001Good evening and uh welcome to the October 23rd, 2025 uh school committee meeting. At this time, I'll call to order and ask everyone to rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We'll start off with introduction of members. I'll start on this side. >> Carrie got Blackstone. >> Matt Catalano Milville. Chuck Dun Blackstone. >> Tara Lark in Milville. >> Dan Keefe, Blackstone. >> Maya Gany, student council president. >> Kristen Donado, director of finance and operations. >> Jill Pilgalerani, interim superintendent. >> Uh, moving up. Moving on to the update from the student representative. Okay, so our marching band is getting ready for their nationals in Rutherford,
002New Jersey, which will be on the 8th of November, and they're going to be taking a bus down there, and they are so excited. We've got 15 seniors, and it's going to be their last nationals, and from what I've heard, it's going to be their best one. We've got our second meeting with our mentors and eighth graders happening tomorrow during our extended block. So we have a mentorship program in which upper classmen, so juniors and seniors, have a group of eighth graders that they mentor and show the ropes and make sure that they are adjusting to the high school and doing well there. And as a part of tomorrow's mentorship meeting, we also have a Q&A panel because last month all the eighth graders got to write down questions they wanted to know answers to
003about school and how to manage time and stress from upperassmen. And those questions will be answered tomorrow during the meeting. Our pep rally theme for this year has been announced and it is Disney. So all the classes are able to pick a specific subcategory under the Disney theme. So we've got musicals, we've got princess and princesses, we've got action and adventure, we've got many options under that umbrella. So I'm sure that will be a great theme. And I heard the seniors already have some ideas for what they wish to do with it. Classes are getting their banner supplies together also for pep rally at the moment and ordering class shirts. So students should be on the lookout for when their class will be ordering shirts so they get their payments in on time for that.
004Student council is attending officer shop this Saturday at Wister Technical High School. It is a leadership conference in which students will go through workshops and hear from a guest speaker this year. That is a special thing. There normally is not guest speakers at officer shop, but we did pull one through this year. The state board did. So that will be fun and exciting. And we also have our fall conference in the CD region which will be on November 12th at Grafton High School at three o'clock. And that will also be a great leadership and collaboration experiences where students will once again go to workshops and they also have some games planned for fall conference. Pumpkin carving will be happening next week during our advisory period as well. That is a little BMR tradition that everyone
005always loves. So, within your little advisory groups, you get to carve a pumpkin and then those pumpkins are displayed in the courtyard outside the school. Our mock trial team has had their first meeting on the 21st of October. Their case will be released on next Tuesday, and they will have their case release dinner the following Wednesday, which will be at Chili's at 5:00 p.m. Speaking of Chili's, um the class of 27 is actually doing a fundraiser that night, and that dinner was planned in accordance with that. So, if you're hungry on Wednesday, um, support the class of 27 at Chili's anywhere from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. Speaking of fundraisers, the girls volleyball team is also doing a fundraiser tonight, which has been going on since 400 p.m. and will be until 9:00 at Good Stuff
006Smokehouse. There's good food and raffle baskets. Volleyball has had their senior game the past week and their season has concluded as well. And our soccer team, additionally, they are playing tonight. and recently have just been awarded first in their division. So this year was the inaugural year of the CMAC which is a brand new athletic conference. So dual valley which we were previously a part of was dissolved and we are now part of CAMAC and they are first in their CAMAC division with a seven and one record. >> Thank you. >> Very good. >> Thank you very much. >> We have nothing for warrants this evening. >> No we do not. So, we'll pass over consent agenda A. Anyone here for public forum would like to address the school committee. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move
007on. Um, if there's no objection from the members of the school committee, I'd ask that we take out a facilities request out of order for the veterans breakfast. Well, Celeste, is that what you're here for? >> Yes. Hello. >> Nice. >> How is that Maya from the first time she was here at the meetings from now? It's like, wow, >> she's amazing. Um, I filled out actually two requests for facilities. I'm not sure if you got the one from today or not, but the one I'm really here for today is um we normally have a Veterans Memorial, a Veterans Day breakfast at um Divine Mercy, and this year we can't have it there. So, we're kind of scrambling to try and get someplace else to have this breakfast. We don't want to not do it.
008Um so, the request was for BMR to have it in the cafeteria. Um, we were hoping that we would have somebody who would cater it so we wouldn't have to cook, but that is not going to happen. So, we do need the kitchen. And it's 8 to 8 to 1 time to set up and then clean up. >> And I see some of the committee members looking through their packets. Those who came in, they were off to the side. Let's see how they're on the side ones. says the the back page has additional cost since you are using the kitchen. Is that what So it's 53230 for the kitchen plus the 310 for custodians? No, it's actually the 31090 is the custodial fee and then the kitchen supervisor fee is the 221 bringing it to
009a total of the 530 230. Perfect. That's better. And we do ask that that be waved because we um you know we let the schools use the fields all the time and we don't charge anything. So we're hoping that we can you can offset that with with uh our request of an abundance of caution. I'm just going to recuse myself and let Tara carry on with this cuz I work with Celeste on this. >> All right. You want a motion? I'd like to make a motion to approve the veterans breakfast um from 8 to 1 in the cafe with a wave of the cost. >> Is there a second? >> Second by Malano. Uh any further discussion? I'll just say they've had this the past how many years now? >> Three years. And it's >>
010and we did we did ceremony. So we've been having a veterans event for the last six years. I know six years. >> Last year they um honored uh Purple Heart recipients that did not receive it during the Vietnam War. Is that what it was? >> One this year that once >> and um or were unceremoniously given the uh the award. So it was a really nice um event. And then, you know, there's some more recent Purple Heart uh recipients. So, it was the place was packed. I think you actually need a bigger place. >> So, um happy to hear that it's going to be here because hopefully more of our local veterans can can see it and uh you know, look forward to it. So, thank you for doing this. >> If you need help,
011we have NHS students who always need hours. >> I talked to uh Maya. She's going to talk to the student council and I'll reach out to the National Honor Society and the scouts as well. So, it's always nice. The scouts always help. Um, it's at it's at the church. Um, but we're going to ask them, you know, to come and have the Girl Scouts come as well. >> Awesome. >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? >> And abstain. All right. Motion passes to wave the fee and approve the request. Okay. Thanks. And I'll come back for the other one. >> Thank you so much. Thanks for taking me out of order. >> Uh we have nothing on the school committee portion of the agenda. So we'll go
012right into the report of the superintendent. >> So this is the night of our um teams from our schools. We're going to be reporting out on our I Ready data which again this is the first year that we're using I Ready. Remember in previous years we've used STAR um MCCAST and our school improvement plans. And I believe the high school has one additional report they're going to share tonight is our AP data. Um before we do that, in your package you'll see and I kind of give you a little one summary cheat sheet. Um when it comes to our overall accountability data for Blackstone, um the areas that they look into are achievement. So, our overall achievement in the areas of this is as a district ELA, math and science, the growth um in ELA
013and math, our overall high school completion, which is described some of those areas, our progress toward English proficiency for our English language learners, our chronic absenteeism and advanced coursework completion. So, overall, as a district, we are still continuing on that moderate progress target. That's where we were last year. Um, so we're hoping um some of the new things we're implementing, we'd love to continue to inch that forward. Um and as you'll hear tonight based on this accountability and just so you know the accountability compares itself to not only how you're doing achievement but the targets they set for you. So again we're um on the moderate um progress target. The other thing just to note is in the past our high school um when it came to comparison how how they're doing in the state
014were compared to other high schools. Now they are not. So, the way they break them down is um and this is in your packet as well, but they look at non- high schools, which are serving grades 3 through 8, middle, high school, and K through 12 schools start um at buildings that are 3 through 8, but also serve grade 10, and then just high schools that are over. So, now our high school is in a different um category for comparisons. That's the first year, so just to throw that out there. So, I know our schools are here to be able to present um how they did this year on all of the information. We've tried to be um very succinct and provide you with really an overall summary and how our students are doing in
015all those different assessment areas. Okay. So, we were going to start with MEES, then go to the middle school and then the high school. So, we could have our MEES team come on up. Pleasure. I know we have these slides. I'll have to introduce themselves first. Go ahead. >> Um, hi, I'm Rebecca Harp and I teach second grade. I'm Mary Vaughn, math interventionist. >> Christina Schaefer, principal. If I give Tim a minute to find those. >> We're starting with >> Yep. MEES. >> Yes. >> In this little cluster. All right. So, um we'll start with our I Ready data. Um I'm not going to read every number to you. You can read them. Um we have looked at it and um we definitely did better in math than reading. Um reading is an area that
016we are going to be also looking at. um open response areas was another area that was a concern and we'll talk about that in a little bit but that was something that obviously does impact the reading and then you can see the math. Um one thing to note about our data because we're the early childhood building and you get to that um three grades or three or more below uh grade levels below. We don't really have any of that until you get to third grade. You can't be three grades below grade level. So, um, so that's why our K1 and two have automatically zero. Um, so just so you're aware of that. And then this is our math performance. Um, and then the reading and the math were broken down. So, um, I'm going to
