Quincy School Committee: Teaching and Learning Sub Meeting - December 4, 2023

001sorry good evening I'd like to call the teaching and learning subcommittee meeting to order and before I turn it over to Mr Gilbert and Miss Holland I just would like to entertain a motion from one of my colleagues that we move all the facilities into the facility subcommittee meeting move Thank You seconded by Mrs kill all in favor thank you okay Mr Gilbert you can start thank you tap it this one okay there we go good evening uh members of the school committee uh superintendent uh mayor kooch um it is with great pleasure uh that Miss Holland and I sit here to present uh the North quiny High School school Improvement plan um before I get into um the plan itself um I just like to like to acknowledge Miss Holland's hard work uh and

002the hard work work of all of our staff we're obviously not here this is a plan that comes from every single person in our staff gets a say or input into this plan um but I'm going to start with a story today because I I think the plan very important um The Who that makes up that plan U is the most important so every morning uh I walk downstairs from my office at 7:30 to meet um our special ed buses and we have a large number of past students that come from different parts of the city we have Learning Center students and we have leap students kids that have graduated but are are doing internships outside and there are two students uh who I had at um Broad Meadows um that every single day uh

003they walk up to their teacher with their iPad and they push a button that says can I go to the do the announce with Mr Gilbert and so one of them affectionately says come on Mead Gilbert and then we walk upstairs and there are four students that do the morning announcements uh and these two other students have then now become part of the morning announcements um so uh one of whom uh is on the swim team this year and he brought his fan shirt sign up t uh form in um and he had 75 t-shirts on the first day um of trying to sell his fan fan t-shirt so um at the end of every morning announcements he yells go Raiders we walk back downstairs and they're off to their own club class and so

004as as as much as we're going to talk about data and talk about um our school as a whole um I just think it's really important to always think about who uh each every single one of our individual kids is there's 157 kids uh at North quiny High School no one more important than the other no story more valuable than the other but um I think the school itself the culture of our school is really about belonging beling um and finding a sense of belonging um and if you have the ability to come into our cafeteria or into our hallways every day you'll see in a million uh a million different ways this past year uh our mcast results were very good uh we finished in this to 75th percentile and also did better than

00574% of other high schools uh that that we that we uh meet with are or excuse me that are compared to 91% of our High needs students did better than the rest of the state 96% of our low-income students did better than the rest of the state 94% of our El and former e students did better um than their cohort as compared to the rest of the state um our math our math scores uh I think we we we beat the the state average on exceeding immediate Expectations by over 20 points um and met every single one of our academic goals last last year um and you know me because I've been doing this for a while uh never satisfied with what we did last year U and I think I think you'll see that

006reflected in our goals for this year so we find places where we feel like we can do better um and you'll see our math gold is actually two parts it's it's about exceeding immediate expectations but it's also one particular standard that we didn't do as well as we' have like to and we're trying to increase that one particular standard um and you'll see that in there as well our vocal data I think speaks very highly of the culture of our school um we do want to continue to celebrate uh and to treasure and to cherish each of the cultures of our school uh and so our culture and climate committee this year is going to bring back and recreate an International Fair uh that will take place in March we're going to lean on uh

007quinsey High a little bit because they've done such a great one for so many years um but we're we're very intent on making sure that all of our our cultures and ethnicities are celebrated and I I don't think you can learn um if you don't feel like you belong um I was walking down the hall the other day and there was a senior walking by me and I said hi Kayla and she stopped and stared at me and I said why are you staring at me and she said how do you know my name and I said well I think isn't my job to know your name and she said but yeah my name do you know my last name I said I do she said don't say it and I said can I spell

008it she said no just give me the first an no I said so it's an e and she said you're right I don't I don't understand would you study after school um I do actually study after school um because I do think it's important that every kid knows uh is known and is known well uh and if there's if everybody has at least one Ally um that they can always rely on at school uh I think that we're doing something uh really really right uh We've added a number of different clubs and activities this year and we continue to um I've actually just just today became the adviser for the UNICEF club which apparently is meeting tomorrow um um so you'll see in there really a reflection of all the interests that our that our

009kids have and you know we do things you know kind of um for them first uh and to always make sure that that we um at least uh if we can um give them an audience for something that they're interested in sometimes we can't run everything uh but we we run an awful lot um when you look at our um family and Community engagement I think it reflects um how we feel about our families and want to make sure that we have as many opportunities as we can to provide our families with with kind of an extended part and make them part of their our classrooms or our school through various activities whether it's concerts or it's our play on on Friday and Saturday or it's our um eighth grade openhouse next Thursday or it's

010our Winter concert which is on the 19th um I think it's really important to find as many ways as possible to engage our families uh I still do a Weekly Newsletter that goes home every Monday with links and as much information as I can get in there send it to families each each Monday and post it on our website as well um and we're still looking for ways to engage because we we don't and we're not satisfied yet with um the fact that we can't have every parent come in for parent conferences um but we use a number of different techniques thanks to to to the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and all the people sitting behind me because um when I call and say I need help um trying to engage a family or

011help with a student there's not one of them that that doesn't say um what have you tried this or can we do this or let's meet and talk about this it really is um a special place to work and and you know I'm in a interesting position in that I've been a principal at three different places and in every single school that I've ever been at um it it's the same that kind of caring um that happens for all of our kids and families I think is just um truly amazing um I did uh this year sent this to our pack before uh it went to uh for in for final submission asked for their feedback um really got a lot of on the back and and and and was thank you for including that

012and appreciate you attending to our student social emotional learning um and continuing to to to um focus on social emotional learning as well as academic so um I think Miss Holland wanted to share a couple a quick little story um uh I know it's not easy for you guys to get to our school very often but our new journalism class this year started taking over the Raider Roundup which is our website it is on our page on North quinsey High School and it just really shows the climate and the culture that is in our school it makes you so happy just looking at what these kids are doing it in introduces the staff things projects that they're doing in school so if you have time I really recommend that you take a couple minutes to

013take a look at that thank you'll like it thank you um I think in closing you know know I think the proudest day of the year last year for me was standing at graduation handing out diplomas knowing all the stories and all the effort that went into getting our students uh to get that diploma and being at all different levels um they leave in elementary school when you're Elementary School principal and say who's who's going to take care of this guy and who's going to take care of that kid and then you do the same thing in Middle School um and it's just amazing how much at every level goes into that day um and I'm just so proud to be the one that gets to shake everybody's hand um I don't know if you

014could see it last year but I received about 75 Combs um from students as they walked through the line and said you might need this for your hair you might need this for your hair you might need this for your hair um but it is a special place and a place that that we love to work um and a place that we're really really proud of thank you thank you anyone from committee have a comment or a question Mr santar is good miss kill's good I I just want to um reiterate what you said in the beginning about um you know having interests and you know different sports activities and interests and concerts and drama and all that um if we have this is where it's really important if we have good leadership in those

015roles a good people in those roles um it gives the kids and even peer um you know mentors in those different areas um I think that's where we can really help kids to be able to like you said feel connected and then they feel like they have someone that they can go to if they need something so I I I love that that you um emphasized that because I think it's really important whatever area that they're in that they have someone that they can connect with and I think and and and I thank Mrs Leo for bringing the composting um and I said it last year I didn't get to go to North last year I don't think but this year I went a couple of times and um yeah it's a great I mean

016at lunch I felt like in both High School you really could get a sense of what the cultures they're both different but I felt like they were both really it gave me like a positive um insight into what the kids are like and it's it's great it's great to see so thank you thank you for your work just somebody that's been the uh first of all as a graduate of North quy High but also been the beneficiary with my son going there a big thanks to the teachers to the faculty the staff Miss Holland and um and Dan you've really raised the bar on on the culture I mean I hear from a lot of the the students how how great you are you know and how the culture is it's um it just makes

017you proud you know um to know all of the good things that are going and I you know I went through the um the plan and a lot of the smart goals were super well thought out you know I mean sometimes you think that their cookie cutter cut and paste from last year but it feels like you've really been thoughtful and put a lot of time and stretch goals and and um it's pretty impressive so thank you appreciate it so I have a couple of comments too and and a question um the plan was wonderful it really was and I want to say Mr Gilbert that the three schools you've been at that were so caring it's part of your leadership that does that and we know that and we appreciate that so I wanted

