School Committee Open Meeting Oct 10, 2023

001they need something so I did put that in there as well any question so did we not last year the money just sat in the undesignated account we never designated it is that why there's so much in there yes okay and now we're going to designate it I like yeah it's been there for a while just the commission from the photographies been building up in it right how much is that each year um a little under a thousand depending on the school size can I add to that so I went to Michelle hayum who's been working at the school for a while and she said it ranges from, 1500 to 2,000 sometimes it depends how many photos are bought right so it does range right and the pack yeah what packages they got yeah just

002a quick technical noted volume issue with the stream back up it's back up now okay did they not hear us Miss we can do a retake tomorrow at school all right sorry about that uh okay any other questions no there was a third one there were two clubs that um have not been there before the other funding is just taking that money and putting it into the other clubs that already exist good you got that all great all right so s these are four these are four after school clubs essentially the Garden Club would be during school during with curriculum for science um the other one student council that the kids are showing a big interest in that too that kind of went to the Wayside again that promotes leadership and it has them have

003a voice and what is going on in the school that would be after school as well that would need an advisor and the other one so was kindness comic and those two those two are already existing and there are a few others that I didn't touch I just didn't know the history of them we have a Civics Club a jazz club and there's one other one I didn't know enough about the history to kind of change those monies the monies around there so we're going to keep those status quo for now great good job thank you all right so let's move this business item up see we'll take them all together one under business items there we have a motion to approve the undesignated funds for the B Club transfers Lisa and second for Jess

004iard Jess second all right any discussion on this okay all in favor against okay I in that motion passes as well so congratulations [Applause] maybe later in the year once it's ongoing for a little bit they come back and show some progress or something all right feel free to stick around and watch the rest of me if you want uh all right thanks [Music] everybody all right so consideration is all set now all right thank you we'll move back up to the the top of the agenda is anybody here want to make a public comments going one public comments anyone all right does anyone have any Communications to bring forward all right I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please second Julie second Megan second any discussion on that all right all in

005favor of the consent agenda I against all right the motion passes thank you moving on to reports uh I don't have much to say other than uh I do have an item on the agenda for SRO and schools uh the town of oils and select board inviting the school committee to come talk to them and their upcoming meetings about exactly what we see as in schools um Carol I think you're going to speak to a little bit about that but just for Logistics reasons uh I Megan Jess myself are gonna go to that meeting with Carol I specifically did not bring a full quum from the school committee to that meeting just so we're not bound to any decisions that we might make at that meeting anything that does come from that meeting we would

006come back to a regular full school committee meeting with public comments and anything else like that if we needed to do anything so that's the reasons for that but Carol you have anything to say about the SRO position yeah Chief anci and I had many conversations about this position since we voted um we we signed anou in 2021 we just haven't solidify this with the towns and that's what we're going forward to do he and I are on the same page that one resource offic would be appropriate for the two schools toono in royon elementary because the intention of that position is to really be relationship building position and a safety position for the schools but not a security guard in the schools um I also I put in my report that should a Crisis

007occur that person is prepared to do what they need to do but in general it's really for relationship building um and and reaching out to the community reaching out supporting and children so we want to go in that direction at this time and then the other piece of it that would be funded through the department the police department rather than our department because they utilize these officers when they're not with us um and there's also contract decisions there that they handle we wouldn't be a part of doing their contract negotiations and so on so that's what we're advocating for but this is something we talked for quite some time about on this we signed an mlu in 2021 we W be able to move anybody have any question comments on that I was just wonder

008why not doing two one for the high school and one for the yeah I both of us talked about this a lot and both of us felt that we really didn't need to have the particular position somebody to the school time think just spent even inand they have an office it's not really for that purpose I think which is perhaps the intention the thought of some folks that it should be St all day but definely purpose of office so there some a little bit of a misc misunderstanding maybe as a a resource officer Community relationship ability not a security guard correct and working in conjunction with the administrators um around ch issues in the school and really problem solving those not being there to to enforce law in a way you think of it or

009certainly not enforce any disciplinary actions and that's very clear in the so anyone's interested in I thinkable to understand we're asking a policy yeah it's masc policy regarding police officers yeah unless it's aelony we just last year okay any other questions comments question are you going to be publicizing the schedule where the police officers will be in the schools or will that just be it's a very good question and they will not do that that's one of the one of the best place they operate is to keep moving in different ways throughout the two schools is a great question no they would not adti else I think also um when this came up last year I was working on the Massachusetts site and there is very specific hiring criteria for SRO and so I was

010very reassured about who like what they look for in the candidate um that is actually outl there that's a profile that's important to both of usief and myself he is keeping in mind the right candidate for that and in addition there's an valory process for that individually each year so we will be able to to look at what that person has done or hasn't done determine whether they stay position I appreciate the work that you and chief did this is very important to the community it's important to us I just think really nice to have that those extra people in the building and just of the relationship building a small town to get to know it's very very effective thank you okay uh next we're going to introduce the town C Council representative Emerson Walsh

011who's gonna introduce yes Emerson this is Emerson Walsh she is part of the student advisory Council so um with um Rich Karen myself the high school um advisory Council discusses pertinent topics that the students bring up and you know are important to them and so Emerson has um taken on this role to report to all of you so so far the school year has been up to a very strong start firstly Danto was awarded the Blue Ribbon award which is an honor that's only bestowed upon 353 schools nationally and seven Statewide so this means that we get the criteria of an exemplary school if we stand out from the rest of the country which has been a great Honor made people very confident in their gring here um as for our freshmen they have transitioned

012very smoothly into high school life they already started coordinating and planning all their events they have many ideas the sophomores are doing the same they just submitted their fors for their personalized class rings so those should be coming in soon um the Juniors have been doing great fundraising as well they have been in very high demand for to Haun crew NE next that have been you can hear that all around the school everyone's looking to buy those they along with their families kept up with the PTO tradition to put on a breakfast for the seniors which was kind of our first senior event that we kicked off the year with we also had senior Sunrise which was super fun um for the student advisory Council our main focus is student involvement because Tonto we have

013so many like responsibilities and opportunities because we're super small community but we have many clubs from any interest you can find a club for basically anything here and there's so many opportunities for leadership and everything volunteering through that um we have many events coming up we have our first spirit week on Monday and then our pep rally on Friday followed by homecoming also on Friday um we have our bonfire on the 26th and I know many clubs are starting their meetings in to plan we do Cafe for cause every year um it's usually on Fridays usually once a month and each Club signs up and everyone has to sign up in the beginning of the year else you don't get a cafe but we do a lot of fundraising for Charities um NHS already had

014one and I know we're doing a lot of planning for that bonfire and we're planning a blood drive upcoming soon um for tont sports all the teams have been doing super incredible The Joint um Tonto West Boon varsity football teams undefeated so far and yeah we're all just super excited and looking forward to the year thank you all right thank you uh moving on to sub committee updates uh Megan do you have an update on the budget facility sube um not really we well we met and we discussed the budget that nany's is going to present tonight so I won't steal her Thunder but Julie and I thought it was a really solid first pass at a budget Jess do you have an update success and Technology we did meet between okay Laur you have

015for superintendent valuation yep we met on Friday it was myself Jess and Megan um we are Reviving the superintendent evaluation subcommittee um and there's a few things in the drive for people to take a look at um one of the things that I'd like to comment on as we were going over the smart the smart tool which is you know all the different parameters that you're supposed to have in your goals and you rock to Carol with your goals we went through and we compared it to the tool that we were supposed to give you ahead of time and you did phenomenally so um we're really happy with that um and so what we'll be doing is going to be talking in the future about what will be happening as we move along look for

