Milton School Committee - December 15th, 2021

001giving everyone and welcome to the Milton school committee meeting of December 15 2021 before we get started I know that Dr Carroll has a message from one of our high school students I believe Dr Carol thank you chair Eberhart could we please promote Cora Redmond our 10th grade student representative to be a panelist tonight thank you all right all right good evening everyone it's nice to see you on this Wednesday evening in December our last meeting of 2021. um before we begin our first um item is to approve the agenda for this evening are there any changes additions or um subtractions from the agenda Dr Carol yes touching her thanks um we um we are going to take one more uh policy subcommittee meeting to discuss the fiscal policies okay and so we will not

002be discussing those tonight but um hopefully at our next meeting okay so we're going to remove a yes okay wonderful any other changes all right so may I have a motion to approve the agenda all right a second second would everyone just raise their hands if they approve the agenda for this evening I see one two three four five six six okay six zero approval wonderful all right I want to thank you all for coming this evening and I want to thank the community for attending as well and I see that Dr fish is here director prak Martins is here and chorus here welcome Cora to the meeting tonight I'm happy to have you on the evening I thought we would start this evening's meeting with a discussion amongst ourselves the school community members and

003then with any um conversation support um from the superintendents and director Prague Martens and um Dr fish regarding the Pierce incidents since our last meeting which was two weeks ago we had some additional incidents at the Pierce and we had a lockdown and I just wanted to give the school committee an opportunity to respond to the many emails that we received from the community from concerned citizens grandparents town meeting members parents because as a school committee we have not had an opportunity to discuss this at all we've had a community Forum the students and the teachers had opportunities to discuss this but because of open meeting law um we are not allowed to discuss these things amongst ourselves so I just thought I would let us have a conversation amongst ourselves um and I particularly

004I'd like to you know you guys to reflect upon the emails that we received and any and any thoughts or ideas you have about next steps for the school committee given our our role in The District um so if that's over and I see that member white already has her hand up so I guess we can start with you number one okay have having a last name that begins with a W I'm used to going last so it's kind of nice to go first for a change but um first of all I want to acknowledge how painful these last few weeks have been for our community and for most especially for our students and families of color um words that were used were debilitating they were hurtful they make a child feel less than and

005they cut deeply um you know schools are supposed to be a place where every child feels safe and cared for as we all know and when a child doesn't feel safe or welcome it's hard to learn it's hard to take advantage of opportunities and it impacts a child's emotional well-being I was proud to see the students at Pierce who took their pain and turned it into positive voices um talking about their experiences um we can hear how they were able to uh take their hurt and their anger and ask for necessary and meaningful change you know today's students face a vigorous academic schedule a foundation of learning equally important though is their social and emotional learning which is at the core of knowing yourself getting along with others and being a good citizen and we

006need to give students the opportunities during their school days to discuss Society culture and our complex history acts of overt structural and institutional racism have been with us for decades and sadly they are they continue to be part of our daily lives um despite these challenges I believe there is so much more goodness in the world and in our community our students give give me hope it is up to all of us to speak up for justice fairness and Equity as a school Committee Member I pledge to listen and to learn I will work to make the Milton Public School District better I will continue to advocate for a strong budget that provides the necessary resources for what we need to support our students our work on policy to improve our district and I will

007work to plan for the future with a new school building so that we can lessen our overcrowding we are stronger together and we need everyone's help in our community not just the schools but everyone else in the community as well thank you for sharing your thoughts I'd like to take have a talks remember Ross Denny um first of all I would like to thank the students and the community members for their diligence and their patience as we struggle through these times I I recognize that what we're seeing in Milton has happened before and it's happening all over the country and I would never be naive enough to say that it won't happen again but I am very optimistic that between the students and the families that have been communicating to us and the administration that

008we have a plan for what we're going to do differently and I want the community to have confidence in the fact that we as a school committee and MPS as a leadership team recognize where we need to grow and want to not want people to know that their voices have been heard and I'm hoping that the following three things will happen before the end of this school year if not sooner which is one the racist racism and sexual harassment reporting system will be up and running I know that superintendent Jet and members of the administrative team are working diligently to get that up and running as soon as possible so when students or faculty or community members feel as though there's something that needs to be reported they have a very clean and easy way

009to do it I know they've been encouraged to use the bullying system in the past but we all know that that isn't adequate and I want people to understand that we recognize that as a school committee and the administration is working to rectify that number two we recognize the importance of having an anti-racist curriculum and for those of you in the audience that think it's like it's critical race Theory it is not that it's making sure that our children understand that there are multiple perspectives to history and that their opinions and the feelings of other people whose messages typically have not been said or validated and that there is a message of Tolerance and patience and respect for anyone whether or not they look like them and then last we're talking about a K-12 review

010in terms of identifying where and when hatred in general and racism specifically is being taught to to not support racism is being taught to students so that they can identify for themselves in an age-appropriate way but it's not going to be isolated to peers or just the high school just the elementary schools but it's a K-12 approach and I'm very proud of our Administration for recognizing the need for this work and in the process of this identifying where is it being done already and where do we need to supplement with those materials so thank you for your patience and I expect you all to hold us all accountable to our word that this work will get done thank you thank you member Ross Denny really appreciate it Dr Carol thank you um and good evening

011everybody um I I definitely Echo um member white member Ross Denny the comments that you just shared um I share the same priorities that um member Ross Denny you just outlined and I I guess I just wanted to take this opportunity in the context of these past two weeks to reaffirm my personal commitment as a member of the school committee to seeing through the changes that will make our district more proactively anti-racist as we committed as we committed as a as a school district to to do um and we all know that Milton public schools has been on a journey toward educational equity and these um kinds of processes definitely do take time um we conducted the equity audit also known as the school quality review last year that suffered several concrete recommendations for how

012we can better align our actions with our words when it comes to being an anti-racist School District um to being more Equitable more inclusive I want to acknowledge that I know we have so many dedicated Educators and community members who have been really working on this for a long time and we don't take their commitment for granted but as a school district up to this point my view is that we have failed to make the kind of progress that we need to make what makes that so upsetting for so many of us is that we understand every day we fail to make that progress our children are the ones suffering the consequences of that um I I wanted to uplift um something that I saw the Milton anti-racist Coalition wrote an open letter I hope

013many of you have seen it in response to the incidents at Pierce they addressed this to superintendent Jet and to us members of the school committee but also to the members of the entire Milton Community and in the letter it states it is crucial that we come to a shared understanding that hate speech and the use of racist slurs are violent acts of racial aggression that inflict harm on everyone in the community and uh I wholeheartedly agree with that statement and I think that we in this Milton Public Schools Community especially um myself as a white person in this community we need to continue educating ourselves listening learning and taking opportunities to stand up and recommit ourselves to this work even when it's really hard and even when it does take time um I want

014the community to know something which is that over the past two weeks um we on school committee have received seven times as many emails calling for this renewed commitment to anti-racism in Milton then we've received emails um expressing critiques of critical race Theory so just to be clear much was made in the local and National media about this movement against critical race Theory which as Beverly explained is not something that we teach in any literal way in Milton Public Schools but it can be understood as the and I'm talking now about the movement against critical race Theory can be understood as um in direct conflict with the stated commitment to become an anti-racist school district and we received seven times as many emails in support of becoming that anti-racist school district then we did um

015from people who expressed concerns about that and I am saying that because I also had conversations with and her and spoke with many people who didn't send emails who also expressed that so we as a community can do this we can come together in support of this work as superintendent Jett has expressed in his letters to the community that's what will be required um and I am proud to represent Milton on the school committee a town where that's the truth that seven times as many people wrote those letters to say we hold you accountable we expect this to happen um and that is you know really the work that I'm here to do Beverly and I ran a campaign last spring we had a two-part campaign slogan stronger together moving Milton forward um and that

016is what I am here to work on um we passed uh revised anti-racism curricula sorry an anti-racism resolution this fall which was an important step because a year before the school committee had taken another important step of signing on to a Statewide resolution of anti-racism in districts that was good to do what we did this fall was rewrite that resolution to be specific and clear in our actual Milton context and I encourage people to go and read that resolution if you haven't gotten to um what our next work is as a school committee is Translating that resolution into our actions which hopefully will result in the changes and the progress that we need to see and as hopefully you all know who are watching the school committee has three responsibilities we supervise the superintendent we

017oversee the budget and we set policy for the district and all three of those really important areas there's work to be done when it comes to this anti-racist need that we have um and so we should be seeing we should be looking for Progress at each of our meetings um you know in between our meetings and our subcommittees um I know we've been doing a lot of this work it's actually in process much of it and we're early in the process I share Bev's optimism that we can make this progress and we will because our kids as we all understand are depending on us to do that um and so I just want to thank in advance I guess my colleagues on the school committee superintendent Jet and your entire team because this isn't going

018to be easy it hasn't been easy it's not going to get any easier it's only going to get harder but I am here to do it and I think that's why we're all here um and so I am you know sharing the acknowledgment of the pain and um frustration and disappointment of these past couple of weeks but I am really optimistic that we can channel that into our actions and our changes in those three areas that we are here to do this work um sorry for going on so long as Margaret said we haven't gotten to talk about this I've had nowhere I could say what I really feel anyway um it's good to be here with all of you and thank you again to all of the members of the community who have reached

019out uh we we have heard you and um you know we will depend on your support and we will depend on you holding us accountable um to get this work done I'll stop thank you thank you Dr Carol no it's very hard to be the members of the community that are oversight but not never have opportunities to talk about those things except at a meeting as we are bound by law so um never and you don't ever have to apologize for a tough taking more time on these important issues anyway Dr Craighead did you want to share some information um yes uh I wanted to say first of all that I'm very proud um of the eighth graders um who walked out and who spoke up public speaking is never easy uh and it's certainly

020um not easy when the stakes are so high I've known a number of those those students who walked out for quite some time and it was great to see um those five-year-olds grown up into a strong um young individuals who could speak out against hate speak up for racial Justice and to speak truth um to power I sincerely hope that their actions their fervor their dedication as well as the dedication of this Administration and the school committee as Dr Carol referred to um can move toward eradicating uh such acts of bigotry and hate although I recognize as member Ross Denny said that they are not uh and going to uh entirely uh disappear would be nice um not just nice it's imperative to create an environment here a climate here where such acts um don't

021find a foothold that they cannot live and grow um but the way to do that beyond our anti-racist resolution that Dr Carroll talked about is to educate our students and I'm not running away from you know everybody sees the term critical race Theory and starts to run and it's because we get letters as Dr Carol referred to don't teach critical race theory in the schools we're not teaching critical race theory in the schools but I have to say right here now that we need to teach our students about the ways in which racial intolerance has shaped this country and where we are and who we are and is the is the reason why there is not real equity in this country and if that's critical race Theory then you can I'm raising my hand and

022saying that I think we should teach it because it's very clear to me that if we run scared from those people who are who are seeing critical race Theory as the buzz term and don't do it and and um making us all scared of saying those words and and holding on to that then I have to say that that they're um their tactic is working in many ways because we we all want to run away from the word but but I have to say that education here is the answer um you know I'm a lifelong educator and we need to um we need to do more um to educate our students about the um about the hurtfulness and hatefulness and history of those words that they are using in terms of race in terms of

023sexuality and all forms of bigotry I was very much unsettled by what happened at Pierce these incidents um and I'm just hoping that um we can all take this as a lesson of what still exists in this town um and as Dr Carroll said the the difficult Journey that lies ahead thank you thank you Dr Perkins member Rosemary thank you it it's very nice to talk to you all again and to have this opportunity to um discuss this um the events of the past couple of weeks it it did deeply sadden me and my family the events of the the past couple of weeks um and I stand firm in believing that all students must feel welcome and remember important members of our community and all means all students we need to strengthen our incident

024reporting system as was mentioned already and provide professional development for our staff to ensure that they have comfort and tools to facilitate the challenging conversations with our students that that are part of this journey I I also am incredibly proud of the peer students who organized to share where they stand on racism and bigotry and other forms of bigotry in their community and I hope that those students will continue their work either on their own with the student council with Milton Public Schools staff to do what they can to make their school a safe and welcoming place for all it doesn't end there that was just the beginning of their work I'm also very thankful for uh the Milton Public Schools administration for its work in during this painful time of communicating quickly and effectively

025with families in the community about these incidents and also seeing the value and the learning opportunity for our students in taking an active stand against bigotry and supporting those efforts um I I um as Margaret said it has been painful to have to abide by the open meeting law we can't talk to each other we can't even see see each other on emails and and you know it's it's just makes this difficult but um as as has already been noticed there we're among many other school districts across the country um um and who are facing these challenges and Milton Public Schools is indeed a work in progress but I I maintain my commitment to work with my colleagues here um and the administration and the school committee to build on the work that's already been

026done and to move forward to continue to make Milton Public Schools a welcoming and Equitable School District where all students can feel welcome and work to learn and and meet their full potential and Jet has his name hand up but before I um reach out to him I just want to thank you all for sharing on your reflections over the last two weeks you know our our last meeting we had a difficult conversation about the first incident and then um you know another incident happened and then we had the lockdown um and we had the Forum the community forum and sometimes it you know for for someone who loves words as I said the last time sometimes it's really hard for me to find the words to express How Deeply painful this is um for

027students right for students and families for staff of color um black and brown students and families and staff for our whole Community um we're such a small community yet we are a big reflection of the larger National debate that's going on um in the in the community and in the world um and I too just wanted to thank um Dr fish and director Craig Martin's and Gene and superintendent Judd and the other principals who were at The Forum and who answered member community members questions and um I know that um we were not perfect in our response to the incidences and people were not happy with the way um some of the decisions were made um and I appreciated their um their Candor and their in their and they're sharing that and then I appreciated

028the administration's um comments and and and thoughts at The Forum and I know that this is really hard work um and like um Dr Carroll said it doesn't seem like our actions are meeting our words yet I believe in the power of yet I really do I know that I am an eternal optimist that way but I believe in young people those eighth grade students they were the most powerful example of that that I could think of in the last couple of days how they came out and they they walked out of school and they spoke and they and they asked for Change and that's and that's the power of change right I believe in the power of yet that we can get there this is not this is not easy work and it's going

