001Welcome everybody. It's good to see everybody. I want to get us started on time here. Um, if we can uh please rise for the pledge. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Great. Um, so thanks for coming to the December and everybody's thinking about school break and uh other fun things of the holidays, you know, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas. It's all coming down down the pike here. Um, but what I want to do is uh I want to thank Anita. This is her last meeting. Um, we'll be getting someone else from Arasic and I'm sure she'll be fine and good, but we're going to miss you a lot. I am personally
002going to miss you a lot. Your uh your feedback, your just you just always bring a calmness and uh uh just a wisdom that's just, you know, unparalleled and I just I've always appreciated it. And I'm not sure how many I think Patrick me I don't know how many years was it two terms or three like I don't know how many. >> Yeah. So Anita's been with us I think if I get this right nine full years. >> Yeah. So three terms. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's fantastic and your your dedication is just wonderful and uh so don't be a stranger. You know, we might have to pull you on some committees or something if you're if you have the time, but thank you for everything. Really, I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Nina, I would
003just say when I think of you, I think of professionalism, conscientious, ask good questions, may not always agree, but does it in a very respectful, professional manner. And Anita doesn't speak much, but when she talks, people listen. That's true. That's true. >> So, we we have a small token of appreciation, which isn't much for nine years of service, but it's something. So, thank you for everything. Appreciate it. >> All right. Um it's like a a change in the whole season now. Um okay. And so we're going to move on to uh minutes. >> Move to approve the minutes as written. >> Okay. Did you have a question on the minutes? Okay. You'll second. Okay. Great. Any other questions? This is this is your chance, Anita, if you need to muck it up. Go ahead. All
004right. All in favor? All right, that passes. Um, adjustments to the agenda. We're going to There's an overnight field trip um that Patrick told us about. It's going to go under new business. So, it'll be the first thing under new business. Uh, the field trip and we got the public session. Anyone here from the public? No. Okay. No public session. Um, and we're going to get right to staff report. I'm going to hand it over to Patrick. >> We're very fortunate to have Beth Kaser here to provide us a report on our new reveal math program that we have at the elementary level. And so, she's going to be here. And I think, you know, Katie will weigh in as well. And you might be asked to do a few math problems tonight, so you
005can get an idea of what the program is like. So, Beth, thank you for being here. And come on up. All right. So, hi everybody. I'm gonna pass out a box of pencils in case you need a pencil. >> And then I'm also passing out one. Just take one. There's extras and you're going to use the back and the front. So, >> okay. >> Thank you. >> Don't leave Deb and Kim out. >> Oh, yes. >> She's gonna give us one. Do you need a pencil, Kim? >> Sure. >> Can I use a Can I use a pen? >> Yes. >> All right, let's see. Damon, is it gonna show up up there? Perfect. Thank you. All right. Thanks for having me to talk about math today. Um, I'm going to provide an update on
006um what we've been working on over the past few years with the main math and science alliance, which I'll refer to as MMSA, and um the work that has led us to our new math curriculum. So um our professional development work with the main math and science alliance started in the 2020 the 22 23 school year and um you can see here's a picture of us in the Fippsburg gym and we are working with Kate Gley from MMSA. Um this is an example of what we spent some time doing. It was everybody who works with anybody in math. So classroom teachers, interventionists, special ed teaching staff. And we focused on creating a shared understanding of shifts that we need to take in um mathematical teaching and we did a lot of work around fluency and
007how to define that. So, I wanted to share with you our math norms because they actually capture a lot of what we talked about and MMSA shares this in every professional development that they do. And if you walk around our schools, you may see these posted in classrooms um and in interventions and special education teachers rooms. Um ones that I wanted to point out specifically are um talk about each other's thinking. Oh, you can go back, Damian. No, that's okay. Um, because that's an important part of what we talked about is that conversation and math discourse is so such an important part of math learning. And so, we did a lot of practicing that ourselves and talking about how we um talk about math with kids. Um, the other one I wanted to point out