017let Rebecca talk a little bit about those. Um yeah, we noticed that um we scored pretty high in the phological awareness and the high frequency words and um we're attributing that to our three or four years work with the early literacy grant and all the slides that relate to our phonics program. Um the kids are really responding well to that and um we're seeing a big improvement in those areas. >> And there's a gray box in grade three because they don't test phonological awareness in the grade three. I ready assessment. That's why there's a box there. >> Can I ask a quick question on this? I think it's what's different from STAR and I mean doing the assessment seeing it. Having these categories must give you much more focus to be able to see where
018the kids are actually achieving rather than just one overall performance. And with um STAR we had so K and one were the early literacy um assessment and that was very like it was they claim early literacy and early numeracy but the some of the questions were like what's the number three and they just have to click on a number three. So it really doesn't give you a good assessment. the I Ready, as you can see, it does, as Jill had mentioned, it does break everything down into each of the um the domain areas. And it's great because Dibbles actually we're we're finishing up that um kind of review of it breaks down into the same categories. So, we can kind of see that comparison because with between the two so >> and if you remember
019when last year compared when Christina and Milville were comparing STAR to dibbles, there was a big disconnect. So, we're hoping where they're assessing the same areas, we're going to be able to see a little bit more alignment with that, be able to support the work we do even better. >> And, um, one area we do, um, in both math and, um, really across the school, math and reading, um, we do have to focus more on our, um, special ed and, um, ELLL population, we have had inconsistent support, um, for our L students in the last couple years um, well, at least last year. and um that we think is you know a contributing factor to some of the decline or the the scores in our L students um special education we have to continue working
020on our tiers our tier one our tier two and our tier three instruction so that's one of the things that MTSS will be looking at how we're going to best support our students what strategies we can use and the nice thing about I Ready they actually have a bunch of pieces where you can it helps make your groups and you can use that data to take to take your groups groups and say, "Okay, these kiddos need this particular concept. These kids need these." So, and it gives you actually lessons and stuff. So, it helps with the prep the preparation for the assessments and the groups um so that the teachers can have materials already ready to go and everything you need is there. So, so for math, most of our students fell with the one
021grade level below. That's our largest um area of percentage. Um I did note that the average for kindergarten they took the um the test is 72 questions they took um that test in 26 minutes. So less than 30 seconds per question. Um first grade was 28 minutes average. Second grade was 43 minutes for average and third grade was 49 minutes per average. Um with our K and one students we did notice they had trouble with their computers and Chromebooks especially K. So, I think there was a little bit of growing and learning on how to manipulate, how to um some of it had it on one page and you had to arrow down for the next question. They didn't know to do that. Um there's a microphone for some of the answers. They didn't know
022to hit on every microphone to hear the answer before they could choose. So, I think next time hopefully they've gotten a lot of practice with this. And we're also looking to get maybe a video or something that can show our students a little bit more about it so we can prepare them before they take it the next time. >> And even like a demo account where we can say, "Okay, this is what you need to press every time you see a microphone. I need a speaker. You need to press that so you can hear it." >> Online's the only option. Correct. >> Correct. Um, also t test taking strategies. We want to make sure every student has paper and pencil and that they know to use it. um first and grade, second most I'm sorry,
023kindergarten, first mostly just guests. They didn't have anything to do. Um again, I think that's a little bit of growing pains in learning and hopefully we'll see a difference um next time around. So as we were looking through everything um we kind of noted a few things and I know Rebecca had mentioned the high frequency words of funological awareness came up as areas of strength for our school as well as numbers and operation strengths for all grades and I was super excited because grade three has actually been in the early literacy work that we've been really focused on that science of reading since I think they were in either K or one they were really and they had 90% of their students had um were on or above grade for um their high frequency words,
024which is a big difference from what we saw in the past. Um some areas of opportunity are vocabulary across all grade levels. Um and you'll notice in our school improvement plan, you'll see some of that. Um geometry across grade levels. Um we did notice that geometry in each grade is taught at the end of the year. So that's kind of where you're rushing to get it all done. So, we look, maybe we need to kind of pull some stuff out to push that in and figure out how we can best support um those students. And then ownership and student ownership and engagement is definitely something we um also have in our school improvement plan. Um because we want our students to understand they actually have a piece in how they do. It's not just us.
025It's not just a lucky guess. Um it's their ownership and responsibility in what they're doing even at 5 years old. So, um, and then, um, we're working on students explaining and justifying why they did something. And that's even can take place in oral communication with the kids. So, when we're talking about books, why do you think the character did that? And having them use those text references to help them. And same with math. How did you get that answer? Why did you get that answer? So, and we were talking about something the other day that you've been making the kids explain to you about, >> right? So, they give me an answer. I'm like, explain what you're thinking. So they're explaining and then someone else say, "Oh, I did that, too. I did it a
026little differently." So to take that time to have them explain >> um so that they can use that vocabulary, they can explain. Maybe someone next could think, "Oh, I maybe I should do that the next time." So just taking a little bit of time to do that. >> Um and then and this kind of ties a little bit into the MCCAST as well. So we um have been looking a lot at our instructional priorities. So again, vocabulary focus. Um we're working on identifying strategies to use in each grade level so that we can kind of build that toolbox of strategies that students can use with vocabulary. >> Um targeted student supports, making sure that we're picking what's right for the kiddos and focusing on it, providing that instruction, that intervention, and then progress monitor our
027groups. Making sure that really spending time progress monitoring those groups. And if a student has met that skill focus, move them on out. and then bring some more kids that need something else in there. >> And from an intervention perspective, um the reading and the math have we've pulled the 25%. We've actually looked at subcategories. So for myself, it's numbers and operations and for the reading it was the fun ph funological awareness. Sorry. So that's what we've been doing with that. And we're going to monitor within like 6 to 8 weeks. So we're coming up on our 8w week mark to see how they've done and where we can go and move from from there. and do we push them back into the class and take another group or do we still work with this
028subset? And then on to that is the monitoring and accountability goes with what Mary was saying uh you know continuing to make sure that in our windblock in our intervention that we're getting those kids that we need to get and providing that specific instruction that they need for those to fill in those gaps in the areas that they have. Any questions on that? So Tim, we're moving on to MESCAST. All right. So we only have one grade to report on. Um so um ours is going to be very quick. So we have grade three. Um as you can see many so math we did as well or above for the most part in all grade in all um the breakdowns. ELA is an area we do need to work on a little bit. Um it's
029not horrifically off um but it's definitely an area we need to work on just as well as our subgroups um that are in there. One thing we did note too is our third graders. We actually last year had a bunch of new ELLL students in our school which we did not have control over what they learned in previous years. So, you know, if you have them for more time, you can. And we were noticing kind of like the students that have been with us for a few years, the difference in their scores on how they did versus um other students that we may not have had. And again, as I mentioned with the I Ready, you know, continuing focus on how we can best support our subgroups and making sure they're meeting the needs and
030not leaving them behind because we have some students that are meeting, I mean, are exceeding the expectations in our high needs category, but how do we how do we keep them moving, right? How do we keep those students because our larger numbers are in the partially meeting and not meeting which are similar to state, but we still need to keep them moving. We don't want to settle on average. We want to make them better. So, how do we keep focusing on that? And it goes back to our our monitoring and making sure that we're making progress in those areas. Um, one of the things that we did the first, um, two days of school with the teacher orientation is really looking at the MCCAST and seeing where at each grade level, and we did this
031last couple years, but looking at each grade level because we're the foundation. So if we don't build a strong enough foundation, the middle school that's going to get us and then the high school that gets us will have would still be crumbling and we don't want it to do that. So um we kind of looked at each grade level as where and um writing was definitely an area written responses and responses to text an area for opportunity. Um so again math I had mentioned um word structure was another area that was um that we did well with compound words parts of speech um we did well with and then um so it was interesting because word problems if the equation choices were there they could identify the correct equation. If they had to solve it