018to say that first I was very happy to see you right your scores are amazing your vocal survey was great I was very happy happy to see your student support goals using the Dan project and farmer and farm practices but I was most impressed with the fact that you put in a smart goal about attendance uh and you're looking for a 10% our attendance is still across the board problematic it's nowhere near our 2019 levels and I and yours is not some of the worst but it's still yeah much higher than it should be yeah um see I love I was also concerned about the student with disabilities dropping out that's a pretty high percentage there too and I don't know if that's the same thing as Theon if those are the same people who

019are absent a lot and then I just we're just losing them somehow yeah but that was a little concern of mine too but on the positive side more on the positive side um the the um exended day opportunities are wonderful thank you for mentioning the compost and not only the composting but the green student initiative those students came to the Garden Club meet uh sale the other day and they want to work with us on invasives in the spring and the park department or the environmental scientist whatever she to to get some sort of like an invasive pull thing going going in the city so they really they were wonderful they presented themselves wonderfully it would you would have been so proud of them so I know why you are feel that way so um

020I'm really really thrilled with it the plan is wonderful I'll make moot take a motion motion by Mr San George to approve the plan seconded by Mrs kahill we all approve thank you thank you very much thank you green student movement is actually going to start helping in the calf too with the waste diversion program excuse me the green uh green student movement is going to start helping in the calf during lunches uh with the composting yeah students at both high schools have been phenomenal pretty amazing thank Youk you thank you thank [Music] you good evening ladies good evening thank you so much for coming and you can start presenting Atlantic's plan for us sure thank which mic this one okay thank you so much everyone for having us um as you know I'm Alisa

021schneller I'm the principal here at Atlantic here at Atlantic middle school and this is our assistant principal Elizabeth Roy um so again thank you so much for having us here so that we can tell you how things have been going since we were last here um at this school committee um School Improvement plan presentation and so that we can present our Improvement plan for you and answer any questions that you might have something that we spend a lot of time talking about amongst ourselves with our amazing guidance staff and our wonderful teachers is that we really have seen a shift in students in the past few years due to the pandemic we don't want to spend our time dwelling on covid-19 and it's lingering effects rather we really are spending our time and our efforts

022on how best to shift our practices in order to work smarter and best meet our students needs and help them find success in Atlantic and Beyond first we have and of course will continue to focus on our students academic needs as you can see from our written student School Improvement plan Atlantic students fared very well well overall on mcast and map testing it's possible that we set our sites a little too high with our previous year's goals based on you know how things had gone in the past and we're also not as specific as we ought to have been we met our goals which were map related at some of our content and grade levels but not all of them Atlantic students did do very well in their mcast tests and were mostly in line

023with or scored above the district and the state averages if we wanted to if we do want to look at the dat that's why we're here um we'll start with math um our grade six students did very well with expressions and equations grade seven students scored above the state on most of our constructed response questions grade eight students did very well on the coordinating slope and the and coordinating plane at all grade levels it's clear that our area of focus this year will be geometry our Math teachers have created action steps that will have some of these geometric Concepts integrated into the year more frequently in order to have students feel more comfortable knowledgeable and confident when they answer these question types prior during the tests in the spring for example in grade eight they

024recently played Battleship using the coordinate plane prior to learning about how to graph geometric figures another action step that has already been put into place is for our grade six students uh one of our grade six teachers is piloting a web-based program to help students increase their multiplication and division fact fluency and his students have already increased their fluency by 30% so far this year we will review our midyear map data in January and we'll continue to tweak if necessary in terms of our English performance our grade six students did well regarding inferencing grade seven students did really well in questions regarding figurative language and character trait identification and our grade eight students did very well with their essay writing across all grades we realize that we can improve on our writing and our grade8

025team is also going to have a focus on poetry our English our e and our social studies teachers will be supporting this goal in a variety of ways and have a bunch of creative action steps some that are somewhat tangible that we can already see that have started um one of our grade six teachers turned an argumentative essay into a writing contest this argumentative essay is from a turkeyy perspective um they do it around Thanksgiving from the perspective of a turkey um trying to see why they should not be on your Thanksgiving table um so they are very uh creative and humorous um so there were stuffed animal turkey prizes for the winners in each classes um and it motivated students to write longer essays to check their punctuation and think more creatively overall we

026look forward to write more writing contests around a variety of topics to engage our students and to help them have more stamina when sitting down to write also our grade eight teachers are creating a unit around a novel called before the Ever After this is a novel that's written completely in verse so students will have a whole book to get very comfortable with the topic of poetry it's about a boy whose father retired from playing football because of the CTE brain disorder and this story focus focuses on the changing relationship of the between the boy and his father as well as his feelings about family change and his identity while reading this our entire eighth grade will get to go to Gillette Stadium to to do a hands-on experience regarding helmet design to prevent CTE

027and concussions in general I'm really excited to see what designs our students create as well as the connections that they're going to make between this hands-on experience as and their reading throughout the year our social studies and our El teachers will be using best practices targeted review more Project based learning and some inter interdisciplinary interdisciplinary units in order to help students write more effectively while at the same time they will also be exploring new curriculum in turning to our science data our science map scores demonstrated that our area for improvement this year is physical science our science team has explored additional Hands-On learning experiences that are physical science related students will be completing our tried and true maglev train lesson where they design a cardboard train and use the power of magnetism to propel a

028low a Lego figure on this cardboard train down a slope there will be also a new experience involving students creating roller coasters and according accounting I'm sorry for the amount of potential kinetic energy in order to give their writers the most safe and fun experience possible we'll even give out a prize for the safest and most Innovative roller coaster design so I think that you will agree that we have a solid plan for helping students achieve academically in the classroom and we know that this cannot be our sole Focus that in addition to their academic needs we need to focus on our students social emotional needs knowing that these needs are very diverse we can't have a one siiz fits-all approach so while what I'm going to tell you might seem like a laundry list

029that's a little more broad than deep that kind of is exactly what it is some of the lessons that we will do will meet the needs of some students and other students might need more targeted interventions with their guidance counselors um either individually or in a lunch group so we will be increasing the number of our open parachute lessons that staff teaches with our students on a regular basis this fall they've been exploring the topics of anxiety resilience and raising awareness in grade six overcoming stereotypes in grade seven and peer inclusion and exclusion for grade eight this is an addition to the other open parachute content as well as other um content in their health classes um our health teacher has brought in experts from Dove to speak with grade six students about healthy friendships

030and from the Nan project to speak with grade eight students about mental health awareness and suicide prevention we also have this year about 20 students from our grade eight participate in the outof thee Darkness walk out of the darkness walk in Boston to raise awareness for suicide prevention it has been very powerful and empowering for our students to acknowledge and speak about these subjects additionally we're so excited about our partnership with the Boston Celtics in our Bella Insurance um the allstar initiative with Mr sagala where our students are awarded incentives from the Celtics to come to school every day and to come on time we just reported this morning on our first month of attendance data and 369 of our students met the criteria and ALS for a prize in November so that means they

031were on time every day and and in school all day for the month of November we are of course celebrating those students because it's a wonderful achievement and we're also reaching out to families of those students who missed the Mark we need to understand the barriers that might exist and help the students and the families overcome them that is what as administrators and our guidance staff that is what we spend a lot of work on every day um we've also continued our use of community circles um during our student support block and we're helping make them even more accessible for all all of our students particularly those who are still learning English in addition we've been increasing the number of field trips for our students as part of their middle school experience our grade eight

032did a bonding trip field trip at launch um where the whole the whole eighth grade got to bounce and climb and just really enjoy each other's company and come together as a class some of our students who receive special education services and English language um instruction have participated in the sheriff's ropes course this fall and also have attended a sporting event at Boston College we have some more academic Focus trips in the in the works but we really wanted to focus on student personal growth and enabling them to participate in new experiences that's been our Focus for the first part of this year in helping to improve student social emotional development we have continued to review and improve our schoolwide efforts to build community and promote diversity equity and inclusion since we last spoke with

033you we have continued monthly activities in our student Support classes which we call amp students have made paper firecracker decorations and welcomed to welcome the year of the rabbit the Year of the Cat in Vietnam for the Lunar New Year we have continued our tradition of creating collaborative posters for Black History Month of a famous africanamerican that each amp class learned about students learned about Ramadan and did an Islamic Art activity they watched videos and bulleted key information about famous diverse women for women's history month during Mental Health Awareness Month students identified coping strategies that might be appropriate for them and created bookmarks designed to help them focus and relax while reading we also made beautiful tissue flowers and read children's books during Asian American Pacific Islander month our El team hosted a morning of