008is this idea of asking questions until ideas make sense. Some of the things we learned about are how to create context around the problems that students are solving. And so, for example, when we're um working through a word problem with students, taking the time to really reveal it slowly and talk about, well, what's happening here? What's the context? to avoid that um that behavior that some of us can do which is go in and just pull those numbers out and try to quickly solve. We need to understand the context first. So those are just two examples of some of the things that we talked about a lot and these norms kind of capture them for us. One of the things that we spent a fair amount of time on is the definition of fluency. And
009I know when I came a couple years ago, I shared a book that we had done, a book study around um with interventionists and that was all about this idea too. But we worked on this all together. And if you think about computational fluency, um we're not going to go through all of this, but if you think about like being fluent with your math facts or being fluent in math, you probably think about things like, oh well, you need to be accurate. like you need to get the right answer and being efficient. You know, we think about can we do this quickly? Can we get to an answer um quickly? But there are some other things that are also important to think about. And that is flexibility. So that's part of the definition. Accuracy, being
010efficient, and being flexible. And that means really not having just one go-to strategy that you always use, but having the ability to choose strategically about which one will be more efficient uh for you. And the way to get to that is by learning different strategies and talking about different ways to solve problems. So we spent a fair amount of time developing that definition and talking about well what does this really mean and doing lots of example problems because that's the way to really get to see oh I see what you mean now the traditional algorithm is not the most efficient way in this case. Um that's just an example. So to illustrate that we're going to start with some math. So do you guys have your pencils ready? I'd like for you to flip over
011the paper so it's on the blank side because that's what we're going to do first. So go ahead and go to the next slide. So I'd like for you and I don't want you to worry because you may not have expected to do math tonight. Um we're going to first work on our own and then you'll have a chance to talk with someone next to you. I'd like for you to just solve the problem 66US 48 in whatever way you want to. All right. So, go ahead and turn to the person next to you and talk about how you solved your problem. Notice if you solved it in the same way, if you did something different. Okay. I go up in tens until I can and then I add what's left. So I go like
01248 to 58 plus what's left. >> What? Wait. >> Yeah. So I start at 48 and then I know I can go up to 58 and that's a solid 10. But I can't go up to 68. So there's there's six left. >> Sorry. >> All right. Let me call you back together >> because I I don't think I could do it the way that you >> so I could over here and I could hear that some people were solving it in different ways from other people and that's the kind of conversation that we might have in our classrooms too. If you could go to the next slide. So here are some of the strategies that you might see in a classroom that's working on this. Um, if you look to the far left, that's the
013traditional algorithm, right? You might rewrite it vertically and then you'll use some regrouping. Um, another way to solve that, if you look at the top U box in the middle, is you might think, you know what, 48 to 66, I think I can figure that out. 48 to 58 is 10, and then two more to 60, and then 60 to 66 is 6. And that is 18. If you add up 10 and two and six, I will tell you after teaching everyday math and now reveal math, this is how I often am solving these problems. Um, it's very easy for mental math. Um, another way you might say 48 to 68 is 20. And then if I go back two, I'm at 66. So that's 18. And then the final way is one that um
014can be recorded in different ways, but it's um thinking about the distance between the numbers. So you might think, you know what, 48 is not easy for me to work with. I want to work from 50. That's two away. So in order to keep the same distance, I need to add two to the other side. And 50 to 68 is 18, which you can do in your mind. So students might even have other ways. they may have drawn um some using some um representations of base 10 blocks depending in this um age level. You might still see kids doing that and that's fine. The point here is to see there's multiple representations of how we can solve this and there's multiple ways to think about it and depending the traditional algorithm I know for me
015would be slower. It wouldn't be the most efficient way um compared to some of these other strategies. Does that make sense to everybody? Did anybody solve it using anything other than the traditional algorithm? >> I broke it up from everyday math. Yes. And I put it back together again. And then I was like, "Oh, no. Maybe I should add up." But >> I think that no matter what way you use in anything, it's so interesting when someone can't explain what they did or can't explain. And if you can't explain, is that still wrong? Because some people just look and know. And so where does that ability to to explain what you're doing go into this? I don't know. I've seen students who just look at numbers. They can't tell me how they know. They just