032without the equation choices they did not do well with that. That is an area for opportunity. So that's clearly something we need to work on as well um in our school and making sure that we're so one of the things we were talking about is sh either doing some different writing prompts um to share on the things and also potentially some different math problems but we're trying to wean all that work through all that because obviously K is going to answer very different than three. So maybe making some different games and making it a fun contest. Um, and for writing, we actually talked about um, having the students possibly share some of their writing on the intercom. They love doing the pledge. We have like um, like a two or three week wait to do
033the pledge. They like to hear themselves on the intercom. So, why not use that to help us share some writing and maybe have a kid from each grade share their writing piece that they did. So, to get them talking. Um, and then our next steps for that one. Um, again, focusing on writing, high order thinking skills. These are things you're going to see in our school improvement plan. Um, and then developing focus areas and writing across all subjects, the vocabulary strategies again. Um, and then intervention progress checks and have students provide their high impact um, strategies. So, making sure we're using those researchbased evidence-based practices and strategies to provide that intervention. Um, as we talked about with the I Ready, making sure that we we have the right scope in sequence so we're not rushing
034to get that geometry in or those other areas and then um using that those embedded focus areas. Any questions on MCATs? All right. So, Tim, the next one is so just so you all know, normally when we have the school improvement plan, you're notice >> Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> We are we asking questions? >> Sure. Yep. >> Yes. >> I and I apologize for being late. Um, apologize for that. I I always find that one of the issues with these numbers is we don't have the number. Did you say how many ELLL students were took an MCAT test? >> I don't have that number quick. I can pull it up after. But >> it is a small population of students. >> Very small >> because I mean, you know, >> it's not good
035and it's not good for special ed, but it's usually so tiny that it could be one person. Right. Good. And we also have to remember with our English language learners maybe 10. Yeah. With our English language learners, we have some students who have only been here >> for a year or two or less. >> Or less. Yes. Um so we do have that. But yes, our population >> but it would be helpful to know numbers because then you're giving a better picture because if you're talking about one person and they don't meet, yeah, that's okay. If you're talking about a 100 and 70% don't meet, right? Exactly. >> It's that's significant. Congrats on the math cuz that looks like it's definitely moving in the right direction. >> Um, one of our ELLL students actually was
036a newcomer so she doesn't have she didn't take the ELA key. So, she didn't take ELA but she did take math. >> Oh, wow. Okay. >> Christina, can you Did you say you could get us those numbers? Can you get the ones for the special ed, too, please? >> Yeah, the Yeah. >> Yeah. Any other questions on MCCAST? So, in your packet, you'll see the entire school improvement plans from all the buildings. But what we asked our principles to do, because some of them are 12, 14, 15 pages, was to create a one page summary with the highlights that they they're going to be able to review with you. >> Okay. Um so in strategic area number one which is the what for the curriculum our goal is to have daily writing across the content
037areas and to build expression and ownership through that daily writing >> and our goal too is higher order questioning to implement compare analyze justify and explain to build build critical thinking >> in the how which is instruction. The goal number one is scaffolded writing opportunities so the students are um have equitable developmentally appropriate writing experiences in the class and goal two student ownership and vocabulary and that was build higher order thinking and academic language. So, just real quick, so those, as you'd see, those are things we talked about in the data from MCCAST and I already um is really just making sure we're getting more writing in for our kiddos. And it may not be pretty. It may be like a line, but in kindergarten, that's developmentally appropriate, right? And if they're making letter sounds
038or if they say, you know, a K, but it's supposed to be a C, that's okay because it's still making the same sound. So that's what we want them to do is even in the preschool level like making sure they're getting something down and whether it just be shapes that's okay. They think it's writing and they can tell us what it is. So really working on that piece >> in strategic area three the whole child first goal is inclusive seal and self- advocacy. So, we're going to be using Navigate 360 and PBIS to support um the social emotional growth. And I we have tweaked the PBIS a little bit this year. Um >> we introduced the golden horseshoe which is very big as opposed to the little ones and very popular. they can give them
039out to an entire class and once the entire class has earned 10 then they can celebrate in whatever way they want to. So that's been a a big hit this year. >> And when the teachers tell us we announce it over the exam, congratulations to this class for making that. So it's great too. So we give them out in the cafeteria. We give them they can be walking from a special a specialist can give them at a special. They could be walking back. Another teacher could see them walking in the hall and say, "Oh my gosh, you're doing such an awesome job. Give them a golden horseshoe." and the teachers are displaying them in the windows of their classroom so the kids are seeing them as they walk by in the hall too which is
040good and we're working on um like the a special incent a buyin in incentive where they can save up their horseshoes and earn at different points in the year we're aiming for two this year where they get a special they it's like say 50 horseshoes and they can get whatever the special treat that we're going to do is so >> and goal two is measurable seal growth we're going to strengthen collaboration among faculty, faculty, families and communities. And in the last area, it's the community. So the goal is to strengthen homeschool community partnerships through family events, multilingual communication, and inclusive engagement. >> Question. You have the whole big one. So >> Mhm. >> And just so you know too, I know I've talked about the work that we're doing with the learning acceleration network. It's
041been great because our um a liaison, our our coach who comes over has also had an opportunity. All the work we're doing with land ties into all the work that we're doing now. So it nothing lives in its own space. It's all together. Anything else for me? Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Our middle school Hi, I'm Megan Murray. I'm the fourth grade special education teacher here. >> Jamie Maurice, seventh grade math. >> Jenny Ramka, principal. Um, so I'm going to jump into the I Ready data. Um, I just wanted to start with I know Jill had mentioned this that this is our new diagnostic this year, but it's also much more. So we have we can use it all year like meas was saying with the my path and
042creating groups for RTI and getting lessons and there's also standard mastery where you can take a test. So it's really collecting the pre and post data for RTI. So it's really helpful. The first slide is the reading data. This is for every grade the whole school not the subgroups. Um so some major points of success were the majority of students met or succeeded in phonics and we had a very strong performance and high frequency words where 93 to 99% were at or above level. And then an area of growth for us in reading would be our comprehension specifically offormational text. So to target this um we're kind of working with we have wonders but we're kind of bringing in some more highinterest texts that are informational to work with those. Um so now the special
043ed data for um reading across the grade level. Again we kind of noticed a strength in the phonics and the high frequency words. Um many students were at or near grade level in these areas. An area of growth would be the vocabulary and the comprehension. again specifically with theformational text. Um so overall the students show a strength in decoding but we kind of have some gaps with the comprehension when reading a text. So we're targeting this now um I can speak for myself again by using more of those um relevant text and high interest text for the students and we're also um our students with disabilities are included in RTI group. So we're kind of targeting those based on their needs as well. Um you want to mention about um theformational text that we're utilizing
044our social study curriculum because there's a lot offormational text in there in wonders it's just not enough. So we're kind of like you know merging both program. So utilizing theformational text but also working on the comprehension piece. Same with science as well and stem scopes. Um did I skip? >> Yes. It's okay. So now for reading for our MLS, um again we kind of had some mixed results here, but we just want to say that an area of growth was the vocabulary again, which makes a lot of sense because they're learning these targeted or at least vocabulary words for academics while learning a new language and learning the content. So it makes sense to target that. This year I actually have a lot of um MLS in my group along with they also have a
045disability. So I'm using a lot more picture vocabulary, previewing those vocabularies. um across the different subject areas. Um an area of success for them again was the phonics and the high frequency words. There's still growth need to be done there, but they did a nice job. Um so now jumping into math, an area strength schoolwide was our number and operations and our algebra, our algebraic thinking. And we just wanted to highlight this because in years past this was not um an area of success for us. So now we're seeing the work we've done as a su success here. Um like Mia said an area of growth for us as well was measurement and geometry. Um they mentioned this as well that HMH always has those two modules at the end. So the way we've done
046this at the middle school is kind of being creative in the ways you hit the content earlier in the year using RTI the my path on I ready you can assign skills to work on um you can also STM math for grade four and five we can assign objectives um so those are ways we've been targeting it we also in years past have used our art classes to teach symmetry so we're kind of hitting it and across the curriculum and across different areas So now again special education um a better relative performance in number and operations again a consistent struggle across the school including these students was the geometry and measurement. So we know that there's a foundational understanding but kind of those abstract reasoning. So again we're trying to use ACE this year across
