001I good afternoon this is Mike Morris on the superintendent schools here in Amherst in Pelham and I want to thank everyone for coming on to our livestream I and appreciate your interest in our district and we're really excited to meet you and your children we were sad not to be able to do that this spring but we're looking forward in the fall to being able to do that in person and so the way we're gonna organize ourselves today is I'll do just a quick overview and you'll get to hear from all all the principals of the four elementary schools Crocker farm fort River Pelham and Wildwood will show you a virtual tour that we've made for all four schools we'll show you an example of that and give you the link and then we really
002want to spend most of the time with question and the answers I know it's particularly given what's going on there may be many questions for us and we want to spend most of our time in that question-and-answer place with you all but we appreciate your time we appreciate you coming in on a beautiful afternoon and spending some time with us in a virtual setting and we're really excited that you're joining our districts if they're wonderful places for children and you know I think you'll hear lots of that from our principals at about 4:30 ish will break off and for people who are interested in finding out more about Commandant days in that program you're welcome to stay on for that as well but again at this point I'm going to start with Derek Shea who's
003the principal at Crocker farm and he's going to share with you just a little bit about Crocker farm and and then we'll go through the schools see the tour and open about but here's Derek let me see you I've got a couple of minutes here it makes it so good news I guess maybe this is good news so I am currently going to go into my 24th year here working in the armor schools I'll go to my live in theater Crocker farm lived in town here for the 25 years my wife and I we have two children 17 year old who's going to be a senior in high school a 19 year old has just finished his first year at university I'll tell you a little bit quickly bit Crocker farm so because it's obviously
004a min and a half year and we'll talk soon I love croc farm I love being at Proctor farm I think it's a fabulous place because we have a very passionate and energetic team of teachers are I'm a fairly energetic sort of passionate person so something that we all share and the ranks in the school and we're a school I think we have a very nice school of us a nice picture windows we're a school I think with around 340 or so students each year we're a school we want to get better and want to improve every single year so again we have a committed group of teachers and a very center arm distributed leadership model where where there's a lot of responsibility for our teachers to help shape the future of praça farm so
005just a brief introduction thank you for coming today thank you very much Derek and going an F medical order we would then go to fort River and so I'm gonna introduce Diane Chamberlain who is the principal there so hey Diane thanks for me welcome welcome to the district if you're a new family to the district welcome to returning families happy to be here with you it's funny when we talk about introducing our schools we also will often feel a very repetitive because our while our schools have individual identities we have a lot of the same core values so I just wanted to share with you the four goals of our school improvement plan they are do a language education they are family community engagement improving our instructional practices and continuing the social-emotional development of our
006students and we have that kind of under one common theme about choosing love when you walk into for over school we try to make it as peaceful and safe a community for kids to be able to be their best learners and I concur with Derek that Amherst in general has very committed educators and committed leadership to improving our practices and being self reflective and also in a nod to current events continuing to examine our own practices and biases and implicit and explicit biases and making sure we're trying to provide an education that is socially just to better the improvement of our community in the larger world that's just a quick tidbit about Fort River Thank You Diane next we'll go over to Pelham and Pelham we actually have two people who are going to speak
007so what is these short Lissa Desjarlais who's done a wonderful job in her 10 years of Pelham and is departing and we're gonna bring in Lee who will be the principal and they're already connecting a lot to make that transition smooth so I'll get Lisa up good afternoon and welcome and coming to join us my name is Lisa Desjarlais I am the outgoing principal and we have Lee here who is the incoming principal so Lee and I have been working in collaboration we've only just begun the journey to help her to transition and acclimate to the Pelham school community I'll speak a little bit about my perspective as being part of the Pelham community for 10 years Pelham school is a welcoming inclusive environment and our staff members and communities feel very strongly and having
008a school culture and program in which student is supported and they get what they need the school is a it's smaller than other elementary schools there's only one class per grade level and and it really creates a family type of environment so that everyone gets to know each other and it it feels like it's a very close-knit community we have a very supportive PTO and my staff are as are all the other teachers in the districts very dedicated and hard-working focused on improving their practice including looking at providing equitable practices and really getting better at looking at areas in the curriculum to strengthen and a promote student engagement and incorporate technology so you know we are always happy to have newcomers come in about half the school in school choice we draw in students from
009around 14 other surrounding communities which provides for a much more diverse environment so that's what I'll say about Pelham school and I'll turn it over to Lee sure so I'll just share a little bit about myself so welcome everyone and for those of you who are new to the district or a new to pell-mell elementary school we are in it together so I am new to the district also and I'm new to the role of principal so I've been the assistant principal at Blanchard Memorial School in Acton Boxborough for the past two years and prior to that I was a first grade teacher and before that I was a fifth grade teacher so all of those experiences really shaped how I approached leadership and because I come from an early childhood background kindergarten is super
010important to me and in the way I support instructional practices in the school so how that shows up is really emphasizing early literacy support and lots of joy in learning and collaborative opportunities for children to come together build relationships explore the world and build all of the foundational skills that they'll carry with them through the rest of their lives so I love kindergarten I'm so excited to meet you and meet your children I know it's a really challenging time right now to be thinking about sending your children to school and you must have so many questions so what I can tell you is we will figure it out together and we are in it together so Lisa and I are working collaboratively with the staff to make the transition as smooth as possible and I'm
011really looking forward to working with you thank you so much Lee and Lisa and last but not least we'll have McAfee who's the principal at Wildwood school talk a little bit about Wow but it's hard to go last Nick I think because we do have a lot of similarities between our school populations but you know I think there are unique qualities and I'd love to hear your thoughts about wildlife thank you Mike yeah so I'll start with that because Diana also said that is so everything I'm about to say I would say is true for all the other schools as well as what they said is true for a while but we need to have equality's and we all love our school so starting there that I think from the principals assistant principals to all