029to take time that's the reality unfortunately but I believe that we are a community that can make this happen we have all the necessary ingredients to make this happen we have a community of people who believe in this work we have a community of people committed to this work as Dr Carroll said we receive many many emails in support of this work and I know that we can do it um I know there are people in the community who don't agree with our work but I want to make it clear as a school committee chair we made a decision over a year and a half ago to be an anti-racist school system to be more inclusive to be more Equitable and we're not going back on that commitment we are going to be a system

030for all students um and that every student can achieve the best for him or herself um I really do think as a community we need to start calling each other more into the conversation instead of just calling each other out we have to educate that's Dr Craig is right that is the key we need to build our own capacity to have these conversations to have difficult conversations there's a a professor at Teachers College I'm going to probably not say her name correctly her name is Dr Yolanda silly Lou Ruiz and she talks about the archeology of self and in these conversations about race and in these conversations about equity and diversity and inclusion raise your hand and ask yourself where in yourself do these issues lie and then take that out into the community and

031work with others I do believe we can do this work we are committed to this work anyone out there who thinks we aren't we are and as Dr Craig had said we have to fight against the forces that are saying that we shouldn't so I just wanted to say thank you all of you for your Reflections and to everyone who's doing the hard work every day my neighbor said to me the other day I'd rather live in a community where we're having these hard conversations and dealing with these issues than in some place where we haven't even started so I don't know um that I'm superintendent yet I know you had your hand up if you'd like to share any thoughts or uh you kind of stole some of that thunder in terms no that's

032perfectly fine and I know people talk about the patients of the students and the families and I and I Echo those same sentiments I'm gonna extend it to the faculty and staff as well who are the ones that have to deliver and who are the ones in the trenches and are responsible for that um I will give a couple of updates I think the reporting system uh at least from the external side for families to report could be up next week we're just doing some back end checking to make sure it works that is one thing uh the second thing I think is important and I understand and I know we somewhat had a little bit of a conversation I know uh the settlement is that we may have failed to live up to being

033uh anti-racist Community um on behalf of myself and the folks that I work with I don't think any of us sign up for a racist organization a community so I want to let you guys know we are communicate we are committed to that I also say in terms of the response and I know people want a response to how it would go uh how we respond to these incidents it depends on the context and the reason why I say that if you look at what's happening in Kentucky and all of them in the aftermath of the tornadoes you have femur especially trained to respond to that but depending on the situation is how you respond and it may seem like there's a shuffle or supports it all depends on the timing and what you know

034and then the clarify and we take full responsibility for educating our students in a in the comment is about critical race Theory CRT we're doing something that has the same acronym which is culturally responsive teaching and that is looking at all of the students that we have in our class appreciating and valuing their backgrounds their strengths their contributions their voices and allowing them to be reflected in the work in which we do not perfect by any means we're improving and I know that people say well we're committed to this last year if anyone was on any of these meetings last year there was no conversation about critical race Theory until the spring it was more about what are we doing to get students in school we have a district that has a totally new leadership

035in a totally new position it is a seismic culture shift that our faculty and staff are dealing with we talked to Bill fish at the Pierce he's had eight there's been about eight to nine different administrators at the Pierce Middle School in 10 years in three principles there is a culture shift and we have to work together collaboratively collaborative that means parents Guardians teachers administrators and of course our students and bringing them to the table to have their voices we didn't have a chance to do that last year we did not have a chance students left the building in the middle of the day last year and then logged on there wasn't that student to student discourse in between classes to talk about how things are going in fact we discouraged students from socially Gathering

036we didn't have opportunity for our faculty and staff to get together to really delve in and do the work that we're doing that is not an excuse that's factual information and as we all know as as you alluded to when you open up this meeting you guys haven't had an opportunity to sit and have conversations because you would be violating open meeting laws we are committed to the work we're going to continue to do the work some of the work was outlining my goals some of the work that was that was played out over uh the zoo meeting some of it was outlining your goals a lot of it is outlining our strategic plan that we feel as though that we're moving in the right direction to consolidate that to bring it down to something

037that's a bite size that we could share with the entire Community the quality review absolutely there was a lot of resistance on a quality review the survey which was one fraction of the quality review and we're still dealing with the remnants of people feeling sour about that which I'm going to take this opportunity again to encourage every single person to reconsider if you opted out we sent the questions it is important for us and we're going to do the work to help students navigate this and check their competencies for social emotional learning we need to get their voices and if we don't have their voices it's going to be very difficult to insert the appropriate interventions and supports that students may need so when they do have disagreements in differences with other people whether they

038look different or have a different opinion and then I Echo the sentiment about the maturity level of the student who spoke last Friday I have nothing against that they called for our leadership to listen they called for our leadership to take value in their presence in their building and what are the things that I said and I wish I had the opportunity to say it to them is that we do hear you I said this to Dr fish and his staff we do hear you and we need to provide them with a platform to give us their input and their feedback particularly at the secondary level grades six through 12. as opposed to us doing something two students making rules allow them to sit at the table and have a voice and so the work

039will continue to get done the work will continue to make progress we're going to have setbacks along the way but I asked for the patience I asked for the courage and I ask for the acceptance of our teachers who are going to go out on their wrist and do the very same work that you're asking them to do without being under the microscope indeed being ridiculed if they make an error so when we talk to students about being in classes and ask them to share their voices and take educational risks I'm asking for the patience of the community to allow our faculty and staff to take educational risk and stoke the Curiosity the intellectual curiosity in in the risk taken that our students take on a daily basis so I I commend all of you

040for you taking this opportunity to speak to this community I commend all of the folks who took the time to send us emails in my hope moving forward we have those opportunities where people come to the table not just on a zoom meeting but on a regular basis and finally I said it to everyone I denounced those terms I denounce racist Deeds and historically if presented with them I stood up publicly every single time and I commit that I would do it every single time moving forward and finally I've experienced it myself in the school committee knows and I've said it to a couple of people there were no meetings about that and I've asked for help there was no help with that and so I'm speaking up now because I am saying if we're

041going to be an anti-racist District we need to do it all the time and we need to hold some of the adults who violate across that line but I stated it several times before we can't let one two three people or incidents to Define us as a community and we can't continue to perpetuate the same thing that we're trying to dismantle so I appreciate every comment I appreciate every person that emails and the support and I look forward to partnering with everyone and we're going to have some rocky moments we're going to have some differences of opinions but we need to make sure that we understand that you could dislike me dislike the policies those aside for the betterment of our students so I just thank you and I I stopped talking there but I

042just think again I want to make sure if we're going to be anti-racist we're anti-racists all the time and we stand against it every time thank you superintendent Chad I am I recognize that um when we started out on this journey we recognized that we were all on a different on this journey together but in different places at at a time in the journey and director prac Martin's and I had conversations in the beginning of the importance of understanding the terms that we use and what we mean by those terms and then how do we help the community understand those and I think that um to everyone's point that and to you know that's sort of where we are in this moment and I I really do think that's an important part of the of

043the um of our moving forward is to really have conversations in the community with each other about what do we mean when we when we use these terms and then and then what can we do as a community to reflect our shared vision of being an inclusive community and I think that that's sort of where we're at in this moment I believe where we're starting to really think about what is that shared Vision what are the terms that we're using what are the um what are the what are the ways that we're when you get there and to superintendent Jet's point he himself in the in the in the spring and in the in the summer was subjected to terrible emails from community members really some some that almost crossed the line but didn't um

044even that I had to have conversations about whether or not there was some other steps that we had to take so he himself has been subjected to this and we're trying hard to feed to feed the conversation about Equity inclusion and anti-racism and um to move that conversation forward so um superintendent I don't know if you wanted to add something else to that yes I just need to make a correction they did cross the line some of them did cross the line but you know what I'm going to continue to bring those people back to the table because they're all part of the community right and hopefully there could be a mutual understanding but I would be remiss if I didn't correct that and say some of those did thank you you're welcome remember Austin

045when in support of superintendent jet we did talk about how do we Engage The Public Health commission because he wasn't safe and he wasn't feeling safe and we had Direct conversations in meetings about no one should go to work feeling as though their life is threatened and if it means bringing in security which superintendents across the country have done before we offered that to superintendent jet because we want him to be successful here and he can't be successful if he doesn't feel like he can function safely in this town and I do think that we will have to work in partnership with police and the Public Health commission because some people do need mental health supports and the school committee isn't in a position to support the adults in the town in the same way

046we do the students but we absolutely can work in partnership with the resources that are available in town to make sure that he feels safe and even our administrators who have said people have come to their homes inappropriately feel as though that we can provide reasonable protection for them so that they can continue to serve our students yeah now that we open this up and I do want to say again as much as I could emphasize this there's a lot of support out there and there have been some very kind people out there and I am not ignoring that and although I have the concerns I'm at work every day I'm going to continue to be at work every day I'm going to continue to be committed to this work uh you know you live

047by the sand showed me a hero I'll show you some adversity I'm not calling myself a hero but I'm going to say Educators in this day and age and definitely Heroes and there's a lot of adversity that we're facing our students are facing adversity um and one of the things that I want to make clear and I ask in one of my letters and I'll be more specific about it I ask for people to talk to their children about what they expect and I think it's very important and if people need the support and I and I feel to I did say this and I failed to send that document out and then having these ongoing conversations about how to talk to your children because having a conversation is difficult when you're talking about race

048some people feel guilty some people will stop blaming it evokes a lot of emotion and we need to be there to support people but again I will share with you what I share with uh selectman Mike zulis I think this is a community commitment it goes from the select board the warrant committee town meeting members Tupac some Rex to any organization in this town did a decision makers or support students are faith-based uh faith-based organizations everyone has a role in making a town of Milton a better place and I say a better place because I still think it is a good Community don't live there might as well I'm near more hours than I'm not in any that are anywhere else but I think and we need to look at our diversity I said this

049last Tuesday our diversity is our strength in if our students are able to navigate this learn from each other accept appreciate and celebrate one another our futures right and they're going to be the people doing this work when they're our age when we're all 21 when they're 21 like all of us they're going to be doing that work and pushing and pushing the needles so again and I'm happy to see that Corazon here is a student representative and hopefully she shares some of this conversation with her peers um but this is the work that uh we're all committed to do and hopefully we could do it together oh I lost oh oh Corey would you like to see something and then Dr fish had something he wanted to say too yeah thank you um so

050hi I'm Cora if you don't know me I'm a sophomore at Milton high and I just wanted to say that like I'm really proud of the 8th graders um I do know a number of them and I know that they're really smart and they really care and I just really hope that you all can be willing to hear directly from them because the fact that they had to do that so that they could be heard is honestly concerning um and I'm proud that they did do it but I hope that you can make a more consistent effort to hear from students directly not just through Representatives because I'm happy to be here but there are so many of my classmates that don't have the time or the ability to commit to coming to these meetings

051that have a lot of really strong feelings that they need to be able to convey and I just don't see any opportunities for that and I think this is something that has been really important to a lot of us and having those opportunities not only for this but for other things is really important so I hope I can see change in that and that I can be a part of that as well thank you Cora thank you very much for that feedback I'm Dr fish good evening everybody thank you for the opportunity for the to have a seat at the table tonight um I do want to acknowledge that the past couple weeks have been uh incredibly challenging for many members of our school Community following the two racially charged incidents um but as has

052come through many of what the members have said tonight as well as what superintendent Jet and Cora thank you for your comments as well um we as as a community in as a school Community continue to do the work with our students and families to heal from these incidents and to create those spaces to grow and to heal as a community and we've seen um some unbelievable work that our eighth grade teachers and um workshops and opportunities to bring students together took place on Thursday um that was and that was a great space for students to be together to heal together to learn together uh and to grow together and um through that comes another opportunity to do the same engagement sixth seventh graders similarly I do want to address you know on Friday I

053like many of you could not have been more proud of the way that our our students use their voices uh in from hearing them from the way that they organize um to make sure those voices were heard to what they said asking for many of the same things that that we as as adults as community members expect and demand whether that be um condemning the use of of hatred and hate speech and racism in our schools and in our community having a place and having a space to report instance when they happen and having clear um policies and uh and consequences for when those when those expectations are violated uh you would have no idea you wouldn't have having been out there and experiencing myself um it was it was as organized and as thoughtful

054um an event that you had you wouldn't have no idea you were staying on the patio in middle school which was a testament to our students uh and I have I've had um the privilege of meeting with a number of those students particularly those who were key in this organization key in speaking that day um had several meetings so far I've invited many of them to attend our diversity Equity inclusion committee meeting next Tuesday night so that they can so that our parents Community can hear from some from some of those students as well as a stated goal of our Dei commute um committee is to elevate student voices so um I want to acknowledge and those superintended as well that the the work that our faculty has done you can imagine as a group

055of Educators who are you know incredibly committed to this work to hear that your students are walking out of the building you know it can cause pause I give our faculty an incredible amount of credit for listening to and digesting what it was and what those reasons were for our students um organizing the way that they did in the way that our staff helped to create a safe space for them to um to exercise their voices uh with something that in the face of what has been obviously difficult couple weeks uh it was it was one of those moments that I think a lot of our kids a lot of our staff won't forget and I want um I want that that part of of what they've what our kids did to be to be

056recognized the way that it has tonight so I appreciate the opportunity to to address the committee for the opportunity to meet you today fish thank you so much um director prick Martens welcome um so hello good evening and um you know I just want to continue a little bit and go a little bit deeper into the incident reporting as everyone was talking about what students were saying whether we heard it or didn't hear it we did we heard it and I think it's going to reflect and in the anti-bias uh planning that we are putting into play um in terms of addressing all of this and uh you know I was very proud of the the students coming out in solidarity I think they had a really big message that they wanted to send to