047all groups including subgroups to kind of get them writing and thinking more in math to explain their reasoning. We also use I know Miss Maurice is going to talk more about this. Math is her realm. Um but we use the new strategy of building thinking classrooms. So all the rooms are thinking classrooms, including my own. Um so we're getting the kids up and talking with their groups that they're doing the thinking. >> It's actually great to see when you go in. I I really enjoy seeing that when it's in the classroom, the kids really understand what they need to do. It's not just kids standing there and talking. >> No. Yeah. Um it's awesome. And like students that are really hesitant often to participate, if it's just three of them in the group, they're actually
048getting their thinking out there and they're able to get it on the board and they see they see it themselves and it's just it's awesome for their confidence. Oh, sorry. Um now again for the um MLS in math um uh we had a strength in some foundational skills in numbers and operations, but again the math vocabulary is kind of the hindrance there. So, we're targeting those words specific per operation words. I know Mrs. Tumi here, our um language teacher, also focuses on a lot of the vocabulary across the different content areas, previewing and reteing those. So, overall, um I'm not going to read it verbatim, but just an overall strength was again numbers and operations and algebraic thinking. And a struggle or opportunity area was geometry and measurement. And then some areas of strength and
049opportunity in reading. Again, the strength is the phonics mastery and the high frequency words mastery. And I'm sure you all know this by high frequency words are just words you can't tap out or decode yourself. You just have to know them. Um, and then opportunity area was thatformational text and comprehension in that. >> Okay. Next steps are our instructional priorities. Jane has a question. Oh, sure. >> Just just a quick question and again it may have been said before you start before everybody started and I arrived, but this is I ready beginning of the year data. >> Yes. >> So if somebody's one grade level below, so a seventh grader and they're one grade level, they're testing at the sixth grade level, which is essentially where they should be. That's actually >> So the one
050grade level is really not a >> Yes. Exactly. Yep. That's how we interpret the data as well. we talk to the coach that comes here from my ready >> because again I think important to know and numbers of how many students we're talking about. >> I have those actually. Um so just to on record I'm saying ML instead of L just so you know but it's the same thing essentially. Um these numbers include um students that have are fells or they former former English learners they're still included in this data. Um so for grade four I'll do L first. Um there are 10 students, grade five, 13, grade six, seven, and grade seven four. >> Yeah. See, there you go. >> And then for special ed, grade four, um 29 students, grade five, 15, grade
051six 25, and grade 7 20. And I don't want my comments to make it seem like uh there's only four. that doesn't those four are very important but it's just significantly when you say 60% of four like >> and this is this is a lot this is for the MCAST numbers as well so correct grade four is yeah now >> thank you >> you know what I mean >> um okay I think our next step so again I we kind of touched upon this and I'm sure Miss Maurice will as well when she goes over MCCAST but just implementing those thinking classrooms for deeper reasoning and collaboration is our instructional priority this year um we're using professional development opportunities to target writing instruction using the writing rope um BTC practices and getting um everyone on
052the same page and implementing it not every step right away but kind of slowly to get the buy in from all the staff along with the students um and also using our restorative and SEAL approaches and then we also use datadriven interventions tiered supports um enrichment for advanced learners our math interventionist is actually taking a group of advanced students um and intervening that way. And we're also progress monitoring through I Ready and the other tools like I mentioned with the standard mastery on I Ready and our MTSS team which I'm also a part of is really focusing this year on those tier supports and kind of before moving to a referral we're really for special ed we're really focusing on that tier three and see making sure we're changing the intervention to be more than
053what they were getting in tier 2. So either more time >> targeted in >> more one-on-one or a smaller group. >> So when when we refer a student to special ed, they truly went through tier 2, tier three. We saw all the you know intervention and now we just you know referring for special ed evaluation. >> Does anyone have any questions? I ready. >> Should we tell Tim MCAST? >> Yeah, Tim, we're gonna move on to um the middle school MCCAST. Okay. When we started the ILT looking at our MCCAST data, we started with the previous year's data and we thought it was important to compare group to group, apples for apples. So, we started in fourth grade because that's our current fifth grade for this year. So, in 2024 spring, um some trends we
054noticed before we started the comparisons were um students in grade four were around the state average. um science was outperforming the state and 7th grade ELNA ELA and math were slightly above the state average. When we move on now to um where we are now just as a baseline and backdrop, spring of 25 uh 2025 that just passed. Looking at the table on the screen, we noticed grade four, which is our current grade five, held pretty steady in that 44 to 40% range. um grade five to six showed strong growth in ELA and math um which we attributed to maybe the models in fourth and fifth grade what they're doing in RTI were looking to continue into sixth and seventh um that that looking at the data and really grouping the kids based on where
055they are and what they need was was kind of evident in the um the data that we were seeing um grade six to grade seven we saw improvement in ELA um we acknowledge that there was a dip in the math um that we are looking into um we're wondering if some of the math decline might be where some of the items are located in the curriculum that we're presenting to them has already been mentioned with geometry and measurement. Another area was expressions that we were noticing when we particularly looked at the seventh grade data. Um our students receiving specialized instruction. Um we were really proud of 17% of them meeting the standards. We felt that that was statistically significant considering the population that we had. Um several student several grades showed movement from not meeting
056to partially meeting. And though that may be a gradual progress, we thought it was progress nonetheless. Um we acknowledge in looking at the data that there are areas we are definitely still working towards that we're not proficient in yet. Um especially with the ELA, we're closely monitoring it as we know reading and language impacts them across all their content areas. Um some next steps are we're going to continue to provide students with opportunities um fill in some of the grade level skills that are needed and some of the gaps that we're noticing that they may have. Uh our multilingual learners um grade four with the math 50% were meeting or exceeding. We definitely saw that as celebration and none were not meeting um the standards. math remained a relative strength for our multilingual learners. Um,
057and it really supports the claim of the need for that strong quantitative reasoning that the numbers are making sense to them more than some of the language at that point in time. Grade 5, 61% were above or meeting um, which we're hopeful will indicate success in the future with some of those solid foundational skills. Uh, ELA will remain an area of growth and focus for our multil- language learners. uh increased increased intentional supports in those areas needed especially with the writing and the comprehension. So overall with all of our data when we looked at it areas that we felt were strong and we celebrated um most of the cohorts in ELA or math demonstrated demonstrated some growth. Um grade science continues to be an area that Blackstone Milville should be proud of. they continue to
058shine with their scores and what they're they're doing in those classrooms. Um growth scores for a lot of students ranged between 40 and 50% which is statistically significant and meaningful growth. Um areas for continued growth on our parts with the 4 to 7 grade bands with MCCAST um would be focusing on the upper middle school. The math is definitely something we're looking at. We're looking to strengthen our pacing and really um strengthen that conceptual understanding that they really have an understanding of what's happening with the numbers. Um literacy will remain an integral part of our curriculum because again it's it's affecting all curriculum areas. next steps. Um, building thinking classrooms is if you watch or follow us on social media, um, you'll see a lot of those whiteboards up in all classrooms from health to
059science to English, 4th through 7th. Um, really encouraging the problem solving, the collaboration. And for me, it's really more students taking ownership in their own learning, right? It's not me standing and delivering. It's them looking at the problem, breaking it apart, tackling it, thinking they can, and doing it. Um for professional development, we're working on enhanced writing instruction, um writing group, and through the building thinking classrooms. We're utilizing our PLC's to be coached, analyze student work, share strategies that are working, and ensure con uh consistent implementation across the grade level bands and across the middle school 4 through 7. I gave the example of the expressions, Mrs. Dancer and I, we kind of discussed we notice that is an area that definitely needs improvement. that usually comes to us around January, February. We're starting it
060now. You know, we're working with rational numbers. We're putting the expressions in there now. There's no reason we can't start tackling it. We can address the variable piece, you know, more January, but at least that vocabulary around expressions, you know, just bumping it up a little bit, more exposure across the 10 months that we have them in front of us. Um, as far as support and growth, the intervention, the datadriven criteria that we're using to provide the tiered supports to the groups that need it, enrichment opportunities for students um, who need the additional challenge, who really need to stretch their thinking and go beyond what we're providing um, in the maybe classroom setting and the continued progress monitoring across the multiple resources using the I Ready diagnostics, the standards mastery assessments, the growth checks, the
061writing assessments and just guiding the instruction interventions and enrichment for all the kiddos 4 through 7. >> Any questions for our middle school team on MCAST? >> So in your packet you have our school improvement plan. We started the process very early. Um we started a lot um in April um because we look at a lot of data and thinking about um how we should frame our school improvement plan because it's not a document that we put on the shelf. We really live by it every day, you know, and we review it. So um I know Jamie and um Megan mentioned a lot about the thinking classroom. If you like to read, I have extra copies. So I don't want you to think this is a this is not a curriculum. This is a framework.