012the staff is this great passion for our school communities and I wish I could see you and welcome you all and if there are any students out there who are listening I usually say when I welcome students typically students are thinking of two things one is my teacher going to be nice to will I make friends and that wild within all the schools we have teachers who care deeply about creating relationships that connect to each student and then we get to know each student who you are and we strive to have our schools be places where you could be who you are and where our students themselves will reach out to you and try to include you and try to make friends with you because we want our students to be active active participants in
013life active citizens in the world and understand how that would make the world a better place so to be leaders what we call leaders at their own learning and the second thing I'll say that's true for all the schools is we believe that there are many different kinds of intelligences and we help to integrate the Arts integrate different ways of expressing what you know at our schools so we look forward to seeing you in person and I'll end it with that thank you so much and something that I always talk about with kindergarten families is you know we think about its 2020 now these students are gonna graduate about 2033 and and so who knows what the world will look like by then but they're gonna show us the way and we're just so excited
014to get to meet them graduate high school I should say I think just one anecdote I want to share before I show the tour is just that shows a lot about our schools as a couple years ago at like in many communities there was an interest in starting a garden program in our schools and the teachers who primarily jumped at the chance to be involved we're our kindergarten teachers this is before we really had a set curriculum it was something we wanted to try and they did job that's a chance because they thought what a wonderful way to promote authentic learning in our and what you'll know now is it kindergarten through third grade we've expanded all the way up through third we have beautiful gardens next to all of our schools and it's not
015just Gardens for gardens Seco though I think there's a lot of value and virtue to that it's garden as integrated as part of the curriculum that we don't have kindergarten students doing worksheets all day and some people have as their kindergarten experience we have kindergarten students actively engaged and involved in learning that they're doing and and I think the garden is just soaked and it's a tangible reflection of the way we approach that whole child approach that's so important students have the aesthetic so they have physical education and art and music they learn some technology skills and as they get older they have more and more opportunities so I think many families when they're concerned about sending their child to preach from kinder preschool to kindergarten is that they'll lose the opportunity for outdoor play
016for experiential learning and for really a whole child approach and that's certainly consistent with our values and Amber's that we hold on to that we certainly care awful lot about academics and can answer questions about that but you also want to reflect these students are five years old and we want to understand developmentally what it means we want them to love learning and love school and that's a major focus across all of our schools so because we can't be in the school I'm going to share a link I'll do it in the chat feature and I'll try to share my screen so people can get a look we'll pick on Wildwood as our school to show but I want to do a little tutorial so all of our schools have three-dimensional or 180 degree pictures
017throughout the school because we know for many students and families having access to these kind of things when we can't Angelababy they're typically what in the spring would be helpful additionally there's narration so if you click on the gear box on any of our tours and click on turn narration on in this case is the rainbow doors from afar rainbow doors seem to say to all children families and staff come in this is a place of joy this is the colorful place it's a place where you'll get to express yourself and be who you are and not every picture has narration but if you go on turn that off apologize you can and you can literally see a walk through the rooms and through different spaces in the school as well as the narration and
018one of the reasons we really wanted these these tours to be there as we thought it was so important for families but particularly for young children to get a visual of what they're in you'll see kindergarten classrooms in each of the tours because we wanted to really have a way that young children could understand and take a look and see what their classrooms might look like so we wanted to share that with with all of you we hope it's a resource that you can use with your children to help with that understanding of where they're going and be a resource I want to thank all the principals who did that narration and our information systems teams who put that together we started thinking about you know walking around the school with an iPhone or an
019iPad but we we thought the interactive piece and the tactile piece of moving for five-year-olds was much more developmentally appropriate and be a lot more fun frankly for fabulous and Nick thank you for letting me use the Wildwood one as an example but all four of our schools are there at this point we'd like to talk for about 15 minutes which was our goal keeping - about 15 for anyone on the livestream for all 37 of you thank you for joining two more things one is that we'd love to answer your questions so if you are there on the kind of lower right side where it says I think the plank says say something if you type in a question or a comment in that we'll be able to bring it up so everybody can
020see it and then principals can weigh in and and jump in also I know that there were families who weren't able to join us today this YouTube link that you're on will stay will stay active forever so if someone else is how I missed it I want to hear what people said you'll have that opportunity but I'll give it a second maybe since there aren't questions coming in some typical ones we get or you know a lot of times students are anxious about coming to kindergarten and making new friends Nik talked about that a little bit earlier and so I wonder if some of our principals might have some helpful advice of how to talk to young children about those kind of natural fears that they may not be in the same school as in
021class with their preschool friends and how parents can reassure parents guardians can reassure them see if anyone's willing to jump in on that one I'm gonna pick on Diane Thank You Diane sure oh we expect nerves from young ones and we expect the change to be something significant right they are coming from an environment they may be very comfortable with either in the home or in the preschool but we have experienced teachers that know how to ease those those transitional woes for students we develop routines and teach those routines directly we teach the expectations expectations of the school each one of us with care and with love knowing that they're 5 years old and we're gonna need a little while to get those routines ingrained in them so they can be their best selves our
022emphasis at the beginning is really making their social connections I know that all of the elementary principals feel really strongly that making sure the children feel safe before we start thinking about a lot of curriculum is really important so your job as families is just to get them good sleep get them as prepared as you can with just pep talks that it's all gonna be fine talk to them about the school bus if they're gonna ride the school bus talk to them about just listening to their teacher and being open to making new social connections we take care of the rest when they're with us and the hours of school being open and we're going to communicate with you as much as we possibly can about what things will look like but your job is