057all of us um and what it looks like to come together in solidarity and use their rights um to protest when they felt that they needed change and um and they did it well and they did it organized um they came to me prior to actually doing it and we had a lot of conversation about what is the ask what is the want make sure that's articulated make sure that's clear and um and they did it um so I just want to say to all the students at Pierce I know I told you all individually but I'm very proud of you for doing what you all did and coming out in that piece um I also want to just uh go back to the internet reporting form um we I think technically are ready to

058launch that for next week and I've been talking to the students at Pierce as well as some students at a high school um the ask is to put those forms in a places where they can be and not as anonymously reported Souls such as the cafeteria the gym you know not in a place where they have to ask an adult to get and I think that's probably one of the biggest ask um in terms of like what they were saying um in addition to you know um the other components of what they were asking for um is the accessibility for students families in education and we looked at a lot of forms and the forms from ADL that will incorporate the feedback that the school committee gave as well as what the students gave is

059um the you know the easier the form the better in terms of um reporting information especially if students aren't using it because when it gets too tedious they may not want to use it and they may not want to report it so how do we capture the data that we need to capture which I think we figured out um and how do we create a form where students will students and families will use it and it won't take them you know 15-20 minutes to fill out so that's the piece um that I think we're ready to launch for next week um the gold for this uh system which James also mentioned that we are working on on the back end is to um and again this is a K-12 incident intervention planning or report system

060whatever we want to call it is 4K K to 12 students families and Educators to be able to use it um to support the SEL and personalized learning goals because if we can identify and track and see if there are Trends whether it's bullying whether it's just random incidents like those things will give us more information on how we can better support our students um and then also uh be able to implement interventions in real time versus waiting to whether the end of the year or whenever the report comes out what does that look like and also make the information that um you know it's happening with students accessible to Educators so they can personalize the learning so just wanted to just tap on to that piece so you can see a little more in

061depth of what we're talking about in terms of reporting system thank you director Park Martins and thank you and superintendent jet for your work on getting that system up in um and accessible for students by the end of the year um just a few things before we move on so a core I really appreciate your comments and I thank Dr Carroll and I um and the whole committee during our Retreat spoke often about how are we going to engage students more in the conversation and we thought a lot about the high school students but we didn't really think about the eighth graders on no offense to to any um buddy we did think about how could we engage students in different grade levels but I do think that this to to grow from this experience

062as a school committee how can we figure that out because as a committee you know we have these meetings and they're very formal et cetera and so forth but really there are opportunities how can we how can we get at those opportunities for middle schoolers and even perhaps for the younger students of course working with parents and things like that so thank you so much for for reminding us of that very important goal that we set for ourselves that we haven't gotten there yet much but I I promise you that we will I'm making that promise we are going to incorporate more voices um throughout the year um and then moving forward as a committee um in general um superintendent just before we move on I I know that you and I had talked about

063um perhaps inviting director prac Martin is to come to a meeting a month or every meeting one of the things that I I felt badly about is that you know um director prank Martin's as a newer position in the district has never really been part of this like the school committee like Forum or makeup and um much because she works directly for the for the district so how you as a superintendent want that to become part of the reporting out at school committee um a regular update every meeting um through you or an indoor director prac Martin's wants to come at a month once a month a meeting once a month perhaps you you can share that with her and then bring that back to the committee or how we can have more regular updates

064since this is a great vehicle for community members to hear what's happening um in in the district's work so thank you in uh director practices I had that conversation and yes I think this phone would be good but I also think getting out in having those conversations in smaller groups in forums joining me coffee hours and making ourselves available so there is an exchange so it's not just her giving a report to people but also affording people to have conversations uh and I think establish those relationships so I think that we're on that so it may be once a month uh but more importantly making sure that this all stakeholders are getting it and I know this is recorded but not with all due respect to all of us we wish a lot more people

065were on these meetings in tune in but I don't know how many people uh go and follow up and watch the school committees uh even though they're archived and they have complete access to them but so yes we did have that conversation uh we will continue to have that conversation and we'll look the role out something that this started a new year early in January obviously next week with only four days left in it is a busy time and with all due respect to our students and staff we want to make sure that everybody all hands are on Deck before we go to the break we need to get to uh January 1st new year new Energy new resolution and A Renewed commitment and hopefully everybody makes that resolution to kind of be better and

066do better yes thank you um superintendo and I and I think I know our our just formed curriculum advisory committee will also be a helpful um vehicle to um look at some of the um some of the um some of the topics and issues that we're thinking about anti-racist curriculum um you know teaching tolerance and that sort of stuff and I think then that committee we're pointing out back to the school committee will be helpful I just want conversations about Equity um inclusion and diversity to be a regular part of our school community meeting so that um that the community understands for Adam at each at each juncture and I think that I failed to make that a part of our meetings but moving forward I would like to recognize that need and do whatever

067is necessary to educate the community all right would anyone else like to say anything I know we have a rather packed agenda but um I do think if we keep Equity at the center then we have conversations about it at all of our meetings and remind ourselves that um what this work is about the students at the center of everything we do um we will get we will we will make progress um to our towards our goals I really do um so thank you all for for coming tonight for talking tonight and having opportunity finally to share with each other how we've been feeling and experiencing I'm Margaret could I um yes please yes of course yes go ahead sorry um I just wanted to give a thank you to the Pierce Educators who did

068come together in solidarity even with nervousness even with the stressors even with the trauma of um you know the lockdown uh they they put their best foot forward and uh took the resources and utilized the resources to the best that they could and then actually acted on it by having those conversations and holding those spaces for students and I just want to say I'm really proud to see that unity and I'm really proud to see the courage that they did step into that space um you know we're learning we're practicing you know that for many that might have been the first time they've had those types of conversations and for some of us who have more practice we went in we support it um I just also want to say thank to um Kia Jarrett

069for creating the PowerPoint presentation and providing some guidance for the uh her eighth grade teacher peers as well as the seventh and sixth graders so the unity that I saw at Pierce in the midst of this difficult moment definitely gives me hope so I just want to say kudos to the team and um for coming together and I thought that was really important to share thank you director Pratt Martin's I know in in everything that happened um with the walkout being the last like um visual act we the lockdown and and the aftermath of that and the and the trauma that was inflicted by that um is an ongoing processing for students and I I thank the Milton police and everyone in the in the in the building who who responded to the training they

070had to keep everyone safe and to have the issue resolved um so thank you for for bringing that back to the conversation all right thank you all very much for our conversation and I'm going to turn it over to superintendent Jet and His superintendent's report so first on the agenda and I feel badly uh we might have to elevate uh Vivo um in terms of these uh assessment data update is Viva I hope she's still on I apologize I told her seven where was one school committee meeting where we were in the TV room and all the lights went out in the building and it got really cold I know Janna with uh was there at least you're home and warm so thank you envy V's gonna uh do a presentation is gonna give you

071as school committee members in the view and audience to update of where we are with some of our district-wide data um it is a pretty robust presentation what I would ask uh school committee members those on this call if you have a question uh please mark down the slide number and then Mark down your questions so that way we get through the presentation and then we'll be happy to answer your questions and if necessary go back to a specific slide that's why I asked if you know the slag number to make it easy to get back to this uh but out of respect the time knowing it you guys have it and we want to make sure you have it if we can hold the questions till the end and we will do our best

072to answer uh any and all questions V turn it over to you if you want to share your screen sure all right so thank you to uh superintendent jet for giving me that introduction I'm glad to be here today to share some of our District's data I'm sure that many of you on this call are anxious to know um you know the impact of the last year on our academic achievement data and some of the other indicators that we've been tracking for our students um so I will be sharing that today so I will proceed to share my screen and I know that once I share my screen I won't be able to see many of you um so I'm just gonna proceed through the presentation as superintendent jet has said and we'll you know

073check in with the questions at the end all right okay so there are four topics that um the the school district is looking at closely for this year and in the coming year I'm gonna touch a little bit on the disproportionality in special education I know that our um administrator of a pupil Personnel Services through Masali had already given this presentation in more depth uh previously but I'm just putting it back here so that it could be part of the data presentation that the district is considering looking at district-wide data so we're going to talk a little bit about the disproportionality in special education achievement gaps data as shown through the MCAS through our advanced placement assessments and through the SAT and then we'll also talk a little bit about how we're monitoring unfinished learning

074this year through the Lexia rapid Ela Universal screener and the iready math screener and I'll give a little bit of updates on the S SEO intellispark screener that is ongoing as well okay excuse me could you do can you present in present uh presentation mode so we could see the slide I just and I don't know if it's just my screen is everybody able to see the full slide so if you go up and do present or View slideshow so I am in presentation mode uh is everybody able to see the the full Sly on their screen you have more than one monitor V because if you do we're seeing it from your view as if you're editing the slide but if you toggle to the presentation view for that monitor we'll see it Okay

075so excuse me I'm wondering if you go to from uh if you go to uh from the beginning might might bring up the the host the full screen if you go from beginning so I am clicking on the this the slideshow from beginning and it's showing as that the full screen presentation on my screen but you guys are not showing it not seeing it no do you have more than one moment um I only have one monitor okay so what I'm gonna try is Maybe just make this bigger um so that you can see it is that any better V I think if you X out the side column where the the list of slides show out if you there's an X there if you x that out that might go into full presentation mode

076for us yeah oh well that's a little better any better I'm so sorry on on my screen um I'm going into slideshow and I I click from beginning and it's showing me the full slide on my screen okay you're not seeing it yeah this this slide right here we're on slide you're you're opening uh your header right okay okay so I'm moving to the next lie um and these are the four topics that I said I'll be talking about today um and just the context for this presentation is to share an overview of how our key data in the four you know um listed Focus area that I just mentioned but I did want to say that um the the data is constantly evolving as new metrics are taking roots and more systems are improved

077and some of the way that the the data is evolving an example is the MCAS you know that the student just took in 2021 that was adjusted in multiple way by the state to enable everybody to take it in the midst of a pandemic so students were taking it at school students were taking it from home um it's just a little bit different it was shortened uh some some new things that the district did last spring was also to implement the new K-8 I ready math and the K-12 SEL screeners so those are new metrics that are coming online for us in the district and those are new metrics that our teachers are still learning how to use we're still learning how to interpret the data to to make sense with our curriculum and what

078we need to do with that data the district is revamping our incident reporting system as you heard um director Park Martins and superintendent Jet and everybody with alluding to in the earlier conversation that is something that's important to us and that's the the critical data that we need to collect in order to see Trends and patterns and identify you know best way to provide intervention and supports to our students and then lastly the district is also implementing a common is trying to implement a common data platform to collect assessment data so we know exactly how else students are doing as we're going along so that we're not waiting until the end of the year until the MCAS into the AP or the SAT to know how our students are doing and we're still we can

079only see the first slide if you share it with me I'll do the present mode it's moving now there we go it's moving now okay so I'll just do it this way okay okay so before I get into the data I just wanted to um talk a little bit about uh principles of effective data use so this is something some of the principles that um the the administrative team curriculum leaders and um some of our special education Personnel at all grade level came together last spring as a district data team to consider how we're gonna use uh data most effectively in the district and um these are some of the principles that we came up with but just a reminder that data is a tool to help illuminate Trends and patterns and where possible you

080know data will be disaggregated to show the experiences of different subgroups by racial and ethnic identity by social economic status it's like special education status English learner status and gender identity um this is not something new you know this has been done um for a long time now it's required by law for the state and the the Federal Department of Education to collect and disaggregate data by these certain subgroups so that we can track um if there are differences in in learning outcomes for all these different subgroups and what we can do to make sure that those learning outcomes are as close uh together as possible that's not a big gap among them data can also be used to address inequities or to perpetuate biases and this is um you know the the key thing

081about when you're looking at data it's it's easy to cherry pick different pieces of data just to support whatever it is that you know you want to say so in order to not do that we really have to look at the overall shape of the data um and consider Trend over several years before we can really draw a firm conclusion about what is happening um at the same time multiple interpretation of the same data are possible and that's because people are bringing different lenses to the data and how they interpret it therefore we have to use multiple source of sources of data to provide a more holistic view of individual students and I think that is especially critical um looking at the data for this past year in 2021 because it has been um such

082a different year for everybody in terms of teaching in terms of learning in terms of dealing with life that you really have to be careful about what kind of information you can glean from the the data source from 2021 and then lastly you know transparency and access to data are important to involve students and families and teachers in decision making and I know that the district is committed to developing more tools and ways for all these important stakeholder groups to have the information that they need so that they can continue to help support students achieve the best that they can okay the if you don't mind if you don't mind why you get yourself together I will present for my computer because I think it's important to have it large and I just tested it

083out and I could probably do it from my computer and then I'll click for you if that's all right so should I stop sharing yeah if you don't mind and then I'll do it I apologize folks I just want to make sure that you guys get an opportunity uh to see the presentation and let me know when you all right so hold on one second I'll share my screen and someone when my screen gets up you just let me know when you can see it is that better yeah now I can see it and some of you guys on the side okay okay so if you just let me know uh we're gonna yeah so next slide next slide yep so talk talking about disproportionality so next slide okay um so some of this contacts

084have been provided previously but in 2017 and 2018 the district was identified by Desi as being at risk for two specific disproportionality and special education and that's that this poor disproportional identification of students who identify as African and American black in the special education category of communication disability and then secondly we are currently at risk for being um disproportional in school discipline removals of students in special education who also identify as African-American black um so in the following slide you know I'll share data that that she uses to calculate the risk ratios for us um destiny does calculate these ratios at the very end of the year and we are dependent on Destiny to do that calculation so they compile all the data of all the discipline incidents that we submit to them and then

085they match that up and with you know their specific formula and that's how they come out with the risk ratio that you'll see in the next page so next slide okay all right so the numbers might be small here but on the very right side um of the chart you see a yellow box so that indicates the can you move back to the other one the previous lie yes this one on communication disability okay um so the ratio represents the likelihood that students in one racial ethnic group will experience an outcome as compared to the likelihood that students in all other ethnic groups will experience that same outcome and in 2018 and 19 that risk ratio was above three for the African-American black subgroup and that is why it's highlighted in Yellow by Desi and