062Um Peter Lily is the the the author talking about having student thinking. When you have 25 students sitting in front of you, you're lecturing. You don't know what they're doing. You're not you can't walk around see 25 kids. But when they are putting on the vertical board, they're solving problem. You can see everybody. They're not hiding. You know, they can't hide. So that building that confidence. So we spent a lot of time reading that. This is a non-negotiable reading for our staff. Both books and the staff that didn't have time to read, I gave them time to read and and work with the coach. So I'm proudly to say we all read the both books. >> Um so if you look at our school improvement plan, the first area is the what the curriculum and
063it's like focusing on the writing. So which is our writing rope. We we read at the writing room talking about um how you the writing across curriculum is not just the ELA teachers responsibility. You can't a good lesson is really have three parts. The gathering the knowledge and then the middle part is all the student doing the thinking and the last part is really demonstrating their learning by writing about it. You know the reflection. So we look at our writing uh rubric and we work as a team the year IT and ELA team we revise our uh rubric and this year when we did um um beginning of year writing I actually put all the English teacher together and they look at all the writings together we first calibrate we pick five writings everybody read
064the same writing rating the writing then we talk about why did you write you know rate four on uh this area and We talk about that. We spend literally period and a half arguing but because that's important. You need to calibrate. Then we look at our students writing without names. So then you be you know objective. So we correct all the writing together. Then we you know actually align all the um what do they call the area of the the rubric and we put all the data in there and we want to look at that as a whole and identify the trends. So that is like that curriculum piece the first one. The second one is the instruction. How do we deliver instruction? I'm not going to lie, we went into a lot of you
065know stumbling blocks when we looking at this. Uh some of our staff think we're doing thinking classroom today. No we're not doing thinking classroom. We are thinking classroom. So we kind of have to do some you know redirection there. Uh we spend a lot of time um doing learning walk. We actually just finished our three learning walk three days of learning walk uh teachers to teachers. Some of them I joined some of them they went and we got it. You got all the data and now we know what we need to focus on. Now the next one we're going to release some of the teachers working on those areas. So it's that instruction piece. Um the other piece is the whole child. We know academic growth doesn't happen without belonging. Uh the survey uh last
066year we sent out our student some of our student don't feel like they belong and we need to address that. So our counselor worked together during our first two PD day coming up with strategies how do we get our kids belong you know feel belonging and um so they're going to work on restorative practice which you heard from from me before the seal um skill building and really intentional MTSS support I know Megan mentioned about our MTSS team we don't just focus on academics we're looking at students you know that social emotional piece as well uh we uh MTSS team meet at least once a month sometime more it really depends you know the need um everything go through MTSS um team you know any referrals um and then we break off like if a
067teacher have concern about like Matt is struggling you know so I'm teasing you so when they do a BDST we have certain um staff members from the MTSS team would meet and discuss you know what other way we can support that. Um area four is the community. Um we truly believe that we need parent support and we want parent to be part of it. A lot of things that I know sometime we throw ter terminology out there parents don't understand what we talking about. I think we need to make that simple for parents. We want to create like you know um for example math you know they might not understand that understandable you know I need them to teach me I learned the old way so um I'm old yes and >> so we want
068to make sure that we support our staff our teachers I mean our family you know with those resources um you know in closing we really the plan really give us those share language and a set of strategies ies that we can focus on instruction relationship and partnership. Uh so every piece of it is important to us and we frequently visit our plan and making sure that we are on the same page. I I I do feel really good about our team have come along. We are no longer two schools. We merge into one team. Um we really support each other. >> Right. Any questions? >> Thank you. BMI High School. >> Sorry, Jean. I pulled up the I pulled up the results. Um, grade three is 23 special ed, 13 multilanguage learners. >> So, 13.
069>> Thank you. >> Hot off the presses. Christina had it right. So, >> looks like you're >> She knows her people. I am here first already is helpful. >> Yeah. >> Um would you like ours now too? I have ours I made I went on I went on the data to make sure. So when Carol's talking we'll uh we'll get it we'll get it all ready. Okay. >> All right. Are we doing I ready first? I ready? >> Yes. >> Sure. Why not? >> Who's doing I ready? You're doing I ready? All right. Introduce yourself. >> Um so I'm Hillilary Rover. I'm an English teacher and I member at the high school. Um, like the group said, you can see all the numbers. I'm going to kind of jump ahead to those like strengths and
070opportunities and then our next steps. Um, so across for our strengths across all of our grade levels, we noticed that the students were well above grade level in their phonics. And then for our eighth graders, they are high frequency words. Um, the eighth graders were the only ones that were assessed in that area. >> In grade eight, we only had nine students that were identified as two or below two or more grade levels. So that was a nice thing to see. Um and then in grades 9 and 10, we had 81% and 83% of our students who were above grade level in both number and operations and measurement and data showing um like that strong foundation for our math curriculum. For our opportunities, our students need definitely need support um in our literary andformational text
071comprehension. So, comprehension across the board for all of our grade levels, um, our L students, you know, included, was one of our weaknesses for sure. Um, I know we are focusing really heavily on strategies to get them to engage further with the text that are in front of them. Um, whether it's a high engagement text or a really, really challenging text, they're going to have to be able to decipher it. So, giving them those annotation strategies to be able to to work through those texts, we're hoping will translate to that comprehension and understanding of what they're reading. Um, one thing that I think getting it took some getting used to for our students, the transition from STAR to I Ready is there's a lot more reading that they have to go through. Um, STAR typically
072took, you know, kids 20 to 30 minutes. Um, we were finding that our I Ready tests especially, I know for English was taking somewhere in the realm of like 90 minutes. Um, there's a lot of paired passage reading, which they definitely weren't used to when it came to STAR in our curriculum. It's something that we're we've been focusing on a lot more over the years. Um, but really finding those strategies to help them annotate with the text, grapple with more challenging text and figure out on their own using context clues like what does this word mean? What does this sentence mean? Um, that way they're not getting lost in these longer texts along the way because once they get lost, we found that they kind of just shut off and we need to give them
073the strategies to work through those things. Um, and for our other opportunities, geometry is an area that needs support and attention across all of our grade levels. Um, so when we get to our next steps, one of the things we'll talk about is how are we putting in those tier 2 interventions and giving them the the supports that they need. >> Um, which is the additional intervention. You >> seem to have some district themes. >> Yes. >> Right. as soon as that first group was talking about like geometry. Oh, okay. >> Um, so for our next steps, um, one of our instructional priorities and since really last year has been writing across all different content areas. Um, so I know like Carol, you're doing extensive writing in history. We know our science is doing writing.