016know. >> Yes. Part of that is all of this work that we do on working in number lines and working with 10 frames and the visual representations that we used because like I drew out for you what I did in my mind, you know, and it's because I know how to use a number line to show you what I was thinking. And um students are learning that too. And sometimes they're even acting it out. like we learned with MMSA how to use a yard stick and the um the base 10 blocks to actually show that distance. And so there's lots of ways that we build how you can demonstrate what your thinking is. And oftentimes it's the building that leads to that automaticity that you're talking about. That was a good question though about why
017don't they just when do they learn the algorithm and why don't they come to start and I think part of it is the only way I know how to solve it is with the algorithm I know that I carry the one over I have no idea why like this is to me is just memorizing a method but I cannot explain to you the math >> behind this and part of This is as machines can do things technically for us and just spit out the answer. One of the um pieces that Beth showed from the norms that I always think about when I'm watching kids do it in so many ways is um the answers are not the math. That's one of the norms. So like the math is actually understanding the concepts that give you
018the answer and how to be a problem solver in many different ways. And that's what newer programs are getting kids brains to do. Not like what mine only knows how to do, which is to just put things in a column and know that I move numbers. >> It's because that makes sense. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, I really respect that. The idea of problem solving something. Yeah, >> it's it's teaching them critical thinking around going attempting a problem in any of their ways to finally figure out a way that's going to be the most efficient. So, they could probably do it in their brains just like Beth does with the number line because she's done it so often. >> She's not writing that out when she's pick your face. >> Um, no. I I just
019think it's um that authenticity that you mentioned is is uh is relatable to an extent um in many situations like and I think it is just going through the motions though. >> Yeah. >> Um >> but then there's also a level of if you have like a a great understanding of a mathematical concept then it becomes kind of hard to explain if you do it so quickly because you just end up like skipping steps. like if I'm helping my uh my friends out with homework or anything that and a lot of I get a lot of questions like wait why like non-stop why is it that way and I have to remember like it's not just uh like it's harder to skip steps when you don't understand that. So yeah >> and Kurt when your
020your teacher was taught just to do the first one they didn't understand the value and the concept behind what they were doing. So the teachers like they taught the right algorithm but they they didn't themselves have this wonderful broader understanding of the value of something and how to look at many different ways. So I think that that's the piece that we're trying to give both the students and the teachers better understanding on how to look at this and it's amazing how many women in education didn't get a chance to understand mathematics this way and then they became teachers. So, it's a gift for adults and students, I think. >> And it kind of makes math a little bit more fun, I think, for a lot of people to kind of play around with. Oh, well,
021how could you do that? I mean, when you hear teachers talking about it, that's it feels fun, you know, like, oh, I thought about it this way. I thought about it this way. Um to answer your question about the algorithm that is part of the standards, but earlier in the standards in earlier grades, it's really about using place value strategies to problem solve. And so that's where all of this is those other strategies is like, well, how many tens, how many ones? Like what's really changing? And so that's what's building those concepts that Katie was talking about is working with place value concepts and the conceptual knowledge before you get to the um traditional algorithm or the standard algorithm which is part of our standards but later than you might think in terms of grade
022level for when you get to those. Any other >> I think what's really neat is when kids know how to do this. It's kind of what Charles just said where even my nine-year-old can solve like difficult threedigit subtract three-digit by three-digit subtraction problems writing nothing down because in his mind he's like anything that ends in a three he's turning into a five and then he remembers what to subtract in the end and so he's chunking out numbers in such different ways that I've ever thought about and we've we've done like little competitions where I'll do my algorithm and he'll do it in his head and he can do it faster. He's mine. >> All right. So, I want to show you something else that's related to that. Damian, if you wouldn't mind going to the
