going with the other classrooms that are on the larger end um they're large they're they're large um we have enough desks enough chairs um we are we're doing we're doing the best with with what we have at the moment um you know an additional sixth grade teacher will make make the class sizes um more manageable and enable um the staff to work U more individually with
055teachers sorry with students um this new uh teacher um will um most likely for this year um travel from classroom to classroom until over the summer we're able to really figure out what our needs will be for the upcoming year and and figure out if what other room might need to be transformed to a classroom okay thank you yeah of course Mrs K thank you sure you did make a comment about the um school's competitive nature a little bit I I think it I think it's the principal competitive nature from what I from what I see um you know on your facilities you had about the auditorium the seats and the lighting I came to the play last year and the seats you know aren't the most comfortable but I think the issue that I
056experienced last year was mostly the um audio yeah did you have that has that been taken care of it's not on this list here but not yet no okay yes you might want to add that I might want to add that yes you know um because that was probably the biggest barrier I think to enjoying the show which was great but I think that made it a little more difficult and I didn't see it here so you might want to put that on there thank you um the other um thing that I I I was wondering so when you asking for additional elll support um and and what capacity would that be like what would you what would you ultimately like to see um I mean another teacher would be amazing but um no if
057I know in the past there have been some tutors that have gone from building to building um it would be really ideal to have um some sort of support that could pull um small groups of students um you know some of our uh level one like our newcomers to the country um those classes are definitely larger than we would like um and so trying to um you know pull students so that um they can have the have that individualized support so is a is a par are there pars that um can do this work or is it mostly so it's actually it's going to be a budget thing and I'm sure you have discussed it amongst each other but um yeah I mean I think ideally we could do a tutor I don't think a
058parah would really you know do what Alisa and the the staff want you know need um but I think that she does have large classes and I think you know addition it's just a consideration for a future budget that I think they're doing okay right now but we said you wanted to see their needs and let's you know get put it out there and um so I think that it's definitely something we need to look at as we plan for I mean it's good for us to see but I think it's mostly important for you to see that this is a need for them so that you can kind of think about it when we're doing budgets and things like that yeah we we definitely agree Elisa and I have talked many times about it
059um you know she's she has large El numbers and yeah it you know it continues to grow right now yeah um and this is basically it's mostly and I I probably should know this answer and it's not specific to one school um you know when we look at incident reports and different schools have different numbers um and I wouldn't I don't like to compare schools to each other because the different demographics and the things that happen in in their in their buildings but do we have like a policy or is there some kind of criteria how do we determine you know one principal might determine an incident is more um you know should be listed as an incident and have a more consequence than another do we have criteria that we use that spec that
060every school uses to determine you know actually a great question and we're actually going to do a whole presentation on that because I know that's been a concern of the committee for a bit and so there are you know I'll give you the short answer right now and we'll go into a lot more detail when we do presentation but there are the data that you see in the school Improvement plan is from that What's called the ssdr report and so there are things that are required by the state that need to be reported and so that's what so there's a lot of things that happen in a school not everything is stuff that needs to be necessarily reported um but this is so the incidents that you see and we'll talk about what those are
061and what that means um but that is what that is that it's it's actually required by the state so they follow um you know it gets put into Aspen they're coded and then it gets reported to the state um okay great so we'll wait for that that kind of that was mostly what I was you know I didn't want it to be something that what I think is an in in and then what she thinks might be an incident and has have it be something different and that would be reflective in the numbers you know absolutely um okay and I think that's it for me thank you thank you Mr gutro thank you for your plan for your presentation and your good work I just have one question and in your principal's path letter you
062had a reflection that said under gold 3 didn't meet the metric in science for lower performing students in 2014 25 and so my question is is that the same metric in in this year um or 23 24 is that the same metric in this year and are there any different action steps to help those students yeah great question so um again competitive Spirit um we have we have been meeting our goals for you know a certain number of years and so last year um when we were looking at um our science we tried to do something a little bit different we tried to take um like our goal was to to take our lower performing students and kind of Advance them you know towards meeting proficiency and we did it in a in the area
063of physical science which um is something that not is not necessarily covered at each grade level however the map test which was our metric is is a six through eight test so all students were being assessed on something that they might not necessarily have learned in class class um so we tweaked our metric you know this year um so that to use overall map data um understanding that you know it will be more manageable to meet um and in terms of the action steps um we really are excited about open CAD as a new curriculum and so we're we're looking forward to you know exploring that more and then um you know after we learn a little bit more having more targeted steps even you know regarding that in the future great forward to hearing
064next year how it goes thank you no problem thanks Mrs prios thank you um thank you for the presentation and the plan um I you know knew you as an assistant principal app point and always you know so strong and organized and I'm not surprised that this plan was so strong and organized um the scores are amazing the test scores really are outstanding um chronic absenteeism numbers are great uh and just hearing about how you're uh encouraging the students and welcoming them and kind of basically putting a lot of these Dei efforts and these creative ways you're kind of bringing it all together throughout the students kind of daily life at Atlantic it's not just we're going to do this one intervention it's kind of part of the culture there and I really liked hearing
065about that I appreciated that and I think that's really how you make those inroads in the vocal um to addressing some of that vocal uh uh numbers that actually are really good already at your school so um thank you for being so creative in in incorporating those um I and I appreciate your honesty and candidness around the class sizes because I I would love to see us support that um you're doing great work there and I'd love to see us um be able to get those numbers down for you so those kiddos can get a little more individual attention with the teachers that are trying so hard um I'd love to see the fit Zone I uh I'm really I'm excited that you got it um I'm I I'm a fitness instructor part time and
066uh and just the it's not just about uh it's it's also just an outlet for kids too to kind of be able to work off any stress or any anxiety they're feeling um and I think that that also goes to a lot of our Dei even chronic gapson ISM stuff um so I think that's a fantastic opportunity on that uh and I'm glad can I interrupt you for one second yeah please go so we we have an after school club um called working with weights um that started as a result of this and one of our sixth grade math teachers um has a group of students that if you looked at them you'd be like did know you were into working out with weights and they come every Tuesday and Thursday they're like today is
067leg day I can't wait and they're very very excited to to take advantage of the space and and you know just learn about physical fitness which again you're right um social emotional mental health it's all it's all connected so um you know it's nice to have that as a space for PE classes but then also for you know our morning gym program as well as the new weightlifting Club oh for sure and I think it's intimidating to go into a gym yes um as a as a teenager and uh and not know what you're doing and and uh this is a space just for them and I think that's fantastic so I'd love to see that expanded if if we can I mean I'm glad you got that opportunity I'd love for that at all
068of our middle schools but that's a story for another day um I am glad Mrs kahill brought up about the sound in your Auditorium um Moana was fantastic I think it's not you're not alone in needing help with your sound system uh so and they're super expensive and I get that but uh getting it on there on our radar is great and I think your focus writing is fantastic um I'm finding with my kids at high school that writing demand increases and the expectation of being able to write a solid essay um is certainly there so the better the foundation they can go into high school with uh the better so I love that that is kind of you know prolific across all of your goals so um love that I think you're doing a
069great job and thank you both you and your teachers as well thank you Mrs fos I have a couple of very quick questions I agree with everything that's been said you're numbers look great here I have one question about the numbers but the numbers are really good your goals are terrific on page 13 on number eight it says create and administer a midyear and year end student and staff surveys so who's going to create those me who's going to help you yeah and who's going to check and make sure that there're really I mean I think we have a data person in the room yeah maybe he should take a look at that survey before it goes out what do you think yeah that you could do that yeah I mean I I could make
070a survey up too yeah yeah no I mean we the it was a simple survey you know one to five how do you feel about these activities um any feedback for us um and we did it you know in the in January and then again in June and I think it's a great idea I'd love to see it but I just think that we've been we've been down this road before where survey questions didn't really elicit what we were hoping to get from them and so it would be nice just to make sure the data guy was on um but I really do like I really do like your goals class size is a concern of mine as well and um dur enrollment so the sixth grade is is high and then seventh grade is