086the next year after that in 1920 that's the middle column you see that the we that ratio um jumped up to 4.45 and it was um highlighted in Red by Desi and so any risk ratio that's over four that's it will highlight in red and that will trigger um that citation for disproportionality and what when that happened when an official citation like that happened then the district will be required to submit an action plan um to address that specific disproportionality and so then in 1920 you see the red in 2021 um the year that just closed you see that ratio for African-American black students um reducing going trending in the right direction going down to 3.8 which is yellow and hopefully you know the more attention that we pay uh to this this proportion and

087the action plan that we'll be putting in place that was outlined by um Sue Miceli in her previous presentation that will hopefully help us to reduce that risk ratio back down to below three and when you're below three then that then you won't be um in the at-risk category anymore and so that's really our goal but really our ultimate goal is really to drive it down to the risk ratio of closer to one because that would mean that all subgroups of students have the same likelihood of being identified uh for for the communication disability okay next slide so this slide is showing us the data for for the disciplinary removals of uh in special education so in 2018 and 2019 that's that yellow uh the yeah the column in the middle you see that yellow

088highlighted box so that risk ratio for the African-American black subgroup is 3.31 in year 1920 to the to the left you see that ratio rising up to 4.57 and so that's above four and that's why it's highlighted in red and black by Desi so we are at risk in that category and we are working to address um the issue of discipline and the discipline the at-risk disproportionality in in disciplinary removals and part of the reason why we need that incident reporting system in place so that we can collect the data to hopefully help us address and mitigate this uh this this proportionality before it become an official site by the state okay I don't want to interrupt but I think it might be helpful if you could explain what a disciplinary removal is for people

089who are not in education or don't understand what that terminology means sure so discipline disciplinary removal is um a consequence of any incidents that happen in the district that result in a suspension or an expulsion or an emergency removal from school so if a student show up with a knife and you just need to immediately remove that student to make sure that everyone else around them and themselves is safe and that is considered an emergency removal and suspension can be internal or external so they count all those different types of removals where students are not going to be in the classroom via fight if I could just add a little note to that if folks remember a couple of years ago uh when vaping came on the scene particularly I could speak to at the

090high school level it was hard to ascertain we didn't have the technology to test it but some of those uh vape pens have cannabis oil and sometimes if you suspect the student being under the influence of something it is very difficult to keep them in the building for that day they would have to go home on emergency removal and some of those in some instances because God forbid if we know that they're under the influence and we let them drive or something happens within the building we know it then we're held a liable for that and that is why we're trying to do the education about the vaping and working with families so that was something that really got thrusted on the scene about four or five years ago in terms of the the the

091immediacy of The Vape pension remember it was very easily accessible you could have gone to a gas station and got those and then people got Savvy on how they would mix them in no excuse I just wanted to those are we talked about a weapon assault or uh drugs those are the things that could result in emergency removal allow you to meet with parents and then follow up whatever the discipline or uh consequences may be following that sorry for the interruption go ahead big well that was helpful to get that context okay so I'm gonna move us to the next slide I'm so sorry I'm not saying did you have two pretend access to wait sorry go ahead there's two pieces of clarification that I think would be helpful because we've had the opportunity to

092preview this data it's one what grade levels are included in this data set that deci is highlighting and secondly how frequently are we monitoring the data in between these Destiny reports so we can tell where we're going directionally is coming out from uh from Desi it includes all grade level in the district so all grade level in the district have the ability to submit um incidents uh and disciplinary removals to the state and in fact it's a required part of the reporting system um and these uh incidents are like have to be submitted to the state at the end of the year and that's why I said you know the state calculate the ratio based on the total number of incidents that they get from the district at the end of the year I totally

093get where you're going with um you know how often are we monitoring these uh incidents reports so that we as a district know just directionally where how it's gonna play out um and I know that our building leaders have that information Suma Sally had that information for uh the special ed Department um sometimes it's not as clear to us like we know the number of incidents and the category of the students but because we don't have the total number yet it's hard to calculate and predict what the ratio might be um but in terms of just knowing the number of incidents and the kind of incidents that's what the incident reporting system is designed for and that's the information that we can know and and we have um but just whether you know how it

094affects the ratio that has to be a question for the end of the year when we know what the total n number is and one more point of clarification although it's uh Pre-K to 12 or K-12 data the vast majority is grades 6 through 12. uh it's not that often you have elementary students bring in a weapon or using a vape pen or or a fighting or something significant where they might be uh asked to be removed for emergency removal so even though it's district-wide I would say the vast majority of those incidents uh six through twelve yeah and you also see you know the the latest data that we have from Desi is 1920. they haven't updated the 2021 data for us yet but what I can tell you is in 2021 we had

095a total of 12 removals because we were all dealing with a hybrid configuration and a lot of our students were not at school for the full day you know so we had 12 um a total disciplinary removal but I don't know how that worked out in terms of the ratio that we'll be receiving okay so I'll move us on to the next topic next slide please okay so we'll we'll talk about um the achievement Gap a little bit and the first topic is uh the MCAS next slide so again due to the disruption of the pandemic Desi has recognized that um the MCAS is not um exactly the same test that we have had previously uh prior to uh the the shutdown of the schools so that c has urged us to really use the

096MCAS results from 2021 really for Diagnostic purposes and not to compare our performance with other districts who might have had different instructional models uh different situations um and students in grades three through eight will offer the opportunity to test remotely from home and about nine percent of our students in the district took this option um the the MCAS you know doesn't distinguish between who took from home and the the aggregate result doesn't distinguish between who told the MCAS from home versus who took the MCAS at school um but the the analysis that Destiny has done on the rate of students uh taking the MCAS from home versus how they achieve at school it's it's not that much different okay um students in grades three through eight also only took one session of the MCAS whereas

097in previous years they would have taken two sessions for each topic so this shortened test can cause the individual student performance to vary as compared to uh previous years so at the individual level results are not necessarily indicative of a student's grade level performance and should be paired with other formative assessments for a full look of how the student is performing okay um and high school students all took the MCAS in person and took the full-length MCAS similar to the one given in 2019. okay so this is really a district y chart of um MCAS performance at each grade level at each school um from three through ten the Red Bar represents the percentage of uh students in MPS who meet or exceed expectation the blue bar represent um the state number meeting and exceeding

098expectation and then the green line that you see is the percentage of MPS students meeting and exceeding in 2019. okay so you can kind of just look across to see grade four grade three grade four grade five grade six and then grade 10 performance um and and how it it differs from 2019 that's the green line all right so this is for the ELA MCAS and this lie is focusing on the math MCAS and the setup is the same you see the the blue bar is for the state line and across the grade level grade three grade four grade five six seven eight and ten you know the red bars are all above um the blue State bars however you do see that compared to 2019 where the green line is um we have a

099decrease in performance and this is not only a Milton this is across the board Across the Nation so this is not a big surprise next slide and V before you go on I do want to make one notation even though we're talking about comparisons with 2019 it is a different set of students cohort of students for those given years so I just want to make that note but uh I will move on so this is looking at um the science MCAS for grade five and grade eight and grade 10 was not available for this past year okay and performance um was pretty steady in science and this is true Statewide as well next slide all right um in this slide we are looking at the different subgroups um okay so this this looks a little

100different James than the the slides that I have um on the slide that I have they would have the the different um subgroups of students down at the bottom and this is not capturing that yeah so if you go um forward one slide I'll just tell you the the structure and then hopefully when we uh post this presentation online people will be able to see that the actual um descriptor of each subgroup down at the bottom um but this is really just to give an idea of the difference the performance between 2019 which is represented by the gray bar and then the red bar is our performance in 2021 and across the board you see a drop um the blue again is the state line and the red is um the MPS and MPS performance

101and and across the board for every uh subgroup even though you can't see the specific subgroup here but each pair of line represents a different subgroup um across the board do you want me to point to number one and you just say what that subgroup is and then I'll go across the board so people have an idea um okay sorry so that one and two that's the students with disability and then the next one four and five that's the El and former El subgroup the next one after that is the economically disadvantaged subgroup and 11 10 and 11 those African-American um black students and 13 and 14. those are the charts for Asian students after that 1617 is the Hispanic Latino students um 19 and 20 those are multi-racial students and then 22 and 23

102those are white students and and lastly 25 and 26 those are um basically all students in MPS all right so if you can navigate to the next slide so this is for uh District math MCAS by subgroup so same thing um the first pair is students with disability then we have El and former El um the next set is low-income students economically disadvantaged um the next step after that is African-American black the next set is Asian students after that is a Hispanic Latino students um next pair is multi-racial students and then after that as white students then 25 and 26. those are all students together okay all students who took the math MCAS um and then in in 28 and 29 those are the State numbers so again as you can see um every subgroup

103experience a decline in math performance on last year's MCAS this is looking at the grade five and grade eight together their performance on the science MCAS okay so again student with disability the next is El and former El students then economically disadvantaged the next one is African-American black students and then Asian students then Hispanic and Latino the next one is multiracial the one after that white students and then all students okay and we would be remiss to not mention this right here the very first column special education if you see there's an increase of nine percentage points and one could speculate is because our special education students were in school a lot more they had that opportunity last year oh sorry oh one more slide so this is um that this is looking at the

104grade 10. so grade 10 data is separated from the grade three through eight data um and this uh this is how the state separate the data and one of the reason is because grade 10 is actually used for competency determination by the state so students have to pass the MCAS in order to to graduate from the school system I know that um they have given special dispensation for for up to I think class of 2023 because of the pandemic um that you know they have other means to to gain the competency determination but this is uh what their performance looked like on the MCAS for ELA and math okay and then if you navigate to the next slide so this chart gives an account of uh the performance change between 2019 and 2021 and in

105the red are all the places where we have um experienced a decline in the performance in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding and in the green are where you actually saw some growth in the performance of students who who who met or exceeded expectation um and if you see if you look at the the students with disabilities subgroup that's the one that the superintendent jet just mentioned was the only subgroup that actually saw gains across the board um at every grade level in every topic um on last year's MCAS okay and the other grade level that has a similar stable performance or Improvement is in grade 10 Ela you see that column of mostly green numbers down the line down the chart so that's for grade 10 Ela and everywhere else you see you

106know uh dip in performance and specifically in um grade three through eight math you see double digit um decline in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding and this is something that um exists you know this pattern exists Statewide and the the state projects that math is going to be an area of um of Challenge and a Focus that everybody will need to pay attention to in the next couple of years to really build our students core skill back up to the level before the pandemic hit so sum up the observation I have shared with you already that math declined more than Ela and that we still saw some performance gaps between the subgroups and those subgroups experiencing the lowest outcome include students with disability economically disadvantaged students African-American black the English Learners and Hispanic

107Latino students so these are all the historically um uh the historically marginalized subgroups that we have in our data set um the bright spot um as you saw were the students with disability who was the only subgroup that either consistently improve or declined the lease in this past year and and across the state and also in Milton Globe growth scores have decreased significantly due to the in the pandemic and the state even had to adjust kind of their SGP model for a calculation to account for this new reality so whereas previously you would have 20 percent of student in each of the five growth categories from very low low moderate high and very high now depending on the grade level there could be up to 50 percent of students in the very low growth category

108so that is something that we just have to keep in mind as we push forward and continue to monitor the MCAS in the next couple of years okay so now I'm going to advance this to talking about uh advanced placement so at Milton high school there are a total of 21 AP courses and AP courses uh open enrollment to all Juniors and seniors and even some of our sophomores have the opportunity to take um AP level courses um and as superintendent jet has reminded me multiple times you know Milton High School offered the most AP courses of any other school in the region including private schools so we are very proud of that fact and that we want to make sure that as many of our students as possible have access to this AP programming

109so right now close to 60 percent of the graduating senior class have experienced success in at least one AP course during the high school career and that means at least one AP class where they score a three or higher and a three score is significant because for um for a lot of colleges if you score a three or four or five on an AP you might be bumped out of their uh their first year requirement in that subject so then you can move on to a second level class okay and in school year 2021 72 of all students um who all AP students receive a qualifying scores of three four five and although this is the decline from the previous year's rate of 88 we now have more students um taking AP courses and more

110exams are being taken uh so you know there are some opportunity and achievement gaps in the AP data and the district recognized um that we want all students to experience rigorous coursework and and we will continue to work to remove barriers to access and achievement um what we can see in the data is African-American students are not participating in AP classes at their proportion of the population and more so than any other subgroups African-American students were most impacted by the pandemic school year and you'll see that in the slide when we go to to that slide later okay next slide um so this chart really gives you the percentage of students with a qualifying scores of three or more over the past five years and in 2019 you saw that the rate was at 77

111in 2020 it was at 88. the caveat with 2020 was that the College Board changed the AP so they shortened it to a 45 minute exam instead of being uh usually a typical three-hour exam and they allow students to take that 45 minute exam from home and then in 2021 it went back to being a full-length test and the the high school offered that testing in person half of that testing was digital online but it was monitored by staff in person at the high school so this is looking at the percent um of exam by different subgroups um okay just um taking it back a little bit because I can help you out with that yeah it's okay I have so the red line the red line yeah from looking at this is for 12th

112graders the green line is 11th greatest and the purple line is 10th graders um and the blue line is the graduation summary no this this is the percent of exam by race so the red line uh represent all students the Blue Line the dark blue line is um the performance of Asian students the green line is the performance of African-American students okay um the light blue is Hispanic Latino students the purple line that is right behind the red line that's the performance of white students and the orange line is the multi-racial students thank you so you see um this past year 2021 multiracial students uh really bump up in their performance and the other subgroups um all kind of trend Trend down like each other but the performance of African-American students was really adversely impacted

113by last year yeah oh sorry I do want to apologize folks as you know we had a little bit of technical difficulty and I'm doing it from my computer and V has that so what we could do is we could put a link to this presentation but we could also put it online and you will have all of the indicators describing exactly what each line is as part of that so we do apologize this is the day and age of zoom and sometimes we do have technical difficulties but we will make sure that you get the the uh accurate one yeah thank you okay so this lie is uh looking at the percentage of exam with uh scores at least three plus by low income and the blue lines are those of the low-income students