016a training possibly um and everything's kind of on a little bit of a tighten timeline but I think we can do it and with the help of Carol's goals we went over the evaluation model which we struggle with in the past the way that you wrote your goals is really helpful and I think it's going to help us with that model so we again I don't want to tell who dumping Praise on you but I we're so grateful because it just makes it so much easier for us to go through and do the evaluation it's very meeing so we're using ADR no meeting for the next meeting yeah all right to meet to uh all right that takes care of sub in next up you have a report for us yeah I I I have

017a report I wanted to go over a couple things um we looked at the SRO SRO already I wanted to bring attention to the fact that the tours of the school are mentioned before there was some great outcomes of that things got fixed and addressed pretty quickly the swing set or the um tire swing and a number of other areas I also want to mention something that I did have this information on Friday afternoon I got an email from fire chief Michael qu in kland um who drew this tour and and some extra fun he has going to add two additional aeds into because he recognizes the importance of that Community Center as well as a school so they're going to put one upstairs actually I think there's three and then two Outdoors as well

018so these tours these opportunities for folks to see the building see what's going on in there to order the scoreboard um that was broken right or the shop clock that was broken a couple other areas that we we just got on right away so they're very very helpful in moving things ahead so that was a good effort and much appreciated um the other the other question I had for you in in reflecting on on outcomes of our last meeting is to help me and and we can have a little ad hoc committee or if somebody wants to work with me in light of the curriculum review and how we want to approach that what would that look like and I don't think we need to spend unless you want to during a school committee meeting

019time figuring that out but we want to make it effective and efficient for everybody including members of the school committee you know when do you come in we have a number of review committees going forward this year John has two come in about social studies and science you know when does the school committee want to enter that um and questions like that what is a criteria that we're going to use we have a biased sheet you'll see that in the drive but that's part of it I mean it's a whole process so um Janelle is going to talk about a c material that she has tonight that that she needs for special education it's kind of a different gu and trying to decide what so I need help on that and I think the more

020we can get on C page and clarify that will help us to look to move forward so I I reach out to you for guidance speaking of the the building tours next year having the burlin fire there is sort of SP of the moment wasn't necessarily plan I think we should plan for espe have those guys too know it is kind of funny how that evolved because we didn't know wasn't that we left people out intentionally folks to show up they kind typical of you know I kind of our towns are like they're just like that speaks to the other hey you come you come tooy party a good party so was fine informative and just some great results anybody have questions or comments Carol all right most interesting part here let's go director financing

021operations talk about the budget okay so I thought I'd start with closing out of the fiscal year 23 budget before we approached our new budget if that's okay um so you'll find in your drive there's two spreadsheets that CLS up fiscal year 23 budget the first one says fiscal year 23 urine figures this is um split you'll see if you look at it there's columns in blue and columns in pink so the columns in blue are where we started at the beginning of the year with how you approve the budget The Columns in pink are where we ended up where we closed the year as of June 30th there really wasn't anything significant so the first the first page is the district wide and then when you go to the next Pages it's individually for

022each school I thought to save time I would just present this as districtwide and then if you have any questions let me know so for the category and I use the same categories that I present to you on a quarterly basis so it's the same categor the first category is Administration which is consists of our school committee superintendent Finance technology and Human Resources so we started off with this being 5% of the budget and it closed being 6% of the budget increasing but approximately 53,000 that was due to change of administration mid year um we also had some turnover in our district offices so change of personnel there and we had some increases in conferences and memberships under instructural support and instruction that's our teachers teachers pair of professionals special education and structural supplies we

023started off the year with it being 56% of the budget and it closed at 58% of the budget which is approximately 382,000 increase um that's a movement in Personnel increase of sub coverage and we have an increase in our legal line now which is just due to change of our eal La fir that we changed during the year other services which is nursing and transportation we have the savings we uh started the budget at 8% of the budget and it Clos at 6% of the budget last year um that's all due to decrease in transportation we had a tough year of Transportation last year we got a decrease on our invoicing maintenance and operations that's anything facilities maintenance custodio utilities so we had a pretty State at 8% it's all rounded even though it's $111,000

024increase we had a increase to our electricity line item landscaping and miscellaneous repairs to school fix charges this fluctuates this stayed right at 16% and actually went down a little bit 80,000 this fluctuates due to personnel with Benefits however you know they choose what benefits they want that's just a that that fluctuates a lot and lastly out of District tuition this is another one that fluctuates a lot it started at 7% we closed at 6% it doesn't mean that we have a savings in our a district tuition because we did not what changed is how we paid our AUD District tuitions we had movements between General funds or Brands and C breaker so we we closed very close to how we opened up the bud so that is a very quick overview um if anybody

025wants to dive into it any further or if you have any questions yeah okay so then oh the other thing I quickly wanted to touch upon is the revolving funds so you'll find a sheet that looks like that in the drive and it has our main revolving funds um quickly I'll go through quickly our school lunch program we came in for a he closing at $91,000 which is perfect preschool program we actually came in above than what I thought we would come in at but that's because we didn't have preschool teacher for part of the year so that gave us the savings they're closing that at 114,000 after school programs we're closing that in about 93,000 um Athletics Athletics one that I wanted to touch about touch upon for the past several years my predecessor

026um took landscaping and transportation out of the athletic revolving line items over time that's kind of been bringing the balance down for the athletic revolving so this year we have to build that back into the budget um or it's going to drop it down significantly we began fical year 23 at 112,000 and we're ending it at 74,000 um but if we build the transportation and the Landscaping back into the general budget we will be fine in that line item um I did ask the athletic director to start doing some benchmarking to see where we stand with the athletic fees compared to other school districts um he said that we athletic fees really haven't been touched before since 2019 I think he said so we so it's been a while so it's definitely worth branching into

027and seeing where we stand not saying we have to do it but we should do our theary responsibility and take a look at that um the other ones parking that's just a in and out we kind of use that as upkeep to the parking lot we need it school choice and circuit breaker they closed out fine um I'll definitely touch upon those more as we start building our fiscal year 25 budget you we always dive into those in detail uh Transportation that's a transportation involving uh it comes in and we use it every year it's just a wash um that is a really good overview of the CLS anybody questions I know yeah 250 per sport per kid or $600 Max for your family per sport yeah so if you have a kid that plays

028two sports you're going to pay $500 and then is there obviously I'm assuming if a family is unable to meet that they're still able to apply absolutely absolutely and Mr is very excited that on that end so then um now we'll move into the fiscal year 25 budget so the administrators and me and Miss Castello all met together went over above level service request for our fiscal year 25 budget it's very early in the year we did the best we can hopefully we captured everything as Megan and Julie will see then I'm going to point them out as we go through there's been additions since we even met on Thursday because you start talking and then you're like oh my gosh we have put this in there we didn't put that in there um so

029bear with us as we're putting all this in our purpose of doing this early is because we our meeting with the towns on October 24th so we we trying to give them indication of where we think we're going to stand this year um so I'll quickly go through these I think is this the file October 6 above level five say that again is this the file October 6 above level fin that is correct yes yeah there's two we'll start with that one in the interest of time yeah just hit the highlights perfect we've anybody has questions they can ask you yeah six pages y I'll be super quick so the first category is Personnel two we added in approximately 11 miscellaneous positions they're all necessary they're all part of the district Improvement plan um you

030will see that one is highlighted that means it's on our watch list we're not really sure where we stand with that at this time um and we'll Circle back and let you know where we stand with that as we move forward it so the total of personnel requests is $861,000 it a lot of miscellaneous line items couple software line items total is [Music] $65,100 Improvement plan um that comes to a total of $89,000 supplies and materials we added in supplies um from our last meeting with the school committee it was requested that we add in u no more parents no more Supply requesting supplies kind of dibu that out per student with the number of kids per school so we have that in there we're going to be having a preschool evaluation this year that's