071going to be high next year so we're going to have to really stop paying attention to that because if the sixth grade stays anywhere near where it is that's a whole new class right that's going to just keep moving up so and I and I get that how many of those students are probably eel or Fel that are going to need need some support um progress towards um your goals are great though I think I think your accountability data is great that's the one question I had and it's not necessarily just for you I had it for uh everybody it seems like our eel stuff we've declined in almost every school wish I had had sorry yeah that's why we did make that a district goal it's it's pretty much a goal I think throughout
072the district we actually talked you know when we met with the principles we talked about that because we did I I think it's almost every school I I would have to double check but um it it is definitely a concern and I think that the we are seeing like we said an influx of newcomers the the population just is changing and we have to adapt yeah I know and you have 166 kids taking advanced classes class work there we do and the diversity is pretty good among those kids so congratulations you have some of the best diversity in those programs so I'm going to entertain the motion by m to accept the plan seconded by Mrs huley and you are all set thank you so much thanks so much have a great evening point now
073good evening go good evening good evening it's an honor to be here tonight on behalf of the faculty and staff of Point Webster Middle School to present our 2024 2025 School Improvement plan it's a pleasure to work with such a caring and dedicated staff as well as a PTO and school councel that supports our students and their families before I begin I would like to introduce our new assistant principal this year Mr Michael laurenzano Mr Michael laurenzano grew up in quinsey point began his career in the quinsey public schools as a teacher and coach at quiny high school and then a health teacher at Point Webster and now as an administrator I'm so excited to have him by my side this evening and I'm very proud as a former teacher of his to see how
074he's grown not only as a young man but as an educator and an administrator I know I'm aging myself but it was worth it was worth it Point Webster is a diverse School comprised of 377 students in grades 5 through 8 we recently welcome the district's substantially separate Pass Program to our school this year Point Prides itself on building a community that instills students with a sense of belonging our faculty and staff Works to build positive relationships with our students and their families our goal each year is to continue to build this culture and climate at our school and provide our students with opportunities to help them grow not just educationally but to be positive citizens in the community and Beyond so how did we develop Point Webster Middle School school Improvement plan by collaboration
075and working as a team we have principal path meetings by grade level and content area we meet at our assessment days we have assessment team members as a staff we analyze both map and mcast data as well as classroom assessments we check to see if we meet our goals we look at what the data shows and what our strength strs and weaknesses are we look at previous year's action steps throughout the school year to inform instruction as well as our map data at our additional assessment days we look at this data and through monthly principles path meetings we monitor adjust adapt and adopt new action steps as needed the data is clear that we have several key areas to work on moving forward and as always our goal is to provide students with the support
076and tools needed to be successful a brief synopsis of our 23 22 2023 20 24 school goals and what we achieved can be found on page seven our Ela goal the data above the data on that page above showed that we increased our vocabulary instructional strand in all grades and met our goals in grades five and eight on a side note our data showed that we were above the state in the essay question type in both grades seven and 8 as well as above the state in all items for mcast in grades 7 and eight also on page seven our second SM smart goal mathematics the data showed that we exceeded our math goal for the 2023 2024 school year our RIT scores in the concentrated area showed significant growth in grades 5 six seven
077and eight double digits actually in three out of our four grades which is amazing we believe that this can be attributed to St Math our math interventionists as well as the beginning of the implementation of ST Math and math challenge days in grade seven next I'd like to talk a little bit about our science Technology and Engineering goal um although we showed an increase in every grade on our RIT scores from Fall to Spring we only met our goal with our grade five students in addition with the changes to the design in the stte mcast test we kept our goal the same for grades 6 through eight and adjusted to five RIT points for grade five for this school year moving on to our social emotional learning goal we were able to meet our social
078emotional learning goal by updating our PBIS manual in forms for the 20123 2024 school year in addition we implemented a minimum of at least three open parachute lessons in each grade as a result of utilizing our student exit responses as measurement these lessons occurred not only in some of our health classes but also through our student support block classes also our attendance incentive last year through the Boston Celtics partnership assisted Us in receiving the maximum number of points towards chronic absenteeism in our mcast accountability data this brings us to this year's goals as a school after careful analysis of mcast and map data the El Ela team identified the literary Tech strand as an area of focus for 24 for the 2024 2025 school year we observed that our students struggled with the key ideas
079and detail strand in all grades and writing in our lower grades we also noticed a decline in our El mcast students scores if you look at page 12 action steps two and three have been revised to address English language acquisition and reading comprehension and step four to assist our younger students with reading and writing stamina step six supporting our students by assisting them with reading strategies and we are also happy to begin the implementation of our new National Geographic in Vistas El curriculum we've also implemented new action steps 10 through 16 to provide interventions and supports for all students we continue to work on improving our math scores in all areas our math team identified grade specific areas to concentr concentrate on Via map testing these areas were also identified as areas needing improvement with
080mcast as well I'm excited to inform you that not only are we continuing with our ST Math Grant but we have obtained a small group targeted instruction grant for our grade 8 students students this grant enables students to receive online tutoring 3 days a week for 30 minutes per day on math content that that that these eth graders are struggling in in addition we recently created our ST math student Mentor crew to work with our younger students for additional math support new and revised action steps reflecting our math goal are action steps 10 11 and 13 through 15 uh moving on to science although we showed an increase in every grade on our science RIT scores from Fall to Spring we only met our goal with our grade five students in addition with the changes
081to the design and the stte mcast test we kept our goal the same for grades 6 through eight and adjusted to five RIT points for grade five for this school year you will notice in action step number five that point Webster currently has grade eight science teacher Michelle kff serving as a member of the stem ambassador program to create and pilot highquality standards aligned with tasks to illustrate Shi in standards connected to the Massachusetts ngss as well as facilitate the point science content team to assist Point staff with lessons relative to the new s mcast design in addition we have two teachers piloting openai Ed this year and our technology teacher Lisa chin is leading the way in the Project Lead the Way community where she received assisted QPS um in winning the pltw student
082work cup um on to the next goal um our seal goal we um in creating our seal goal we utilize our vocal data to assist in our action steps we began our monthly grade level assemblies where we celebrate attendance students of the month and not only go over our schoolwide monthly themes but we also have the ability to implement open parachute lessons there or in our SSB class time we also look forward to our new Sandy Hook promise program assembly coming up in December next our extended day activities Point Webster Prides itself with numerous extended day activities on page 25 you will see a great variety of before and after school programs for our students to participate in this year our staff is dedicated to providing these activities based on student interests this year we
083were excited to add soccer specifically girl soccer as they've asked us to have their own time on the turf field and immediately several staff members stepped up to run this new program we are also very excited to have started our Navigators who code program run by our technology teacher Lisa chin who has recently received a grant to bring opportunities to girls who code at Point Webster lastly keeping with inclusion a majority of our past students are participating in our extended day activities and we thank the quinsey Public Schools transportation department for working with us on adjusting pickup times for our past students in addition we pride ourselves on communicating with families as you can see on page 27 family engagement and communication we have several schoolwide modes of communication that keep our school Community informed
084for example our parent and guardian newsletters are sent weekly and trimester curriculum newsletters which both have the ability to be translated for all for all our families through s'more in addition these can also be found on our school website we also build our school culture and climate through schoolwide events such as our annual cultural Fair our school concert our school concerts a band of over 80 students our stem fair our in school events such as our healthy choices and spirit day which is coming up this week Point Pride Week events and our combined Point Webster and Clifford Marshall Family Fun Run this year we've also partnered with Stop and Shop to open points grab andg go food pantry run by our own student council and their facilitators Lisa chin and Dominique luer each month we
085provide groceries for over 50 families in need we are also working with Santa's helpers a local organization to assist 15 to 20 families for the holiday season we pride ourselves in helping the community and our families in need we also want to thank you for attending our recent dedication and naming of the turf field at Point Webster in honor of Private John Mariano we had a windy but great morning and we were able to D our dedicate our field in memory of a former Point student who died at the age of 20 fighting for his country during the Korean War lastly we thank all of you for your continued support of Point Webster Middle School and The quiny Point Community Point Webster is truly a special place that we are both proud to be a