034cultural games student produced videos activities and art projects which engage our students even further we have met several times as a staff about the effectiveness of these initiatives and our teachers have come up with some excellent ideas to make them more meaningful as well as how to incorporate these topics into their individual classrooms as a result so far this school year we have created large I am displays where students created their piece of a larger artwork filled with adjectives and nouns that describe each of our 560 students we created a mural in in our cafeteria in the style of Freda Koo during Hispanic Heritage Month and students also learned about her life most recently during Native American Heritage Month students created dream catchers and learned about their sign significance in the Native American World we

035look forward to additional lessons throughout the next two trimesters we know that students find more success when there is a positive connection between home and school we had two successful family engagement events so far this year and look forward to more this Thursday we have a full schedule of family report card conferences we are so happy to engage our families in conversations about academic we also know that students engage in a life in an aspect of life at Atlantic will continue to be more focused on their academics and have an overall more positive Middle School experience our extended day activities are packed with students whether they are doing morning gym student council video production Club Art Club homework help badminton science and Beyond Korean Club Mandarin Club grade seven and eight robotics teams who are

036competing this Saturday as well as borang club and Dungeons and Dragons there really is something for everyone at Atlantic we will be starting auditions for our spring musical in early January the name of the musical will be revealed in the upcoming weeks our tennis and cross country teams fared well this fall with many Fantastic athletes and lots of teamwork and our volleyball team is having a wonderful season full of wins Los losses laughs and of course camaraderie we look forward to additional winter sports like swimming and wrestling to further engage some of our students who did not get the chance to participate in the fall and would benefit from being a part of an Atlantic team this year lastly I piloted an intervention program for our eighth grade students with the goal of having students

037grades and confidence increased prior to going to high school this year I will be leading a group of teachers who will do similar very targeted interventions with select students after school we look forward to its success in seeing how we can use some of these strategies elsewhere to help our students and lastly um speaking about our vocal data as I expressed in my principal's message we are so thrilled that students and families feel comfortable with our staff that interactions are positive and that our staff respects and has high expectations for our students we are so proud of our staff at Atlantic our classroom teachers pair professionals custodians school nurse guidance counselor school psychologist speech OT therapists cafeteria workers School Secret secretary all of them work so hard to make sure that everyone feels welcome and

038included and valued we know the areas for improvement and will continue to focus our efforts accordingly in conclusion we've been really happy with the school year so far and have gotten into a good Rhythm if the past few years tells us anything it's that we will face some challenges and bumps through the culture of Atlantic middle middle school our solid foundation of teamwork care for students and high expectations that will help us come out on top we will continue to support and challenge our students academically and social emotionally as well and we will stop to pause reflect and regroup along the way so thank you so so much for your support this year and always thank you Mr santoru thank you madam I need to give you kudos for your science fair which you didn't

039mention because the way the kids were dressed not just the topics they chose the ad demonstration ations their explanations their eagerness to tell you about their projects was just superb so I thank you for that effort as well thank you so much I appreciate it and um I I should have mentioned it you are correct um but I I do want to take that opportunity to just say you know our action steps might um seem a little on the Lighter Side um but if you look at the end of our school Improvement plan we have so many including our stem fair that we listed that have been action steps in the past that now are just common practice they're just the fabric of the school so I thank you so much we it that is

040a real team effort so thank you so much and thank you for being there Mr santor K um I had some questions about social emotional um the the volume you know over the years but probably maybe Mrs pil at some point talk to her about it but um do you find it's like overwhelm I mean we're so much focus on it now and trying to really get kids the support that they need um and having you know the circles and all that's great and I'm thinking like you have the I am posters right that gives a real good look into what the kids think about themselves um and how we really try and identify who needs more of an individual um focus you know and if we have enough of the I read an article

041today which is interesting is that a lot of school systems really big school systems that are having issues use um our are Outsourcing to um tele um Health um professionals so that they're the professionals that are really one-on ones with the kids because they didn't have enough um on in the system support to support the kids um so I just think like there's such a big expansion since 2019 like if we're really able to focus on how to get the kids the the the the um support that they need yeah individually you know great question um I think that just with the variety of activities that we are doing to address students social emotional needs were able to identify those students who are in need of additional support um and we have a wonderful partner

042with um Walker Therapeutics and we have been able to refer a large handful of students maybe two handfuls of students um that you know um really benefit from the one-on-one Counseling in school um we are able to get right to the top and and get the the students the help that they need so um I'm sure we could benefit from more but we are able to identify students meet with families very very quickly and get them the support they need and I guess that's that's just the question like do we feel like we if we're at a good place and we are supporting the kids or if there's maybe gaps that we need to be looking at I don't know but that's probably something we can talk about later but okay thank you yeah of

043course sure thank you Mrs kahill anybody else M Hy is got or nothing there uh I have one comment um I was really happy to see that you're going to be doing the survey mid year and end year on your EDI activi so it's nice to have some real concrete data so when you start making the goals they can be smarter so I was really thrilled to see that one question about um I didn't notice any focus on Civics which is going to be a big deal this year I believe yeah um we are piloting the grade8 Civics mcast like all of the other states so or the other um schools and around the the state so I think we'll see I think that'll give us a lot of information as to where to focus

044our efforts but yes prepping for that I assume oh of course of course thank you very much motion to accept the plan Mr Santoro seconded by Mr kill all in favor yes thank you so much this is wonderful thank you great job we'll see you next year for good evening Miss barritt thank you even thank you for joining us and you can present um the uh Point Webster Middle School Improvement plan good evening it's an honor to be here this evening on behalf of my assistant principal Susan dast the faculty and staff of Point Webster Middle School to present our 2023 2024 School Improvement plan it's a pleasure to work with such caring and dedicated staff as well as PTO and school council that supports our students and their families as you all know Point

045Webster is comprised of 419 students in grades 5 through eight including 61 prek students in addition we are a diverse School in nature and certainly pride ourselves in that after doing some research this year we found that we have over 25 different languages spoken by our students and that our students are from over 25 different countries historically we've built School Improvement plan goals based on mcast scores but in the last four years we've shifted to analyzing and utilizing the map Benchmark student growth reports I did have the opportunity to watch the September 13th school committee meeting and know that you read our plan and we would like to hear a brief synopsis of our goals and action steps so this evening I can tell you that our our data is clear and that we have

046several key areas to work on moving forward our goal is to provide students the support and tools needed to be successful to give you a little bit of a background in in regards to the process of working on our school Improvement plan we have assessment days an assessment team we analyze both map and mcast data we check to see if we meet our goals we look at at what the data shows what our strengths are and our weaknesses as well we look at previous year's action steps throughout the school year to help inform instruction at our additional assessment days and through monthly principal path meetings we monitor adjust adapt and adopt new action steps as needed a brief synopsis of the 2022 2023 school goals as far as reading on a positive note in Reading

047in ela we increased our RIT scores in grades five seven and eight from Fall to Spring and met our goal in grade eight our math goal we increased our RIT scores in all grades I'm very proud of our students for meeting this lofty goal in grades six seven 7even and 8 we're pleased with our Science and Technology and Engineering growth students in all grades showed Improvement in their RIT scores in addition we met our goals in grades five seven and eight our social emotional learning goal we met our social emotional learning goal through the implementation of three open parachute lessons in each grade and providing student exit ticket results from each lesson bringing us to this year and our school Improvement goals after careful analysis of map and and mcast data the team identified vocabulary

048as an area of focus for Point Webster as stated in the school Improvement plan our map RIT scores in vocabulary appears to be a strength compared to informational text and literary text but our team believes that focusing on building vocabulary skills will support the other map Reading strands and again without a strong vocabulary Foundation the student students will struggle to comprehend grade level text on high on high stakes tests so as you can see our our first goal is related to the vocabulary instructional Strand and you can see on page 12 action steps 1 through four address vocabulary for all grade levels we continue to work on improving our math scores in all areas our math team identified geometry as an area of focus in grades five six and seven and after careful data analysis