031in there um that comes to a total of $68,000 transportation we are interested in adding an additional bus run for our Berlin town for Elementary in Tahanto um a Wednesday late bus in athletics as I stated we're going to put that in there so that's an additional 92,000 facilities uh bunch of miscellaneous stuff we did the additional classroom supplies that the kids kids usually bring in sanitizing paper towels stuff like that um and we added in the landscaping for athletics so that comes to 34,000 at the end of the day this comes to an approximately of 10% increase uh was calculated with 5.25% being the above level request 4.75 is General level is your general budget increase it's a $2.2 million request so last year's request last year's increase I'm trying to talk too fast

032through this last year's request was 18% this is a currently very preliminary at 10% anybody have any questions from Nancy on any of this specific items question can we I have question yes just can you go over the fourth but for Berlin yeah so currently the transportation from burlin takes approximately an hour for the kids to you know to go back and forth um it was requested by a decent number of parents to reverse the bus R in the afternoon so to reverse the bus route and then spoke it over with the bus company it's not a possibility because what it actually will do is increase it longer than an hour because you go buy all the stops and then work your way back um so that's not a possibility so some parents have reached

033out and asked um if there's anything we can do to make it less than an hour it's a long time especially the little ones the little kidos to spend on the bus so the only way to resol to ratify this is to add an additional bus run that's uh can we take 6,000 so the legal just so the legal requirement is an hour we're right at an hour um you know we're we're performing the transportation runs legally it's just a request to make it more accommodating for kids so potentially next year depending on how population goes where the stops work out it could put us over that and we'd be there anyway if we didn't budget rep then we'd be hurting okay cruo more kids do we know I know last year with all the

034problem problems with the buses a lot of kids weren't actually riding the buses do we have any information on that this year are there more kids riding it taking advantage of it princi probably could speak more to that you if that's okay I can speak anecdotally at Berlin um only in the morning because there's so much that goes on after school and kind of excuse it in the morning I know that drop off is a lot quicker my impression is that more kids are yeah okay just curious we've been fortunate we have we have a driver for every run right now um last year we weren't that lucky I say 90% of the year we always driver dou brze late it was this year been going much I know personally our stop is one of

035the ones that it's an hour maybe more and I feel it builds character for the kids but um if it was an hour last year with half the kids ride the bus this year full kids or three quter kids whatever it is the bus yeah I think if we're going to be in trouble with the law legally you know what else I have a question about it might just be my perception because I'm like running or walking on the road but it really seems like the buses go really fast sometimes do we have any idea about that they with it they're not so all the are monit by GPS bus companies um we have run reports before if like I get phone calls I have it this year but in the past I have gotten

036phone calls that said this bus being blind I just wrote a certain time and I can reach out to the bus company and ask GPS was at time department has been known yet stop too fast perhaps they delayed in their time coming to to school Those runs that we're talking about but they should not so that is absolutely well I just didn't know if it was like a habit for them to do that and then if it is and if they are speing then it probably takes more than an hour so we're not actually now you know what I'm saying yeah so if you have specific spot you're talking let me know check that out yeah all right any other questions Capital yeah I'll go through real quick all right so the capital is on

037the top it says fiscal year 25 preliminary Capital um so for BMS we have card swipes roof replacement for shingles air conditioning and classrooms it support which is a the Chromebooks iPads projectors intercom system and two steam tables for the kitchen which comes to $1,385 1,385 732 Dees replacement of the cafeteria floor the library roof plumbing repair Plumbing in the bathrooms rep the parking lots remodel the bathrooms that's thing when we went on our tours we got to to see one of the bathrooms um that needs to be done we put in there I can't believe you allow children to that bathroom H that bathroom's I can't believe we allow kids in the bathroom miscellaneous playground equipment we kind of saw this when we went on our tour there's a Cindy school at bees there's

038the I don't know what it's called that spinning it is it is broken and it needs to be replaced and stuff like that is very expensive so we put that in there so we could be great we want to replace that or repl it something else it support for 168,000 um keeping up with our replacement technology Chromebooks iPads special education projectors and networ withs and this is a new item Julie and Megan two hot water boilers that are need replacement it was from the facility assessment um they're at their end of useful in t yeah we saw they were doing maintenance on there yeah we said if they die like in the middle of a winter and we don't have it budgeted for and what say it's $500,000 that we can't runat in building ra

039fix it before lastly at Tonto we need a lawn mower our lawnmower is currently broken we're using one that the highway Department's letting us use in the meantime but it's um it's an older one so it's we need a new one uh reping of the walkway it's not ADA Compliant we need a floor scubber that we can use upstairs we can't take the floor scubber from downstairs just fit elevator we would like to refurbish our track it's old it needs to be redone we need um um it needs to include the long jump and the shot CP with it with replacing it replacement of the water heater non-student device Replacements teacher laptops um Auditorium projector security swipe part system uh sound replacement on the stage C out Auditorium music sound system Auditorium L replacement that's

040with and also renting a lift so we can reach all the lights and replace them and we're going to replace them with LEDs um and we would like to purchase a storage unit so we have room for storage for athletics and facilities and that comes to 3,368 n82 so overall in Berlin it's a 1,585 105 and oil stance $1,783 and8 77 why is the walkway not 8 compli is this something that came into disrepair the walkway out of the cafeteria so I don't think it was ever it was ever done it's a patch of law right that goes between the walkway and the next cave walkway so I'm not I can't speak to the original plan but there's nothing connecting that's my question I don't know why was ADA compliance not a thing in 2012

0412011 or maybe they didn't use it back then I don't know question Chon I don't think lar and I think I'm sorry what's that we were talking about evacuation plans last year can you speak to um Caroline we talk about this in the meeting n can you just speak to um why the refurbishing track before the fields and what the plan was with the ation maybe that a step one we're still waiting on a cost from that that open one and they have to add that the capital plan at this point but you looked at the track and track is shape proba the field because we can try the ation first right then we then we can determine if that's working or we need to go to one of the next steps which to refurbish

042the entire field in a variety of different Poss different mat yeah I just want to make sure if anyone's watching understand that but the track if you take a walk around the track know that that's evident that that needs to be yeah um so the only thing I love this capital budget I agree with Julie about the fields I think we need to keep close eye on them and um that's something we have to add in this year that's something we have to add in I know we've gone back and forth a thousand times on the roof at bees and I trust Dan and Dan thinks we have few more years out of that and I think the study was in the drive right did you see that yeah I did I read it y

043um which is a little frustrating because we've got a $35,000 report that's saying something polar opposite but um very frustrating for trying to make decision I know and it's not you um I just think that it should be something that's on our radar and I think um again we've got an estimate that says it's going to cost six or seven million to fix and then you know another one that says oh it's only going to cost two million I feel like we might need to do a little bit more due diligence on this roof this year and I'm not saying we have to put it in the budget or do it this year but we should make a plan because if we're going to go to the towns and say hey at some point we're

044going to need 7 million or five million or whatever we need to fix this roof it can't just come up on a budget as a line item and be like here you go because at that point it might hit the prop two and a half I don't know right so I just feel like we need to do a little bit more and maybe it's just having these conversations like we're doing when we go top to the towns in October right um to just throw it out there and say hey you guys have some type of reserves for this right in the event that we got to throw this in here next year or the year after um I just want to make sure it stays on our radar because we have one report saying it's