023just to try to be as positive as possible and if the students come home with any kind of situation that you're concerned about just making sure communicating with the teachers the teachers are very adept at making school feel like home in short order so again routines are really important confidence and partnering with this with the school is really kind of vital hopefully I've hit everything that's as a theory the job is ours either's need to help be in communication with us really so staying with that theme there's a couple questions that came in and I'll display them so one question is what can parents do throughout the summer to best prepare our our kids for school day and I know you touched on some things but I wonder if someone else has more information to
024add that's another common one that certainly comes up see who wants to jump in well I'll start and then look for someone else to jump in as well but I think for me and you know when many of us McCallum went through this at some point in the past some of us pretty recently speaking for myself and so I think the big thing and I'm gonna pick up where Diane piggy back on Diane's comment just making sure students you know your children feel confident and excited for school you know I think the thing that kind of if the question is a little more academically focused or if some folks are thinking about that reading books which I know many of you are already doing just continuing to foster that love of reading your job is
025not to teach your children to read that that's the school's job but fostering a love of reading really makes that teaching students to read or read more so much easier so I think that's one playing with numbers and this is about doing worksheets but just playing with numbers you know card games different ways that students can be interacting I think creatively I also think dramatic and imaginative play with your kids is one of the nicest things you can do and I think it's a nice transition from preschool where that is more readily part of the curriculum and it's certainly there in kindergarten but you know I think maintaining that youthfulness and that curiosity is really critical if we're able to I'm getting chats from some of the people on the line on our principals you
026know if we are able to allow students to go and see the school and check out the neighborhood that'd be a really nice thing as well and you know with the current situation well to see what the guidance is but we'll certainly be communicating throughout about that guidance see if there's anything else people want to hopefully I captured that one will children be able to meet their teacher before the school year starts so typically that would happen in in the spring and with the uncertainty of exactly how fall will look and there's a couple questions about that so I'll probably address that or generally we'd like to see how we can do that it may have to be in a virtual format you know may hopefully not but we're not quite sure we're waiting for
027some state guidance exactly what the being of a school year will look like but you know our goal would be to certainly have connections made and you know typically the way kindergarten starts and I'll actually turn over a Nick you can talk a little bit about typical years kindergarten orientation and I have no intern I have no inkling that this wouldn't happen this year but kindergarten starts in a very different way than grades 1 through 12 and so I'll turn it over to Nick who can speak to this more directly hi everyone yeah so we do have a structure in place and just the preface to I taught kindergarten for 20 years and in the district so also likely was a and it's my heart and I think all of us love going in the
028kindergarten but so what the district has is is which I would imagine whatever form school takes will continue is this visiting at small groups and so that happens you know during the beginning of the school so the other chokan go to school for the first year three days and then kindergartens come in and a small group to meet the teacher typically they show them the classroom and the different areas and that way it's a bit of an orientation and a soft start to school and then beyond that at the four in the first few days of first month of school really so much as just helping kids connect to the routines as Diane was talking about it making friends and connecting to each other Thank You Nick appreciate it so next question is just wondering
029what you know so far about how school work in the fall due to Cogan so actually there's a school committee meeting tomorrow night if you live in Amherst and you have kind of TV then it's on Channel 15 it also is a livestream link if you want watch it that way and I'll be presenting some information about some options it won't be making a recommendation deci which is our state governing board told me this morning that they're gonna make some share their explicit thoughts on it probably two or three weeks from now but at least if you want to get a flavor of the discussion you know I'll be making a rather lengthy I apologize much longer than today presentation tomorrow night you know price at 6:45 or 7 if the meeting starts at 6:30
030but I think it's it there's a couple of the things that have to happen beforehand so you know what we know right now is what we have CDC guidance the Center for Disease Control has put out guidance that certainly would impact things like the number of students who could be in a classroom at a table given time and some of the structures of school there's nothing in the CDC guidance based on what we're seeing in Massachusetts right now in terms of numbers that would suggest that school would not occur in the fall you know and we're hoping that doesn't change for both for school but also you know for everyone in Massachusetts but in terms of models there are there will be have to be some kind of differences in terms of the models based
031on the guidance that received but from from the CDC as well as what we're gonna receive from deci so I wish I had more clarity trust me I really wish I had more clarity on that one right now but we're gonna tomorrow is our first public presentation of what we know what we don't know and what potential options there are for for all students in our districts starting next year so that's sort of where we are you know I think well better direction again Dessie guidance coming out and about two weeks from now and we'll start at that community conversation tomorrow night I think worthwhile to know that we're also going to be surveying families and those of you who are registered which I assume is everyone on this call and if not you can
032get in touch in the afterwards we'll receive those surveys and we want to gather the feedback from staff and caregivers so that we can take all that into account in all of our decisions making that we're gonna plan to make for the next school year seems like on that theme which makes sense given the world we're living in on June second here the current situation will the opportunities for kids to meet one another systematically playground times that's a really great question you know it makes me think of when we are sending out class lists or things like that in the summer if there's some way to ask for permission perhaps from families to share information so that at least some distance playdates can happen I know you know I've got a young kid and we've
033been able to try to have some distance playdates it's a little hard if you don't know the other child and but at least being in the same space as I think perhaps we can figure that out or perhaps virtually connect folks so a lot of our parent Guardian organizations order organize your books or misuse me not yearbooks directories each year and I think particularly for kindergarten that's great feedback they think about how to how to make perhaps make some of those connections and and by the way if Debbie who is our communication director put in the chat just when the information when the discussion is tomorrow night and how to access it I'm gonna have Derek and then Lisa jump in with some thoughts on this as well I do again so the one thing