049of mcass and map scores operations and algebraic thinking in grade eight I would like to take the opportunity to thank the superintendent's leadership team and the school committee for our math interventionist at Point Webster she's assisting students through both push in and pull out models depending upon a class or students needs in addition we are utilizing ST Math this year in both grades five and six stmath has proven to help students in increasing their math skills and we are able to utilize this program without taking time away from our math classes we have implemented the ST math program through our student support block and recently found out that we now have access to utilize this program for our grade seven students our grade seven students already have been implementing monthly grade seven math challenge days

050but now we have the opportunity to utilize ST Math in grade 7even as well and we'll be rolling that out uh the middle of this month in addition we have added a morning math program for students in grade five you'll see these action steps reflected in action steps 12 13 14 and 15 again that's on page 12 when it comes to science Technology and Engineering the grade 5 through eight map results do not reflect a universal weakness in a specific science domain as a result the science team will continue to monitor science map and science Technology and Engineering mcast data to inform instruction based on each grade's specific needs we kept our goal the same this year as we are pleased with the direction we are moving in in addition you will notice that REI

051we revised some of our action steps such as steps 1 4 7 8 and 10 to more effectively measure and track student growth we will also continue to work collaboratively as a science Technology and Engineering team to prepare our students to be successful in all areas of testing our social emotional learning goal for this year uh we had surveyed staff and students in regards to our PBIS program which is positive behavioral interventions and supports schoolwide behavior management process as well as um an area for us to kind of go over and review expectations with students we have monthly class meetings weekly priz prizes semester prizes and we've even added staff prizes uh we our social emotional learning goal includes a check-in checkout program for PBIS where a staff member students where a staff member excuse

052me partners with a student to work on several goals to make them more successful students at Point Webster I did listen to the other two uh presentations and you know making connections and building relationships with kids is is key especially at the middle school level um we teach our students to be on point and that's respectful responsible ready and safe moving on to our extended day activities Point Webster Prides itself with extended day activities on page 26 you will see a variety of before and after school programs for our students to participate in our staff is dedicated to providing these activities based on student interest previously and I'm proud to say our robotics team won the John Adams division City Championship award and including in our extended day activities our Middle School sports our tennis

053team won the city championship last year those are just a few of our accomplishments of some of our extended day activities in addition I pride myself 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 for example parent weekly newsletters and curriculum newsletters which are now done using the s'more template which provides translations for all our families these do keep parents informed and I also put them on our school website thanks to Kelly powers and the IT department we build our school's culture and climate through schoolwide events such as the annual cultural Fair our school concerts our stem fair are in school events such as healthy choices day unique week spirit days Point Pride Week events we

054combine with point with Point Webster combines with Clifford Marshall for the annual family fund run and last year we were able to start a new tradition of Hosting our grade eight promotion ceremony on the beautiful turf field we have at Point Webster lastly I just want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support of Point Webster Middle School and the point Webster Community The quinsey Point Community Point Webster is truly a special place that I'm proud to say I am principal of thank you thank you Christine Mr santur is good m k um I just had one one thing about your vcal reflection the um you know the books um textbooks that reflect the student population the fifth grade and you know they both kind of had a little bit

055of a 43% doesn't think in in 39 um can we do better there that's that's our plan um if you look at page I'm sorry I apologize if I don't have the page number right off the top of my head um on the vocal survey on page just after page three I apologize we're looking to um work with our our librarian to order books that are more like our students and I think that's very important and I know it was discussed last year which is why we've made it a priority again this year as well I think we should be able to find um I think it's a You Know the Way of the world right now that we should be able to you can go anywhere and find absolutely agree um and I think

056if if the kids feel that way it's maybe something we should be looking at definitely um yeah and that's it thank you thank you Mr gaty Christine um uh couple of things first of all I love seeing 80 82% are happy to be at your school I love love to see the number of course I want that higher I know you do I know you do um but I I just want to say that you know I believe that you've always been exceptional at Family engagement on a variety of different ways um you know it's interesting and I love hearing how many languages are spoken at a school and I appreciate you telling us about the accessibility that the the work that you do to make what's happening in the school approachable accessible understandable to

057parents at home so uh thank you for that um because I think that's important and then your um your after school activities as well continue to impress thank you thank you that's all because of the faculty and staff I have to say though they're amazing you know what I'm going to ask you are you going to bring back the geography B I hope so I I hope so this is the year to do it I know I know well also we we kind of took out some action steps because they've become a normal part of our school for example you know uh you'll see at the end of our our school Improvement plan they just become yearly things that we automatically do and we want to get the geography be back on there as well

058so that is that is in the plan and I will certainly invite you thank you I love your geography thank you very much so I have a a question and a comment the class size is amazing I great to see that thank you for mentioning the mass interventionist it was important to all of us that the fifth grade there have that opportunity like the rest of the fifth grade did so I'm really thrilled that they're there and you're being they're being utilized I have some concerns about the vocal data especially on both groups said that um people are picking on smaller and younger students and I really worry about that with the fifth grade that um there there is because I know we try to keep them separate but it seems like that's an issue

059both the fifth grade and the eighth grade are noticing that um in significant numbers at the school so I don't know how you um what you can do for that or how you can handle it how we should address it as a district um I think what we we try to do each year is um we have an entrance for our fifth and sixth grade at the front of the building and our seventh and eighth grade on the side of the building we have our our each floor is separated by grade each Wing is separated by grade as well um a lot of what I find is if a if a student has an older sibling then they know some of the kids that are in older grades that they wouldn't maybe normally but they

060get dropped off together or they they are outside together so we recently implemented an area that's strictly for grades seven and eight before school and five and six before school as well sometimes they like to play sports together and obviously as a as a principal I'm concerned with fifth graders playing certain sports with eighth graders because of the size difference so we try to separate uh before uh and after school the same with this missile thank you um I think it's something that we need to watch districtwide because it's especially where we have the fifth grade in those schools uh and my last thing was um on your chronic absenteeism I know that you improved but your subr groups declined and that's an issue that we're having across the district so um yes any specific

061things happening there to help with your chronic absenteeism we are uh part participating and we are ecstatic that uh Mr sagala has helped us continue our relationship with the Boston Celtics and the Arabella foundation in which we have our All-Star program where we are incentiv incentivizing uh student attendance uh right now we just finished our first month of uh attendance tallies uh in addition we've also and we continue to do this and we've been doing this uh since our return from covid but we have uh monthly attendance meetings with parents and Guardians and students as as well as inviting um the attendance officer you know to to make sure people understand the importance of attendance and the importance of being in school each and every day and how much of a difference it makes on

062you socially emotionally and academically and you're getting parent parental response for those meetings there yes you're showing up yes that's great it's been a long road to get it back to where it was prior to covid but we're going to continue to keep know we're near there yet but hopefully hopefully someday I we were at 7.1% as a district in 2019 and we're more than double that now so it's it's a it's a real problem but thank you very much um I'm going to entertain a motion by Mrs kahill to accept the plan seconded by Mr Sano all in favor thank you very much Miss Barrett thank you very much for your time for [Music] am I talking to this one what you well thank thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to

063discuss with you our school Improvement plan and to share with you where we are and where we will continue to push to be academic life is so important to us but so is the connection our students have to both our school and Community since we last met and as you see on page 32 and 33 our beyond the bell school activities continue to be full and as every year students present ideas of new activities for example this year we added card collecting club and a creative writing Club there are just a few of our Beyond thebell activities that have been organized or students have provided their input we have and will be continuing with our 3D printing Club running club early bird soccer prism sad sorry I missed one and tabletop and board game I

064would like to acknowledge Central assistant principal Kathy Mahoney Kathy continues to be an asset to Central Middle School by by on top of her daily duties as assistant principal she continues to advise all sad group leaders and being the diversity Club adviser 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 what the we are Central event was all about thank you and hello everyone it's so nice to see you all thanks for having us here um first I just wanted to say that we are very happy to see participation in our diversity Club continue to grow and create new ideas for the whole school these students are

065the leaders for diversity but try to get all students involved and give students an opportunity to have their voices heard as Rick mentioned we were very excited to host our first ever we are Central Multicultural event this past spring this event was brought forth by the students in our school diversity Club after school diversity Club these students had voiced their desire to highlight and celebrate ethnic backgrounds and cultural richness of all the students at Central they recognize the diverse Community we have at Central and wanted to learn more about each other as a group they first brainstormed ideas and delegated initial jobs to all members they worked in small groups they started out by creating Flyers to advertise the event inviting the school's Community Neighbors in local businesses to help support the special occasion and