045fine right it's not leaking and another one that says it should be replaced ASAP right I I was thinking two things on that one we bring it up as a conversation on October 24th right Y and kind of get where where they're feeling because this is coming two years three years from now or now it's coming down the road so that we got to make sure that they know that two in February we can apply for that um Carol yes I I can't believe yes yes so and that was another thing that I was thinking we can still apply for that yes it does it's not we know we're going to need this so that we can still apply for the whole roof with that Grant once we can apply in February we we can

046we do our intent to apply February so I was think that just and we can add that to the conversation in a couple of weeks that is available some point we have to address it's definitely not slipping our minds we know no I know it's not slipping your minds I just want to you know what I mean like just so it's not a surprise and anybody is that else I do my super important not any less important than the next true Services you know sure I do talk exceptionally fast so let's see um so as I Was preparing um to you know talk about the report I submitted this evening my report as you know was submitted um and all about the State of the State of preschool and unique Learning System I actually realized

047that there a piece of information that we have not previously talked about called um TFM which stands for tier Focus monitoring this is not referenced in my report doesn't require a vote it's just a little bit of background information for some of my information and an upcoming presentation tonight so just this afternoon I did drop the TFM tool kick into the share drive so that you can see that that is a document from desie um the TFM or tier Focus monitoring system replaces what used to be called the CPR or coordinated program review um it is des's monitoring system for compliance for special education rights and English language Learners last school year we completed a very thorough and exhaustive self assessment in all three of those areas um that's the first year of the cycle

048the second year of the cycle is on-site monitoring so Jessie will actually be onsite in our offices looking at our records um on a date in January and they will also conduct a variety of interviews um with certain groups of stakeholders um this the toolkit that I'm referencing here has a lot of information about what they're looking for and they give us very specific information about what their expectations are and to the standard that were held on each of um those criteria so that's just a little bit of background that goes into um a couple areas that I wrote about in my report including instructional resources in special education as Carol and mentioned earlier um you know in special education when we're looking at instructional resources sometimes we are looking at um we not sometimes

049we are often looking at instructional resources for a very small group of students perhaps even individually um and this really does go to the school district's responsibility to provide what is known as faake which is a free and public um free and appropriate public education um we design and develop educational programs to meet the unique needs of students and those are specified in an IAP which is an individual education program those documents are developed by teams that are very familiar with students that includes families um parents caregivers teacher classro teachers and special Educators um we there are and I included a chart again for background knowledge in my report of the special Educators in the district there are 27 27 of them and and there are two special education administrators that sit on all of

050those team meetings to develop those IEPs once we've been an IEP in place it's then up to the special Educators to design and adapt construction to meet the unique and individual needs of students um that allows them to um make effective progress in their whole during as a result of that special education regularly and routinely needs to acquire new instructional materials and as I wrote in my report sometimes it's a $10 workbook for practice um and sometimes the $3,000 set of reading materials it can be anywhere in between and those needs come up on an ongoing basis and that's those funds are reflected in our budgets um and those are ongoing needs the student meets the goals we have to move on we have to provide a new set of instructional materials um so again

051just background information for the presentation on unique Learning System um I have shared links in the report and in the drive this is a system that's needed as a resource at Tanto for a small group of students that have replacement classes for their core instruction areas and need specialized instruction in transition and life skills um the system has been trialed by the special education teacher for several weeks with input from other special Educators in the building um Sally the um curriculum director for Tanto has reviewed it and has reviewed it along with the teacher to look for bias and stereotyping which is a required part of our instructional material review and there's a link to that document in the drive as well um the this program is really providing materials that are not otherwise available

052to meet those unique needs at this moment um there's a wide variety of how we go about this but at this moment we have a for some really scaffolded leveled materials that are developmentally appropriate for middle school students um and so that's the description there and that is something that that the other part of my report was about preschool and is separate from unique Learning System um so our preschool um as you may know we have an integrated preschool program in the district there are two classrooms there's one at Berlin Memorial and there's one here at tono both programs run three sessions um and I've given you the data for how those um slots are being filled this year and when we wrote The District Improvement plan together in 2022 we agreed to gave you

053the exact language there but basically we agreed to do a very formalized preschool study um of the integrated programs in the district to look at several areas um we have often thought about the transition that students that Boyston students need to make from attending preschool here and then going back to Boyston Elementary School um we've often thought about the efficiency of Staff traveling back and forth um we also think about the beautiful space that's available for the preschool here you know we think about all of those things um so we have been able to contract with accept collabor ative they have an excellent reputation and the district has worked with them before to do formal preschool reviews they will be coming in beginning in January will be a busy month in my office in January

054um they will be um here in January they will look at our programs they will introduce staff they will take a look at our data from from recent years to help us try to make predictions um and they will provide us with a report in March as an administrative team we realize that at March at that point really the budget you know any kind of budget considerations um are the opportunity is largely ped um so we would like that you looking at implementing the following year um for whatever those recommendations may be or whatever we all decide we want to go forward with um there are six identified questions that I've listed for you in my report that will be the focus of the evaluation um and and those will be those are the guiding

055questions that we'll be getting a lot of information back so that was everything um in my report and then uh so we have we're voting on the uh unique Learning System I think we should vote on that now while it's fresh what was the cost associated with that so the cost it's a subscription based program it's about um roughly $1,500 per year it'll be a little bit more than that to start um because of the training module and completely off topic but there was news about Massachusetts special ed programs being looked into or something by the Department of Education so what's that yeah so the federal um the federal government is going back to several States and um in really questioning what their problem resolution system is um so right now in Massachusetts desie has

056a PRS problem resolution system unit and you know a family or caregiver or even an an educator can file a formal complaint and then desie looks into it and responds the criticism right that the federal government is looking at is the response time to that um and how thoroughly or adequately or satisfactory those responses are being responded to that's what that headline refers to so the federal government is worried about the time it takes the Massachusetts Government to respond to anything that's funny that's with that article I right there was an article that came out last week about it and it sounded like um there are maybe 22 states that they that the federal government was pushing back on and they're taking a look at it to make sure that Massachusetts is responding to those

057people ples in a timely and efficient manner so it's a state Des issue not individ district is that was my understanding anybody with the curriculum for the the figure kids um it said it was a threeyear plan so it's it can grow with them as yeah it right there were three um so my understanding of it is is that it's that the tops spiral for every three years so you have the same topic you could do it for example in sixth seventh and eth grade for seventh eth and ninth grade um and that is a methodology in special education right you want to be able to bring together a small group of students even if their instructional needs are different you need appropriate materials to be able to reach everybody in the room um because

058reading and background knowledge may be very different and independent skills may be very different so that is a um a real advantage of this program all right well fresh take the now have a motion to approve the unique Learning System special education all right any questions discussion 1500 a year plus a little bit make sure to get started all favor I against all right that motion passes thank you very much um okay moving on to to presentations now uh we already went through the Student Activity clubs that was great so next on the list is uh nurse leader presentation volume in the room too thank you for having me so I'm Lisa lamal the lead nurse of the district and I'm here to talk um quick about epinephrine medication delegation and to get the okay

059to move forward with um the application process and getting that in place for um the district um so what that is it is it's it's allowing the nurses to train non-medical staff teachers Etc to administer um epin up friend um which is a life-saving medication um we've had that in the past um and I had given the application and the information and I think there were still some questions about it and so I'm here to answer questions um or would you like me to go through the process of how that works anyone just a quick overview what what if we approve this what would that happen so what it's going to do once um once we get all the signatures we need signatures from myself our district physici um Carol and yourself um um send