034that I think maybe once also mention and so we'll talk a little bit I think about coming to school and you have your kindergarten teacher ordinarily and was here thinking about ordinarily you would also be in a classroom each kindergarten class has a teacher and also an assistant teacher and a numbers this ordinarily a teacher that qualified as a teacher but has chosen to become a professional because perhaps they're finally based but you you'll find that when you come to takaka farm well with Pelham forever your child is going to get to know a larger number of adults because we have many many people thankfully they're working on skills and there's a PE teachers music teacher our teachers are lots of different teachers that can become our secretary said please give very very tight with
035the kindergarten girl so the beautiful part is is that I think you know girls are gonna get tight with the teacher but in results and people like myself as the principal we get to know the names of every single student in our school and we get to know something about our students and their families so so there's this massive group of people who are gonna help sort of envelope people's lives and support you in any way we possibly can so other status until what backside there I think Derek was thinking exactly what I was in terms of for families to be aware of the supports that are in place for these young children that are coming into our schools for many of them they may not have had an earlier schooling experience and so the
036teachers are prepared to meet and work with a range of students that have may or may not have had previous experiences and so we have all all hands are on deck to support our youngest students and we want to make sure that they feel comfortable and we know how challenged it is challenging it is for families sometimes to leave their babies with us in a new environment and children are often crying and sometimes parents are leaving crying too but we are there and we ensure that children are happy we've even gone so far as sometimes to call Paras afterwards and say guess what they stop crying five minutes after you're left so we want to make sure that your child experiences as a successful entry into the programs and that you feel confident and comfortable
037with leaving them in our hands and we work really hard at establishing those relationships and building in those supports thank you Lisa I appreciate it I'm just seeing if there's other questions that come through I think one thing that I just want to share while we'll give people another couple minutes see if they have any questions is I wonder if one of the principal can just go through what a typical daily schedule looks like for a kindergartner and how that evolved over the course of the year because we know and when they come in they're coming in from a preschool environment and there's there's a really gradual release of kind of a more structured schedule our elementary schools to be clear don't have bells they don't go off right a lot of first-time parents to
038the district ask about that and it's a very flexible schedule I wonder if Nik and I ask you Mon cher Yoona speak a little bit about kindergarten schedule okay hi everybody sure I'd be happy to so again we and our schools we like to think of particularly for the first six weeks the first month or more as a time to help children become oriented there's a connection to the concerns to each other and understanding the routines of the classroom at the end of the tiring school so that's the real primary focus and we typically we believe in active learn in the school setting there's a welcoming time and so that the kindergarten teachers to this wonderful job of just welcoming students come whether they're comin off the bus or appearances driven them and guiding them
039in forward into the classroom and with the wonderful about kindergarten is singing that sense of empowerment as they settle into that full members of the school community before after a welcoming time and those choices that are typically layer at center they gather together for a morning meeting that also introduces things like calendars or ways to greet each other in songs and then after that there would be literacy centers and kids are introduced to the foundation of literacy and learning and developing the love of books and writing and things like that and then after that just the very important snack time where kids have time to socialize and eat and we are committed to taking kids outside and experiencing beautiful nature that's surrounding them like Mike said it defines the Farm to School program and then
040in terms of coming in there's a transition from outside time and we teach math through exploration and all our kindergarten teachers have been trained in this approach in terms of thinking deeply about math but through play and through games and I would say that each of our schools there's also a project-based approach to kindergarten whether that's around themes connected to the real world and to literacy in the and math as well and I left out of course lunch which is super important is and every kindergarten classroom goes to specials each day and so we have art music PE library and Technology Thank You Nick I appreciate it one that we're hearing a lot or at least people have a lot of different thoughts on this one so I'll just we do lab barring a vaccine
041we have very serious reservations about sending our kid to school this fall heartbreaking as that would be can you speak to those concerns again I mean I'll take that one on so what I'd say and you'll hear this if you tune in tomorrow night is consistently this district has taken more stringent measures then even have been recommended by the state as it relates to safety in general but particularly this spring we closed school for the given the pandemic before deci and for the state suggested we do we do that we extended it further that once they did finally slow us down and we've been very very cautious quite honestly cause more cautious than some people would prefer about people being in buildings there are districts and I'm not here to criticize them but there are
042districts that have been made decisions about you know having people back in buildings even if you get belongings and we've been on the opposite end of that and so what I can share with with anyone who's on the call is that if we do work on a plan to come back it's going to be incredibly safe we're gonna follow our CDC guidance we'll see what deci says but we trust our public health guidance and we'll take all the measures that we know are needed to be able to follow and we'll follow those stringently I think we have one of the advantages is that we have a grant we've received it for five years but it started this this year thank goodness and we have a nurse leader who is in her own community one of
043the head nurses who's on the frontlines of this and she also works with us works with the nurses but also has access to incredible public health information and that's guiding us every step the way so I certainly can't make decisions for families and I completely understand being a parent of young kids myself I completely understand that concern and all I can share is that we will not make would not take steps that are against the guidance received from the public health experts we we don't just follow them we're going beyond them and how we're approaching this and that may mean a slower roll out of of all the things that we like to think about school but we don't take chances of Public Health and what we're feverishly working as we speak frankly on is
044what are models of school where we can have students in school and have safeguards and have it still feel as much as possible like school for young children so our team has been working really in the last month I would say in last couple weeks in particular about what would that look like I'm not getting ahead of muffed itself to say that you know if you look at the CDC guidance it's going to mean there's fewer students in the classroom and the distancing and and we're looking at our school buildings and how do we make sure that the ventilation systems and all those are at working at the highest level and that may mean some summer where it will mean some summer work on our buildings and you know during normal times you know these