066then they created a letter to the students teachers and families about volunteering another group wrote a script to make phone calls and to email out to ask local businesses to help in any way one group mapped out a plan for the event while another created props the overwhelming response to our students from teachers families in the community was beyond impressive these students did a fantastic job of organizing the immense amount of replies making a program for the day drawing a floor plan and designing a passport with a logo for the students to attend teachers in their classes created a wide variety of projects just about every teacher submitted projects with hundreds of students projects displayed in our gym a picture of the art club's creation can be found on the front cover Central students along

067with their parents and families volunteered to share numerous performances as well including traditional dances and musical performances we had about 10 different performances on stage throughout the afternoon in our Auditorium the students were so proud to have their family celebrating their cultures with us we also had numerous local restaurants donate a variety of food who were Beyond generous and our cafeteria was filled with hundreds of people tasting food from around the world the diversity Club did an amazing job hosting Central's first annual we are Central event we wouldn't have expected to have over 500 people attend this event the success was also due to the participation from students outside the club Central staff and parents and family volunteers it was an honor for us to work with these students and assist and guide them along

068the way we are so proud of them for having a vision and for speaking up it is our hope to make the Multicultural event a new tradition for our community and we look forward to running it again this spring thank you Kathy we have a few upcoming events that you are more than welcome to attend December 15th is an in school Taylor Swift ER as tour fundraiser that if you missed out on going to our movie concert we have a seat in merch ready for you December 21st is our Winter concert at 700 p.m. we have three drama Productions of Newsies Jr on January 11th and 12th at 7 p.m. and the 13th at 2 p.m. we're looking forward to our 23rd grade eight World Language fashion show last year we had 19 students welcome

069the audience with an opening greeting in their home language a picture of the end of the celebration can be seen on the front cover of the school Improvement plan and we continue continue with our school collaboration initiative of principal path this year's plan has been created to continue with our school atmosphere for our staff to come together as one school all grade level teachers share students which allows the teachers to plan develop and Implement best practices for all students regardless of the type of learner that's in front of them through the principal's path teachers will have the opportunity to engage in peer observations coaching and collaborative planning to enhance their curriculum we've created action steps and professional development to continue to push Central on the path as an academic model as we reflected and analyzed

070our 2223 goals and map data which can be seen on pages three and four we made progress towards our goal and showed growth specifically mathematics where each grade exceeded the goal of an increase of three RIT points on their own in all grades increased by at least seven RIT points in science grade eight exceeded the goal of four RIT points and in grade six and seven were tenth of a point away of meeting their goal and in Reading we exceeded the whole school goal of increasing by three rip points grades seven and eight increased by more than four rip points on their own and grade six increased by 1.9 while all staying well above the national Norm our academic goals may have been on map scores but we have not forgotten about mcast and in

071analyzing the 2223 data we found our scores were superior to the state scores and all subject areas and grade levels our English language arts exceeding expectation scores were similar to 2122 scores with an increase in grade six and seven and a slight decrease in grade eight but as a grade level cohort they increased by 2% and exceeding IM median expectations in mathematics the schoolwide analysis documented an increase in exceeding and meeting expectation scores in grades six and seven in state even in grade eight when compared to our 22 scores and in science and technology we we had a slight decrease in our students exceeding and meeting expectations but to help improve our reading and map and Ela scores it's clear that Central students will benefit from an intentional focus and in grade six we'll emphasize

072on paired text lessons grade seven will emphasize on close reading strategies grade eight will emphasize on writing across the curriculum and poetry structure this year for math to help improve our map M map and MC scores as seen on page 12 in grade six there'll be a specific focus on the real and complex number systems as well as geometry grade seven statistics and probability grade eight operations and algebraic thinking we've continued our successful strategies like math Focus ssbs for all teachers to be able to support students in need of extra support in science we'll have we have ramping it up for ramping up for mcast Wednesdays and in each grade level will focus on a science domain to support reaching this goal grade six physical science grade seven earth science and grade eight life science

073for the 23 24 school year we've added two new school Improvement plan goals grade eight students soon will be given the bonus mcast exam on Civics they currently have to complete a grade eight Civic project so as seen on page 19 it was decided that it's time to develop a social studies goal however the social studies team will still continue to collaborate with the reading and Ela goal to ensure success in our smart goal one in addition to the new social studies goal we have added our new diversity Equity inclusion goal as seen on page 25 as you can see in looking at page 21 we still have our social emotional goal but our new diversity and Equity inclusion goal was developed in collaboration with Central Citywide Dei parent Representatives Heather McDuff and Phoebe Chan

074we are fortunate to have established this work in collaboration over the past three school years our PBIS program continues to be an incredible success each year the staff work together to find encouraging ways to motivate positive behavior for example when Rams of the week are drawn students have a variety of choices for their reward like making something on a 3D printer or going to the gym with a friend for SSB all three grades have Rams of the month as seen on the cover page and those students are recognize at an assembly and families and the student receive a congratulatory card with messages from their teachers guidance counselor Kathy and myself when looking at the vocal survey on page 46 results of our PBIS focus with the acronym of rams can be seen with our standing

075for respect 95% of the grade eight felt the staff reflects all students no matter of the race or respects all students no matter of the race culture family income religion sex or sexual orientation A is for attitude 95% of the students are open to having friends who come from different backgrounds M is for motivation 96% felt that teachers believe that all students can do well in their learning s is for safety 91% felt that they inform an adult in the school that a bullying that a bullying issue will be addressed before I conclude I wanted to thank you all for your support with the unprecedented in incident that happened at Central last year fortunately this was a situation that most will never have to deal with but because it did happen I wanted to make

076sure I took this opportunity to thank superintendent mvy assistant superintendent Perkins Mara pel and the other members of the superintendent leadership team as well as the quiny police department who are all great assistant during this unfortunate incident I also want to recognize the students and their families because they put their trust in us every day to keep the kids safe and we are always doing what is in their best interest I also want to make sure that I recognize the central staff for having faith in our leadership and always willing to do what is best for our students the next morning they put their own concerns and feelings aside showed up to school early to prepare for how we would address the students and where and we all on board to ensure we provided our

077students a chance to share their feelings hear from their peers and support one another there are so many razing things happening in and out of the classroom at Central and words cannot express the pride I have for the Central Community and to be the principal of such a r amazing school so again I thank you for allowing us to share the school Improvement plan and as always for the tremendous support you and mayor kooch always provide thank you Mr Santoro questions or comments I just want to thank you because I've been there as the principal of that great building and in the year 2000 I had an idea to take the cultures we had we had an African drum group in the gymnasium we had Asian kids dancing and playing instruments we had a teacher

078by the name of radoo Cordo who said why don't we start a fashion show from Fashions around the world my head off to you for continuing such a great tradition in the many things that you do congratulations and our hats are off to you as well so thank you for your leadership and showing us the way thank you I think I think that's a great statement there is you know all the everyone that comes and presents you're just building on the things that are successful and make you know and getting things to where they are today and and reflecting on what works and what doesn't work um and and that's why we end up having the success looking at the data and the map data and all that to be able to really identify where

079we need to do better or we're doing well you know and and Central is great um I have a qu this is kind of a a question for everyone when we have the vocal data Reflections um do we ask the same questions every year so we can see like if we're improving with kind of like action steps that we might questions come from the state okay okay good um when we presented to the the families about it we made some you know jokes about knowing you know the answers to the questions I mean answers to the test before so like an incident might happen and we're like great it's 100% of the kids are now going to say that they may have seen something at school that shouldn't be there or something so yeah yeah

080I mean I think it's an you know it's an interesting system but I probably asked this question last year I think if if it was the same questions and I'm asking the same question this year so you should know the answer um because I think that's a good that's a good way for us to see like if we're doing things that are helping to change the the reflections you know later but it's kind of a an interesting format anyway but okay but thank you for the work you're doing thank you thank you um as always appreciate your leadership brick and Kathy um you know it's astonishing for me to think back that my kids went there now eight years ago and the school is what 10 years old 10 years old um gorgeous facility and

081and I know that we're going to talk about all facilities issues in facilities but you have the largest laundry list of facilities needs either you're incredibly fastidious or um or something something's Miss I I just wanted to ask you about one one specific question which was the intermittent electrical surges um haven't heard that in any other school do you know what the cause is and how it spread no um I think uh you know we see it maybe a little bit more when you have you know the the TVs and the the hallways or you see you know we have digital clock so we see the the when something goes wrong and maybe in other school buildings they wouldn't see that as much that's my only thing I can say has it been noticeable more