074Um, our math department is doing writing. We're also going to talk about the building thinking classrooms because we know our math department is doing a lot of that vertical learning. I'm getting the kids up looking at they're all solving a problem, the same problem, but they all might be doing it differently. So, having that conversation of, well, how did you get to this point and how did you get to this point? It kind of opens up a lot of that dialogue in the classroom. Um, our professional development, even from like our August professional development, we've been talking a lot about how can we increase the rigor of our questions. Um, and in increasing the rigor of our questions, we hope to deepen like the students thinking along the way. Um, so if we give them
075the tools, it's kind of like a domino effect. If we give them the tools to grapple with more difficult texts, we can then enter more difficult conversations and give them more difficult questions and it creates richer conversation. Um, our intentional planning with clear learning outcomes and common assessments. I know across the board, every department, especially in their PLC's, is working on those common assessments with those higher order thinking questions. Um, but then using those common assessments as another data tool. So for English, we're looking at literary analysis. Um, and we've had, what are we 8 weeks into school? I think already in our PLC's, we've looked at two different groups of student work. Um, we've done grade calibration with those things and the same conversations that our middle school was talking about. How are you
076getting to this grade? Making sure we're all assessing our students at the same level that they should be assessed at. Um, and then intervention opportunities are those last two points that you see. Um, so I Ready does provide a lot more information for us. I think we had brought that up at the very beginning. um it really breaks it down into the specific skills that our students need to focus on. And with those skills come like resources and lesson plans and things that we can do smaller subgroups during it our our extended time. Um or I think we had also talked about bringing in um like an actual block of time for our students to be able to dedicate to working on those skills that are specific to them. um all of our students are
077struggling with different things, but we want to make sure we are gearing their education towards the thing that they need specifically. And then um the addition of a math intervention class for grade eight students this year. So outside of just that intervention block of you know you know we pull our kids in during charger time or extended time and instead of just doing that actually bringing it into a full classroom setting for those students um like the top bottom >> the top bottom the bottom 10% of our students who really really are struggling that need just an additional class to focus on that that skill. That way we can hopefully bring those those scores up for midyear and end of year. So, we're piloting that um starting the at the term two for um our
078eighth grade. We're starting with 10 10 of the students um in the our math interventionist um Jen LOL is going to be working with I Ready but also doing um so not only having the intervention but also working on the grade level concepts that they're doing in and we're focusing on 8th grade because they have those quarter classes uh G period and so we're going to be able to reshuffle them um based on how that goes for second term um we may look to do um have two full semester opportunities um in the spring in the well starting in January. So, this is going to buy us some time to see how it works. Instead of trying to bite off more than we can chew, we're going to go with this start small. Um and
079our hope is also that as the students, you know, if the students are able to somehow test out and maybe the reason why they were lowle is because they didn't really try very hard. Who knows? You know, there there is a way out. they're not going to be stuck in that for that those 10 weeks. So there is a way out. >> And one of the things you mentioned, Jill, so we're focusing when we're talking about intervention, it's not just the practice and reinforcement. It's the preparation for what's to come. That's a, you know, a bit of a shift as well. >> All right. MCCAST. >> Yep. >> You want that? >> No. Okay. I can barely read. >> Yeah, I can't the angle. Yeah, >> you're of you're of an age. Bless. >> You
080got you got a lot of experience up here. How about that? >> I do. You did. Yes. Um a lot of historical knowledge. >> I'm Carol Ki. I'm one of the social studies teachers and I'm also a member of the ILT. Um so >> there we go. Okay. >> Um so things sort of where we are. Um definitely there is a need to advance the students in the performance category. We are still below state level but um we do have eighth grade intervention as was mentioned to help to address some of these areas where we see those students who are partially and especially not meeting expectations and then the numbers you have those as well. >> One of the things just I'm sorry you were going to say it but I was uh just to
081give you your numbers. So 10th grade we have uh 16 students um special ed students and 17 in grade 8. We do not have a cohort so it does not report for our L students. So that we have L students but you need to have 10 in order for the um data and I'm sorry I did not handcore all of them and give you the data. I messed up on the numbers as it was. So, thank you for your uh you know, yeah, don't do this while you're trying to do anything. >> So, are those less than 10? Yes, correct. >> In the general population data or no? >> Oh, yes, they're only they are included in the data, but they're not included in Yes, they're included in our correct correct. Yep. >> Um so,
082a lot of again common themes with the areas of strength and areas for opportunity. Um a positive was that there was a 50% reduction of in grade 8 from students from the previous year who didn't meet expectations. Um and also we were above state average for grade 8 ELA ELA sorry and we're at state average for science. Um and we're continually seeing our special ed students meet those expectations um which has been a trend. uh some of the opportunities again grade 10 we can show improvement across all the test subjects and we're definitely I would say across the curriculum of many subjects focusing on strengthening our writing and our open response opportunities for our students in those grades and also in grade nine um cuz we're continuing you know that's that bridge year so definitely
083using grade nine as well and then um we are looking to again continue to use the opportunities for intervention with our eighth graders. It's actually been a benefit. Now, we can say that it's been a benefit to have the eighth graders in here. So, we're we're starting to to see that having that. So, >> um some of the next steps again, writing is a big priority across all disciplines. And I think we're also able to see that with having our common assessments because we can make sure that the questions we're asking are rigorous and encourage higher level thinking. And then we can use that uh common assessment time. Uh with those common assessments, we can use our time in PLC's to go over the data and then to make sure like where are we seeing
084gaps, where are we seeing areas of growth and we can also use that uh information from the I Ready results and then again having that intervention class for with the eighth grade to really focus in on using that data to help the students be best prepared. I will give a shout out to um the leadership team and all of the um staff they have been utilizing particularly our core subjects have been utilizing. So we have common duty and in the duty in our 7-day rotation one day is dedicated for PLC. Well they're but they're with each other for all of those minus you know for six of those rotations. um each of the departments particular all of the departments but particularly I've got history and um and English here are using every single duty for
085some type of PLC. >> So on one day on day seven the world history people are getting together on day six it's US history 1. Uh you know on day five we're we've got the English department grade nine are working together and they're working with Hillary. Hillary doesn't have a ninth grade, but she's been working to have that. And so now it's nice to see high quality lessons in the classes that you're going into and seeing multiple teachers doing that because they're really putting in the effort. So that PLC is not once, but it is multiple times a week. So, you know, kudos to them for for using that time. >> I think that's it. >> Yep. >> All right. Sip. >> Any questions on MCAST before we move on? better than me. Maybe >>
086if you can give me um motivation on how to, you know, get these 10th graders to do that, I appreciate that. I will say though, the common assessment theme that we're looking for here, um part of the competency data, a competency determination that we're seeing down the coming down the pike um is about assessments. And so they'll be needing to have final assessments. So, you know, Jill and I talked about this over the summer. We need to build up our capacity to make sure that we have highquality tests and questions so that when the state says submit your your BMR HS assessments, we're ready and you know they'll they'll see that all the work that we're doing. So, every time they meet, it's getting us one step closer to that end goal. >> So, the
087CD the work that we did with that, it's already starting to change. Yeah. >> So, you may it may come to you for it >> some changes this year. >> One page. >> Oh, I think you should. >> Is it in there? >> Do you see my one pager? >> Yes. >> Okay. You have it. All right. Well, then you don't have to. >> It's the one that's not really pretty. Thanks. >> I didn't Canva it. >> Oh, come on. How sad. >> Cap and thank you. >> That's it. Thank you, Tim. >> It's you don't have to read it. You just read what you wrote cuz it's fine. >> Riley, guidance counselor, part of the ILT team. Um, our vision and mission is grounded in the portrait of the graduate with the five C