060that to the um Department of Public Health and they approve it and then the nurses in the district can move forward with training all the staff members um on how to administer it what the signs Essentials to look for and that type of thing so the benefit of that is um several so if the nurse is not available or in another emergency another staff member can do this they know how to do this um or field trips which is very important so sometimes there's a field trip where there's just um there's no medication there's no chronic um chronic illnesses it's just someone needs it they have a b um allergy so a teacher could take that medication as long as they're properly trained and be able to do that medication um so that's pretty much

061it after school program as well I'm sorry the after school program as well um yes whoever is there right so across all the three schools you'll have some uh materials or documents or something like best practices how to use training yes everyone will get the same training um I'm so I'm somewhat new so my understanding I don't really know um what my school has done in the past I know that I got a power presentation from Toano and Berlin that they used um that kind of goes through everything from start to finish um I would personally I would like to have one type of training for all three schools so we're all on the same page yeah we have trouble with that coordinating sometimes so I think yeah you definitely need a single right page

062document presentation whatever it is so everybody knows the same thing so you're not you know my kid at school had this and they did it this way and this we need to make sure that happens the information's the same it's presented differently and at least if it's in one format we know everyone's hearing the same thing any questions on this I just think it's a very good idea I agree I agree and I just add since has been with us a tremendous job exactly what was talking about making sure that all the all the schools are on the same page with expectations and training I don't like if you recall I brought this document to you early in the year then you said I don't I'm signing understand you know until your point that is

063correct because there's there's much more to this that delegation piece this is one part this is one part of it this is the easiest part of it so it's strictly just epinephrine so that's what we're focusing on today and for the other piece we have a lot more talks to do get some more things in place but I thought this would be a great place to start because um it really is going to open the door the have school programs field trips Etc it speaks to lapses we we've had in the past years and getting everybody else subes to be do as well substitute teachers or nurses or everyone I mean personally I feel that there's some substitutes that are there frequently I have no issues I think they should be included for sure I

064mean obviously this is um optional you can't force anyone to do it but I would say pretty much everyone does it that from my school nursing background from where I came from I don't know anyone that hasn't done it so I mean it could be open to anyone in the district Subs um staff nurses Etc what's happening right now if a child has an emergency well the teacher still gonna Jam him with that up you pen right well I hope so I know I hope so I mean they always come to us first which is great um I always say if I'm in the middle of an emergency someone's not sure call 911 but I know many have been trained um so you know you have that Good Samaritan law that covers you so I

065would hope that someone would step up and do that that's why I think it's so important to have this on board ASAP um I have the application ready to go I just need signatures it's a very simple process um once we get the signatures so as soon as we get the signatures and it's approved I say we get it out have a motion to approve the delegation for Julie Jess second any discussion all in favor I against all right the motion is approved thank you do you have the form printed there right now I know I had given you one but I do have one absolutely you can both sign it it is more comp she does want to present so we understand for I'm talk then this will be all taken care of and

066CPR to is that another thing that well I and I know Cindy had just sent something out they were offering CPR class for staff and I think one person registered but they canceled it because there was one person yeah um I know from my past I have offered you know through the fire department twice like a spring and then a fall one and the numbers were never um and I think the problem to be honest thank you so much is because it's it needs to be offered after hours and nobody wants to stay after hours so maybe like part of a PD and you could do some of this stuff I I feel like it's just so important um I mean I remember just to work at a gym I had to get C my

067CPR certification can't so I just feel like these teachers in these classrooms with these kids if there's an emergency and you're not in your office or something it's just like and you do need more than one person sometimes so it's always nice that there's a good chunk of people um would know how to do that so I don't know I would love to come up with a plan on how to get more staff members um all CPR you know ad certified do we have any like dat like how many are on own there is a spreadsheet I'm somewhat new and I have that I just I don't really know I feel like for me I can't speak to who was taking charge of you know that or if it's a districtwide thing so I don't

068know you have a spreadsheet well there is a spreadsheet I'm not the owner of the spreadsheet but there is one and um the coaches have to be certified okay so all the coaches and that is part of documentation that we put to to the state so that was something that in the mar yeah it's in the mass we speaking of ads jum you said they get two be outside of BS where exactly U one over by the courts okay and then one over on the south so like near the Gazo area thank you so at some point I would love if you could share that um you know spreadsheet or where who I could find that from you know it's good for two years so maybe we still have some it would be nice to

069starting point I guess some of this stuff I'm like oh my God track down are I think he brings them with there are mobile ones CU I've gotten questions I don't know how many I know definitely one well that brings us to our Mia update thank you so much you okay so there was discussion um at last time and so when I looked at the Mia um a regulation and our handbook so specifically the MIAA states that um academic eligibility of all students shall be considered official if students are taking at least four traditional year-long major English courses they use English as identifying as at a core content class it has to be a five credit class when utilizing a 4x4 block a student must pass at least two of the four required major courses

070so 4x4 block is a block schedule so essentially they're having four classes a day so the MIAA requires that they pass half of their course load essentially that's what that is saying our can I one block or not we do not do we have seven periods so we have seven periods now they aren't necessarily all full courses any 2.5 credit classes are not considered a full course and wouldn't be considered in this most of our students are taking six core classes full major classes that would be that would be identified in the um MIAA as equivalent to a major course so they're taking six major courses and maybe two minor courses so they would be taking a total of eight courses totally because the F seventh course is an alternate block and so with that

071we say that students can fail or they must pass all their courses but one so it's how are you going to say it are you going to say they can fail or they must pass so I think the issue here is is I mean we understand what that is I think the question we had from last meeting was do we allow failure and give privilege for so um the extracurricular activities is it's privilege right right it's a privilege that sometimes get the students to school and actually are the one thing that will actually get kids to school which is in it is very important because academics aren't that isn't um necessarily students are well suited for academics in all respects and sometimes it is music it is Art it is Athletics that is going to

072keep them coming to school and so yes um if we do um if we allow one failure out of the seven courses that they're taking and that's their Athletics is what's keeping them coming to school I say yes absolutely do we have any data on how many athletes musicians artists are participating in extracurricular activities why while also having that one failure so I don't have I don't have the Arts and all of that but I did um gather um I used quite a bit of time today to um gather the information so this year we have 200 students in athletics so right now we have no grading information because we've only reached um the halfway mark it's based on last last spr is great so um correct so that we have um so last year

073we have in quarter one there were total in the school 46 failures um two of them were athletes and those were they were El they were not eligible but they all it didn't keep them out out of Athletics because those two were out of season um in Quarter Two there were 62 failures total um one of them was an out of season athlete 58 student failures in quarter three two of them were out of season athletes and 63 and quarter 4 one was an out of season athlete so it doesn't seem like it's a large number it isn't it isn't and in so if you go back I got data from 2021 21 22 the numbers are all relatively the same um it's two you know two% 4% of failures out of the entire enrollment

074of Athletics um [Music] 1% of the failures are athletes so without naming the kids and keep that information confidential are these the type of student athletes who would not come to school if they weren't allowed to participate yes they are yes I I know them personally yes yes and there only one failure one failure and the the students that are in um multiple failures um that's whole another they're not participating in athletics right anybody questions what is is a or is no I I'll just make a comment I think it's I I have kids who play on in high school and the middle school I think the coaches do a really good job of keeping track of those athletes and touching base with teachers and the to make to making sure that the kids do

075stay successful I would love to see none of our athletes failing let to see none of the kids failing um I see your point sometimes that's what gets into school um and maybe there's I don't know maybe there's a better system for extra help for those kids so that you know if we have students feeling English or math or science or social studies often times those aren't the athletes right okay yeah it's a very small number right it's just got to be really help but thank you for collecting all this data because I imagine was so thank you anybody else toy please what you're saying is it we more stringent yes the Mi well Lisa continue on financial literacy so the financial literacy so this um the whole discussion around financial literacy came about um