023next slide. >> Oh, right. >> So, this slide looks a little busy, but I put it in on purpose. This is showing multiplication and division and the stages that we learned and we talked about for how students learn their facts. So you think about, you know, like, oh, do you know your twos? Do you know your fives? And that means like, do you know 2 * 3, 2 * 4, 2 * 5? And we learned about that. We learned that the um order that you teach them in matters because if you look at stage one, that's considered foundational. So students are learning their twos, their tens, their fives, things that they can get to by skip counting. So if you know how to skip count what you learn earlier, then you can figure out what
0245* 3 is because you can go 5 10 15 even if you don't know that fact. And through all that work and practice that you do through games, those become more automatic for you. And then once you learn those, you can use those as you move into trickier, well, what is for most people trickier facts like your fours, your threes, your eights, your six, your sevens, or your nines. And you can use benchmark numbers because if you know 7* 5, then you can figure out 7* 6. So it's not just like using flashcards and memorizing. There is a place for that once you understand the concept of it, but it's really building the concepts first of how do you get to a fact if you don't actually know it right away in your mind. And
025then the last stage uh or stage three in this case is deriving. And so you can do things like figure out like what's 3* 15 which I just heard someone do the other day, a student. I was like what's 3* 15? it was part of a problem we were solving and they were like I don't know my 15s and then they were like wait a minute 3 * 10 is 30 3 * 5 5 is 15 is 45 and to see that happen is amazing and that is this progression in action. So we learned um about how in the third fourth grade range as kids are learning their facts the way that they do that is pretty important in the way that we structure it for them. Any questions about that? Yes. >> Uh just
026a really quick comment. That's seeing that out front like is incredible because when I was in fourth grade at Fisher Mitchell, I was just handed the sheet like this array of paper that had numbers on this side, numbers on this side, and everything was filled in and I was just told to memorize it. And so like seeing seeing that is a lot u more streamlined and like promising. What's the value of time after your time your time tables? >> So that is the time there is a way to kind of check your efficiency. Um and you can use that to check yourself. Um, one of the pro the programs that we use is called Math Fact Lab and it builds in multiple representations and it goes in this kind of order and it does have
027time built into it but it's more a way to know like how quickly am I able to get to this? Am I efficient? How well do you know it? We wouldn't want to start from that point like okay now you're at this point and you're trying to get faster. We want to start from the conceptual knowledge of building first. um like let's do skip counting. Let's do some you know building of arrays which are you know those um grids where you can see like oh there's two rows of three here and that could be six. Um so you wouldn't add time into that but there is a place for seeing you know how quick are you um how quickly can I get to these um answers. Does that make sense? >> Yes. Um, in in
028terms of >> and I well I think it would be stressful especially because we know our kids are going to be at different places along this at any point of their learning which is partly why Math Fact Lab has been such a good program for us because it differenti iates and kids can work from where they are and it gives data to teachers too so they can see where they are as well. Any other questions about that? Okay. Um let's move to the next one. So, we're not going to go through these routines, but part of the work that we also did was we learned instructional routines that we can use with any curriculum that support flexible thinking, fluency building, and mathematical conversation. And so, this was well before we were talking about new programs.
029We were in everyday math, but we learned about like, oh, we could use this routine, like for example, a count as a way to work work on fact fluency at as a warm-up. Um, so we learned a bunch of these and we're actually going to do one together in just a minute. So Damian, if you would go to the next slide, I'm going to have you do a tangled untangled with me. This is a routine that we learned and it can be used to review common mistakes or misconceptions. So within the reveal program, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, this is a routine that we could use after students have done exit tickets. So, those are quick little um usually they're on paper. A quick little task with a couple questions.
030Everyone in the room does them and they give a a quick look for teachers to look and see like how are kids doing with the concept I just taught. And so they would look at them and they would think, okay, I'm seeing some misconceptions here that I need to address with my class. Um what you do is you have first everybody kind of thinks about it on their own. there's a mistake or a tangle in this work that I'm looking at. And then you turn and talk with a partner. Well, how can we untangle this? So, if you look at your tangled untangled sheet, if you would go to the next slide, Damen, what you're seeing here is an example of an exit ticket. So, what the students were asked was what + 7= 13.