082and more and more or when you say intermittent do you mean weekly monthly uh a few times a year I would lean more monthly monthly yeah and you're losing computers and other things I wouldn't say we're losing you can you can see that when a computer doesn't start um you know because it may have been restarted interesting you know yeah well I'm sure we'll bring that up in facilities but thanks for all you do great work appreciate it fa we fac sorry I'm sorry so for those for those who didn't hear um civic's goal is great and I love your parent representative on the Dei my concern with the um facilities we moved everything into facility subcommittee but my concern is that you have said you said there's a black substance growing on the walls

083the brick walls and the window sills outside and I think we should really take a look and see if that's molded or what that could be before we just we have AER of okay okay because I would really that's a very big concern I think whenever we we've opened a building we've seen some of these same things unfortunately uh with what we think is going to happen and what doesn't quite happen when the buildings are new so I I'm not surprised that the punch list is enormous um it's unfortunate but with new buildings sometimes things aren't exactly what you thought they were going to be um I a little concerned about the fact that your chronic absenteeism declined as it did for your subgroups so even though it wasn't horrible it was better last year

084and so that's something that we have to really stop paying attention to also um and I think that the scores that the data is excellent really is excellent so congratulations to you and your staff and I'd like to make a motion to accept your plan by Mr Santo or seconded by Mrs kill and all in favor I thank you very much thank you thank you [Music] hello good evening good evening thank you for joining us and you can present as soon as you're ready thank you for having us good evening chairperson Libo Vice chair Santoro superintendent mvy and members of the school committee Miss Foley and I are happy to be here this evening to share with you our plan for the 2023 2024 school year we are very proud to represent the staff students

085and families of Southwest Middle School we have put together our school Improvement plan with them at the Forefront and based on the premise that our students come first and that they deserve the very best it is with great excitement that we present to you a school Improvement plan that we feel encapsulates just that before we present our plan to you there are so many people who I must express my appreciation the staff at Southwest have worked tirelessly to review data reflect on best practices create goals and action steps that will move our students forward superintendent mvy and assistant superintendent Perkins have supported Southwest every step of the way directors Mara pel Mike morani and Julie Graham have generously shared their time and expertise with us and bridon Kim Quinn Chris Tierney and so many others

086have been there for phone calls and planning sessions and much much more we also have an outstanding PTO and school councel with whom we shared this plan and got valuable feedback this plan is as is all we do at Southwest a true team effort I have been so fortunate to work with Sue Foley our assistant principal she is invaluable she works Tire tirelessly for our students some of her daily tasks include but are not limited to managing School discipline supporting staff evaluating staff resolving student conflicts and I have to mention that she is very talented when it comes to scheduling Sue is a constant support for our students and families she she takes on each day with energy and a positive attitude and we are lucky to have her at Southwest and here tonight as

087we began the process of creating this plan we started with a Frank and honest review of what has come before the 2022 23 school year brought much to celebrate our students had great achievements academically athletically and artistically in the classroom our students reached for New Heights in our stem fair one school one book science showcase playoffs and many other classroom assignments and initiatives highlighted their academic growth on the stage our drama club students dazzled with their production of Alice and Wonderland as did our choir and band students in their winter and spring concerts our art students showed their unbelievable Crea creativity in their submissions for the annual art show and on the field our student athletes continued to show their competitive Spirit our students even took on the Spartan Race at Fenway Park with over

08830 students participating in that event our students learned important leadership skills as part of our active student council the inclusion into our schedule of our enrichment program which featured choices ranging from basketball to origami to digital storywriting allowed us a unique opportunity to Foster positive relationships between students and staff with this interest based curriculum in mind we greatly increased our extended day offerings to over 25 different clubs and activities with over 250 students taking part numerous field trips allow our students the opportunity to explore the world and our community Spirit weeks dances movie Nights in the eighth grade semi-formal gave us a chance to have fun together events held in conjunction with Lincoln Hancock strengthened our sense of community and all these things and so many more our students showed their Eagle spirit and made

089us so very proud when we presented our plan last year we noted that we were presenting to you a plan with two focuses the first of those Focus was improving the culture and climate within our building to create an environment that is inclusive supportive culturally responsive and focused on community in this area we feel we have met great success our vocal data indicates that our students feel respected and valued by our staff the regular use of open parachute lessons and restorative practices supported the social and emotional needs of our students and work to create an envir an atmosphere in which all feel able to learn the implement of lessons centered around themes of diversity and inclusion showed our commitment to celebrating and valuing the many different cultures and backgrounds that make up our Learning Community

090our community meetings brought us together on a regular basis to celebrate student successes and cover important topics together in the last year we have seen the the climate of Southwest grow stronger and we know this is only the beginning we continue to examine how we handle student contuct conduct and how we can best utilize restorative practices the supports of PBIS our student support center community meetings guidance resources and Alternatives such as Saturday school to address student Behavior while also keeping our students in class where they belong this desire to positively impact student Behavior drives our social emotional goal which focuses both on improving C chronic absenteeism an area in which we saw significant Improvement in 2223 but which we know we can always do better as well as intervening in student behavior in a positive

091way to do this we will continue to team discipline with admin and guidance to get to the heart of issues related to student conduct in the hopes of those issues not being repeated and we'll utilize a system of progress Progressive discipline whenever possible which is made very clear to our students at the outset of the school year our vocal data helps us here as it shows us the work we still have to do in helping our students to form positive relationships with their peers and treat each other in a way that is supportive and respectful we are confident that these steps coupled with what is already in motion will allow us to continue to develop a school culture that is Second To None the second focus of our plan last year was academic to measure

092our growth in this area we had to take a very close look at both map and mcast data from the 2223 school year as well as the goals set down in our Improvement plan for that year in regards to the content areas of ela and math in which we set a goal of a rip Point Improvement above the fall average of five and 5.5 points respectively we did not meet those goals however our students did continue to show steady growth throughout the year on map testing in the area of science our goal was a rip Point Improvement above the fall average of Four Points we are pleased to say that we met that goal and our students at all grade levels showed very solid growth in science all year while we are very pleased with

093the growth of our students on the map test we also recognize the importance of mcast data as well and what that data shows about the learning of our students in the 202 23 school year our mcast average composite scaled score in ela did decrease and only improved only slightly but below our Targets in math and science these Trends were consistent amongst our subgroups as well with our El and form El students showing the greatest drop in achievement in looking at student performance indicators it continues to hold true that over 50% of our our students fall into categories of not meeting or partially meeting expectations however we did see some growth in students reaching the exceeding expectations categories which made us extremely proud as it relates the relates to the item analysis items and standards analysis

094our students continue to struggle with written performance tasks across all content areas in all in in the area of student growth however we celebrate the in the significant increase in mean Mean student growth percentile with many many of our students falling into the category of typical growth High this review of mcast data has provided the Cornerstone for our learning goals for this school year as it speaks to where the focus should be continuing to move all our students forward in a meaningful way to do this we know we need to provide our students with quality differentiated and targeted tier one instruction as well as valuable tier 2 and three supports as needed our time together as a staff has been spent reflecting on practice and looking for those areas in which we can improve the

095instruction and support we are giving our students to this end the superintendent leadership team as well as math consultant Molly bokei have been invaluable with their support we have implemented regularly scheduled curriculum meetings in both math and Ela during this time our Educators come together to discuss issues relevant to their content areas in addition our teachers have been observing each other co-planning collaborating ating on data and co- teing as they investigate strategies to best support our Learners our Dynamic schedule has allowed our staff time to come together in vertical schoolwide and grade level teams to discuss how our students learn and to make plans for how to help them succeed through our work at assessment day one as well as in their curriculum and vertical team meetings we have set forth the following learning goals

096for the 23 24 school year in ela in conjunction with reading and social St our goal is to see an improvement in our students ability to write text-based responses and narratives we propose to do that by providing our students with a multi-tiered system of support that ensures targeted academic English language development specifically focused on idea development and language conventions it is our hope that our students will show Mastery of this gooal by demonstrating an increase of five percentage points in school percentage points possible for the question type essay on the spring 24 mcass the action steps created to support this goal speak directly to it as they create a plan in which our teachers will provide specific instructions on the skills necessary to improve writing while challenging our students with tasks that require a higher