114the fee reduced students and the red line is all students okay and so you see here low-income students um their performance is lower than that of their non low income peers next slide and this is the the percent of exam with qualifying scores by gender um blue is the male the performance of male students and green is the performance of female students so generally they they tend to not have as wide a gap as the other subgroups that we were looking at okay next slide uh go back go back one slide please okay so this is the percent of students that is with qualifying scores by grade level so the blue line is the graduating senior so you see that they're ticking near 60 so that means 60 of seniors in the high school so

115this is counting everybody all seniors in the high school not just seniors who take AP so of all the senior in the high school sixty percent have taken an AP class with a experience at least a three on their exam um the purple line down at the bottom that is for um the 10th grader and the green line is the 11th grader the red line is the current 12th grader so the blue line is the graduating senior looking at um their past year of high school so whether they took an AP class in 10th grade 11 or 12th grade that's all counted in that blue line okay next slide this this lie is looking at the participation rate in the AP program by our different racial subgroup the Red Bar represents the subgroup share of

116the student population of the Milton High School population at that grade level and the blue bar represents their share of the AP program at that grade level so when you look at the participation for grade 11 you see that African-American students make up 17 of the population in the 11th grade [Music] um but in the AP bro program they are they only make up nine percent of um the participation and in grade 12 you see that um African-American students make that 21 of um the population at grade 12. and they make up 12 of the participation in the AP program and looking across you see that um the the African-American subgroup is the only subgroup that has that big of a gap in participation next slide okay so now I'm going to talk about the

117SAT okay so in 2017 the College Board redesigned the sap Suite of Assessments and they came up with a new sap College and Career Readiness benchmarks that are aligned with um scores that are necessary for students to be ready for college and career and what they mean on by that is that you know they line up the the student scores on the sat with um the first semester grade that students would receive in college and um the The Benchmark score represent 75 percent chance that a student achieve at least a c in the face in the first semester of college okay so the overall College and Career Readiness is defined as really achieving both of the Benchmark the evidence-based reading and writing and the math benchmarks so in 2021 um we had 73 of um

118our seniors participating in the SAT whereas prior to that the the participation rate is around 95 because we have one day in school and everybody take it um that didn't happen last year a lot of the testing centers will close in Spring um and in addition to that many colleges didn't require SAT for last year but for those students who did take the SAT 75 of them met the s.a.t College and Career Readiness benchmarks okay so this lie is just showing you um the participation rate and again we see it dipped down last year in 2021. next slide okay so this chart is uh showing you um the percent of students meeting the College and Career Readiness benchmarks um let me see here the red line represent all students the blue line represent um percent

119of uh student meeting the the evidence-based reading and writing benchmarks and then the the green line represents the percent of students meeting the math benchmark so as you can see students usually perform better on Ela than they do in math okay next slide okay um so given that 73 of students took the SAT last year this is how their performance ShakeOut in terms of racial subgroup and again as superintendent Jet Set will be posting this presentation for everybody so you'll see the key right underneath um this slide but um here the orange represent the African American black students and the percent of um African-American black students who meet the College and Career benchmarks okay so that's Orange um go back one more yeah the the red line represent the the performance of Asian students the

120green line represent the performance of Hispanic Latino students and the the purple line represent the performance of of white students next slide so this is taking a look at fee waiver status which is on which usually is a proxy for low-income students in our district but in 2021 um only two students use the fee waiver so it's really not a good proxy for our data well this past year so I'm gonna move us on to the next slide and this is the performance by gender um let's see the Blue Line represent um the female performance and the red line represents the performance of male students on the SAT meeting the College and Career benchmarks V can I ask you a pause for one second and while people have any questions I'm gonna try to stop

121sharing then reshare uh folks if you have questions definitely ask them we'll do our best to answer them right now I just want to make sure as we get and I know we're getting closer to the end but trying to use this formatting um so uh and I know we're currently on slide 35 so if you guys have any questions if you want to ask that now let's try to stop sharing and then re-share okay so sorry remember rust any I've been trying to problem solve the formatting why we can't see the bottom of the screen yeah go ahead remember rust any apologize um while we're we're waiting I want to ask a couple questions about um starting with slides 15 and 16. around unfinished learning and I know that we had a series of

122interventions over the summer and there are planned interventions for this year that you're going to talk about at the end I would love to know whether or not the universal summer school program made a difference if there was any data that showed a cohort of students that participated versus who didn't and whether or not that made a difference and then as it relates to the interventions some of the interventions have been categorized as beyond the bell and if we have any data that shows which of those programs had an impact um on on actually if you compare the students who participated as a cohort if you can see any Improvement in outcomes yeah that's um a really good question and that was something that we strive to do over the summer to make sure that

123we get some data from our Universal summer programming um unfortunately the the performance the metrics that we use Alexia and iready um that the teachers were using the individualized lessons and we weren't able to turn on the um the diagnostic function of the Lexia and the eye ready so we we're not able to compare we didn't have like a pretest and a post-test so the closest that we can do is really compare what the performance of those students in the spring versus what they were in the fall um and that is you know something that we will will be following up on to make sure that there there are differences because um like I said the the individual core programming it didn't allow for us to pull programmatic data because we we couldn't administer a

124diagnostic prior to the fall diagnostic window or even within that if you know the student names for the fall like that initial data can we say these 20 kids are making up numbers these 100 kids were part of the program we're looking at the Lexia and the iready data of this cohort in Fall 2021 as compared to students who didn't participate and even if you don't have it now it would just be an interesting question to ask of the data yeah I I think that I I agree with that assessment and that's something that we definitely want to look at before we plan out um the beyond the bell support as you mentioned and beyond the bell support you know what we're doing with that is really looking at a combination of the MCAS data

125and not only the fall assessment data but also planning to get the winter assessment data so that we have two other points of data um in addition to the MCAS data so that we can get the the right cohort of students and the right intervention in for those students before planning out the full details of the beyond the bell for this year thank you okay and I know Betty has a Hannah but I just want to remember why he has a hand up I just want to let you guys know this is probably the best that I could do because just the formatting um but I hope you can see it on your screen um I could see it on my screen now and we do apologize but if I open it up in anything

126else I lose the bottom so um uh yeah no thank you for that yep okay so can we um go on to yes about uh The Unfinished learning and what we learned from the flaw data this year okay so as I said before you know Lexia rapid is the ELA Universal screener that the strict the district has been using um since spring of 2019 to give us more information on students literacy skills um and although this screener has many different subtests for instructional tiering purposes the phonological awareness subtest is used uh to tier for grade k word recognition is used for grades one and two and reading comprehension is used for grades three through eight okay and just a reminder that this assessment is one snapshot at a point in time and teachers use this

127data in conjunction with other formative data that they collect um with uh curriculum embedded assessments to determine student progress in literacy and this year we'll be giving the assessment three times in the fall in the winter in January and then one more time at the end of the year and that thing to note is that while this Greener help us to measure and improve students foundational literacy skills it doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation to MCAS standards-based assessments because they are different types of Assessments um one is skill based so so Lexia is looking at the the reading skills um that students need to read proficiently while MCAS is measuring um standards based skills what students are expected to do with their reading ability at each grade level so it's it's slightly different context for

128these assessments okay so I a subgroup analysis here for the performance of grades three through eight on the reading comprehension subtests and the pattern of achievement gaps really mirrors that of the MCAS Assessments in that you know you see students with disabilities low-income students English Learners African-American black students and Hispanic Latino students are lagging behind their peers so so this is what the Lexia false Greener looks like at each of the different grade level and as I mentioned you know K has a different subtest that we're looking at what's your purposes and then grade one and two and then grade three and eight were using the reading comprehension and this is kind of what you're seeing the gray portion of the bar are the percentage of students who are currently um below grade level so

129their performance level is below the 25th percentile the green portion is are those students who are on grade level and those are students between the 25th and 75th percentile um a performance on the test on the subtest and then blue is all those students who are performing above the 75th percentile on that particular subtest and what we're hoping to see is you know with each Administration you'll see the green and the blue um rising and you know closing that gap on on the the gray portion of the bar hmm and this chart is um basically breaking down um the only grade three through eight um reading comprehension bicep group so I grouped all of the all of their subtests together all the reading comprehension subtests together and was able to break it out by these

130different um subgroups okay um so the the first one is really just time comparing the three through eight performance on Spring 2021 through the to the three through eight performance on Fall 2021 okay so these are two different cohorts but at the same grade level um for race you see uh you know the the blue and the green bar and how high they are is indicative of um the percentage of students who are on or above grade level okay and you know that's how if we you would read the the chart for low-income students and all the other subgroups as well so pattern very similar to MCAS in that some of these um his historically marginalized groups are performing um at a lower rate than their counterparts okay so next slide um so this slide

131is going to talk about that iready math screener it is a new screener that the district had um piloted last spring um and we're using again this fall to kind of help give us more information on student grade level math skills in k through eight again it's uh one snapshot at a point in time and it is not unexpected that the fall assessment will have lower placement as students are only starting to dwell into their grade level math skills um the district is going to give this three times a year fall winter and spring um so unlike the Alexia rapid literacy screener I ready diagnostic screener has been found to have high correlation to MCAS performance um which is um it's good for us to to look at um well at least the the MCAS

132performance pre-pandemic so the pandemic really kind of threw a wrench into everything um and we'll have to see like what the impact and the correlation of uh of the diagnostic is to the MCAS now but pre-pandemic it has a very high correlation to MCAS performance and subgroup Analysis shows kind of the same trends that we see on our other assessments for these subgroups okay so this is taking a look at um grade one through eight and what their performance was on this math screener that we did in the fall foreign is early on grade level and mid is um blue is mid or above grade level and yellow is one great level below orange two grade level belows and and red is three or more grade levels below um and in the fall you know

133what I already has um indicated to us is we tend to see a lot more students in that yellow band of one grade level below because um you know there are they still haven't learned um the grade level material for this year yet and we've already taken the assessments and so it's not surprising that the majority of our students at each grade level are landing more in the yellow portion what we're hoping is that by winter we'll see more of that moving into the green and Into the Blue okay so this chart is a little busy um but you know the idea is kind of the same it's uh broken down by by subgroups and you can kind of see where the where each subgroup fall for for race for low income for um students

134with IEP for El students and for uh male versus female students right and lastly I just wanted to give an update on the SEO intellispark screener so at this point we have started to administer um the SEO screeners to all students in K-12 I believe that um the the middle school had pushed out their their screeners to the students today and hopefully we'll get all data um all screeners completed by students by the end of this week and if not we'll we'll follow up with some some classes that haven't been able to to do it this week and we're hoping to collect all data you know before we go off for Break um so that the the the platform and us can really pull that data over break to Aggregate and to learn um what

135what are some of the trends that we're seeing in the data um so as stated in the superintendent communication to family the purpose of these quick check screeners is to really get a pulse of student SEL skills the question on the screener aligned with Castle's five areas of competence that's indicator for self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making they are not designed and not meant to give a diagnosis on behavioral issues or mental health issues and because SEL screeners are so dependent on you know how a student feel at a particular time it's not a progress monitoring tool per se you know it's really helping us just to get a quick snapshot at that point in time to make sure that we are getting a a wide look at how all our

136students are doing in terms of these core SEL skills District y and so last last spring we really partner with intellispark to develop and pilot the elementary screeners that our students are taking and we will continue to partner with intellispark to develop some of those aggregate summary reports for the elementary cohort so we have some of that reporting available for the secondary level because they've been doing the screeners at the secondary level for intellispark has been doing this for a long time at the secondary level at the elementary level was something new that they partner with us on last spring because we recognize how important it is to Benchmark in some way the SEL status of our elementary students as well and so we will continue this partnership with them um to you know gain

137some of that um Insight from summary reports that they'll be working with us to develop and the goal is to really Implement a K-12 SEL screening system um to help us realize if there are patterns if there are Pockets um that need additional intervention or support um and so that's how we can plan for curriculum and other types of interventions either on an individual level or you know on um a school-wide basis or district-wide basis all right so at this point I'm gonna turn um this last two slide over to uh our assistant superintendent to kind of finish it out and talk about what we're doing to address unfinished learning in the district thank you V IA so this is a summary of some of the initiatives that we're taking to address the unfinished learning

138in the district um where um first using uh Desi's recommended accelerated framework of teaching to guide um to to guide us in um thinking about meeting standards versus remediation and while we do believe remediation is still important when we're looking at the whole group and planning instruction um there there is some guidance on considering focusing on the standards rather than going back and trying to re-teach and uh um you know go back to the previous year's standards um we're revising the Strategic plan with a focus on safe and supportive schools and learning environments equity and learning and personalized learning and uh We've we found that the um that we had been adding to the Strategic plan so that it was becoming difficult to focus on priorities and we're using the planning for success model that

139was created by the department of Elementary and secondary education and we have a a subcommittee working on those revisions now we're going to be um getting feedback from our leadership team tomorrow we look forward to that we have discussed this at our principal and coordinator meetings at our instructional Council meetings and we look forward to bringing that to the full committee and to all stakeholders in the district we are analyzing our academic data as well as our social emotional learning screening data to identify student needs and plan instruction and supports accordingly and we are also conducting curriculum reviews right now in the district where um conducting a math and social studies curriculum review um we have collaborative teams um that are um that are looking at um the research they're using um curriculum review tools

140that cover um multiple areas um evaluating for excellence some of these areas that they're looking at include alignment to our standards they're looking at the rigor of the curriculum critical thinking equity and cultural competency we have general education teachers our special education teachers reading Specialists and through grant funding recently we now have early learning coaches who will provide the following supports we have we're planning for targeted support for students who are not meeting expectations or who are partially meeting expectations on the MCAS targeted support for students scoring between rather below the 25th percentile on the Lexia rapid assessment um support for students performing um below grade level on the i-Ready assessment and then we will have ongoing assessment to monitor student progress and the beyond the bell support um member Russ Denny asked if we