086part of thank you thank you any questions comments Mrs Hy Mr I'm sorry go ahead um you're talking about dating yourself with Mr laurano I know you used to give me ice creams from the ice cream truck I remember those days too Mr boli and and I'm not that tall and you came up to my chest so that was a long time ago it's really nice to see two people who have come to the quiny public schools now leading one of our schools Christine and Mike uh again remember Christine is a young a young student and U great athlete at quinsey high school and Mr Lano as well running around with the Point Panthers and U also a great athlete at quinsey high but it Quint Point Webster is in great hands with the two
087of you and uh I'm really pleased to let people know that Christine is probably one of the hardest uh working Educators I've have had the pleasure of uh knowing so kudos to you guys and keep up the good work uh I see great things going forward Point Webster thank you thank you Mr Mrs Hy thank you thank you so much your presentation um I love your your goals are great and very thoughtful steps uh Incorporated in there um and we're going to be moving the facilities and the to facility subcommittee and um the school needs to what's budgeted move to budget uh I don't see anything that really looks like a safety concern except for um boiler replacement there a plan for that I'm sorry for what the bo replacement you have a plan in
088place I believe it was going to happen this year but there was some tie up with it and I believe it's happening I think in the springtime okay Mr M it's going to be part of our accelerated repair program with the school building authority which is great um but there is a backlog of boilers and um so we'll get whatever we we'll get everything we need and hopefully get it done as quickly as possible but certainly I think um the summer for sure if not sooner but um the boiler right now should be good should be good for the rest of the we get to sum so but uh Paul Hines is on it thank you and also the um security cameras installed outside and inside I see that was on the 2023 24 and
089still on there now do we have a plan for that as well I know we we we did were weren't we writing a grant I thought but I don't know if we were able to secure funds for that sorry the security cameras I think that that's Improvement for the entire district and I know the mayor is putting together a plan with Paul Hines to do obviously a districtwide um upgrade for our security cameras that would include potential PA systems as well as part of the security plan as well as other items and um I know that the mayor would like to um have the security assessment team in to address that with you in executive session so you know the details of the plan and how it will be rolled out but obviously the idea
090would be to get all of those systems across the district up to stateof theat systems uh in all of our schools and so that roll out will be based on the uh report that our security assessment team did and then of course there'll be contingent on funding from the city and the city council so it is uh a very large and costly plan that's why it has to be done through the capital improvement process through the city okay I just wanted to make sure that their cameras were included in that their cameras as well as all the districts will be in that plan as well okay great um and lastly I don't see the geography be in here I know they don't do it anymore nationally we we did it last year just for you
091I I love I have so you know think I've gone all 14 years I think our social studies teachers created all the questions themselves and we made our own competition up because we know how much you like it but then this year we were like do we do it do we not do it all right well then I'll talk to them about that I'm devastated I'm absolutely devastated thank you very much for your plan thank you Mrs cill so you want to feel old I said Michael went to school with one of my girls so don't say how old you are I won't um I just had one question everything looks great you're doing a great job there I love the school I I had the opportunity to come last year and take a tour
092and I think it's a great uh building you know structurally and it's special um how many languages I don't see it in here and I'm sure 32 I just looked it up before I came and I was going to mention it um we're up yeah last year was 27 now we're at 32 different languages spoken at our school and I knew it was a huge number because I you had mentioned it last year so I think um I think we all need to understand that you know the the success you're having with your scores and you know your academics and the culture at the school is really something special in light of the diversity in the building and the language the different languages 32 different languages that are um primary languages for your students so
093um thank you for for this and um you know it's going to be a good year thank you thank you Mrs peros thank you so I'm lucky I feel like a broken record here but I'm going to Echo Mr Boli's comments and uh um lucky enough to have had my kids have had four of the five Middle School uh principles that are going to be here before us and um principal Barrett is fantastic another one who has been just great um really strong leader really keeps the building um you know in check running smooth um really really strong leadership so I'm grateful that she's there and um Mr laurenzano while uh Hannah misses you as her health teacher um you know we're all excited that you're in this role and I think you're going to
094be fantastic and you're already doing a great job so appreciate that um both of you and uh the communication you have with parents I know firsthand uh your PTO you stay at the PTO meetings for um and if you think I ask a lot of questions my husband asked a lot too and he's uh the PTO president so um those meetings are not short and um principal Barrett and Mr lawen ano have stayed and answered everything and um always reaching out and uh trying to be collaborative with parents so I wanted to make sure the knew that how how family engagement oriented um both of these guys are so I appreciate that um couple questions for you uh I noticed in here chat gbt it was um on uh under your professional development plan uh
095looks like it's going to be um starting to be integrated a little bit and I didn't know if you had any details or might wanted to talk talk a little bit about like what that looks like it's probably the first time I've seen seen it as be be part of the plan I know other middle schools have have done some some PD around that as well and and we're looking forward to to uh helping our students uh in particular our our El students and in order to do that we need to train our staff and um through the QPS professional day of learning um I was able to uh see firsthand some of the things that can be done to help our students in class each and every day a lot of our teachers are
096already incorporating different languages in their lesson plans to accommodate our students and to help our students and support our students but um there's a little more that you can do and we're going to spend a day um myself and one of our English language arts teachers Kim de are going to be doing some PD uh coming up I think it's January that was the earliest we could get there um and and we're going to train our staff in utilizing that in various subject areas to help our students perform and support them through the I mean just think about what it's like coming to a school in not knowing how to speak the language and being in classes that are only spoken in English it's I can't even I would cry every day so uh I
097think these kids are amazing and we want to help them through this process and make them better students and help them learn the language and make them members of our community that are contributing in in in being uh you know comfortable and and feeling safe at school and in order to do that we got to meet them where they are so our it's fantastic that we're using those tools so thank you for incorporating that um uh the stmath mentor crew I was uh curious about that I was wondering kind of where that came from what how are the kids trained um is it to give them more practice or is it to give them practice at being leaders what what's kind of the our eighth graders so they're they're no longer utilizing ST Math the
098way the fifth sixth and seventh are so um our math interventionist met with our eighth graders and asked if any of them wanted to uh volunteer their time uh during SSB or before school or after school to kind of help the younger students get acclimated to St Math and to kind of push them into solving their puzzles and we have a um ST math challenge uh turkey turkey challenge going on right now where they are putting feathers on GG for every you know so many puzzles their SSB class gets a a feather on GG in the class with the most feathers gets to have a a special uh SSB day uh with Miss um Quigley and the other staff members so they're excited they're checking the board every day outside the office to see how
099many feathers Gigi has and which home room or which excuse me which SSB teacher is is on there so it's cute and the mentor crew has been excited they've been coming down and helping kids get on board and and kind of pushing them to continue to do their puzzles and be and be uh supported and successful at it that's great I any chance we can have to have kids help out and and give back and and be tutored I think I think that's great um quick question on so while the math MAP scores were were met and they looked really good the I was just noticing the mcast math data were a little rough um so I was just wondering if you thought it might be helpful to incorporate any of the any mcast data
100into your goals I noticed most of the goals are just map um focused do you think it might be helpful to incorporate any of them or we could change a goal to to include that but all of our goals they may be map oriented but if you look at the action steps they're also for growth in all areas uh especially some of those areas in in mcast that we struggled in that's why we actually kept uh geometry on there for a couple of our grades because although we did very very well in map some of the domains and strands with the geometry were not as as positive so we We are continuing to uh you know utilize both mcast data and um map data but we've kept the goals to map we could always add
101and in addition mcast data too but I wasn't sure it becomes very wordy so I wasn't uh only if you think it's helpful you know that's and I know we talk a lot um at PTO meetings about how it's difficult when we take um that kind of top academic group and we're sending them to the APC program and that actually does reflect in the other um Middle School's mcast scores maybe not being quite as strong because of that you're taking that kind of top group out even though we still have advanced Learners at each Middle School um so I was just curious what your thoughts are on that and the last thing I wanted to mention well one one thing I wanted to mention is I'm excited that the Fun Run is part of your
102seal goal um although I did notice it was fun run in quotes like maybe maybe do you think it's fun do you think it's fun right well I've been known to I've been known to be very competitive so I had to kind of bring down the competitive nature Paul Paul can tell you and uh just the last thing I wanted to mention which is not a reflection on um you at all um you h fifth graders uh only two of the middle schools house fifth graders um and I just wanted to highlight on the vocal data that fifth graders um this is at the end of their fifth grade year 38% stated that older students scare or pick on younger students and I just wanted to say that that's you know kind of actionable because