045concerns weren't so acute but certainly in this period we're taking incredibly seriously and we'll only open school if we feel like we can meet those stringent guidelines received from CDC and others in ways that we feel comfortable with and that's meant sometimes pushing back frankly on what politicians and other folks have wanted us to do or asked us to do but then they this particular district we take it incredibly seriously so that's it can't really answer your question or comment because in every you'll hear this throughout your whole experiences and Amber's and Palin public school family we we can do what we can do and do to support you all and as parents your as parents caregivers I should say your your child's first teacher and we really want to give you the tools that
046you can make the best decisions that you think are in the best interest of your child and and that's what work on and that's what we'll do we'll have a lot more information again tomorrow evening about some of those though go in probably more detailed and then it'll be it'll be a long presentation about CDC guidelines and how we're thinking about them and how we feel like we can meet them and what the potential implications are so sorry for the long-winded response but I think it's a very real question on the minds of many families and I wanted to be thorough in my response as much as I can be before I finished my presentation probably right before you know meetings at 6:55 or 6:30 tomorrow night so we're still working on it and still
047getting more guidance from public health folks and we'll work on it from there but one of the things that we've done this spring and that's by the way I mean the collectively do base Moreland so our communication director principals all of us have been incredibly thorough about communication throughout so that was one of the things we did a survey of families for do another one a couple weeks and one of the things the question was asked you're getting enough information from from leadership and that was one of the strongest responses on the survey in terms of feeling like they had accurate information the communication flow was it was a two-way communication flow and they knew what we were doing as we were doing it when we closed school they knew what the plan was as
048the plan evolved because our state shifted what we they asked us to do in terms of distance learning we were able to communicate that thoroughly about that and if you go to our website and there's a Kovach 19 page and it kind of details especially on the early days how many communications were going home and what they were it's kind of oddly enough of a bit of an oral history over the last two months but certainly that's a public information and and we're happy for you to take a look at it and and share feedback with us that's going to be critically important to CDC is an external group and we also want to know what families feel like they need to make themselves feel comfortable it's always hard you know having done it twice
049well has six years drop in your kindergarten off is not the easiest thing without a pandemic and so with the additional health risks and health concerns that are going on we certainly understand and acknowledge that and we want to make sure you feel comfortable and confident with our decisions and that they're gonna work as best as best as possible for you given the situation other comments or questions before we transition to talking about common odd days so I don't see any so we're gonna transition a second we're going to I'll give all the principal's just a quick chance to say goodbye and a goodbye message but what's gonna happen after they do that is Diane Chamberlain is príncipe for River Katie Richardson who's yellow language coordinator myself we're gonna stay on we're gonna talk a
050bit about coming on T's which is our dual language Spanish English program and no one has to stay certainly but if you're interested in finding out more we'll do a brief presentation and again question any answers but thank you all for being on so I'll let mr. Shea say good bye coming today I just I'll see this quickly so I mentioned earlier I know it's difficult times there's a lot going on in the world a lot of complex stuff happening in the world well as appearing again of a 17 year old in nineteen year old I remember starting with my kids in kindergarten like it was yesterday right so when the blink of an eye it goes so rapidly I hope you're all enjoying the moment yeah time with your four five year old whatever
051works thank you Thank You Derek okay and now go to Pelham sorry got the drink there Leah skipped up Gran's not going anywhere so she's she stayed on the call so sorry about that lovely to see your cat behind you Lisa this is the the way this is the way the world these days so ok suddenly if you wanted to say anything before people before you departed hello I just want to say thank you as well for attending today and you know it's unfortunate I wish we could see you all because it's hard not having that face-to-face in-person connection but I can see you're there in the chat and and that's great that you were able to make time in your day to join us I do want to say that I am up at
052the school three days a week and aside from that I'm accessible by email and by phone Lee will also be around and available for any questions and I will be working with Lee to help her with the transition for kindergarten and in explain to the whole process and what we do to ensure that things go seamlessly so if you have any questions feel free to call the school the number is three six two 1101 that's my direct line and if you leave a message I will be sure to get back to you and I'll leave it for Lee to say something else but goodbye great thank you Lisa so I would just say to the Pelham families who are on today communication went out from me yesterday with some information about some virtual community forums
053in the next few weeks so I'm hoping that you're able to join those we can talk a little bit more about kindergarten or any questions that you have and again I'll just reiterate how excited I am to be joining the district and the community at Pelham and to get to know you and your children thank you so much Lee take it easy and good luck with your transition your life transition government happy - happy to have you on the team so Thank You Lee and mr. yappi okay everybody hi yeah so I can't wait to meet you all in person and greet you and your children and typically we have a an event where we would also welcome you and whether we do that virtually or not so just be a more a smaller eventually
054we could see you and you could ask us questions please feel free to reach out to me at the fe n @ AR PS Oro org and also you can get a flavor wildwood in any of the schools by checking out our websites and some of the online resources that we've created during this time of distance learning so once again welcome and I can't wait to see you and meet you in person thank you so much so at this point we're gonna transition to talking about coming on dis I'll do a sort of a short spheal spheal excuse me and then I'll turn it over to Diane and Katy actually I'll get them on now so and they can share some pieces so this is the first year that we've had our common aunties program
055it's a dual language program and we've been talking about it it was multiple iterations so I've been in the district I should have said this is the end of my 19th year and the district I started in as elementary teacher at Fort River actually 5th and 6th grade that was a principal at Crocker farm and then it was did some curriculum work at central office but I've been here a while and so this was sort of the third iteration of those 19 years when dual language programming was talked about and fortunately we're able to do it and it really has multiple goals and so there's certainly academic goals and can you go over some of the research and diane about that but also the cultural goals are equally important and it's been a wonderful success
056for students this year and so we are looking you know I think to the conversation earlier we don't quite know what our models going to be next year but we are committed to comandante's we found it to be incredibly successful program for our students and our families and we will be working in common on taste of the model that school occurs in in the fall again we don't exactly know the model but it's the the commitment is there regardless this point I'll turn it over to Katie and to Diane and Katie did you want me to pull up slides or do you want to speak to them what would you be charged sure let's go ahead and set okay I will set them up give me one minute introduce yourself Katie for that because you