088pillars. Much that you're going to hear in the what and the how is everything that you've already heard just really condensed as much as I can. uh emphasizing rigor for the uh what emphasizing rigor and equitable curriculum assessment and professional development aligned with mass frameworks and the portrait of the graduate. Our goal being to enhance instruction through intentional planning, data-driven um decisions and consistent evaluation to measure that growth. The ongoing PLC, we talked about how important that is. Collaboration to analyze that student data with the I Ready um the state testing and AP enrollment. um putting recognizing priorities and the gaps in departments. Our focus is to intentionally plan for strong learning outcomes, high quality assessments, um high order thinking task and the development of a common writing rubric which we are really focusing on
089aligning rigor continuous improvement across all content areas. The how uh BMR is focused on engaging all students through equitable student centered learning with multiple pathways for um demonstrating growth. Current action steps include the review of the curriculum and PL PLC to differentiate that instruction. Using charger time to support the tier 2 and tier three. Much different than charger time this year is different from the years past um in the sense that um we're using that time differently to extend learning time and support students and giving them that extra help that we need. We are we also are still using some charger time for I'll mention later on my cap and development of SEAL and career in college but that that's a different that's an individual piece from it. Um we're working to emphasize student voice
090and choice by conducting student surveys to capture their interest and strengths because we know they work better. Then uh teachers are working to ensure lesson plans and curriculum map include the scaffolding uh multi-entry points, authentic writing opportunities and the professional development in supporting writing across the curriculum, high quality questions, scaffolding strategies and implementing writing assessments across all core con um content >> in 180 days. >> Yes. um for the whole child. Um of course we foster an inclusive environment where students develop social emotional skills and persevere to reach their full potential. Programs like the eighth grade student mentor program which has been wonderful um where you build that connection between uh the upper the higher students and the eighth grade students modeling positive behavior and promoting inclusivity. Um we're working on building the high school
091peer learning ambassadors and students are engaged in the MYAP um advisories for career college and student uh social emotional learning. Uh the goal for the eighth grade is to immerse them in the culture and build that community and citizenship and teamwork all those pillars that we have. Ninth grade is to recognize the the kids to apply the skills and behaviors needed in high school as they go forward. 10th grade is to identify their needs and goals for interpersonal skills, education and career. 11th grade is applying critical thinking, communication, and collaboration, all those C's, while continuing to to to explore the career pathways, and 12th grade is setting goals for their academic career, personal future, and being prepared to transition to college and post-secary paths. >> I'm just going to interrupt. We did something different with
092our advisory. Um, all of the seniors now have the counselors as their adviser. So all lessons are going to be geared to post-secary and they're broken up based on where they think they'd like to go. It's fluid, but it speaking to that and being able to look at some career inventories and all that. So that's different. We're trying it out. We're going to get feedback. We're going to see where it goes. Um and then the community, we strengthen student growth by fostering a relationship with who are between our towns, engaging the families, connecting homeschool and community. This year we've uh schools hosting events with local senior centers such as the upcoming senior fling. We're planning a learning expo to showcase student work and career uh possibilities, organized the job and career fair. Um bringing in
093area businesses as well. Reflection on the events that from these events help guide improvements and also establish the traditions that we love to have with that. And um alumni engagement and collaboration with Mass Hire further expand our students opportunities. Definitely. >> I didn't do professional development. >> That's okay. We're good. We're doing a lot. >> But those are all because we have to we have to work on that every day and we're doing that in all ways and with all people. So, thanks. >> But you can stay up here while I do AP cuz I'll do this quick. But I did want to say something. I will put our AP teachers and two of them are sitting right here against any AP program. We have a 76% passing rate. >> Wow. >> That is consistent.
094A 76 passing rate. So if you challenge yourselves, listen out there. If you challenge yourselves to take an AP exam, chances are you're going to get yourself in an opportunity to get college credit with a three, a four, and a five. So last year, um we crushed our um we crushed our numbers. We had uh 16 more students take an AP test. Um we had uh 12 seniors took more. So I love that. Senior year, you think you might want to just slack up? Nope, they didn't do that. So I'm really pleased with that. Our exams, we had 141 exams taken. that is up 41 from the year before and 63 more exams since uh the well two year when I really came in and started doing some things. So um I just want to
095the so I just want to highlight here of the the the scores. Yeah. So you're looking at the fives, the fours and the threes like that is what we're looking for. So we're really pleased with that. Um you know what uh my when I talk to the the AP teachers, anybody can get a one. anybody like we all could we could we could all get a one on the AP calculus exam. I don't know what the numbers or letters mean but we could do that. The fact like if you're seeing that you're you're pushing to the two I'm always looking to move away from the ones to get those twos because you're really are learning the skills that you have. But to get a three, four, and a five is pretty exciting. I'm just going
096to give another shout out to all of our students. Look at those names. You might recognize some. Uh they were recognized in an awards ceremony except for the fact that um Miss Roers took them all uh most of them but two um on a field trip that day. And so I'm I am call I'm calling them down tomorrow to make sure that they get their picture um together. So they're really excited about that. But we, you know, we consistently see that um, you know, we brought three more, um, AP classes in last year, pre-calc, uh, for junior year, some and some senior. Um, we brought two in, um, uh, APA >> seminar and, um, what's, uh, Lord have mercy. What's the other one? Oh, AP statistics. We brought AP Statistics back. So, like we're really
097just I I can't be prouder of the students and the work, you know, and and what we're doing. And AP government is new this year. They're a small number, but they're mighty and they're growing and um I'm really I'm just I I'm thrilled. We've we've added five new um AP programs since I've been here. So, I'll take it. >> Spanish, too, right? Is >> Yeah, Spanish this year, too. So, government and Spanish. Yep. Mhm. So >> AP goes >> go us 76%. That's >> great. >> So I'm going to get >> So if your kid, you know, happens to put yourself in an AP class, it's be okay. Trust them. >> Any questions? No. But um I'm just going to as a as a person who works in colleges, as a person who has worked
098in colleges for close to 50 years now, not to tell my age, but um I don't think people understand the the thousands of dollars or the the tens of thousands of dollars that this equates to. Um and you know the fact that that only 11 students even you know needed the fee reduction 141 exams seems like an expensive >> kind of proposition but it turns into tens of thousands of dollar and this percentage is unbelievable to me like I it it rivals private I I take it institutions and it the work that they do is outstanding and the dedication that they have and it's not not only here, but it it's there and and it's the students who who do that and push and groan and complain and then will get up and do it
099and rise to the occasion because they have ridiculously high expectations and they need >> and it and it and it doesn't mirror our writing uh results. >> Those would be the ones who are writing exams. >> Those are the ones who are exceptional. No. Um also um we'll have for the first uh time um we're going to offer in the spring um a the QCC psychology course. I think we have seven students. >> Six right now. >> Six students right now. Hopefully we'll get some more um who will actually take it'll be asynchronous, but it is the it is so they will have a transcript from that >> um from QCC >> beyond just that AP stuff. So >> it's not only just the dollars that it's saving when these are equating to college credits,
100but it's just the preparation for a college true course work. >> Like if you're doing this well in an AP class, then you're prepared to go to that next level. Not to mention they're in band and have a job or on a sports team and like that's life. You know, we all multitask and and juggle. So, have at it. >> Thanks everyone. >> Thank you for all the teams for coming tonight. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I like the uh one pager for the school improvement plans. That was >> that was well done. the principles will tell you we had a conversation about the one paid >> but I'm glad I think it just gives you a really nice snapshot >> work going on. >> Yes. Great. >> Yep. Chose >> we'll move on to
101the business office. >> Okay. So, in your packet, you'll see the FY27 budget timeline. This is the proposed budget timeline. Just um you'll see I'll break it down a little bit. During the next few months, I'll be reviewing our current budget and assessing needs in the different departments within the district. Um, that'll include evaluating our pro projected enrollment data to see if our needs will shift next year, checking with principles and team leaders for staffing and curriculum needs, working with our school leadership to see what our budget needs and wants are. That'll include our student services, technology, maintenance, and our athletic departments. So, we'll start there. Then, at the end of next week, I'll send out budget worksheets to our principles and department heads. The worksheets will give details of what was spent in the