103these are the so fifth graders in elementary school that are answering that question are in a position where they're the oldest but these fifth graders are the youngest so um I just want to point that out and highlight that that um we do have fifth graders in a situation with older students and you know we're having a districtwide kind of problem with students respecting each other and I think that that is just important to mention where we have 10 year-olds in a building with um with these older kids so just wanted to mention that and but I appreciate all you both do uh you're a fantastic school and uh I'm glad my kids are going there thank you Mr cro when you're last your questions are asked and and your the comments made but I
104just want to welcome Mr Mr lorenzano for the first year and thank Christine for all the work that she does appreciate all you've done over the years thank you and thank you all for your support I have a couple of questions for you the chair get not you're not done yet say you're not done going you're not done yet sorry um I feel like I'm back at quinsey high with a sh of you it's been some it's been a while um I just have a couple of very brief questions I I I I really do like your goals I know that they oriented that I saw in your action steps I'm concerned about the mcast scores but you do show growth in your map scores and so you're taking kids from where you get them
105and you're moving them along so I'm good with that you know I'm I'm I'm much bigger believer in map scores than I am in the mcast scores anyway um I'm just this is like kind of a ridiculous question but what is the deaf dance the drug enforcement agency comes in um they' run a dance program a youth Dance Program uh basically um Katie is our our leader um they come from New York and they come from all over and they do a a dance like a hip-hop dance uh program and they meet with all the fifth graders we just recently had them here I want to say two weeks ago and we just started the program again this year and they come and they do a free program for 25 students in grade five and
106they learn how to to dance and they learn about you know their different parts of their body being safe and and um they put on a show for the entire fifth grade and their parents come in and they absolutely love it so when I was the principal over at what is now Southwest Sterling we started it there um and then they contacted me when I was over at Point Webster I said I'd love to have you back the kids absolutely love it I am no longer dancing with them but um I told them if they get lucky they might get me up on the stage maybe for their end of the year performance yeah I might be able to pass it off to Mike but it's a it's an after school uh youth dance program
107and the kids learn hip hop and they they absolutely love it sounds terrific uh and going to back to the school needs um if you could just explain to me and we did move this into budget but as it goes there increase physical education funding do you mean you want more teams more Sports um more what I'm sorry teams or more Sports you say you want to be no it not not Athletics just the actual budget for physical education it's very minimal it's like a for the for the gym teachers yes for the physical education teachers CU equipment costs a lot of money and there's not a very large budget for that so often times we are going to our PTO uh for additional items okay and the um extended day you want to do
108more activity sing account stuff with your extended day oh we love our extended day budget and we we would love more of it uh the kids absolutely love coming to school but you know beyond the bell is what we we call it and they're here before school and after school um our our robotics instruct RoR right now probably she probably left by now but she's there till 5:00 every day they have a competition coming up this weekend um so the kids the kids love the different opportunities that that we afford to them and we'd love to give them more and the Chromebooks so Chromebooks I I put Chromebook cart the difference being um excuse me you just want the cart not the books we just want the cards because what we're finding is that the
109students are losing their Chromebook Chargers and so when they come to school we have all these dead Chromebooks and nothing to charge them in so if teachers had these carts in their classroom we could we can charge them charge them for them I get it I get it um your your chronic absenc and data is really good too and your accountability but there are two populations that are still struggling with pretty high chronic absenteeism I think it was your 29% of your lowest performing students and 25% of the white students um that that's a lot of I mean the overall your school did well but I think those two populations it's really it's distressing to see numbers that high yes so what kind of I know you're doing contest and so we yes each month
110we're um we are doing monthly um assemblies with our grade level classes and we're recognizing students um not only weekly but monthly uh for their attendance and then uh we're also adding in you know someone who's either like improved attendance for a short period of time or someone who's been struggling or coming into school late we're trying to incentivize them to uh come to school every day and on time um it's certainly difficult when you go from covid years of stay home if you don't feel well to all of a sudden you know you're fine you you need to be in school because you're considered chronic because if not you're considered chronically absent so it's a big difference so we're we're fighting the battle but we're we're we're trying to incentivize and help our students
111and get them there did did I hear you mention something about tutoring tutoring our mcass I mean our ST Math crew or do you mean our tutoring with our grade eight math program that's one the the the sgti this the targeted yes yes y yes so we're doing that with our eighth grade um so they are doing online tutoring three days a week for 30 minutes uh each time so that's they called high dosage and where did you get the money for that um we did a grant with uh Kim Quinn nice nice and so a 12we program and then we're able to add more actually we we just met with them um so that we can add more students uh to this opportunity um and then every 12 weeks we'll either add students or
112change the the area in which they're working on I've just heard some really good reports on how well that works so I'll be interested to see it's it's exciting that it's here so thank you Mr qu for bringing that to us and I'll make a mo I'll take a Mr reges makes a motion seconded by Mrs Su to approve the plan you are approved thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you good evening thank you for coming thank you for having us um so thank you for the opportunity to have a discussion with you about Central's Improvement plan and to share with you where we are and where we will continue to push to be since our last presentation we have continued our focus on the whole student and to make
113their middle school years educational supportive and create lifelong memories that they will talk about for years to come one example of these type memories was last year's grade 8 end of the year trip with 181 students going through Hershey Gettysburg in Harrisburg Pennsylvania with a stop at the American dream in New Jersey as seen on pages 35 and 36 are Beyond thebell school activities are full every year but they are presented with ideas from students for example we have our Pokemon club and crafting club that began this year and these are just a few of the activities that have been organized by students or with student input we have and will be continuing with our 3D printing Club creative writing Club running club early bird soccer prism chess club tabletop and board game club sad
114and many more I would like to acknowledge Central's assistant principal Kathy Mahoney Kathy continues to be an asset at Central Middle School by on top of her daily duties as assistant principal she continues to advise all the sad group leaders she chairs the PBIS team as well as being the diversity Club advisor which created our we are Central Multicultural event these are just a few examples of how she goes above and beyond for the students and families at Central Middle School I've asked Kathy to share with you about the we are Central event as well as some of our other Dei initiatives thank you and hi everyone it's nice to see you all and thanks for having us here first I just want to say that we are very happy to see participation in our
115diversity Club continue to grow and create new ideas for the whole school these members are the leaders for diversity but try to get all students involved and give students an opportunity to have their voices heard as Rick mentioned we are very excited we were very excited to host our second annual we are Central Multicultural event this past spring this event was brought forth by the students in our after school diversity Club these students had voiced the desire to highlight and celebrate ethnic backgrounds and cultural richness of all of the students at Central they recognized the diverse Community we have at Central and wanted to learn more from each other our students have worked tirelessly to ensure that every student who wanted to participate in the Multicultural event had a voice and a chance to represent
116their culture the response was overwhelming with nearly every teacher and student contributing in some way teachers and their classes created a wide variety of projects resulting in hundreds of students Works displayed in our gym families and students did to share traditional dances and musical performances filling the auditorium stage with around 10 incredible acts throughout the afternoon it was heartwarming to see students beaming with pride as their families joined in to celebrate their cultures generous donations from local restaurants turned the cafeteria into a Showcase of international cuisine with hundreds enjoying diverse food our diversity club's except exceptional efforts resulted in over 500 attendees far exceeding the expectations inspired by this success we are planning our annual we are Central event for the spring as a club we will begin preparing after the first of the year
117in addition to the club and event this year we've taken a new approach by forming a Dei student Le Council which has been meeting weekly since October to focus on initiatives and encourage inclusive Communication in working with our Dei parent Representatives we highlighted monthly celebrations with students focusing on specific ones to bring them to life through creative and engaging activities one example is that we recently celebrated a schoolwide origami crane display for National origami day another idea for the students was to create a flag display in a common area to represent everyone they took an active role in bringing this Vision to life ensuring it truly reflects the community it's been inspiring to see everyone proudly celebrate their backgrounds in the flags that symbolize their identities a photo of the display is featured on the