057haven't been on well I'm getting a month hi everyone I'm Kate yeah well I'm dual language coordinator happy to talk with you all tonight we're really excited that we're gonna be going into our second year of the coming on taste program and we look forward to welcoming a new class so we're just gonna share a little information this the general information and then answer any questions that come up for you I feel like I could talk a really long time about this because there's so many details and you know things that are exciting about it and and seeing how it's grown even in the first year but you know we'll try to give you the short overview so as as dr. Morris stated the goals really of a dual language program are always bilingualism by
058literacy and cultural competence and academic achievement right so there's really maintaining that high level of achievement for all students but doing it across two languages so that gives a really great opportunity for our students that could be English learners that could be Spanish learners or could be bilingual students so this is kind of the gist right is that this is a really unique program it's an additive model where we're looking for building true bilingualism and by literacy across the the grade span so we have a commitment from the district to continue adding a grade level each year and going through sixth grade and then hopefully long term we'll be looking at moving it up from there we know it does take a significant amount of time to develop that real bilingualism and by literacy but
059we know that the outcomes are awesome in terms of academic achievement and reading and the goal of really being in a global community and having the skills to move forward in that way so this is just a little bit about our mission which dovetails really nicely with the school vision at Fort river that were working really hard to celebrate and integrate the cultures of all of our students and to build our students to their fullest potential Dyanne feel free to jump in with any time great great so this is again real short version of how it works children spend half their day working with one teacher and half their day working with the other teacher the we really try to adhere to a 50/50 model so that we're getting the same amount of exposure to
060both languages and building capacity there let's see yep so children will learn each subject in both languages so our model for kindergarten this year was the literacy pieces the reading and writing happens through and integrated either social studies or science unit and if you can follow the it's hard to explain it's easier to look at this piece but we basically had Spanish taught science first and then the next unit was a social studies unit so the two languages were kind of switching back and forth in terms of the science and social studies so that the students are exposed to the language of both content areas and then of course reading language arts is taught in both languages and math is worked across both languages as well you see and we have been providing transportation across
061the district for families who are coming from the other school zones we'll see how that fits into all of the details as we move forward but it is a fort River based program with the possibility for students from other areas of the district to join so here's just a couple questions as to you know what how you would think about is this a good fit so do you already speak Spanish or are you interested in in having a bilingual you know schooling experience for your kids and it that like I said can go both ways it's about developing those positive cultural attitudes and things like you know you have to stretch a little because not all of our families who are working with students in this program are bilingual themselves so you have to be
062ready to give that stretch and help support them in the ways you can knowing that you know you may be just an English speaker or just a Spanish speaker I think that's let's say yeah homework in the second language not that we give much homework especially in the early grades really we just want kids reading but so we provide tools to help with that Katie I'll jump in here cuz I know we've just discovered this kind of got reiterated recently is that as English speaking families we are now if you're in this program you're now put in the place of what all English Learner families have experienced that they don't have the fluency in the language to necessarily be able to help their child acquire that language and that has to be a discomfort that
063you're able to sit in and we're going to try to help you the best we can on how to bridge between English and Spanish but it's the the experience of the English language learner that you and your family will experience in a way that you have it in previously previously great yeah so it's a unique experience have everybody is a language learner in this context and we try to think of everyone at Fort River as a language learner yep even in English we say you know academic language isn't anybody's first language so we're always focused on that and how to make language accessible and this is just an additional piece of that so there's a couple links we can share this presentation if folks want to be able to access the enrollment policy and the
064family compact kind of gives what we're hoping families will agree to and have an awareness of when they do enroll their children in the dual language program so that gives a little more detail and kind of the trajectory of bilingualism committing to having kids in the program for the whole duration things like that so we can share that information and let's say we'll go to the chat and see what folks are asking how does the wait list for out of district case students work okay so the wait list and all of the lottery has been postponed because our enrollment has been slower and you know we're waiting til we're in a good place to figure out whether the numbers can say exactly as planned and where enrollment is I don't know if dr. Morris if
065you want to say anything else about that yeah so I mean I think just to be when I think out of district means different things to different people so I want to make we're being clear and responding so I'm a zooming but I could be wrong that at a district and that question is referring to non Fort river district but there's two sort of added districts one is out of district which is not in the Fort River catchment area or enrollment zone and then there's a school choice program that we have for students who don't live in Amherst and so those are two different things I want to but I think Katie described accurately the process for students who don't live in the Fort River area I think once we know what our model is
066for fall we will be doing a lottery I suppose we could have pulled the lottery but it just didn't feel quite right until we knew what the model was and knew what our numbers are going to be so I think sometime the next month I'm optimistic that we're able to do that and and then it works like a waitlist and that we offer it and sometimes families have expressed an interest and then you know we have families who change their mind we had that last year in the first year and I imagine we'll have it again but when we do the lottery everyone knows where they are on the waitlist so that if people are aware they're there first in the waitlist could be that a family just moves away because something about parents employment
067whatever reason then will go down that waitlist there is a we try to maintain a 50/50 balance as best we can of students with a Spanish language background and students who are more English dominate or have an English language background and that's based on the research of what's the benefit for the program the language about language models both in English and Spanish in the program and so there that also affects how the wait lists work and how the lottery works but I wonder if maybe on that slides I can put the enrollment policy as a link so that people could access it directly instead of the slides they couldn't because of the way it was but I grate that up there I hope you just quickly say the sort of order of how the enrollment