076I wrote um and collected um a two-page report with um two pages of links that provide information for resources for financial literacy so prior to 2019 there was a financial literacy task course essentially that deemed that nearly 45% of all of our students across Massachusetts had no education around financial literacy they had no cour work they had no context of any type of financial literacy so this um prompted a financial literacy task force that looked at what was happening in um Massachusetts around um financial literacy the summary of recommendations were um really to provide a financial literacy Financial education awareness c campaign as well as providing funding to develop these resources and that report also ended in the um proposal in 2018 of an act relative to financial literacy and in 2019 it was signed

077into law an act relative to financial literacy in schools to equip students with the necessary skills to be informed and productive participants in our society with that inacted into law in 2019 we are then charged with offering our students that now when we when that was signed into law that was the year that um the schools shut down um in 2020 um in March so then our efforts were looked at and you know um diverted in another aspect you know managing the um the pandemic so we looked at our curriculum and identified the areas they're very clearly outlined by um the Frameworks for financial literacy are embedded in the history and social studies Frameworks and so as um in as a department um within department chair meetings we outlined a specific pathway by the time

078um students graduating in 2025 all students would have some coursework um as identified by a um required cour work for with front Loan financial literacy so that's how it came to being usually when something goes into law there's about a fiveyear gap because you can't all of a sudden say everybody needs this requirement for graduation you have to you have to build the plan and then you have to put the requirement so far in advance so um students actually have the plan so that has been our plan that all students will have a financial literacy requirement we have different avenues for that to occur but um so I don't know if anybody has any questions but that's kind of the background and the reasons why so essentially this is a graduation requirements starting next year

079so today's juniors are going to have to do this in order to graduate and that's I think included in some of the budget for the teachers Math teachers years past we had a position we had a teacher doing a business class but it was an elective and that's why we're trying to move past that elective and ensure that bus is for everyone need to take this course whether it's a half year however it's designed um that that would be essential in addition to keeping it in the framework for history and social sciences where they touch on this standard so yeah it's I mean assuming by the time the kid gets a graduation they can read I would say this and typing probably two of the most important life classes they'll have I mean so that's

080fantastic that's awesome there are different Avenues we really have to appla Clinton Savings Bank they really partnered with us in an exceptional way to help us and they provide um ccum free for us and support um but we need the people we need people in the classro teaching some yeah Clinton save the bank I mean I don't know I know we're not the only school that has a bank in the school but there's not a lot so that's that's fantastic and it goes down to the kindergart K as well so this is an area that we need to look at to the elementary school they do offer the banking program they put that in the school committee Facebook page but doing they've offered to do assem a variety of other kinds of instruction students so

081some of our graduates are actually tellers some are tellers great yeah I think I know it's a graduation requirement okay so it's a high school requirement but we've had plans in the past that bring computer science to every grade level in some way if we could find a way to do this that would be [Music] is this well do you know if it's a 2.5 or a five graduation primary so 2.5 although there are five credit courses that touch upon this so a student can take an economics course and that would you know that would fulfill the requirement um that if you're in banking if you're a banking internship that fulfills the requirement but there's a very specific um course that that we are doing this year that is half year um we can provide

082it to more students and that's a 2.5 class and we're using curriculum um supported by thank you uh John and S before we talk about curs of writing we don't need a history lesson in of writing read your report not to be the boss of the meeting you want to flip so that we both had PowerPoint slid so C went first Sally went first she could do her slides okay it was very detailed [Music] did I can go out know as you know while they're setting up and there's a kid sitting next to me har the submitting a paper to the class using chat a split screen right there I saw I had just been with some friends who are professors and teachers we were talking about how to get around and then there's hard

083NBA way to get around it we're right all right well thank you for welcoming us to our presentation uh we wanted to talk a little bit about um the purpose of Dei being just one part of the curriculum review process so before I kind of get into the intro for that I brought some people to help me I just have to do some introductions if you all want to introduce yourself um my name is Emma bayette and I'm a senior hi my name is colie MTH and I'm a senior I'm Jared Sims and I'm a senior as well help that as well so right so the curriculum review process actually involves many many steps there's all sorts of parts to it I mean when we want to look at um curriculum we're looking at you

084know um the curriculum that's been developed the instruction that goes along with that we're looking at um you know developing formative and summative assessments we're looking at activities and we're looking at um the materials that we use and when it comes to materials there's all sorts of different materials that teachers will use whether it's a text book or a workbook or it could be um you know a website or a program those kinds of things and we look at all sorts of things we're trying to find out if those materials are aligned to the Frameworks that the state has for us um are they vertically aligned in in regards of where they are in the grade um we're making sure that those um ts are up to dat that they're accurate um that they're you

085know user friendly for both teachers and students that they are differentiated that um that you know they have supporting factors to them and you know help with scaffolding and um and you know does it follow um and go along with our skok and sequence but there's also another part to it that we look at um because um you know for a few reasons part of which you know jelle was talking about the tear um the t uh TFM is that um and also desie is just asking that we look at certain parts of materials that we use to make sure that all of our students feel included and um that they are represented so what we're do is we're going to show some slides to show you the different aspects of that that we look

086at as just one part of the CC process all right so we go on to the first slide all right so to start it off making judgments about others based on external appearances uh such as physical attributes and age leading to assumptions about a person's character and abilities so our materials should portray all age groups and rais with a full range of human traits attributes and capabilities they should represent people of variety of body images and opportunities our question and stereotyping with regard to body image a belief system is an organized set of doctrines attitudes values or ideas about some philosophy being phenomenon that have an influence on our accountability so not only should our materials represent the various religions and beliefs that we have in America but they also need would be represented accurately

087and trally um so all of our material needs to represent these objectively to prevent any sort of bias that could a student's understanding of them ability is the capability to perform or accomplish something and a disability is a condition condition that provides physical and or cognitive challenges to a person's capacity to perform or accomplish something so our materials should show people in a wide variety of occupations regardless of any disability which will convey the message that a disability does not um prevent a person from having a productive and meaningful life or positively contributing to society so so family structure a family is an extended group of related people there are a variety of family structors such as single par parent extended families funded families families with no children biologically unrelated families families with same sex

088parents and families with interracial or interface pars so we want M We Believe material shall have various cultures with the needs of children and family members in s an outside the home environment to ex set a family through community activities and through G relationships so all genders must have equal opportunities for Personal Achievement and success without the constraints of gender role stereotyping um all genders need information and opportunities to pick critically to be able to counter Prejudice based on gender so our materials should contain Equitable representation of both uh men and women as important figures who deserve recognition and respect they should present authentic role models in a variety of careers demonstrating that success is achievable by both genders males and females should be shown confecting and solving problems with equal skill and resourcefulness materials

089should represent the potential of both boys and girls to accurately apply attributes such as confidence willingness to take risks empathy kindness and um kindness equally to both genders they should acknowledge an individual sexual orientation where identity does not reflect their ability to lead a satisfying productive life so race and ethnicity race is a classification of groups of people of a common ancestry distinguished by physical characteristics such as skin color shape of eyes hair texture or facial features an ethnic group is a group of people who share particular culture Heritage or background every American belongs to one or more ethnic groups um so material should ensure that the history of racism and equation is presented honestly with a balanced perspective so tells both Sid of the story it should use private resources so that people are

090describe through their own words and images additionally it should reflect the positive creative contributions that diverse racial ethnic and cultural groups need to and socioeconomic status so this is kind of near and dear to my heart because I grew up in um kind of a low socioeconomic status and indicators such as education wealth inheritance and apption establish of one person's socioeconomic status material should reflect a broad range of standards of living expectations and achievements of people they should depict people from all socioeconomic groups making valid contributions to life in society and they should also include the perspectives of people from broad range of geographical regions in the United States as well as um throughout the world and I think all of these particular um lenses allow our students or they they bring our students to