118cover these efforts continue to strengthen our community it is our hope to continue building on the success of our Multicultural event while further expanding our diversity club and related initiatives strengthening a more inclusive and connected School Community thank you Kathy offering such a wide variety of clubs and activities that focus on the students individual interests as well as unique needs is creating another level another layer of our surrounding care atmosphere to make the students feel a sense of belonging this was one support that we used at Central to assist in our absenteeism last year we utilized the support of Saturday school where we averaged 13 students for the six sessions that we offered we love celebrating our students perfect attendance with fun and exciting rewards each week students with perfect attendance are entered in a
119drawing for a chance to win the lucky winner gets a certificate to bring home along with their choice of prizes from the PBIS Rams reward man and they get to take a shot in the basketball hoop located in the main office to score a gift card at the end of each month students with perfect attendants are entered in the monthly drawing one student from each grade is selected to pick a bonus prize with amazing options like games science toys do-it-yourself kits and much more plus they get to also choose a prize from the PBIS Rams rewards menu we also keep the fun going on fun fridays during lunch when grades meet the cafeteria PBIS expectations for the week they all earn the chance to enjoy music in the cafeteria and they can be they can
120even make a song request to sweeten the deal we randomly select students with perfect attendance for that week to choose for the songs students love hearing their names announced and picking the songs for everyone to enjoy it's all about creating that positive atmosphere engaging students where students will feel celebrated for their hard work in great attendance We are continuing our school collaboration initiative principal's path the principal's path teachers will be have the opportunity to engage in peer observations coaching collaborative planning and enhance their curriculum we have mcast support in meetings early release Wednesdays are ramping it up for mcast days these specialized days will help in supporting our lowest performing groups and again this year will be used to provide support to the students that may show gaps based on the negative impact of learning
121loss as we reflected and analyzed our 2324 goals which are on pages 3 through six our map data shows that we met our goals and continued our growth specifically in mathematics where each grade exceeded the goal of an increase of four RIT points on their own and in all grades increased by at least 10 points in science all grades exceeded the goal of two rip points with each having an increase of three and in Reading we exceeded the whole school goal of increasing three rip points grade six increased the most with five rip points in analyzing the 2324 mcast data we found that our scores were superior to the state scores in all subject areas and grade levels in English language arts exceeding in meeting expectation scores were notably higher in grade six in their
122grade level cohorts scores improved when compared to the 22 23 results with notable increases in grade seven the most significant gain was in grade eight where there was an increase of exceeding expectations and a substantial decrease in the partially meeting expectations category in the 2324 mcast and Mathematics a schoolwide analysis documented an increase in exceeding and meeting expectations and scores in grade seven and a slight decrease in grades six and 8 when compared to our 22 23 scores on the 2324 mcast in science and technology the number of students exceeding expectations nearly doubled from scores this school year to help improve our Ela mcast scores as seen on page seven it is clear that the central students will benefit from an intentional focus in the writing domain to support the 2425 writing achievement goal in
123grades 6 through eight the vertical team's action steps integrate the following focal points targeted writing lessons regular Writing Practice unified writing language and tools collaborative review and adjustment in this year for math to help improve our map at mcast scores as seen on page 11 in grade six there will be a specific focus on the real and complex number systems grade seven statistics and probability grade eight operations and algebraic thinking we have continued our successful strategies like math Focus ssbs for all Math teachers to meet the students that are in need of extra support in science as seen on page 16 mcast supports are in place during ramping it up Wednesdays each grade level will focus on a science domain to support reaching this goal in grade six physical science in grade seven earth science
124and in grade eight life science for the 24 25 school year we've added a new English learner goal to our school Improvement plan and we continued with keeping the new additional goals from last year which was our social studies goal and a Dei goal our El goal has been created to help improve the 17.7 point decrease in progress towards proficiency with the understanding that our former grade A students are no longer at Central the addition of this second English Language Art English language teacher has helped reduce class sizes we have also had the implementation of a new curriculum these changes have allowed teachers to dedicate more time and attention to individual student needs enhancing the overall learning experience we are again very fortunate to be partnering with the quiny Asian resources and as you can
125see on page 28 we continue with our diversity equity and inclusion goal again this year this goal was thoughtfully developed in partnership with our previous Central Citywide Dei representatives and with input from our current Representatives Phoebe Chan shiv Singh and Margarita Wong we are grateful for the strong collaboration and relationship we've built with them which continues to strengthen our efforts in addition we are excited to continue with oural Goal as seen on page 24 including lessons from our new addition ofes the Sandy Hook project in trauma informed classrooms when looking at the vocal survey on page 46 results of the PBIS focus with the acronym of rams can be seen with r standing for respect 93% of grade 8 felt that a staff that all staff respects all students no matter what race culture family
126income religion sex or sexual orientation 94% felt teachers promote respect among students A is for attitude 95% of students are open to having friends who come from different backgrounds 92% felt that teachers are available when they need to talk with them M is for motivation 96% felt teachers believe in all students can do well in their learning and 86% felt that teachers support them even when their work is not their best yes is for safety 97 90 90% felt that teachers students and the principal work together to address bullying issues and 88% felt if they inform an adult at the school that the bullying issue will be addressed part of ramping it up on early release days will be focusing on all vocal type questions to reinforce situations like rumors emotional supports bullying and other
127important concerns that we feel should be covered but we also pointed out in the vocal survey our PBIS program continues to thrive thanks to the collaborative effort and creativity of our staff in finding new ways of encouraging positive behavior a highlight is our Rams of the week where selected students can choose rewards such as creating something on the 3D printer or enjoying extra time in the gym with a friend during SSB as well as our Rams of the month with students being celebrated at an assembly as you can see on pages 37 and 38 we have a few upcoming events that you're are more than welcome to attend including our Winter concert drama production and World Language fashion show where last year we had 21 students welcome the audience with an opening greeting in their
128home language a picture of the end of the celebration of the show can be seen on the cover currently we're preparing an excitement for our 10th Annual Rams giving which will be celebrated on Wednesday the day promises to be packed with fun activities including relay races healthy stations minute to winet challenges dancing games and much more you're more than welcome to come check out the fun there are so many remarkable things that happen in and out of the classroom at Central and words cannot express the pride I have for the Central Community in to be the principal of such a rem amazing school so again thank you for allowing us to share the school Improvement plan with you and as always via tremendous support from you and mayor kooch thank you thank you comments or
129questions for my colleagues I I won't say I great School uh do a great job Rick and uh appreciate all you do for the kids thank you this is H I love how you add the ram in all the time that that it just makes you smile when you're you're listening to your talk it's it's very it's very nice um I also appreciate all that you do um great environment at your school um love the goals I love the Civic school it's great um we're going to put the facilities into facility subcommittee and the school needs the ones that are budgetary putting them into budget but I did want to ask about um safety concern ones the intermittent electrical surges Brown notes um and the fence needed around the generator at the re recess area
130yeah so um so the intermittent that's been going on for a long time and they feel like that's CA we've had people companies come in like for the copy machines and that's something they'll point out you'll have you're having problems because something they have devices on there that show how many times it's gone something have gone wrong and we think that has caused some issues with computers and other issues like that so that's been an ongoing thing and then if you go to what we will call the outdoor area we try not to call it recess area because we don't want kids to think they can run run around on the tar out there um there's a bunch of rocks and then it goes right to the generator and there's nothing in between the tar
131to the generator so just looking we've been looking we put up like a fake fence for a while uh and that ends up falling down so um just something to keep kids out I was going to say I don't remember they're being off Fen there so I was going to try to figure out um do Mr melv can is that something we can look at that done as quickly as possible so I've talked to him about it and uh hopefully it'll be done okay in a short period of time great thank you um thank you very much thank you Mr Mr gut thank you um good to see you again um couple of things congratulations on the numbers and the extended day offerings which I thought looked terrific um I I love the anti-bullying week
132the challenge week that looks super cool like a lot of fun about everybody gets into it yeah you don't see that um the ram of the week the ram of the month I I you know I think you I don't know if you still do you hand something out I REM I probably still have my kid when my kids came home with it you know whatever it was Ram of the week Ram of the month The Pride that they feel when they get that uh is it's just lasting and it gets them invested and it's just a small thing but it mattered significantly and I I still look back and I remember that and then the last thing was was it 2015 when the school opened 2014 14 school and and then I just looked