068works so there's Spanish speaker seats that are held which is up to half of the program and so that would be first two Spanish speakers in the four rivers own and then two Spanish speakers that are in the wild wooden and cracker farm zones and then from there we go to English speakers in the fort River zone and then English speakers in the wider district so that's kind of the order of of the lottery group as we work through the registration process and when we go this one next night you see them I'm missing one about but let me do this so like I'll give this to Katie and Diane and then I can fund Emily there's one related up above for sure Mike so yeah so I'll jump in Katie and fill out the
069areas for me too so it tends to be the data shows us that students acquire language I made a very rapid rate bilingually and the neuro plasticity of the brain grows phenomenally when kids are being taught in two languages so that said students do tend to acquire the skill of reading in both languages at a little bit different pace than if you were just learning one language at a time but data also tells us by about third grade it all evens out so at the end of kindergarten your child might be reading at what we call a level D in English where if they if they were being taught in both languages and perhaps your child is a really strong reader and may have been at level F but because they're learning two different languages
070we look at those those assessment scores together and if they're making the years progress by putting those scores together then they're right on and our kids have shown the data this year has been phenomenal that the kids are really acquiring the language at the pace that we want them to so math tends to come along right along because math is a little bit more of a universal language but the acquisition of reading skills will potentially be slower than if you were learning just a monolingual path but like I said that evens out and all the data testing formalized testing says that actually long-term benefits are advancing if you're just advancing beyond the modeling path hope I said that well alright it's not please a put a chat in and we'll get we'll get deeper into
071it and I think this is the one I missed earlier I apologize so I'll just say when we'll Fort River kids find out if they're in the program if we choose it as a preference I think we the only thing that is borrowing us from doing that actually right now is we don't actually know how many students what our models going to be so that's the only thing I think once we get clear on our model that'll be the first step figuring out how many students and how many foreign River students who express in preference and then we'll do the lottery and go from there but you know throughout you know miss Richardson and others and Prime Minister Torres will be communicating with all families so people are aware of where the process is and
072we apologize that it's not quite as smooth as you know if we drew up this policy last year we made to some adaptations work with the School Committee on that based on feedback we heard from families and the school committee's feedback and it was actually right about to be approved if I remember Katie and then our meetings started getting canceled so we did you know get this approved this spring and a virtual meeting but you know we're having to adapt given the situation so we apologize and for for everyone for the staff in particular they'd love to have the lists up and running and be reaching out and we had lots of plans for summer that we're adjusting for for incoming kindergarten students in coming out days so the thing that I can commit you
073is that we'll continue to communicate frequently so you know where we are in the process on that point I can say we're thinking about we've been really lucky to have some grant funds to support building our bilingual programs and so we're hoping to have some opportunities for incoming families you know nothing major because it's not age-appropriate but just you know some periodic meetings some opportunities to start engaging in Spanish to meet the teachers things like that over the summer so once we know you know a little bit more we will be reaching out with some opportunities to connect sure got a couple more comments in there so thank you so much this is where we're hoping for that who is more two-way so this is great so will you enlarge class size in first grade
074if this year needs to be smaller for kovat allow new entries for first grade I think until we know the model it's really hard to answer those very reasonable and good questions and that's sort of holding us up unfortunately on this I think frankly the CDC guidance is not going to allow for larger class room sizes but I think you know I understand the question to be perhaps grade level or cohort sizes and as the models get developed and again we'll be presenting some of those options and letting you know when we're supposed to receive guidance from Dessie in coming weeks tomorrow night and that'll allow us to start making decisions along those dimensions but right now we're having a hard time making definitive statements on it because we don't want to make them until
075we really know what exactly what the school models look like next year Kati Diane anything you want to add her I think in general it would be definitely a big shift in our plan to allow any new entries in first grade or at any grade level other than kindergarten unless they're a newcomer Spanish speaker coming into the district we're really focusing on having students come in in kindergarten because everything's so uncertain you know we probably can't say that set in stone but our understanding from other districts that have been doing this a long time is really to start them every one in kindergarten and to move that group through and going to the there's a question about sibling preference so the policy has approved is that siblings do get priority within their group so if
076you have a sibling say in let's say English speaker from Fort River then you would be top of that list right or if you're in a speaker zone for cracker farm you'd be top of that group does that make sense so there's that's one question um yeah thank you for the rest they're more comments and Maria Lucia is on here so I'm just gonna give her a shout-out for in her other with her other hats and I think she's on the Gulf with but we are really and maybe it is worth saying and Katie and I and you can jump in we're incredibly fortunate that we have a partnership with UMass they support us both in terms of professional development they give us professional guidance they're connected staff are connected to Ma Bay which is
077the multi-state Association of bilingual education got it finally right it used to be Massachusetts now it throws me off that they're multi-state but they the the big game in town in New England so that we're consistently improving the program we're really pleased with the first year how it went like Diane and Katie said and we are dedicated to continuous improvement was said in the earlier conversation and so we're we you know eight a program you know we had folks come in and assess how we're doing make recommendations for the future and you know so I think we're really really lucky that we're not on that island which there are many of these programs in Massachusetts particularly the western part of Massachusetts growing so we have some nice partners now Holyoke and Springfield's planning on building
078out a program but having some professional expertise incredible and professional expertise and guidance has been so reassuring for a program that hasn't happened in our district before so not in the same way it is now so thank you Mary Louise say with your other hat on one of the other questions that kept coming up last year is who's going to teach the program so I would just like to put a plug in that we're really proud that our founding teachers are returning we've got a great staff I've really committed folks and as we grow the program we were actually able to secure the first grade teacher for next year know as the kindergarten cohort so it's kind of moving along with them our kindergarten teacher will stay but we had an intervention teacher that we