091us with a p a particular perspective and what our challenge is as Educators is to understand who those students are and then select materials that allow them to access materials because when you're not connecting with the material there's a disconnect and I think that sometimes when we provide materials that are not within the context or the lens of our students there can be a perceived achievement Gap or um or you know unability Gap where in fact it's really not bad at all it's just that they have no context or no background knowledge for example in the seventh grade ma MC there was a question that nearly 75% of the students got wrong and the reason why is because there was the term alteration alteration being something to be altered like your clothes being altered this

092is not something that our current Society is is like we understand or like is not common but my parents and my grandmother my grandmother was an she used to sew My Grandfather's suits and often have things cilor and that was common you you have one or two good suits and you have them tailored kids nowadays they've never seen that before and so they were like what is this alteration then all of a sudden it wasn't addressing their knowledge of MTH it was addressing their context and their background knowledge of their EXP experience and so as soon as that becomes you know um unfamiliar to students you can see them shut down you a word or a phrase and they shut down so that is why this is so important to look at our materials and

093say are we needing are are we bringing materials so that the lenses of our students are being reflected in the information so we can meet them so they have content and they have the curriculum that is capable of bridging those contextual and of achieving GS so you're saying the state of Massachusetts for a test it doesn't perform to DVI so they they they they have yeah they have they have to they they themselves so I think what's important is that they are constantly in review process and they there are you know depending on when the tests are developed because it is so how how do you guys go we just run a short of time the presentation how do you go about doing this in cre are you counting the number of people of a

094certain status that on a worksheet how do you actually do so we do have personal sheets I think that I have the report and and again that's just one part I mean there'll get other things too but um we will go through the materials and you know we're not necessarily counting something but you know I can tell you HR in Corporate America is doing that for personal experience we're not like like we're not right keeping a Gras how many not it's not that that however you know we as you know myself and department has the teachers we'll look at the materials re them and you know think about these things as for example when um if you ask young people to draw a picture of SST it's kind of like an Einstein like app and

095there when I would bring materials from Harvard that I would work with my students they um they produced this material called I am a Scientist and it was it was a variation of men women people from every different background identifying you know what type of scientists they were what type of background they had where they you know Rich were they poor um were they interested in sports were they not and it really broke down the boundaries and I know for a fact some of my students were like oh my gosh I I can see myself as one of those people so it's it's not so much counting but it's like who are the students that are in front of you and does my material help connect them with success so these images presumably are population

096can change from year to year even living so it constantly having to get different materials not not purchasing different materials so you want to make sure your materials um are pretty um standard you know consistent and standard um what you want to do is bring in resources like I am a scientist that is a wonderful resource and they are constantly updating and there are lots of different um you know people that are working on that reviewing you know and adding into that resource so I think that's really what it is are we you know are we only are we looking at our students and helping them bridge that G and again that's one PE you know and I was looking at that um that you were voting on earlier you know I mean we were

097looking at other things as well like differentiate doesn't we know this we have as as the general population speak we talk about closing that achievement G that's where that that that that lies in these kind of things what do you need to do our L AIC student and that's land we have to consider what are the ways all so it's around all of these kinds of things so speaking of these subgroups right soci techic status low income students want you at nothing to jump on John's presentation there but again mcast scores are in the news states are in the news everybody thinks of Massachusetts as this Bean of public education the Boston world all papers I got Boston Global but it tells me that Florida and Mississippi are beating Massachusetts now in lowi income student

098literacy is this true I think we look closer so two part answer one part is they are putting a lot more emphasis on the kinds of literacy skills that we're focusing on that are not necessarily being focused on good Comm work choose I know your report says that we're much better than the state as a whole but it struck me lwi income students in Florida all places are beating those in Massachusetts and I just I wonder if spending too much time on this versus actually teaching kids let me put you back a little bit okay Lo students in Florida are getting better scores fing from students in Massachusetts as a possibility and even to look is it turns out that we have these things they have these well I think they were trying to adjust

099for that but it's it struck me is a surprise you recently WR an article about stupides in they were pretty much all Southern States I mean I didn't say it you said it because I live to be in trouble I live with I live with this stuff every day at work I create training for adults for Cs and I have HR constantly counting the number of people of different skin color in my training and I cannot tell you how much time it wasted doing that and that's why so why I that yes so I think like I understand what you're saying the representation really matters it's important you can't just like have history books from one side of the story you have to have other perspectives because then you can roll and involve because you

100can't just listen to of those stories so absolutely and I think you know we do pay attention to I don't think I just want sure I just want to make sure it's not taking over like different areas is that's anybody I think kids are more like something they see I think boy you know having be a daughter you know I'm always like shoing the voice section because she likes space and stuff so I think it's it's that of representation oh yeah that goes you know that scientist is a girl or you know Black Or Hispanic or you know I didn't me and yet there is a report in our thing about cursive yeah that's that's his screen saer I it is my screen saber the thing with writing just that fantastic a plus plus plus

101plus plus plus how many pluses was it fantastic it simply came up from a parent saying oh my kid is learning cursive at this school but they're not at this school so what's the equity what's are they doing it are they not doing it we're not doing it what are they getting that they're not getting what are they getting they're not get 30 seconds oh wa 45 seconds because I mentioned my fabulously want a Plus+ report Thomas Jefferson's cursing have a mix of curs I WR just like Thomas Jefferson I know that because Thomas Jefferson and my kid go same school I've seen Thomas Jefferson at the same time not at the same time um very quickly one of the things that we've been talking about s I've been talking about car I've been talking

102about is getting people same page what we are are not using scho this is a classic example of some didn't kind of run by anybody that's what we have to start to Mo you the actual we got to is it aw but so we are we are continuing to align our better so don't get those wait can I just say one thing I feel drawn into this so I believe this is your so but what if this so teachers there is some free time during the day there should not be well what if kids are finished before other kids then they should doing something more challenging oh I can't so if you're a f finisher let's say you're a man fast finisher yeah I'm GNA find for you some deeper work to do because that's

103where the work go right that's what we've got to get better at how do we you we talk a lot about special education we work really hard to challenge our most challenged but we got these people here that we and that's our challenge we are great and we are getting better special but we got to learn how to CH so when I hear something say well let's have a PD something unrelated to learn C Poss I think I really all right I got you your point is very valid gonna jump in real quick I'll make it brief this teacher um was looking to differentiate her instruction so they with foundations and it is a curriculum that we use and there's person in that foundations that we don't really have the time for she was trying

104to challenge her students um which I applaud because we do want to differentiate my husband talked about that maybe doing a lunch Munch C because their children are interested in learning this so we don't want to hold them back but at the same time could we do it at a different time there is interest in they also talk about different club which we but personally I wish you would do it but I understand we mind we were talking before Miss Tu Rec want fun I was terrible terrible terrible terrible in my school 32nd story um third grade you learn how to write inur you could not use a pen until you like person last child I think just gave up as you can see my handw is all right clear yes M 2023 and City

105and I are gonna go back and forth I'm G to do language AR she's gonna do math and then we'll step at each other and still see um very quickly I say this every year edcast does not measure the worth of children teachers or schools there's one task in one point in the year that gives us a snapshot of where we are Rel standers and other studs in the it doesn't match up well with other states doesn't match up well with national sample because Massachusetts is a highly changing place to Le and then the last thing is just a remind what we do look for with NPS tests is what can we do better look for patterns of all right so Lang um this is this year by grade by school and it's just we