141had data um to consider how we would provide that beyond the bell support and in past years we've we've tried different methods of support we've had years where we concentrated on on MCAS prep versus looking at very specific skills um we um we've had years where we um offered you know before school and after school programming we're looking to change that up a little bit we have not seen statistically significant changes as a result of some of those supports and so we have our um our teams looking now at proposing something a little bit different and we'll be looking forward to sharing that with you thank you um so uh we have focused on professional development for all of the above um that that were just mentioned um our our staff has been um working

142on data analysis on protocols for looking at data and planning instruction accordingly um planning personalized lessons based on the data or whole group small group data that shows large numbers of students in the classroom need support in a specific area we know that that's the job of the general education classroom teacher to focus on that and then data will tell us the students who need work in small groups or even individually um we're using multiple resources to um to look at our methods of instruction given that we have so much unfinished learning and we've had professional development thus far in restorative justice we have our administrators particip participating in that now and we look forward to extending those opportunities to other staff members and then what's next many of these recommendations for proposed additional support

143are based on increased enrollment but we do have a number of positions that we feel are are related to unfinished learning and when we present the budget we will have um specific impact statements on on how this will how we believe this will impact our unfinished learning and address our increasing enrollment so thank you so thank you assistant superintendent uh she and folks I'm just going to leave these slides up and I'll keep it in here I'm realizing on my end I'm getting a little feedback my camera's off but I am here but if there's a particular slide that you want me to go back to if you have questions please let me know and I'll do my best to get there as quickly as possible and this presentation right here should all should have

144that bottom part of the screen with the data so if you have a question if you remember the slide please let me know and I'll I'll scroll to it and if someone can help me with the uh who's on the screen because I can't see everybody so please uh if you want to take the chance and I'm like yourself that might be easier superintendent yet I can I can help you with that um okay thank you thank you V for well that's a lot of that's a lot of information um thank you so much to you and your team um for compiling all this information for us um Dr Craig do you want to start us off go ahead sure um I have a lot of comments but in the interest of time it's almost

1459 30 already um when we're at item two um on our 10 item agenda um I would just like to use the last thing that assistant superintendent Sheehan said um as a segue to what um I want to focus on which is um the budget um I think there's there's no better slide to demonstrate the incredible need that we have four positions in the district then the subgroups performance change between 2019 and 2021 slide that showed double-digit declines in all subgroups uh in one category and I think we need to very clearly make that case and you see the um the positions represented here we're very we need to very clearly make that case um of the need um certainly not just due to um unfinished learning but um to our enrollment crisis that's uh

146creating something of a perfect storm for us um and I did have uh one quick well might not be a quick question but um it's really disheartening to see the um well to see um African-American students um performance in lots of these areas but I was specifically wondering if there are what strategies have been used and what ideas do you have to increase African-American participation at the high school in AP courses since they're open thanks so very very good question in uh what are they what are the um strategies we were using is uh the calculus project uh which was implemented in the bridge some of the seventh and eighth grade and what this was is it was really uh supporting students encouraging students and kind of pre-teaching and I know there was some concerns

147throughout the year about the calculus project and I want to say it was less than .05 of the entire budget um in terms of supporting that initiative and hopefully what it is is it is about uh working with about 20 students or so in a cohort and it varies from year to year but hopefully to get them to matriculate to the grades build themselves sustaining confidence but I say this starts as early as Elementary level uh we talk about some of the interventions we have making sure all of our students are reading a grade level we're talking about the equity in our curriculum exposing all of our students to a rigorous course load we're talking talking about the push and developing relationships and hopefully teachers are encouraging along with the parents encouraging students to do

148it and I want to remind every View and uh every member viewing this presentation this evening Milton high school has an open enrollment policy for APS that means teachers students and or parents can make the recommendation however there is a level of commitment and part of that is making sure all of our students want a committed uh to the work it is a summer work it is rigorous work but we also try to provide the supports and teachers made themselves available throughout the summer for some of those folks who need it in before and after school in some of the cases your Student Success in these AP classes or rigorous classes is also the success of the teachers that's one so I think there's a lot of work in so many different factors that play

149into it um from a belief system to an opportunity uh closing the opportunity Gap making sure students have that and then also a support system uh even those and I'm not just talking about re remediation for those who want to stretch themselves find the ways that we can provide them support as well to allow them to stretch themselves a little bit more um and hopefully uh that right here and all the courses that we offer from K all the way up to uh the time in which uh they take AP courses small number in 10th Grade but a vast majority in Junior and Senior year uh so hopefully we can close the gap continue to close the gap uh year after year after year thanks and thanks V once again for a very thorough report

150remember rosteni I uh I have a series of questions that I will also email because they're there's a depth of information here and thank you V for providing this that um has allowed me to think differently about how we can work um but mostly clarification questions if we can go to slide 27 I noticed that there was some data around 10th graders that are enrolled in AP courses and it basically shows that the percent of students that are achieving cut scores is between six percent and 12 percent and this is relatively low and it makes me think if if a student knew that if they took this took an AP course in 10th Grade there was as little as a six percent six point six percent chance that they would get a cut score whether

151or not they would even consider taking the class so my questions are and this is probably way too much for tonight but what courses are 10th graders eligible to take um to my knowledge are only two uh AP Computer Science and AP statistics and it's it begs the question how are these students prepared to engage in AP work and who's monitoring their performance over the course of the school year because clearly more supports are needed or we should probably reconsider 10th grade participation and I would hate to deprive prepared students of the opportunity to engage in advance work but I do think we need to really think about and do do the research how do we prepare these students when we can be successful so those were like three questions all at once but I

152would love to to hear any response from anyone about um about those questions related to 10th grade participation and I have a few more about the SAT but we'll take them one at a time so I think I think that is a good question um and I think there's multiple different factors in it and I think to your point the 10th graders taking it sometimes it could be a maturity level a stamina level and then also uh depends on what they're involved in some of our students are really stretching themselves they're involved in a lot of different activities as well from either Athletics to drama uh and then they take a false course a full course load with very little time for electives or downtime but I it is a set curriculum the AP the

153College Board uh comes out with a set curriculum it is it is very similar Across the Nation how it's delivered is a little bit different but what happens is there's a meeting in the spring if the student is selected this coursework that is given out through the summer with some support their teachers that do reveal themselves before school and after school it is there is not a lot of support outside of the actual class instruction during the day in fact um member Eberhard or a couple of people I know years ago we talked about and I'm gonna say that dirty word that Mary gomley never really wanted to talk about but some of our students who were involved in a lot of activities whether or not we could incorporate uh directed studies or study halls

154in school because of our rigorous course load that some of our students take and give them that break because if you take some of these AP courses and we have students who take two three in a given year and sometimes four and if you're involved in activities where do you find a time in your schedule during a your awaken your hours at your way to do the work and do the study and and truly delve into it and be successful so um I think the preparation again uh remember us then he starts very early on time management organization but also the supports academically to make sure the students can handle it um and those are things that you raise uh legitimate questions on how could we continue to support those kids uh students particularly in

155the 10th grade uh I don't there's not that many I I think it was a slide the 10th grade is a total of 27 students if I'm not mistaken out of a class close to 275 or 300 um the take a test the AP test in their sophomore years or at least in in this graph so um it varies I appreciate the the explanation but I think the real challenge is we should do something differently and I would love to get the input of the um I think I think computer science falls under science and AP Statistics falls under math I would love to see a proposal of some sort that says what will we do differently and if it means telling students in front you have to have two hours a day to study

156when you're preparing for an AP class this is what it looks like to prepare for an AP class I know there's summer work I'm thinking more of what are the study strategies what are the skills that someone needs to be successful in the class and even if it means a parent is responsible for securing third-party resources to support them and being successful and getting that cut score being very transparent with families up front I know there's a summer pledge that they have to sign that they're going to do the work but I think there's a difference between completing an assignment and knowing how to prepare for a college level course that there may be a disconnect with these students so I would love to see any recommendation on what can we do differently with this

157cohort of 27 sure every year it's right probably around this 30-ish number um so that because if if I knew going into this that you know if I was a 10th grader and I knew only three of us were possibly going to get a cut score I probably wouldn't take the class it's a lot of work um not to achieve the college credit that you that you hope um not to monopolize any time but I if Margaret I would love or James I would love your suggestion on how do I I don't want to take an hour with the questions but I do have some questions um that I want to to have addressed what's the best way to do this so that Lizzy and Betty and aydah and whoever else has their hand up

158have an opportunity to ask because I'm next going to move on to um some questions about the participation rates for African-American Hispanic students um I can jump in here um I think that there's a lot of information um I think that you should ask another question or two and I also think that I think we should plan for another meeting in January for us to take the time we only got this we did we got the slides a little bit later um you know then we got them on Monday or or later Monday for us to come back with our questions to ask at a meeting so that members of the community can hear the questions that we have and then and or we can send we can send the questions ahead of time so

159that people can be um be prepared to answer them at the meeting I do think that planning another meeting to discuss this really um important data is the best way to go but I don't want to take away any conversation at this moment um since um V is here and available to answer questions but we should have another meeting to discuss the data that's what I'm thinking as I sit here tonight thanks Margaret so if I'm going to email you the the questions I had because I do want to get a proposal from both of these directors about me my second set of questions are related to slide 28 around the percentage of African-American and Hispanic students um participating in AP so the first is can we get some data on how many of these

160students get a recommendation for at least one AP class before graduation because while it's open Choice you'd be surprised at how many parents will trust the recommendation that they receive and if there is no recommendation in four years there's a very low likelihood that a parent's going to question the Judgment of the teacher to say I think you can take this AP class so I would love to get data on that two if all of our students if all students were taking AP classes based on their representation in the population are there sufficient seats so if we ended up with the full 17 of African-American students enrolling in at least one AP class can we accommodate that do we have the capacity to do that and then lastly similar to the 10th grade cohort what

161preparation can you give students to be successful in these classes whether it's study strategies whether it's telling them accessing tutoring that might be delivered by a third party that whether the parents pay for it or the district subsidizes it but you what I'm realizing is these are historical patterns and if we're looking at this work with an equity lens it means that these students may need something different and it's not just black students that are not making cut scores they're in every population here there's a proportion of students that aren't earning a three um I'm gonna quote Chris gabrielli who said in a meeting I wanted my son to earn a National Merit Scholarship in physics so I hired someone to tutor him physics and those are the things that wealthy families can do for

162their kids that I don't I don't expect Milton to be able to replicate that but there's something north of what we're doing right now and south of having someone tutor a kid a class um that I think we can do and I'd love to hear any proposals from whether it's the directors or or teachers because I believe there's enough knowledge amongst our faculty we have a very strong faculty that I think we can do better than this and the same thing applies to the SAT data slide 33 which is would we um what supports are we interested in putting in place for students to achieve at high levels on the s.a.t we all know that there are prep courses and if it means that one cohort of students has access to two or three years

163of preparation um that's that might be the recommendation we make to their families or we somehow create a course for that but I can tell you at the private schools there are kids that are starting SAT prep as young as sixth grade I'm not saying that's happening for most Milton families on a private level but if we want to see changes in these outcomes we actually have to do the research to say when people do achieve what does it look like what are the interventions we have in place and if it means us having to raise the money through the Milton foundation for education or we ask families to pay part of it we can't look at the same data every year and not say why and how have other people addressed it because I

164do think there's something north of what we have now that's south of perfect that we could do in the next 12 to 18 months to make a movement on this data those are my my two my three slides I've got a couple more but I will email them so thank you for hearing me out um thank you member Rossini um and I I I do think um because if those some of those questions we would need additional Milton PS employees to answer them so good things to have another meeting to discuss it I'm Dr Carol thank you thank you V for this presentation um I will also try to save some more specific questions for when we are able to have the follow-up discussion which I agree is a really good idea but I just

165wanted to share a few observations in case they are things that I can sort of put on the table that we can keep talking about as this conversation continues um one thing that I was thinking about all the way through the presentation from the beginning slide seven and eight around the disciplinary removal the um disproportionality and special ed referrals and then you don't need to scroll through but I'll just sort of then they came back around and thinking about the um unfinished learning and the data that we see there and really all the way through um I'm really wondering about or rather not the unfinished learning but the AP uh the conversation we were just having I'm wondering about on the role and then the need for professional development on implicit bias for teachers um

166I know that there are a number of professional development topics that have been identified in the presentation um as you know interventions to address some of this data um in the beginning on seven and eight talking about I mean obviously if a student has a knife in school that's that but I know that there are other um scenarios where it is the implicit bias that we all to be clear we all have within all of us and that has been actually like well established by the literature and research um you know how are we supporting Educators to mitigate that um in order to sort of avoid some of those disproportionalities that we see in referrals for example we have a lot of theoretical research but also now we have quantitative research that shows the connection

167between teachers implicit bias and disparate income outcomes in student performance and so how is that part of our conversation because it clearly also plays into the what member Ross Denny was just talking about with teachers referring students for AP courses so that's just a a lingering question I have not for an answer right now but can we talk about what that might look like to support our Educators with professional development in that area what have we done in the past and what are we planning to do um I'm wondering clearly math like emerged as an area um that needs focus and so I understand that we're getting ready to embark on a math curriculum review next year and that Brian silig May already have begun that process I'm wondering whether we could at some point

168in the future have a presentation update from him that sort of speaks to how we can look at revising our math curriculum with specific attention to these areas that both are summative and formative assessment data is showing us we need to support students in different and better ways so that's another thing I'm just wondering about for the future um the um piece about like one observation that I had um was sort of interesting to me because I've heard people um in different ways uh connecting the unfinished learning outcomes that we've seen to various perceptions of our hybrid model last year I did notice in the presentation of the data that on all but two I believe of the MCAS um indicators we were actually matching mirroring the state in our results it looked like there

169were two I think it was slide 17 and 18 science and 10th grade math where it looked like we had slightly uh worse outcomes for our students than the state did on average um but that was I felt worth highlighting um because it just it was a reminder to me watching the presentation that um you know this really is a problem a challenge that we're dealing with across the country but in this case we have data to show across the state um and that has nothing to do with like the urgency that with which we have to like address these issues of course um but I just felt that was um I didn't necessarily know what to expect with that and that that felt worth pointing out um I also really appreciated the reminder of