133at your facility needs and it crushes me that it feels like it just opened that there was so many needs after 10 years but I guess with with any building or home or whatever the case things happen but uh just love the school love the spirit love what you do so thank you thank you this prios than so this is my fourth time I get to say thank you my kids went to your school and uh knowing firsthand how um great of a a school you both run um not only you mrar but um absolutely Miss Mahoney um you know one of my kids could have had a otherwise very difficult journey through middle school and um you single-handedly helped my my kiddo get through some tough years so um and I'm sure my kid
134is not alone in that so thank you for your support on that and um just uh and the puns are not um for us the puns are always the puns are like always there and I feel like you just do that at home like with your family and your kids like it just comes naturally the ramale and it's but it really is Mr G said the small things like that that just really kind of over and over create that culture of just you know a a family and being there and just kind of being together in that um you know silliness in that but also just the importance of being together uh and working together your Dei and seal um efforts and action steps are super impressive um I'm glad you have uh parents like
135shiv and Phoebe there to help with that but um you guys do a great job of that anyway uh so I think that they'll only help with that I love the Civics project U Mr Poo is a gem um I know uh he helps out a lot with that um love of of you know Civics and what otherwise might be kind of a dry subject for some students really makes it come to life so um really really great there uh love seeing the um You probably you guys had I think the best numbers on the vocal data for students respecting each other and classmates behaving the way teachers want them to um but again it kind of permeates that groups of students picking on one student and um students being called names and made fun
136of that still kind of permeates all across the whole district and honestly all the grade levels that we've seen on the vocal data so um you know just something to still work on so all your efforts are still needed so even though you guys do a great job just keep at it um hopefully we'll see those numbers keep dropping as kids feel um less of that and less less kind of singled out um couple qu questions I had uh the black substance on the outside walls want to you talk a little more about what that might be uh well I mean I I mean I I haven't done any science experiments on it so I can't speak exactly what it is but I think it's just it's probably just stuff that collects when you're on
137Hancock Street you know and maybe it's you know do cars I'm not sure but it's it's visible there and we've um had people point out when you're walking you know up to the second floor and you look out the window you can see some of it um but you know I don't think it's it's doing anything into the schools or anything like that I just think it's on the exterior of the building okay oh yeah sure essentially it's it's a product of limestone and the uh exhaust and other contaminants that are in the air it oxidizes the Limestone and it turns black gotta um so it can be power washed off it is not anything other than the oxidation of the Limestone turning black so according to Mr Hines it's not a safety issue I
138was issue yeah I was thinking mold okay definitely not that um it is the oxidation of the Limestone with exhaust and other thing pollen that may be in the you know things that are just floating in near but it is not mold it is not a safety issue it is an aesthetic issue for sure because people may see it and think that but that's not the case um so just want to get thank you um and my last question or something just to point out um chronic absenteeism um couple subgroups went up a little bit but the um Hispanic Latino subgroup kind of went up pretty drastically uh well in it went up pretty significantly right um and I just didn't know if those was if you could speak to anything you're doing specifically maybe
139for that subgroup or just as a whole yeah so I mean we we do have our conversations with students uh about attendance last year we were fortunate that you know the district allowed uh with the state's permission to have our Saturday schools um you know and again we averaged a large number of kids coming in and that was about phone conversations with parents so no matter what subgroup it was not one specific subgroup is T we went and tried every kid to bring them in uh and so that definitely helped get below that that magic number 18 for for a few kids uh but it is something that you know each guidance counselor as well as Kathy and myself we're working with any type of family uh when the students are uh the numbers are
140going up and we have meetings with Dr Perkins and Mr morani as well to discuss student attendance and things that we can work uh work on to to get the kids in the building okay thank you appreciate it I have uh just one question and one comment for you um the data is excellent I really love to see you differentiating for subgroups and your goals I think that's so important I hadn't seen that any place else I was going to say the same thing about The Chronic absenteeism I'm very impressed that um you have 198 AP APC kids but you also have 208 kids taking advanced classes so that's 43% of your school is taking advanced classes it's amazing thank you it's really a a great great number um and I was very happy to
141see that I see myself in my textbooks was 75% but then I looked at your numbers and 88% of your kids are either white or Asian so it's not a big lift for you to do that you know I think some of our other schools it's going to be a bigger lift for them to be able to see themselves in in the textbooks not that I'm saying you I'm glad they sa themselves but um we probably should be looking for more of that uh and I have no other questions so I'll entertain a motion to accept the plan Mr Mr H Mr boli seconded by Mrs huley and you are all set thank you thank you thank you so much yes good evening school committee superintendent mvy Dr Perkins and SLT it is my pleasure
142to be here with Miss Foley to present to you our school Improvement plan for the 2024 2025 school year before we present our plan there are some individuals to whom we must express our appreciation the staff at Southwest Works tirelessly every day to provide the best education possible to our students in addition to their teaching responsibilities they have met to review data reflect on instruction and create the meaningful goals and rigorous action steps that are at the heart of our plan the superintendent leadership team under the direction of superintendent mvy and Dr Perkins are instrumental in the success of our school and unwavering in their support of us our PTO and school council are so generous with their time and have provided us valuable feedback on this plan and as I stated in my principal's
143message the process of writing a school Improvement plan begins first with identifying those areas to celebrate in reflecting on the 2023 24 school year there is so much positive to share our students reach for the stars in so many ways as I visited classrooms I was consistently impressed with what I saw students were conversing collaborating and working hard teachers were utilizing new and exciting practices to engage and motivate their students academic highlights included our annual stem fair our grade five science showcase the grade seven Ela playoffs the adoption of ST Math across grades 5 six and seven exciting projects such as cave art painting and model cell making in grade six and so so much more to enhance oh good to enhance our academic curriculum and promote positive relationships between staff and students we continued
144our successful enrichment program this program held during the school day once a week allows teachers and students the opportunity to work together on common interests and include such offerings as sketchbooks and quiet reading origami sign language chess and floor hockey to name just a few numerous field trips are allowed our students the opportunity to explore our community last year our students traveled as close as Lincoln Hancock and as far as Gettysburg with trips to the Museum of Science ropes course and TD Garden in between beyond the classroom our extended day program continues to flourish with over 250 students signed up for for the over 25 before and after school programs fan favorites from last year included creative comics and crafts bad mitton financial literacy Club walk-in Club language club and our very popular new Taylor
145Swift Club apply named Taylor's version as a spin-off of this club our student council hosted a showing of The Aras tour movie that got the whole school rocking other similar events including the Halloween dance family craft Night Color Run community outreach the Atri Fox at fax and woods and our pre- Thanksgiving rally and flag football game all went far in enhancing our positive School climate and building our sense of community our Southwest Eagles continue to soar in so many ways and they make us proud daily over the past two years that I have been principal at Southwest a major Focus has been to strengthen the culture and climate in our building to one that is inclusive supportive culturally responsive and student focused to this end we have undertaken many successful initiatives to support that positive
146School culture our one school one book initiative continues to allow us to address schoolwide themes and come together as a community our PBIS program continues to evolve and grow this year including twice monthly wh school extended home rooms to reflect on the core values of being respectful responsible and ready and the addition of our Golden Eagle Home Room contest designed to week designed to weekly recognize The Home Room that best exemplifies those values our student support center and Saturday school programs continue to provide opportunities for addressing student Behavior while also keeping them in class as much as possible our guidance staff Works tirelessly with our students to address their social emotional well-being resolve peer conflicts model restorative practices and address issues related to Chronic absenteeism as well as student academic performance our student conduct data
147shows us these measures are working as both our suspension rates and chronic absenteeism rates went down dramatically in the past school year our vocal data can continues to show the strength of our diversity and relationships between our students and staff that data also continues to show us the work we have to do in helping our students form positive peer relationships and this will be important for us to focus on the work that we do with our student support team on our first assessment day of the year held on October 9th our staff came together to review our 2023 and 2024 academic data together we disaggregated both map and mcast data and reflected on what that data tells us about student learning in some ways these were difficult conversations but at the heart of these conversations
148was always our why why we do what we do and the answer to that is always that our students deserve the very best and there is nothing more important than promoting the growth of all students our map data this year did show that Desir growth as in all content areas and all grade levels our students did demonstrate solid growth over the course of the Year our goals set down in last year's School Improvement plan related to growth on mcass in the area of ela our students demonstrated a a slight growth in composite scaled score and met their goal which looked for a schoolwide 5% increase in percentage points possible on question type essay indicating that at all grade level our students abilities to write text dependent essays did improve in the area of math the