097depth of knowledge but while also providing targeted supports to those students who need it in the area of math our goal for the 2324 school year looks for all students show evidence of growth and achievement in domains specific to their grade level and as identified by an in-depth review of the results by standards report for example grade five seeks to increase by 4% in numbers and operations in base 10 while grade seven and eight are looking for a 5% increase in expressions and in the expressions and equations domain action steps created to support this goal include time spent working and planning with Moki as well as the adoption of a variety of new and exciting teaching strategies to to promote student engagement and understanding while also bring in some important new resources such as ST

098Math in grades five and six and building the thinking classroom across all grades in the area of science our goal for the 2324 school year focuses on students approving and their ability to perform higher level thinking skills in the stte classroom such as inferring reasoning applying and analyzing Mastery of these important skills will improve will both improve student performance in the day-to-day classroom as well as in their testing Mastery of this goal be measured by an increase of five percentage points in school possible points on both constructive resp constructed and selective response questions action steps included to support this goal include the increased opportunities for staff to collaborate on best practices for promoting higher level thinking skills as well as more opportunities in the science classroom for inquiry based learning our review of both our

099mcast data and our access data have shown a strong need to incorporate more supports for our large population of El and former El students to this end we have added a fourth student learning goal this year which looks for evidence of growth and achievement as indicated on the 2024 access test for each domain Reading Writing listening and speaking progress towards this goal will be measured by an overall increase of 10% in the number of students reaching their proficiency targets from a base of 24% in 2223 as measured by this 2024 access Test action steps created to support this step allow for increased collaboration between our El staff and our regular Ed teachers to ensure supports exist for our students across the curriculum we are confident that our plan for this school year is strong there

100is much to be done but we are secure that working together with our students at the Forefront we will get there our students at Southwest deserve no less than our very best every day that is what we strive to provide through this implementation implementation of this plan and thank you for allowing us this opportunity to present this plan to you tonight and thank you for your ongoing support each and every year you have to work like two days in one day to get this stuff done and I think the the thing that I really love to hear is um because I had a question with one a new teacher asking her if um as a community in the school if you talk to each other about implementing some of the you know strategies and how

101it works in a specific classroom and if things are working well or not working well so hearing the collaboration between Specialists and and and the classroom teachers I think is makes so much sense you know um and so so much great work and actually the the extended day stuff um for I think kids is so important too because it you know takes away that free time of not really doing anything keeps them engaged in relationships and all that so the your schedule is amazing um when you're like the social emotional work and all the work you're doing in the culture um are you finding that you're seeing results in the in attendance and also in the incidences so far this year like what kind of um results you seeing yeah I think that we we

102started to work on that last year a little bit and it's really a big focus of ours so we have a student support meeting tomorrow morning um and we have restructured that a little bit so now we Sue and myself specifically have different pieces that we report out about um attendance is one section we go over plans and what we're doing making sure that we check with our last meeting like what was accomplished what is done what's left to be done and we're doing the same thing for discipline and looking at our numbers running reports constantly trying to have parents in or make different plans um to support students so we're looking at it weekly and then in addition reaching out to teams and families to get more support and I think we are seeing

103uh you know I handle you know the kind of day-to-day student discipline and conduct and I think we're definitely seeing an impact this year a positive impact um you know our teachers are like we very transparent in terms of reporting what's happening in their classroom um which makes it like very very helpful we use Aspen repor um so you know we can see like in real time we use the journal and Aspen as well as the conduct referrals which lets us if I pull up a student who sent to me I can see exactly how his day has been if he's had any incidence in his teachers in his classrooms that haven't been sent to me um I can see where his where his or her strengths or weaknesses are I can see you know

104what previous issues they like run into it so I think by that kind of very transparent reporting like we we really know what's going on with our kids and we can address it with them um we've also like greatly expanded expanded our check-in checkout system this year um so we have a very large number of kids who are assigned to you know a teacher um that they don't have in class just a teacher they feel comfortable with they check in in the morning um they kind of get a pep talk to start their day make sure they have everything they check out at the end of the day um different teachers incentivize that differently but I think that accountability um for the kids has been huge so I do think when this year ends we're

105very very optimistic like right now we're trending in a positive direction When comparing like the data for the first three months of the school year this year to last year I think we're going to find um a real significant I sorry I hope we're going to find a real significant Improvement um and I think if you walk through the school this year versus last year you notice it there's a a very calm vibe in the school this year um a very productive vibe in the school this year and part of that comes with what the teachers are doing the engagement in classrooms with these new teaching strategies they've been employing is like through the roof um you should really come in like in our math classes the kids are up out of the seats the

106desks are gone the kids are truly engaged and truly thinking um so I think that helps with the with the discipline aspect as well they want to be in class they do um they're engaged it's a reflection right of the leadership and the and the teachers and everyone and all the work that you're doing so that really it that's where you see it um and my last question is what's your book that you're reading this year because I read last year and I loved it we'll send you a copy we haven't we so we were going to have that at the beginning of the school year but then we decided we would have it after testing we would do the one the um we would introduce the book in the spring after testing just because

107we have such a focus on curriculum and planning together right now to have it interrupt right now wouldn't be a good time so it's it's called flush okay good we'll get you a copy great yeah thank you your work Mr Santoro thank you I have no doubt that you'll carry on with the goals you have have identified what I want to thank you for is the the 30 somewhat extended day activities that bear children with adults to establish relationships inmemorable occasions because I know when they get our age they fet who even who the teachers were except for those moments when you establish those relationships in those programs so I thank you well done thank you thank you Mrs H thank you I I also wanted to say this is so impressive your extended day

108off offerings and I did note that um you have financial literacy that's awesome for the seventh and eighth graders to have a financial literacy option for after after that's yeah we were excited about that that's that's a new addition new teacher too coming in so that that's really great really really great um I also wanted to ask um under your um under facilities but it's not facilities um it says you're looking for a fourth full-time El teacher um how are you sustaining right now with your numbers with need that position says this needed so last year we had two full-time we have three full-time um El teachers right now and we've seen a huge Improvement um with different things we're able to do with their schedule and pushing students out if they need to and

109just being very flexible and creative with how we um schedule our population so four is like really a wish list but it would be great to have one at each grade eventually you know um a few years ago we picked up a fourth special ed teacher to be teaching you know at each grade level and having one for each grade level dedicated to each grade level has been like a game changer in terms of the ability of those teachers to push into classes and then pull out when necessary and with our El students we really want to get to a point where you know they're spending kind of as minimal time as possible in those pull out classes so they can be in those languager content area classes um but we also recognize that they

110need the support So a el teacher at each grade level um would allow us to have you know our El students schedule you know for any pet support they need when they're first kind of you know the level ones once who're just getting their feet wet with English language but really be supported um in science math social studies reading um you know when they push out to those classes so it would like courtne said it would be a game changer um okay we're making do obviously you know it's it's going well the El teachers we have this year are phenomenal we picked up two new ones this year who are just topnotch um and then we have you know our veterans as well but it would be huge yeah our new teachers are amazing right

111thank you so much thank you Mr anything and the measure of success of of school is when a parent comes up to me and uh says great things about Southwest and what's happening over there I think I shared that with you before um and I'm glad to see this using vertical teams the communication between the grades I think that's critical in uh developing uh curriculum so kudos to you guys you're doing a great job thank you thank you yeah everything that I want to say has been said I mean clearly a new school is phenomenal the new field but your combined leadership is what is putting it over the top you know you can feel a new Vibe over there which is really great um and and the feedback as Mr boli says is super

112so uh three specific things appreciate the thoughtfulness and specificity on the smart goals this year I I uh noticed that in appreciate it everybody mentioned extended day love the diversity I mean I found them really interesting some of the offerings were really uh interesting in the diversity and I was like oh I'd like to participate in some of those and then I wanted to congratulate you on the shortest facility needs list of all of the schools in the city uh much appreciated so thank you thank you very much thank you Mr G I have again same thing as my my colleagues a great extended day is incredible I want to thank you so much for the principal's path reading that I really felt like I had a feeling for the school and for what you