079hired that will be moving into first grade so again the kindergarten teachers already have a really strong relationship with one another are working very well with one another and have founded the program and are moving into the year - it's great so I saw there was a question that came up of I emailed just to me but just want to note that someone has a question of whether their registration went through or not certainly junior torres would be the person to contact it's T I can put her or maybe Debby can if she's on the live stream put her email address in so if there's any questions about making sure it went through I'm one of those people - I always want like the return receipt and all that kind of stuff so I get
080it but she'd be the person just to send a quick line to you and check in to make sure that what got submitted went through it's very unusual because Skinner go and registration is usually this having done it a sort of momentous parent event where you go in and even the registry you're just filling out paperwork mules metaphorically significant more significant and doing electronically is not quite the same thing so I'll put her email in the chat and certainly please be in touch with her and she's wonderful and wonderfully responsive if there's any questions about that it should also put Mildred Martinez actually in as well I would email both of them were or our current situation both of them have been involved in that process and it actually probably Mildred is the first right
081Judy rose more for school choice but let me just make sure I have Mildred's email right yes I do and so I apologize but there you go there's Mildred email and so if you want to check in about how that's with her she's the Registrar for the elementary schools performing had that job and times looking funny for all of us so I forgot that about that transition for a second but I would just send an email to Mildred and she'll have that information are there questions for any of us well I think before I do some closing things I'll give Katie and Diane an opportunity if there's anything else you'd like to share no I mean I think really we're just excited to talk with you more when we have more specifics we can share
082and you know I hope that soon as has dr. Marr said we're all really anxious to know what the models will be and be able to start planning so certainly the question about how are we thinking about keeping the 50/50 model we are of course but we've you know I have a zillion different scenarios going through my head of what's that look like great and and we don't know where we're gonna land yet so we will be in touch but certainly just reach out as you have questions we're happy to you know engage with with you at any point as you're thinking mister the only other thing I want to say is if your child's not in the program it doesn't mean they're not connected to multiculturalism and they're definitely connected to the program just
083by being at another kindergartner but also because we've tried to infuse multi-language multilingualism and multiculturalism throughout the building so it's not it's not a loss model it's a it's a gain model no matter where you are for sure and I'll just tell a little anecdote that I think is worth mentioning so earlier this fall's early I'm gonna say it was October day and I'll probably remember we had a visit from the Massachusetts School Building Authority so we're in the pipeline for potentially a future either or building project and so these are mostly architects engineers and they're coming to look at the school from a technical site and so you know they do like to look into classrooms and in our application we mentioned that we had to do a language class program because it has
084implications for likely and we might build it and and so we this group of and I'm not trying to stereotype but folks who really care deeply about education but they're not they're not educators they really want to support children and teachers to have wonderful schools and so the last thing they do is they take a tour and you know mostly we're going down into the boiler room and places that frankly I'm no use and then don't really know what's happening and the last thing they'll do in their whole tour is they want to see classrooms and said you know where would you like to go and they were you know these folks who the whole time very businesslike very professional we're just like can we please go to see the Dual Language Program never seen
085one before we want to see it and so of course we took them there and they really wanted to see the Spanish in particular most of the people actually all the people from MSB on the tour work no one identified as being spanish-speaking and they were so blown away walking into a kindergarten room in the second month of a dual language room with the engagement and how much students were already starting to speak and clearly understanding the language but also understanding what they were doing and the teachers ability to communicate in a language that half the students had no exposure to prior to six weeks before which is incredible and so that image stays with me because I think it does feel a little bit like magic because if you put a bunch of US
086adults in that setting we would have a hard time acquiring that second language in the same rate and pace that young students do but they are wonderfully like sponges in terms of both engagement but also about their learning and it's it's been incredible to see over the course of the year the progress that our students have made and so certainly this is a parental decision we hope people are interested in the program I think there's last year we had a long wait list and we were not able to get to every nearly half of the wait list folks who wanted to participate and I think if if this year taught us anything it's that we want to continue to expand program and hence our commitment to even in this awkward time where we don't have
087everything clear we're fully committed to the program continuing and thriving in the future so that's where we are with with comandante's if there are questions perhaps Katie you could put your email on the chat as well because it comes up with a link on the YouTube that people can directly clink she's she's the coordinator program certainly get in touch with me or Diane as well but we really appreciate you being on the call and oh yeah Katie has another good idea which I just noticed one of the things that we'll see if we can pull up I'm not sure we can get it up that quickly but we did a window into Arps episode which is kind of like a monthly or a little more show similar to this just it's in person in Amherst
088media or public access channel it tapes it and we interviewed a staff member but also a parent who spoke about the program and they could they did it much more justice than we did today they were wonderful so we'll see if we can get that up we may end this call but I'll put in the chat probably two minutes from now if I'm able to pull it up unless there's anything Kitty or Diane want to say to give me time to pull it I just thought it would be a great way to hear more I think hearing from parents it's a great way for folks that are coming into the program to be thinking about it and and learning Marshall oh my got it all right let's see if I encourage you not to let
089your monolingualism limit your potential in this program I'm a story at Brenda and though we are all trying to learn along the way and it's okay if you don't know Spanish and your kids can learn it anyway and so that last link is the it's about 25 minutes but again I think it gets into a lot more detail than we did today and shows you both the staff and the teacher the staff the teacher role but also the parent role and what they're experiencing as well so again please thank you for staying on for an extended call on a Sunday afternoon we hope you go outside and enjoy your kids and enjoy this time of year and continue to engage with us ask us questions and we'll do the same the other way around so
090thank you all thank you thank you