106are not comparing ourselves to the state because that's many ways not meaningful the state is you know in Boston Dorchester in Springfield is really really struggling school districts it is however a baseline so we always toss it in there um and you can see the relative performance of the two schools and we've talked about this before I think that you're going he in mind you we he Cindy's was make significant progress um this past year um but that's where we are just this year this is the more meaningful graph this is the whole school over the last five testing Cycles right because we had an interruption with Co and then of course we had you know 2021 which was the half of a task let's make it a little easier task um that kind of

107skewed the data a little bit and we've talked about this before you can see in language arts that state number has dropped they went up a whole they're very problem um but you can see both of the elementary schools um took a big step up um and part of that and we'll get to it a second was the writing component which those of you well know Mak me crazy every year because they don't capitalize and punctuate perces those were improved um so you can see the statement up a point um our schools went significant more and I broke these out and they're in the report I just put them up here to kind of you know remind you of where we're at we always perform most strongly in Reading it's the uh category with the

108highest number of points um we exceed the state inv all of those areas um that's grades three four and five and as a percentage of possible point of reasonably happy with this when you're into a high 60s plus 70s mid 7s because you know as we said earlier the mcast mcast test is not for all children it is not appropriate and more and more now you know the rocket scientists at the department of Elementary and secondary education more more kids to take the standard test it doesn't matter their it's not really fair to give somebody with severe dyslexia this what but they and we factor that in that's why I've kind of backed off of my 90% ofs down 80% you're talking about D their group's trying to do away with this right now oh

109thanks for reminding me so it's really a two-part argument there's the 10th gr that test they have pass grad they're worried about like 1% of all graduates because the task can be taken over and over again it's the easiest test because guess what almost what's our 99% 100% what b i you could D it's not because we shouldn't have a standard for graduates because our de means something but the test that they give our graduates doesn't really reflect a children because guess what up until 10th grade it's 4550 4550 and then magically in 10th Grade a political if you keep on the other if you keep perspective and use it as a method don't get crazed about I think this is still Val it tells us we' just had this conversation where are we now

110in this we had some real barriers four years ago but in looking at this assessment looking at some Ben markeing assessments we realized a lot of our issues are coach it's sometimes it's something simple as somebody takes me minutes to cursive sometimes it's I'd rather teach this thing that way and while you want to always respect teacher judgment we have a curriculum Reon can't get better if we don't practice the curriculum so I would keep that I it's two separate Ares the 10 grade test well that's my question because we hear time you don't look at it too don't look at it this way they change it's not that big a deal at one point in time but then at the same time it's what we have is it's it's what we have to judge

111or not to judge but to track I'll judge you sure no but seriously if not this then what no for that for judging where we are where we want to go this is a perfectly reliable Tas it used to be so Lisa mentioned a test item earlier and actually the ma session we got a couple of samples of the report she mentioned a word that kids wouldn't know now and you get that type of a question something that's just not that you know somebody like me would say you're question but the kids would have no IDE about so you look at that you measure your results based on that but sometimes like the Symmetry questions all my um they syry they clearly there was a misconception because have kids in BO have the kids in

112Massachusetts I have one kid syry so I I saw that in your report I was ask you question about we have the same M apprach at both schools so well so not I can see but what you have to look at so that says to me how do we miss can't which end up fing back in Ni to right now about because that is having a p math instruction in that level created some kind of a misconception never know what it was probably something math coach wouldn't catch it but a math coach math coach did math in here talking a little bit about math um so one of the things that I'm looking at I know this was brought to my attention when I first started is we using same with Fidelity that's the word

113the to use that's what I'm looking into as the new administrator of this building how are we using it because there is a discrepancy you'll see in the math scores too that real links comes in a little bit high on most things um and we're behind it so we're using the same curriculum and we have the coaches which they were both amazing what are we missing so that's my job is to dive into that um and go from there one other note when I was in the classroom getting my MPS sces is like Christmas time it showed me what I Tau well and where I Dr the well coming in as an administrator uh I look at what we're doing as a whole what are we doing well and where can I support that uh

114we started that at Boon we have some math Missy math challenging going around the kids are loving it it's about getting them to get the Buy in because one of the things I heard in our school is I don't like that as an educat that prushes we don't want them to ever say that I don't care if they're second graders kindergarteners fifth graders we want them to love now so that's the all they ever here tell that is my favorite subject and it is wonderful so this is very similar to what John went over before but it's math and we're talking about the schools compared to the state I use the state as John set a St line we always want to do better than the state as a whole but if you look at

115our scores in grade three Berlin was at 68 we were at 61 we got you in grade four there competition yeah 64 to 66 we do have a little friendly competition going on grade five 54 to 50 again we're all ahead of the state gives us a point and this is for meeting and exceeds can we do better absolutely this is the one I like to see and also the one that this is where I I put in the report where are we going if you look at 22 to 23 just for Boon we were we're steady you always want to grow you always want to see Improvement so what aren't we doing there and how do we improve that um BMS was a little bit higher and all year years I like tracking over

116the years again I just started in July I need to dive into the data which I will tell you is all over my dining rotable much to my husband's dismay I have going back I'm I'm looking at data for all the grades but going back to third grade well how are they going to do in fourth grade so we go up the grades to see where are we going I love the data part of this job I love the data part of mcast and again it's a day and I've had students um in my past as a teacher as a principal where they outscored anything I ever thought and when I asked them what did you do differently and wanted you do this that's huge question John maybe you have more information our district but

117for the last few years I've had this impression that because of Co we got through and math came back quicker and better than the language but looking at these here over the past five years we're down this trend on this screen is down so I know from last year to this year kind of flat 21 to this year Well up yeah if you toss out 19 that just kind of FL and I I agree I agree I think that the stability of man when we talk about come back from Co stability of man St St fr it's kind of we didn't lose a ton of ground you can see 21 kind of everybody dropped a little bit and then there's that recovery one of the tricks with this is govern in Berlin we're talking about

11887 kids every kids you know so when I go down from 64 to 61 that's a S4 the problem is 64 has 61 well no because that was another thing I saw new dat both schools anywhere from 25 to 40% of the kids in any particular measurement are not at the meeting they're partially one I mean how do like how do we go out like this October okay it's Halloween I'm going to be at an event with a lot of BMS parents a classroom or class of 30 to 40 kids 30% of them is 12 kids what 12 parents do I go to and say I'm sorry we not working for your kid it's not working for your your kid is not at the basic level of me I think that's where sometimes the test

119gets because remember we're not only if you can remind we're not only talking to them about this school but they all just got their in schools where the kids performing there I [Music] I oh it measures differently so we look at the percentile so but like that test m third class special class just reading per very that is for so if you remember this could be a group that's gone up through the years lacking because asking how three years ago we sat we didn't sit in this room we sat on the computer and we talked about how are you going to catch these kids up and the answer was well the next teacher will take the beginning of the year to figure out where they are and and now we're seeing well you didn't do

120that because college kids can't do basic math or kids are falling behind we're seeing 30 40 50% in some cases ISS not meeting expectations should be something looking at with with that coh students BR so if they Lo we lost them before what have we done and what do we need to do to get those kids on this also keep everything we talking about tonight around what we're going to be looking at what because it ties into Competency Based learning which you probably been reading about too with the state now Jesse is looking at moving I don't know when in the future to competency competencies versus stand and going what skills and understand students to have when time gradu theyig than this not only they have a knowledge base that they can add comp but

121how they and the outside so that again another step of all this so all of those things are coming Point already see we're already seeing the change so aside from the Symmetry question I put in my report there was a question about it was measurement not