149average composite scaled score of all students did see a decrease our math goal last year centered around an increase in specific domains identified by teachers specifically numbers and operation in base 10 and grade five geometry in grade six and expressions in equations in grade seven and eight while our sixth and eth grade students saw significant growth in their target areas students in grades 5 and seven saw a decrease resulting in us not meeting this particular goal similarly in the area of Science and Technology and Engineering our students saw an overall decrease in average composite scaled score and unfortunately did not meet the goal of a 3.5 increase in in points possible in both constructed and selective response of significant concern in our review of this data was the performance of our many subgroups particularly students
150with disabilities and El or former El students across content areas these groups did show the L largest drops in achievement the performance of these subgroups underscores the need to provide inclusive differentiated instruction that meets the needs of all Learners an examine of an examination of student growth data further highlights this need um and results in our dedication to focusing on these groups in particular over the course of this school year this review of mcast data has provided the Cornerstone for our learning goals for this school year as it speaks to where our focus should be continuing to move all students forward in a meaningful way and to do so we have strived this year to provide our teachers with the time they need to collaborate with each other and plan for instruction this is happening
151through weekly curriculum meetings and each week staff from the same content area come together to reflect on their practice and look for those areas in which we can improve instruction and provide support particular focus of these teams is ensuring that the tier one instruction provided to all students is rigorous and based on best practices at these meetings teachers are identifying what those best practices are and which should be consistent across the school an example of this being the adoption of common strategies for writing these teams also focus on how to best use the data provided by informal form assessments to inform instruction and identify those students in need of targeted tier 2 support our Dynamic schedule allows our staff time to come together in these teams to discuss how our students best learn and to
152make plans for how to help them succeed in addition to their focus on instruction these curricul meetings have been vital in creating the goals and action steps included in our plan as a result of their efforts we have set forth the following student learning goals for this 2425 school year in ela reading and solay our goal our goal is that our students will continue to develop their ability to write text-based responses and narratives at or above grade level specifically an emphasis will be placed on improving student reading comprehension as it's imperative that students can effectively read comprehend and interact with a variety of complex texts to be able to write about those texts students will work to improve their ability to identify key ideas in detail details and integrate the knowledge and ideas from text
153into their own writing progress towards this goal will be measured by a schoolwide 4% increase in percentage points possible for the domain of reading and a 4% increase in percent points possible for the question type essay the action steps created to support this goal spe speak specifically to it as they create a plan that balances a consistent schoolwide approach to writing with increased instruction and reading particularly as it relates to finding details and evidence in text and using those details and evidence to support student ideas to support ideas in students writing in the area of math our goal looks for students in math classes to show evidence of growth and achievement in their ability to answer constructive response questions students will be provided with ample opportunity to analyze evaluate and solve complex math problems as
154well as show their thinking through the writing of constructive responses that are at or above grade level particular emphasis will be paid to familiarizing students with the academic language included in writing tasks and the explicit instruction and modeling of constructive responses progress towards this goal will be measured by a 4% increase in school percentage percentage points possible in the question type constructive response action steps created to support this goal include the continuation of work with math consultant Molly Voki as well as explicit instruction in the vocabulary of math and the skills needed to write constructive response in math in the area of science our goal for this year focuses on all students showing an improvement in their ability to perform higher level thinking skills in the Science Tech and technology engineering classrooms including inferring reasoning
155applying and analyzing additionally a particular Focus will be paid to writing in the content area of science Improvement in these skills will not only improve student performance in the science classroom but will also improve students ability to answer constructive response questions at or above grade level and progress towards this this goal will be shown by a schoolwide increase of five 5% in school percentage points possible in the question type constructive response action steps created support this goal look for students to be utilizing a common format of claim evidence reasoning in their writing and for ample time to be given for students to practice that writing style in creating our action steps this year for all content areas we've included action steps that speak specifically to supporting our English language Learners in addition for the second
156year we have included in our student learning goals one related directly to El our goal in this area looks for all English language Learners to be provided with high quality targeted instruction to increase their English fluency in all weda domains listening reading speaking and writing with the intention of all students meeting the targets set down for them by the access exam specifically those Learners on Student Success plans will be a focus with the goal of reducing the number of students on ssps by 33% action steps designed to promote this goal include explicit instruction and all weita domains as well as collaboration between el staff and content area teacher to ensure targeted support is occurring consistently across all curriculums at the heart of all we do is an unwavering commitment to our students and the knowledge
157that they deserve the world their achievement their social emotional well-being and their success are so important to us we are confident we have created a strong plan with those elements at its heart we are looking forward to implementing this plan and the wonderful year of growth ahead thank you for allowing us to present this plan to you and thank you for your continued support thank you suie are you good okay yeah thank you so much I'm trying to read my notes Here I I have a lot of things that I'm trying to figure out what I wrote I love I love your goals um the science science and technology goal is great um and the self-awareness and self-management goal love those um um your extended day offerings love the financial literacy um that's fabulous I
158know Mr guto really appreciates that one uh and um the hooked on yarn that that's great I think that that is fabulous um and I love a majority of your clubs are for all students so that's great um let me see so um obviously you don't have that many facilities I would hope um but it says your teachers need uh needs of teachers um so for last year it said there was a fourth El teacher and an El tutor and those are not in for this year so those were that's all set now yes okay but it does say that you're still looking for a reading specialist interventionalist yes um we've noticed a huge success having a math interventionist um who works primarily with grades five through seven and eight we would love to have
159that for reading um we think that it would make a huge impact with our kids especially our El students um and some of these targeted um interventions that we need support with and your vocal survey looked really good in a lot of the things that I was looking for um and especially with the fifth grade my my teachers care about me as a person 93% that was great and the um 90% I feel safe at school so that's great thank you thank you Pros thank you thanks very much for the plan and very thoughtful um I really appreciated the Deep dive kind of into the subgroups as you were looking at your data you really kind of didn't just look at the the summary or you know calculation you really delved into the subgroups and
160how you impacted each one so I really appreciated that um I think that's really the way um because you have so many subgroups and different you know it's a very diverse school um I think that's the way to make strides um and that's how you have to do it uh and I think that you're right on the money on that um the map data was really optimistic the mcast scores similar to point were a little um little rough uh but uh it seemed like again it was in your action steps and I hope you know moving forward we'll see a little bit of improvement there um as I'm sure it's impacting you as well I'm sure you saw that uh Sim no definitely I think we you know our staff work really hard and we
161have so many positive things going on so we're just we need a little more time to see how things pan out yeah yeah um but the map data was definitely um a good encouraging sign so you're do you're on the right track I think um good class sizes that was um great to see it's always you know the smaller the class the more you can kind of get that individual attention so I think that's great um lot of incidents uh so I I'm glad that you know suspensions went down but the number of incidents as a whole um you know if you need additional support uh you know let us know or the superintendent know and um because that that's I'm sure that's very challenging for you um and takes up a lot of yeah
162and I I think too when Sue and I talk about it some of them are much more M they're minor you know um there a lot we try to do our best to record everything and um so there there are a lot but our MERS are going down yeah no and I don't want to ask you to get into details so that's that's great um the as Mrs hu stated the uh the extended day offerings are awesome sign language um fantastic I've been you know trying to see if we can get something at the high school for that for many years and I'm glad that that's um at least an offering in the Middle School level at your school um Spartan Race taking kids to Fenway Park for the Spartan Race is awesome I mean
163what a great way to like Bond and have a group really be together um I can't that much be you know I'm sure you have to fundraise for that one but what a great uh Mr Talia took about 70 kids this year um along with some teachers who volunteered so we were really lucky the kids had a great time yeah and it's not only that you get to see Fenway Park the different spots in it that you don't normally get to see unless you have you know like a allseason pass which I'm sure you know most of those most of our kids so they had so much fun so it's really neat um so I really love that uh the mindfulness uh group I think that was really great um I do want to point