170how many AP courses we offer and that that those continue to be really good opportunities for our community and how can we get more students access to those opportunities I hear also from the community people wishing that we could for example like go rise in the rankings or you know that our district could and just remembering that those things are all calculated by average right our average SATs our average APS and um so that's needing to kind of bring those scores up in that Rising tide list all boats kind of way um the last thing I wanted to just ask for at a future meeting because it was embedded in a lot of the presentation and I know that a lot of the Investments coming through covid federal grants have been mentioned at numerous Finance

171subcommittee meetings joint committee meetings with select board and everything else could we possibly get a succinct presentation at a future meeting that just really outlines for the community um like what are the positions that we have brought online in these last few months and that are coming in the next few months that are specifically funded through the covid money that are addressing these unfinished learning needs I know that I received a letter this past week as a parent letting me know that um you know one of these Early Learning coaches has been hired and is now at the school and that they'll be conducting assessments and will learn whether or not our children are accessing those Services based on their results so I just feel like it might help connect the dots for people if

172we could see like it not a lengthy presentation like this but just like even a slide or something to just illustrate like an update on the various pots of money and the positions um that have you know that we have been able to secure especially the ones that have already been hired because I'm not sure if everybody is make is like being able to kind of understand that so much work is happening behind the scenes to quickly move those dollars into hiring people with specific jobs that are directly driven by this these data results so I think that could be a helpful thing if we can get to that maybe next month or something yes Dr Carl I think I I made I made some notes here um from your comments and questions and I

173if you would also send them into me so we can compile them as a document to give to the um to the administrators but um particularly we've been asking a little bit about that we've been asking about the buckets of money but I think your question about the specific um positions that are addressing the um the um unfinished learning needs would be a helpful um piece of information for the entire community so um yes thank you I um I I don't have many questions at this point in my my head starts to spin after a while um there's just so much information here but thank you V for for this very thorough presentation um one of the questions I had was about the risk ratios slides and I was trying to see the numbers of

174students it the sense that I had was that it was talking about the proportion of students all that had special needs that were being removed for disciplinary purposes but I didn't see the numbers of students without special needs who were being removed for disciplinary purposes and I don't know if I was reading it wrong but I I just didn't wasn't sure I was getting the full picture on on what's going on there um I I can jump in there so the the risk ratio is um a specific formula that Desi uses to calculate um you know how one uh one subgroup experience the outcome as opposed to uh other subgroups and in that formula they do include the number of incidents um disciplinary removal that are experienced by non-special education students so it's it's part

175of the calculation of that risk ratio that's why um I said that it's it it's not um a straightforward calculation for us to do on our own to try to figure out where are we on the risk ratio um it has to do with the number of incident experienced by special education students and then by everybody else in the whole year um so it's it's it's a little bit um more convoluted and and not as straightforward and so that's why you don't see that comparison to non-special ed students but they are part of that risk ratio calculation when you see the formula okay yeah I just think for for me I think it would be helpful to see everybody on one table to see the numbers of all all the students who've had disciplinary removals

176and then just to be able to see those I don't know if it's raw data or exactly how it would be portrayed but I think it would give me a better understanding of of that because I think these numbers were just the students with special needs um and um I I I just may have that all wrong no you're right the risk ratio in this instance is focused on um the special education population um but I think that when we have the incident Reporting System online I mean that is the goal behind it is to be able to pull that same data for all of our students and be able to see that Trend and so I'm hopeful that once we have a centralized way of getting that information of collecting that information then we

177would be able to break it down much more easily to see you know which one are in the subgroup which one are not in the subgroup and all the different demographics that we usually care about yeah and and do you think that that once this I imagine that you're involved in this incident Reporting System um creation and I'm just wondering is that something that you'll be able to report back to us on the data on an annual basis is that is it well exactly available to us that is definitely the goal um and that is what we're working on I think the challenge right now is just that they're just different types of incidents that you find with the secondary set of students versus the elementary and we just want one coordinated system that we

178can pull out this data from so we're just configuring the pieces with Elementary to make sure that it's line up with what we already have at the secondary level um and in that way you know when we do pull the data then we can pull it for the whole district and see it all at once that I think that'd be that'd be really helpful thank you um and I guess that my my last comment was it was just um about the the grade three MCAS scores and and I I recognize the the impact negative impact of the pandemic on everyone but I just think we still have so much work to do in raising those scores for all of our students um that that overall 35 of our students are not meeting or exceeding standards

179um is is that's like a hundred students or more per grade that that's that we need to figure out how to bring those scores up and and help those kids and and I I don't know the answer but it's a challenge that that is at the basis of the success of of all of our kids we know that being able to read at third grade is a as a huge indicator of later success in school and um so I I I assume to those those data very quickly and and think we still have work to do in that area thank you I remember wait so I think Ada read my mind but I was gonna talk about the unfinished learning and I think that as we as we begin to get ready to make our

180budgetary request known to the town to town meeting to the warrant committee I think it might be helpful to take to ask about how many students are are have been impacted by The Unfinished learning and need that remedial or instructional care I mean every year we always have students that need extra help but I think given the data that we just saw I think our numbers are significant and it might be helpful to sort of when we make the pitch for our needs to say this many students and our population are needing our additional resources moving forward to help get them back to where they were how catch them up so it might be helpful to even put it into that kind of a numerical um you know numbers so that we could say you

181know one third of our student body or however many it is I mean I knew the data was going to be impactful but to see it up on the screens is really like we have a lot of work to do you know and we knew it was coming but I think it might be helpful just to put numbers onto that as we look at our um our request for the budget for next year yeah yeah definitely thank you for that feedback I know that um you know in working with the curriculum coordinators to try to think about uh shaping out the some of the intervention and beyond the bell support we have started to do some of that numerical pinning um as Steve said just to uh get you know an estimate of how many

182students that we're talking about um and it it is definitely a lot more than what we've seen in previous years um that we're we're even thinking you know um a large majority of it is going to have to be done through core instruction in the classroom because there are so many students who fall into that bucket of um needing extra attention um so I I know that you know all teachers are maxed out right now and they're they're racking their brain think of ways of how to catch everybody up while teaching them you know the current expectation for the current grade level as well um so it's it's a lot for our teachers to handle um and um I know that the the district is and both uh superintendent and the assistant superintendent are thinking

183of how we can Infuse additional supports to our teachers um that is definitely something that will need to be fleshed out and and think about more um to make sure that teachers have that support that they need because the proportion of students are definitely greater than we've seen in previous years if I could make a recommendation um considering for the first 33 full slides we didn't have the graphs at the bottom coupled with the fact that you guys got this information on Monday in the viewing audience this is their first time seeing it I would if I could make a recommendation if we could save this with send out the link to the actual presentation we encourage people to send in their questions as just as you guys are and then um hopefully we could

184do it a quick one at the next meeting and and maybe invite Brian selig uh director of math um you know Captain Roche Allison McHugh in ela and then also Amy Thomas Christie Chia Peta and Science and then that way in sumacelli and then we can have a discussion about those questions but it'll give people a chance to walk away and digest and I only say that in the interest of time because we haven't even gotten the citizen speakers but just my recommendation um okay yes of course superintendo that's a great recommendation remember Austin did you want to say something else something briefly in response to these made a very good point about the capacity of our teachers and I would love us to think flexibly about the resources in our account that we could

185use Curry College is a resource that we might be able to leverage they have a program of education and maybe through a partnership we can supplement because I don't want to burn out or already overstretched teachers to do this work but I think if we start if we think creatively of how we can supplement or complement the efforts that they have put it forth we might be able to see the new move but thank you V once again for the time you took to prepare for this because I could tell it put it took a lot of you put a lot of effort into this thank you yeah I wanted to thank you via I've been I've been thinking a lot lately um that I've been sitting on the school for me now for almost

186six years having a chance to see your presentations and Learn and Grow from them um this will be my last one right because my term will end in on in April Dr Craig and I will be leaving the school committee at that time and I wish I was I wish I think that the presentation if we go back to the conversation that we started in the beginning I think that the presentation shows that um some of the systems that we have in place are are broken and we need to fix them and rethink the way we we work with students and teachers right I mean that's really if you want any proof or you want anything to show you that we need to rethink if you want students to see themselves in the learning if

187we want everything to be representative this data speaks to that loudly clearly perfectly beautifully in some ways that it's systemic that is holistic and the best efforts of even one person or two persons is never going to be enough that it's a collective effort and and that's really like if you take that piece with you tonight and you say okay what can we do again go back to yourself and then out to the community and then how can we think and think again the way we work with students so they see themselves and reflect and then achieve I think for me on this evening that's what I'm I see I'm smarter now than I used to be in some ways I wish I'd been a little more informed in the few in the beginning but

188um thank you for helping me grow as an educator and through all this information that you always share with us very helpful yeah all right superintendent Jed thank you so much I know that it's getting late so if you can if there's anything in really specific you want to give us an update for or um if you want to put in a blog or whatever I will put it in a blog just a quick update for the commission of today's call but I think it's worthy of just putting out an email and then I could always follow up with folks yeah okay thank you superintendent chat um we're going to go on to Citizen speak now we'll have an opportunity for any citizens that are remaining in the meeting would like to address the school

189committee um the length of it would be 15 minutes total each speaker has three minutes to speak I would ask you to um state your name and where you live and to remind you that we do not answer comments and to please do not address anyone specifically by name in your comments you would need to raise your hand if you would like to speak and someone will Elevate you to um participant level and just to be clear my uh uh I do not have the access to elevate anyone so I just want to make sure someone on uh if someone's on access cable if they could keep an eye on that if you are raising your hand and you're not being seen to be elevated will you kindly put your comment in the chat and

190then we could uh respond I will not respond but just read it out loud sorry about that sorry superintendent yet I didn't realize that seasoning toward anyone for that and I appreciate that because I I didn't even think the check as I was on here doing the slideshow usually there's another person no no I could do it if someone's saying it goes up going once going twice if anyone has any questions I don't see any hands going up yet um so two things to wrap that up I think we will have another school committee meeting to discuss the data um I also think um I'm going to address this to member Carroll that we we are thinking about having a forum um to discuss the um about race and Equity um you know among the

191community and then I think perhaps maybe even a um a forum to discuss data um and questions that um the community might have um would be helpful sorry I see your comment here and maybe a reminder about um tomorrow evenings yes thank you I was just about to ask superintendent to remind everyone about the courageous conversations forum so yes uh tomorrow tomorrow evening uh virtual there was a link that was sent out yesterday it'll probably be sent out again uh courageous conversation with a couple of speakers uh Pierce Middle School teacher a couple of students and a couple of Specialists that we'll be talking about um the healing process moving towards healing after these incidents we fully understand it it conflicts with the grade eight uh information night it will be recorded uh I shared

192that last night at the concert uh I shared it in an email and uh it'll go out on a Blog again so I don't want people to feel like they have to miss the 8th grade information session this is uh courageous conversation it works independent of the Milton Public Schools we're very fortunate that we are part of that Forum to talk about specifically our incidents and then you'll hear from a couple other people uh on how to move forward um we were going to have Dr Jack McDevitt who's a researcher at Northeastern unfortunately he's not going to make it but he gave us two highly qualified and highly recommended individuals that would be part of that conversation that is my involvement in it I haven't done a lot of work on the uh backside of

193that but hopefully people join you do not have to have a kid in the middle Public School Milton Public Schools or at PS to join I think it's open to the entire community and hopefully we fill it to capacity because I think it's a worthwhile discussion to have in and incorporate all types of identities uh race sexuality gender all that so uh hopefully people tune in um event happen tomorrow evening Karen her in for supporting that initiative the next item on the um the agenda is the chairs report which includes one item which is the draft 2022 2023 calendar we of course could have a meeting just about the draft 2022 2023 calendar because today and just today I received a few emails from from families with really actually important questions about the Jewish holidays

194about when the professional development days are happening we have received an email back in in August which I printed out again this evening from a Community member who was asking us about um from the Milton Muslim neighbors Interfaith clergy Association asking about um certain Muslim holidays so I don't know if any of you have a you've looked at the calendar but clearly we are not going to um approve it tonight and clearly we have some work to do in thinking about the calendar in terms of when the professional development days are superintendent Chet had mentioned about early release days which I don't know how that would be negotiated if we have to negotiate those sorts of things so any comments that you want to make right now but clearly we're gonna have to have another

195conversation on school committee but I need a little bit more information about what else we need to think about before we think approve the calendar does that make sense to all of you does anyone have something they want to say about all that yes Dr Carroll I just have a question pertaining to like some of the information you just shared and um this is my first time participating in discussion of the calendar I understand there's another document that's shared that lists out a wider range of holidays that are not holidays from school like there's no early release or day off from school but these are these are religious and cultural holidays that we want our community specifically our Educators to be aware of so that they can accommodate students and families that may be celebrating

196these holidays is there a way that we can ha sort of merge those documents somehow and be able to reflect on our district calendar in a way that's not confusing like labeling the different holidays that are not a day off not ordinarily release but just having them listed there so that it can raise awareness in the community of these different holidays that are being celebrated perhaps um even though they're not time off I'm not sure if that could be like a separate key to the side or even if it could just be like a second page of the calendar but it has one in the one document I think that would be uh nice to do and just an idea or a question yeah oh members around if you want to jump in and then

197we can sort of have a I think a little yeah thank you I I was I was gonna talk about the same thing um and um the um I was um able to take a look um at Cambridge Public Schools calendar that I will share with y'all um and they do just that because I think it it was really nice and and they fit it all on one page but they have a bottom section that has a section of important dates so it includes it sort of pulls things out of the calendar format but list the first days of the personal last days of school early release days you know no school when the schools are closed when school vacation weeks are religious and cultural holidays and other important events and then there's a listing