113guys were doing and I want to say I know you're lucky to have Miss Foy we're lucky to have both of you we really are so and I'm and we know that um I'm so happy you have a chronic AB absente he is is some go in there um we have concerns obviously about the incident reports and as I know you do and I'm hoping that the trend stays that way and I'm sure you're doing tons to make that happen one question I'm not even sure it's for you if it's for our data guy um I don't understand why you're requiring Assistance or intervention because not everything was typical growth I don't quite understand that they declined in one thing um chronic absenteeism am I missing something yes sir M oh yes yeah so on

114the accountability report there um sorry at the top of the page there it will uh give a definition for why uh they were flagged as requiring Assistance or intervention uh so it could be for a particular subgroup being with the within the lowest 5% of the state um in regards to whether scores or chronic absenteeism something along those lines so it should it should indicate it up there uh it maybe very small print though there's is a subgroup it says white yeah it's it says white no no indication whether those white kids speak are English language Learners or have students students with disabilities so it's really I mean you have some of the highest risk population in our city and I'm grateful that you're here doing all these great things for them and really the

115extended day stuff is wonderful but it makes little sense to me that that's going to be I mean you have to do it I guess but makes little sense to me I I want to thank you I just think uh great to have the feeling from the pathway thing and also from hearing you guys talking be so positive and and committed to doing the greatest things for those kids so thank you very much I'm take a motion to accept the plan by Mr Cantor seconded by Mrs K Hill all in favor thank you again for everything thank you that's easier that's moving how's everybody doing tonight very good good good uh first of all folks thank you so much thank you for having me uh quinsey school committee members uh let me Begin by thanking

116you for the opportunity to present our our 2023 2024 Broad Meadows School Improvement plan it is my honor to be in my first year as the principal of the Broad Meadows Middle School working along with the dedicated and caring staff of individuals to support uh 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 next steps looking ahead what has been crucial in my first 60 days more than anything else however is the work building relationships with our students first and foremost with our families and with the broad Meadow staff it is through these relationships and connections that will help us understand one another and give us the overall

117direction of where we're headed giving students and families a voice through these conversations both formal and informal will help me better understand the needs of Broad Meadows community and how best to move forward reflecting on the prior Year's data with staff at our assessment day we noted an interesting mix of achievement in areas that that needed additional Focus as noted on page six we did not meet overall growth projections on reading map assessment for G grade 6 to8 however saw a marked 5.9 Point increase in the overall average mcast scaled score on the English language arts mcast assessment well exceeding our Target with growth in a typical high growth area on aggregate in the areas of mathematics we met growth projections in grade six and seven on the map assessment and fell just short of

118our Target growth in grade 8 that said we saw much more modest growth in our mcast mathematics overall score charting two points overall aggregate growth improving below our Target in the schoolwide scaled score and falling in the typical growth low category for mathematics for science all three grades showed modest growth in the science map assessment but missed their target that said our grade 8 science mcast broad meow students achieved 1.5 Point growth overall in the all student scaled score meeting our projected targets the growth of many of our students is strong but we will continue to work to identify gaps in the learning and support with the appropriate interventions as needed from an academic standpoint understanding where our students are is always the first step as we complete formative Benchmark and observational Assessments in the

119fall and rely on summative data from the prior spring to assist us in identifying needs of our students beginning on page nine you will see the identification of specific smart goals related to ELA mathematics science and social emotional learning that we as a staff feel will work to further support additional growth in our students for English language Arch we chose to utilize map as a benchmark tool to chart overall growth specifically calculating each grade's growth level uh projection and targeting informational text which is an area of relative weakness both on map and mcast assessments we understand that almost 90% of texts that students will interact with as they reach higher levels of Education in the workforce will be informational texts so having the appropriate strategies and skills to work with these texts will be crucial

120through action steps staff will focus on text dependent questions using text features to support comprehension and understanding an increase in the level of complexity of the questions they are asking on page 15 I will draw you to our schoolwide math goal buildt very much the same way as our Ela goal with a focus on growth using individual map data and placing a focus on growth in statistics and probability in grades six and 8 and geometry in grade seven grade six will place increased focus on graphing and data distribution while focusing on B variant data grade eight in grade seven you will see a focus placed on more authentic assessments using critical thinking skills to solve real world math problems using surface area in our science goal on page 17 we have targeted the physical science

121strand in grade 6 to8 which will be reflected at each grade level with the specific focus on physical science topics as well as making this the area Focus for our 2023 2024 stem fair later in March finally you'll see our fourth and final goal which is a focus on the overall social and emotional health and wellness of our students success and challenges for our students in this area can be reflected in so many data points that I've witnessed over the years like attendance engagement in extended day activities student day uh safety and discipline reports and finally through the vocal survey which really includes St student voice and takes all of these things into consideration we chose using using student rating of our school on the vocal survey as a measure to elevate student voice in

122this plan but I feel action steps reflect the importance on attendance engagement and student safety as well specifics of our fourth goal allow me to highlight our partnership this year with the Shamrock Allstar Foundation our further implementation of open parachute lessons and increased offerings in our extended day programmingsoftware languages supporting many of our broad medals families who speak over 20 different languages in our school we are excited to continue our robust extended day program which is servicing over 200 students currently in grade 6 to 8 through a blend of academic support programs enrichment activities in inter mural and extramural sports we are excited to include so many of our students beyond the bell both in the morning and the afternoon we are especially excited to bring back our Broad Meadows drama program this year looking

123ahead to our students performing Annie Jr in March and as much as I've enjoyed cross country volleyball Robotics and flag football just to name a few listening to our operation days work students work with other sites around the country to choose a school in the Congo as a recipient of the odw grant this year was truly a powerful experience and one that I'm sure our students will not forget we also continue to be proud of the connections we forg with our families and involvement we have uh 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 last but not least I'd like

124to take the opportunity to thank the students staff and families of the Broad Meadows Middle School for welcoming me with open arms to their Community 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 and families of Broad Meadows and I welcome any questions or feedback you may have on our plan thank you thank you so much folks Mr Santoro I just wanted to thank you Mr ER for not skipping a beat and coming in ready to go and staying right where you are you've done a marvelous job and I just wanted to thank you thank you Mr sentor C yeah I I think I just have the same um comment just um thank you for

125taking the lead there and I think they're really lucky to have you um look forward to seeing how the how things are going to go while you're there I'm sure it's going to be great um I had a question about any your facilities sure um first I did want to make a comment across the board so far um our class sizes are amazing I mean we are so lucky and um you know I think the public needs to understand that we're really lucky and that that what we're what we're doing in our class sizes um the um so on Election Day lucky for me I wasn't on the ballot but I hit all the um bake sales sure in in the thank you for coming ate a couple of cookies in between I didn't cook

126drove ate cookies um I I I came to the school and I'm looking at facilities and I went in the back where the the election was and it was of course in New England you know it gets dark at like 4: um there was is the lighting really dark in the back in the parking lot area coming into your school at night y um I'll say that I haven't observed it I was actually just back there about half an hour ago uh maybe more like an hour ago for the end of our volleyball game it is darker back there the whole that whole area to be perfectly Frank with you could use a fair amount of work um from lighting to um Paving there's actually a a Transformer box there too it's um things are

127I I had spoken with um Mr Hines and Mr bot to start the year and and my hope is for some continued uh uh Improvement there as well so but it's it's it's a yeah it's a little bit of a challenging area yeah dark I mean and I think you know that's something think that we should be really looking at at some point I'll check the lighting there too I don't know if it's um but thank you thank you look forward to seeing what you're going to do there I'm sure it's going to be great thank you Mr gutro Nick you left quite a legacy at um Marshall and so I'm going to give you a pass here but I I do want to say that I've heard from a lot of parents PTO parents

128that are delighted at Meadows with you you know how great you're doing how approachable you are how responsive you know so the Legacy that you had at Marshall you're continuing and whatever we can do to help you we want to do thank you Mr gutro thank you thank you Mr G uh yeah I have to say I agree um I've heard the same thing from parents uh it's lovely to hear I love the fact that you're really pushing the family engagement and the fact that you have so many of your kiddos in extended day right now is huge it really is huge I really am happy that you have a smart goal around your absenteeism uh and your social emotional learning um in the uh smart goal around um the vocal survey so I'm really

129really really happy to see those two things your absenteeism has improved but still is an issue which you mentioned so I know that we'll be looking at that as a district as well to see what we can do um but really I think your plan is is wonderful and I would entertain a motion to accept it Mrs kahill seconded by Mr Santo all in favor thank you very much thank you thanks you motion to adjourn second advice