102past and can be used as a guide to add on, remove, um, see what we've spent money on and if there's any savings along the way or things that we forgot, um, or that we we want to change. During the months of November and December, there'll be a budget meet. There'll be budget meetings to discuss priorities and educational and facility needs and how we can make them work within the budget. Then on December 11th, school leadership will present a forecast of 27 priorities at the school committee meeting. Then we go on to January 2nd. The first draft of the 27 budget will be completed and this will be presented at the January 8th school committee meeting. Following the presentation during the months of January, there'll be budget workshops set up to discuss, review, and update
103the budget as needed. And then after the governor's house budgets released, there'll be joint finance meetings within the towns um in February. Then in the beginning of March, school committee will hold a public hearing and the school committee will vote on the 27 budget. Following school committee certification, there'll be budget book presentations to the towns of the town and finance committee meetings. And then May 11th is Millville's annual town meeting. And I believe I didn't see a definite um date, but I believe May 26 at the Blackstone annual town meeting for the final budget approvals. So that's just a synopsis of what's to come. >> Yay. >> Very exciting. >> We all leave the house in January. Here we go. >> Vacation coming. >> So great. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. You're welcome. >> So
104quick and simple. That's it. Bully worm, right? All right, we have a couple more facilities requests in front of us. >> Yeah, I think we have one. We had two. One we I think we took care of. Correct. >> Yes. >> Yep. We have one more. >> Yes, there's just one more and that's the BMMA um community performance which is this Sunday from 1 to 4. It's going to be at the high school tennis courts and fields. So, they are holding um an event there. They are group one, so they won't have the user fee. However, they will be charged for um a custodian fee >> for that day of $310.90. >> Custodian for outside. Yes, >> for all cuz they will access the building. It could be electricity, bath. >> Yes, correct. And that's
105that's the only other um facilities request that we have right now for today. Motion to approve. >> Second. >> I'm debating on All right. Motion by Carrie. Second by Jane. Any discussion? >> What were you debating on? >> I'm wondering if we waved the fee since it's our band, like it's our school program. I just start to worry at some point like the impacts of these fees adding up like where where are they getting paid out of if we wave it. Um, >> is that a do you have? >> So, I know it is an event that they're charging people to attend. >> Okay. >> So, that was one of the, you know, it's not our band running it. It's actually the um I guess the parent group. So, >> type thing. >> I I
106think the cost for the custodians reasonable. >> It's not any other fee. >> So, it's like the other youth groups using the facility. Yeah. >> If a custodian was on duty, it would be covered, >> Right. >> It's a weekend. Yeah. It's a Sunday. Yeah. And they won't be. >> So, you're saying if there was a custodian on duty already, >> we wouldn't charge. >> Well, we would. >> No. >> Wouldn't we? >> No. If it if it was a week night >> because it's a Sunday, >> right? There's a custodian on on duty already. There is no charge. It's just because we don't have a custodian that would have to be brought in for the event. >> Fair. Fair. That's why. Yeah. >> Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. >> I.
107>> Any opposed? >> I'll abain. >> Absention. >> All right. The eyes have it. Approve the request. Ter. So, we had two um you'll notice when you came in there was and Maya talked about them. The field trips that were coming up um she talked about those those were in your packet after one of them is the um she mentioned the officer workshop that is being held. It's coming up this weekend um at Worcester Technical High School. That was one of the ones that were in your packet. Um it's for the leadership training. And then you have another one that's going to be taking place like she said in November 12th um the student council fall conference um that there's a group of students that would be heading out to to that one as well.
108So um just looking for your um approval for both of those um events >> move to approve second >> motion by James second by Tara S. Any further discuss further discussion? So I notice on the 1025 it's one teacher with one chaper. It says a student is driving themselves. >> So it's to understand that they're both making their way down there separately. >> Yes. Separately. Correct. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh all in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All in favor. Hope they have fun at their events. where they usually practice. They do this every year. >> All right. School committee forums. Anyone have anything to bring to the table? >> I do. >> All right. Matt. >> Um, so this Sunday, as everybody knows, uh, if anybody doesn't know,
109it's scouting for food. Uh, scouts have been doing it for 30, 40 years now across the country world. Um, so you will be getting door tags and everything like that and please give to the to the scouts. Uh, what's unique about the Blackstoneone Mailville community in this council is that we're the only uh organization that gets to keep all the food in our community because we're the only organization or unit that has a um food pantry in their community. So everything else goes to the Rhode Island Food P food bank and it kind of gets distributed. Who knows who gets it? We know that it's our community that gets our food. Last year, we got almost 4,000 lbs of food, which to be honest, it didn't even fill their their uh their shelves, their needs.
110So, um anybody out there, please, if you don't get a door tag, you can just leave a bag out. We'll be out the next week, uh the following week on November 1st. If we see a bag outside, we will uh we will pick it up and we will get it to the right place. >> What do you mean a door tag? So, we put out door tags to tell you what to, you know, like to to tell you what to uh I'll make sure your house gets one >> so you know what it looks like. >> We'll be out there all day on Saturday. I'll leave it back. >> So, look out for the little guys, too. Look, cuz the little guys run around and, uh, we do our best to wrangle them. They stay
111on the side streets, so they're not in the main streets, but, uh, yeah, they they have a lot of fun trying to wrangle them. So, u, but we appreciate it. And it's it is directly for >> The pickup day is November 1st. So, we'll be tagging to let you know what to do and then we'll pick it up on November 1st. >> Okay. >> So, you don't want food this Sunday left at >> No. No. Well, hey, listen. If it's We'll pick it up. We'll pick up a snack you're interested in. >> Uh, no perishables, please. >> No candy from Halloween. >> Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's always it's always the it's always the three-year-old, you know, pumpkin pie filling that we seem to get a abundance of. So, we appreciate if you just >>
112pet food. Uh, we'll accept it. Yeah, we'll get that to the right place. I'm sure Kevin and everyone over at the >> beans, veggies. >> Yeah, beans, veggies, think, you know, Thanksgiving, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, um, you know, stuff like that. Really, the staples, uh, toilet paper, paper towels, >> anything that's non-p perishable that you would associate with, you know, >> in one way or the other. So, um, Awesome. >> Yeah. >> So, yes. Uh, and the other thing is is that community day. Um, it, you know, it is a not a newer thing. Chuck, you were asking about that. We've, it started from, uh, they've done it in the past few years. I know when their home show doesn't really pan out because of rain or whatever. I know this really kind of
113bolsters it um, you know, to help out with the band. Uh, but if you get a chance, come out and see it. They have a really special thing going on right now. If you don't know, the marching band is actually number one uh, in their division in the entire country uh, for US bands. So they have the highest uh aggregate score. So they're going, no pun intended, they're marching into uh into states and finals with um with uh with a nice position, you know, in spite of all their um you know, trials and tribulations and getting pushed around. Um they're still number one. So >> that's awesome. >> Hope to come and see him. >> Excellent. Anyone else? Can I just just make one just just an announcement? And I will have this in my
114community update. I know I made that. We are going to be sending out more information about our holiday support for any families who may need it um for um both Thanksgiving and the holiday. So, be on the lookout for that. Those will come out. But the other thing, and again, this flyer will go in the community update this week, but save the date. It's going to be Wednesday, November 19th this year for our Thanksgiving feast. Um we're going to be holding it um at the high school again. I believe our chorus is going to be coming this time um to entertain. Um so just um to get that out there, we are looking at again Wednesday, November 19th at BMR cafeteria. Um doors are going to be open at 5:30 and dinner will be served
115from 6:00 to 7:00. But again, this will be in my community update and we'll continue to give reminders until it it comes around. So >> great. Y awesome. Yeah, that seems to be a good event. >> A nice nice evening. Yes. >> Great. All right. Um, next meeting is November 6th, uh, our regular school committee meeting and looking for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Sarah second. >> Second, >> Chuck. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. >> Any opposed? All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you.