164out as I did with the point uh vocal data where you guys have fifth grade in your building um just again to kind of add uh a little bit of volume to the fifth grade voices that um older students uh scare or pick on younger students um you know that was it's not insignificant um so I that in my mind these are the younger kids in the building so I just want to be mindful of that again it's nothing for you in your building it's just the way your building set up uh and something we need to remember especially when 50% have seen a fight um it's it's just something we you know our 10-year-olds are being uh exposed to so something to keep in mind um and I just had one question about bathroom
165doors on your facilities do can you talk a little bit about doors for your bathroom yes so we have airport style bathrooms um we have a beautiful building as everyone knows um so you know I think we just look at that in terms of it some of the locations they're in they're loud we just want to make sure that students have as much privacy as possible um when needed I know sometimes depending on situations we'd have to close one we don't have the ability to do that um at times which is something that we thought would be helpful overall the high school Quincy High School has the kind of um airport style bathrooms and Southwest does um it's our experience with both schools that was the main reason why we absolutely said to our architects
166in the school onum school no uh airport style bathrooms they really it's not rarely practical for schools K to 12 uh unfortunately it was built into Southwest and quinsey high quinsey high were're working on getting mechanisms to close off bathrooms when we need to and we'll have to work with Southwest to do the same but certainly having lived the experience of airport style bathrooms that they do not work for K to 12 and we need doors on our bathrooms so certainly the new squantum element elementary school and all of the school ofr the rdlc as well we made sure that was the case there as well all of our schools moving forward will will not have those airport style doors they just don't work for various reasons okay so we'll try and correct it we're
167working to correct it at quinsey high and we'll try and correct it unfortunately at a brand new building essentially at Southwest um but um that will be a work in progress for sure are you concerned on the effect it might have on vaping I think that's one one of them yeah I think that you know you can't monitor each bathroom at the same time you don't you know one is right off the cafeteria so you really have to be on top of how many kids are in out um so I think anything it's out of your sight sometimes you know whatever happens in there so I guess I mean with the B with the door you're kind of shielding think you have more control over how many students are in at a time you know
168if you have you can always lock one off if you want just one location to be used um so you can monitor better so I think it's the Locking off of the bathrooms that really help the most because we can basically concentrate uh Supervision in a particular area of the school and not have to worry about the airport style bathrooms being open and accessible so it's the concentration of supervision that allows us to con control student Behavior the airport style bathrooms don't really help with that yeah I can appreciate both sides of that I am you know students need access to the bathroom and sometimes it's tough my own kids have had issues when bathrooms are closed off it's hard to get to one it's hard to get there and not be late to the
169next class and it it gets a little challenging so um it's definitely a bigger issue and a bigger concern but um for for now I appreciate the response thank you Mrs kill Mr me first thank you um welcome back um you so I mean I think Southwest is a beautiful school and I can imagine you love going to work every day I think you are both a great leadership team you know I I um I'm impressed with the activities I mean you have a lot of fun activities that sound super energizing and and I also appreciate how serious you kind of reflected not just on the data but the vocal survey and and all of that I mean you know just getting your arms around the mcast data where you have consistent numbers in 6
170through eight in math and then you have just crazy drop off in five and seven and then in e in seventh grade it's like how do you wrap your head around that it's hard hard to follow but on the vocal data on your reflection I again I I thought you were extremely candid you know some some principles come in and they they just share with you the and you have to dig through to find out where the data is but you you you shared some of the other areas where you really need to look at and work on and um I think you you pointed out and it wasn't egregious but the bullying issue was an issue that you wanted to focus on through the the vocal data so I liked how you uh made
171a specific acknowledgment around that and and the need for improvement and um you know so I went back and I looked at the the numbers for the other schools and there's another middle school that's right in in your range about how they feel but then the others might be 10% 15% or 20% higher and so um and I I know all the principles you get together and your talk but those are the areas where you know I'm sure you spot it you chat about it you talk about what you're doing and I I think it was um I think it was Rick that was just in here and I he he set up and I pointed out that I what I thought was pretty cool an anti-bullying challenge week with a lot of cool fun
172activities I don't know if he if he thinks that that plays a part into it um but you know just sharing ideas about what they do and what and because is not numbers in that area were different and if that makes a difference or if there's something else that makes a difference but you know peer-to-peer I always find is the best way to kind of learn who's doing what and I just appreciate that you acknowledged that there are areas you know in the vocal survey because that's the students voice and and you hear the voice and you want to tap that so thank you we'll talk to them we'll we'll try anything yeah you and again and they should be reaching out to you in in areas where they're you know they want to focus
173and you you've really been a star so keep it up thank you thank you Mrs K hi hi um I I just want to say that I think you're doing an amazing job when I'm looking at the numbers um you know we have all the different schools coming in and again every school has its own demographic and its own needs and its own culture and you know um and when I'm looking at the school demographics I mean your school has the highest number of el you know Fel special ed except for maybe one school I think is a little bit higher than the special ed school so you have three populations of students that really need some extra attention you know and focus and um so I think you know with the work that you're
174doing with with the population that you're working with I think you have have a good handle on um what their needs are to get them and and the numbers and the scores and the test scores don't always reflect that the map scores yes because it's during that year but the mcast you know the eth grade that was tested last year isn't the eighth grade this year so that's why your map scores are much more important um in in your um I I do ask the question about the the students at your school is there a large transient population like students that are coming in and coming out because I think that too that we need to be conscious of in terms of um scores um because the foundation and academic Foundation that students might be
175getting somewhere else aren't consistent with what we're doing right we we do I think this year actually was we had the least numbers um of movein in September October than we had in the past two years it was noticeable it seems to be more movein than move outs that seems to be the way it's trending the last you know our numbers have been growing you know we seem to be getting more movein than move outs which you know which which is great but it definitely poses some challenges right yeah so with that thank you thank you for the work you doing thank you thank you um to that point I think maybe we should ask for churn in our school Improvement plans superintended sure because that does have a huge impact on a school you
176know how many kids are moving in and around every year um but I agree I think that I'm looking at your map data and you're taking kids from where you get them and you're moving them ahead and that's really all we can ask and I I love the fact that you differentiated your goals too it's it's so important and I think this was probably the most honest plan I've seen in a long time I have one one question um well I have two questions what is the Early College High School prep program so that's a partnership with quiny quinsey college it just wrapped up actually this past Saturday um so Sue and I identified seventh and eighth graders who um academ who are academically strong sometimes underrepresented like just great kids who take academics seriously
177who maybe aren't the star athlete or you know star of the play or whatever and um and chose them to be involved with the Saturday program so it was six weeks um and we had high school and U quinsey college teachers teaching so it was great they loved it we had they asked for 25 students we gave them 70 um 63 we had great attendance and some of the students even skipped their tennis match um you know their final tennis match to go it was it was really really exciting and fun yeah it sounds like a great idea um so yeah but my other question was and this might not even be to you but on the accountability data requiring Assistance or intervention it need a focus targeted support are you getting any yes from
178um I don't mean from the district is District the district supposed to do that so yeah so we actually um because of that designation at two of our schools we were eligible for a grant so we actually our recipients it actually just got approved I think it will be probably on the next school committee meeting for the targeted assistance grant um and so it we have it divided between Snug Harbor and Southwest and so some of the work is you know like Molly vogi coming in to do all of that work she's focused primarily on these two schools um so it's just you know some extra funding that we can really Point towards the two schools that need it and to you again Ain yeah so it said a low student group performance was white
179but I look at the um English language arts and the height typical growth high and in the math it's typical growth low so I I and then met Target in The Chronic absenteeism so what what are they trying to get us to do with the white kids I don't it's the mccor it's the MCC okay yeah in both schools actually okay um so I think you're doing a great job really what a great pair thank you thank you lucky to have you there we're all lucky to have you there and I'll entertain a motion by Mr B to accept the plan seconded by Mrs huley and you are approved thank you very much for coming thank you thank you thank you both meeting aded meting thank you everybody