198of religious observation observances along with the statement that said in Cambridge says note although school is in session when these holidays fall on weekdays teachers should be mindful and accommodate students observing these holidays which I really think is is consistent with what we do in the Milton schools the the our our guidance around certainly around the the holidays Jewish holidays I know um and and other holidays as well where teachers are advised as superintendent shared shared with us no tests and quizzes and and home work and and accommodations and recognizing that oftentimes the holidays start the evening before um so so I just thought that that was a a something that we might want to consider here in Milton um sort of building on the existing framework of the calendar we have but possibly modeling

199after cambridge's I think that's a good idea I uh member I mean Dr Carol and I had talked about um the calendar previously and I thought we had a little bit more time to think about it until January um but then it's December 15th and um and also I had sent um uh Charlene in Brookline they have they don't have it on the one page calendar but they have a similar attachment so um if you all will be we will work that will that's we will work on for the for the next for the next meeting we will add the calendar back to the January 5th meeting we will not vote on the calendar at the fifth we will vote probably on the 19th if we're ready and we think that we're ready and in

200the meantime I'll have conversations with the district I know we have to vote a start date I know we have to vote those things for summer and things like that but I do want to I do want to give some thought to all the community input that we that we receive through email and be mindful and have the coward reflect the conversations we've been having all evening so thank you both and thank you to the community members who emailed really important and permanent information so then the finance report is next and Dr Craighead is going to extremely alive since it's late and she's okay um our last meeting was on December 7th and our next meeting will be on December 21st um when we met on the seventh um superintendent jet um informed us that

201the leadership team had had meetings about the budget to set priorities assistant superintendent Dexter informed us that she was in the process of putting together the rollover budget I have some round numbers on that in a minute um and we also discussed the fact and this is um also an update for the school committee at large who is probably aware that we had been using the placeholder figure of 68.1 000 for a teacher in general as a placeholder when we put together the budget but that's been in place um for years um I think when I came in it was around um it went up some um but now um given our recent hires uh over the last couple of years we should be using the placeholder of 75 000. um because 68 000 is

202not adequate um and when we build the budget with those with that as a placeholder um we're falling short with the people that we end up um hiring especially if we hire people with any real experience um you know them are getting up in the steps and lanes and um so forth um we um also um oh I said I was going to get the give the round numbers for the basic rollover um of salary um the increase to our budget would be um in the neighborhood of two million dollars most of our budget is salary um and that includes obligations um for steps Lane increases and we haven't we're in uh we're meeting soon to begin the um negotiation process uh with the Milton Educators Association um I I can't remember when the first

203meeting is but it's it's not too far down the line um it's in December I believe uh for our initial meeting that contract expires in June um but we have to put a placeholder in for the budget that we present um but also increases we are going to see in special education tuitions um with uh additional uh students going out of district and um additional costs uh in those um in those placements special education Transportation which is already outrageously expensive is going up um so our costs are increasing in that area so we will need to build in an additional 250 000 for that and special education curriculum supplies Etc uh will be going up um as well heat and utilities uh we'll see an increase of uh over a hundred thousand dollars if we

204just build in a a basic percentage as assistant superintendents have in past years and we need an extra bus so and that's that's an an absolute must because this year we've had many many issues before we got you know the additional bus so that additional bus even after um folks pay their fee will probably uh cost us around seventy thousand dollars so um you know all told without adding additional positions yet this sort of basic rollover budget with nominal increases plus mandated increases in special education um is is close to three million is in the neighborhood of three million dollars it might be a shade over so that's where we are right now with no additional positions um okay um I also have uh oh and on December 22nd when we meet next the um

205superintendent and assistant superintendents are going to present to us the priority list um from the leadership team and we'll build out uh the rest of our ask um according to that so the other night okay let me ask you a quick question did any school committee members reach out with um thinking about priorities or give you information about their thoughts on on on what the needs or its priorities not those outside of the um finance committee so um if that's a really good point um chair everhard if any of you um would like to reach out or like to attend our meeting on the 21st it would be a really good one to attend um we're meeting remotely at 5 30 um so I I think it's more likely that people will be able to

206attend than our regular four o'clock uh in person that we used to do so um um so there's there's that but if anybody wants to send us um you know uh some sort of um list of priorities that they would have um that we should um take into account um we would absolutely put it on the agenda and um be happy to consider that in our deliberations okay um the vendor warrants have that here um can I make a okay I'm making a combo motion um to approve vendor warrant number 24 payable on December 9th in the amount of three hundred and twenty four thousand fifty two dollars and six cents and to approve vendor warrant number 25 payable on December 16th in the amount of 461 189.63 to have a second I'll second okay

207um I'll do a roll call vote um for my screen member Rosemary yes um chair Everhart yes uh Dr Carroll yes remember Daddy Ross study yes okay and uh member white yes and I'm a yes so that's six uh zero thank you we are on to policy that's true thank you um so the only item under policy for tonight is the first reading of policy GCF which is the professional staff hiring policy um this policy has been discussed at several subcommittee meetings over the past couple of months a few months and um so I would like to make a motion to open discussion of this policy here tonight to just see what input people might have on the revisions that you received proposed revisions second okay does anyone have any questions or observations on what

208you saw uh member Ross Denny thanks for putting the policy together making the revisions all of you who were engaged in this work I have a question about the term representative screening committee um I think that that without defining it specifically that can be left up to interpretation that may not reflect the intent of the authors I think it would be to our benefit to clarify or provide some specificity as to what that means the other thing that I would love to to see included in here is um in addition of the background checks and that it it's expanded Beyond you know Korean sorry um to include you know things like looking at someone's um footprints on the internet just to make sure that we we fully understand the candidates that we are considering beyond

209what is shared with us or what meets the minimum requirement of of the law I don't know if if we need to get consultation from legal about that but I do think it's to our benefit given the public nature of this role that we fully understand the um the past footprint of any candidates that we consider can you please just point me to um where exactly in the policy you're looking for this part um so the the part about the background checks isn't in there at all so that would be new uh but the point about the representative screening committee is in paragraph number five and it's one two three yeah okay I see that so that maybe can we just take these two suggestions one at a time see if other people have ideas

210um the representative screening committee um the suggestion um to just sort of as I'm understanding it name the kinds of individuals that would that would be included in that kind of committee um superintendent jet um or assistant superintendent she and who um who are the like kinds of roles that currently make up those representative screening committees could you just so typically on these big big uh positions or district-wide positions it will be uh members of unit a teaching staff those individuals identified um the U the mea the uh Milton Educators Association is the ones that were responsible for recruiting those teachers that would consist of parents sometimes an email will go out to parents who would like to participate on the screening committee sometimes that's that has gone through uh email out to the community

211or it has gone to ptos to kind of determine that and then it will be members of the leadership team depending on the availability those who are the first student committee for the first round interview may not necessarily be on the second round um and then the second round of the interviews uh typically uh members of school committee school committee members uh in the past has been anywhere from two to three uh sometimes there's been a little bit more than that uh but uh that's how it's gone and it depends on how many people volunteer here or or if you want to have a set number uh if if there is a set number particularly on the on those I would make it a odd number if it was ever some sort of uh disagreement

212it is 50 50 at least it would never in this case it wouldn't be a 50 50. um so again it all depends on what policy that you want to make but I also want to keep in mind that there's an association agreement that's currently in place in The Association members are the ones that recruit the teachers uh and and typically it's folks who will be impacted uh by that position so in other words if it's the principle it would be teachers from that individual building if it's someone district-wide ideally someone in that department and if they're district-wide you hope to get at least one representative from each level so you could have a feel from each level uh making sure it's uh adequate representation so for students included in that screening committee I'm sorry

213about that absolutely absolutely so would anyone object to on that line that we're looking at um the it's line three of the second page position shell so includer representative screening committee comprised of and these different roles that have been just described comprised of teachers I would say administrators teachers parents students and representatives as a school committee school committee members sometimes we have community members on those groups as well like CDM has had some Representatives on the screening committees we can word it so that it's not um we can word it so that it's not saying like uh sort of including administrators I don't know I I'll Wordsmith that for this the next time we look at this next time but um I think I would keep the administrators I'm sorry to interrupt I would keep

214it administrators and the reason why because sometimes administrators could be Unit B members or department heads curriculum coordinators uh and or principles so it depends on what position you're looking for yeah so okay thank you for that um suggestion remember Ross Denny so I I'm reflecting that edit in the document we can look at that for next time um the second point that was raised regarding uh naming the background check process um superintendent jet do you or does anybody have thoughts on on that um as something we we should potentially run by the um lawyers or points of clarification I'm not sure what you mean everybody gets hired has a quarry done you have to have a Corey fingerprint so what you mean by background checks it was beyond the Korean story it's the digital

215footprint so for example there was a private school in town where uh someone was hired and then they found out that their personal beliefs didn't align with um what would what was the values and and I'm sensitive to the fact that there are legal limitations as to what you may or may not include in making the decision but I I recognize that the candidates might have a public profile that would put the district in a precarious position if it were unknown and I don't know if the limitations are just around Corey and sorry checks I know that you know for example reference checks are done but I'm sensitive to the fact that there's information about candidates that would be valuable to know that is publicly available on the internet I think definitely have to run

216that by legal counsel yeah and you'd have to figure out how if that would go into policy or if that's a district procedure because policies are meant to be broad-ranging sort of guiding documents for that teams more procedural in terms of like these are the things the district would do when when vetting a candidate for a final position so I think that would require some some more advanced thinking I I I hear what member Ross and he's saying in terms of the world that we live in nowadays especially um but I think would have to ask more about B I'm more than happy to guide us in that area and and look to other districts to see what other other again a policy and or procedures and how those two sort of overlap but this

217is a super this is a very important policy um and therefore I think that um thank you for taking it on again we've been working on it for a while in policy and we had last on it in November I mean in 2018 I think so um thank you for doing that anyone else have anything they want to say right now yes no you're going to bring this back for a second reading are you going to take it back to policy first you're just going to bring it back for a second reading the second reading at our next meeting that was that was the plan yeah thank you if anyone has any questions after please email them directly to Dr Carol and or um assistant superintendo and I think we can reach out for the

218clarification questions about that yep thanks and if any members of the community have any questions that they have about the policies being revised please email the policy something or email Dr Carol um because we we value the input of the community members um after they see or on the policies as they're being robust there is a there is a comment and a question in the chat from a Community member um so I see those questions and I think um they're good questions what about the director of diversity equity and inclusion I think that pertains to the screening committee um and I think we're not necessarily naming specific roles um so my one um I think it would probably depend on the position that we're talking about being hired whether that particular role would be one

219of the administrators that would need to sit on that steering committee um so I don't know what others think but I probably might hesitate to um name specific titles of people that would need to sit on the screening committee um I don't do others have thoughts to that particular question that's what I was trying to get at by just saying Damon administrators because it's very dependent on the position but certainly there would be a number of positions where that would be an important administrator to include on that screening committee I think that kind of goes into the procedure um sort of part of implementing the policy probably um on the question of should the person in that position or role be included on the screening committee um that's an interesting question I don't know that

220I've actually ever seen that done um in different organizations that I've worked for and sometimes of course it's a new position and there wouldn't be a person previously in the role but I don't what thoughts do any of you have on that question um yeah I just had that experience where when I you know told my district I was retiring they asked me to sit on the interview committee for my replacement position because they feel like I knew so much about the way the job was and qualifications and who might be a good fit so you know I I did that but again it depends on again it's kind of a fluid situation I think it depends on the position sometimes you don't want to do it and sometimes you Joel so well I think

221it also depends on this on the situation in so far as I'm not saying this would be the case right now but in Milton per se but it could be that the position was needing to be filled because there had been some challenge with the previous person in the position for having them in the process probably could not actually be unhelpful [Music] um so I my personal response to that question is that it's another one that's sort of overly specific when we're talking about um setting the policy um but again as chair Eberhart said I people should feel free to contact me if you have additional follow-ups to those or additional specific questions it's e Carol um two r's and two Wells at miltonps.org um and you know just I probably should have framed this

222in the beginning but I was trying to get right to it because it's late and we um you know just to back up around the overall intent of revisiting this policy was to um see what we could do to bring additional Clarity and transparency to our hiring policy um and you know that is just in important in general and we also understand that um we are getting ready to embark on a very important hiring process for um a large role to um become the permanent assistant superintendent um so of curriculum and so anyway uh that's a little bit of the background as far as the timing and why we decided to revisit this policy but it's been a good couple of months of discussion with superintendent jet um and various other perspectives helping us get

223to this point so thank you everybody who's participated and we will bring this back hopefully for a vote at the next meeting thank you thank you very much to the policy subcommittee for your work um again policy one of the main um functions of this book for me so all right we have two one more agenda item which is approval of minister of our November 17th and December 1st um school committee meetings I would I can make a motion to approve the minutes of the November 17 2021 school committee meeting May I have a second second if anyone well does anyone have any revisions or comments or questions about the minute minutes I'm sorry I'm just looking at another screen here no no reason no comments all right then this will be a real call

224vote remember rust any yes member Caro yes uh member White yes remember cricket yes remember Rosemary yes member yes six zero wonderful all right I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of December 1st 2021 second are there any changes revisions additions or subtractions all right this is a roll call vote remember Rosemary yes remember White yes remember rust any yes Dr Craig yes Dr Carol yes member of art yes six zero all right great thank you all right I don't think we have any old business that we need to attend to um our next book Community will be on January 5th 2022. question about the calendar um we will have a budget discussion yes Dr Craig yes we will we are not going to be with the Warren committee until sometime in January we

225don't have a date yet okay we will have a curriculum advisory sub advisory um meeting we will have policy anything else Health and Wellness all right all right I guess second I want to thank everyone for a very long but a very productive meeting tonight thank you so much um for all your work guys I I guess I wish everyone a healthy and happy 2022. thank you you too yeah to all of you all right my motion to adjourn has been a second made an approved motion seconded a roll call vote remember Rosemary yes number wait yes Dr Craighead yes Carol yes remember rust any yes remember Everhart yes thank you all again Happy New Year good night