031and they were asked to find out what the answer would be. This student instead of picking one of those choices wrote in 20 thought that was the correct answer. And you can see their work down below. They said, "Well, 7 + 10 + 3, basically 7 + 13 is 20." And so they assumed that the person who wrote the question was wrong. Um, I want you to think about what's the tangle here. What's the mistake? Talk about it quickly with the person next to you and see if you can figure out what's what's the problem. >> If you figured out the tangle, go ahead and do some thinking about how could we untangle it. Talk with your same partners like what could we do to make this right? Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, it seems
032like they want to break up more. >> Yeah. >> All right. I'm going to call you back together and Damian, if you could go to the next slide. So the tangle here, what did you guys think? What was the problem in terms of how students were interpreting that? What were they missing an understanding of? I don't I don't I think they just saw the numbers and combined them >> and they saw a plus sign, they saw two numbers and just combined them. Um I think if they had said it out loud, it would really help know what it they are talking about in terms of it. If they said something plus 17 will get me to 13. My goal is 13. How do I get there? I mean, even if they just said it out
033loud to themselves, I think it might have helped. >> That's true. That oral language piece would really help a lot. It was a mis It was not understanding the equal sign, whether they ignored it or whether they didn't understand what it meant in this case. And so, the way to untangle that would be like you said, we could say it out loud like, well, what plus seven would get you to 13? And then the way to solve, again, we can see multiple representations here. Students might use known facts. They might say, "Well, I know 7 + 7 is 14. I know my doubles, and so 7 + 6 must be 13." Or they could use 10 frames. They could put the um seven. You can see those in the blue dots. And then think about
034what how many more would I need to get to 13. Or they could use a open number line like seven to 13. Well, 10's in the middle, and there's three on each side, so that's going to be six. Or they could just simply count up or down, you know, starting from seven, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, or counting backwards in the same way. So, this is an example of how we might pull some specific problems from our class and then use it as an example to problem solve as a whole group and probably get a lot more strategies than any one person was thinking of on their own. All right. >> Yeah. >> That go back to the answer is not that first thing that answer is not the answer's not the goal like
035sometimes like would you that would be an opportunity to discuss something right? >> Yes. And so it would be something where it would be like okay here's tell me your thought process think about it in different ways but it wouldn't be like traditionally this is wrong go back and do it type of thing >> right and I think you know it's within the context of a classroom where you've talked about mistakes are opportunities for people to learn and um it's you know the fact that it's tangled untangled instead of like right versus wrong um I think it all supports that idea of like we're learning from mistakes or we're learning how to do things more efficiently. All right. So, the other thing we worked on is um creating and revising guiding documents that support our
036consistency in our teaching. And again, we did this uh when we were teaching everyday math before we started about started thinking about our new curriculum. We developed a working agreement that basically said how we were going to use our curriculum. We developed cover pages that go with each of our unit assessments that we send home to parents so that they can see at the end of each unit how students are doing um in relation to the standards and we build consistency around those practices. All right, Damian, if you want to move to the next one. These are the people on our math committee. Um I'm moving into talking about the curriculum review and selection work that we did. Uh, and this started a couple years, two years ago, I think, three years ago. It started
037a couple years ago. Um, and these are the members from each of our elementary schools. The people who have um stars next to their name did a full pilot, full year pilot of reveal last year uh before we made the decision to select it. If you want to go to the next slide, this is I could tell you lots of things about reveal, but I thought it would be important for you to know the framework of a lesson. Uh this is the same lesson format that's used in every grade level K through 5. It starts with a launch or we call it be curious, something to it's usually a picture or kind of a query for to get kids interested in the math. Then we have explore and develop and that is where a problem
038is posed. Teachers can choose to use a guided exploration which means they're really guiding kids through the work or they can set up an activity-based lesson. Both are addressing the same concepts and the teacher can make a choice based on what they think would work best for their students for that lesson. Then practice and reflect is what it sounds like. It's opportunities to practice. Um, teachers can set that up where kids are practicing by themselves in their workbooks. Kids could be working in groups like we did today. They could do turn and talk. There's lots of opportunities to design that in the way that works for the kids in the room. And then assess is where an exit ticket happens each day and those are very quick and are meant to be formative which is
039mean which means they're not part of a grade. they are part of helping the teacher know and the students know where they need to go next for their learning. And then there's a differentiation um part that actually can be worked into any of these steps but is a way to differentiate even more um beyond what you would do within each of these. All right, if you want to go to the next one. The reasons we were excited about picking reveal um we found that there were more opportunities to align work in the classroom with the work in interventions and in special ed. And that is really because of the way that it's designed. It teaches unit by unit and covers concepts within each unit. And um it's much easier than working within a spiraling curriculum
040where every lesson might be teaching something different. It's harder to move in and out of that kind of a program where a program like Reveal which is more focused on unit and the spiral is built into like the daily work is much easier for our students who might have special ed services but be ready to move back into regular ed services or move from school to school or um come from a different district and be joining us. So this is much easier for us to help them transition better. Um there are more opportunities for differentiation within each of those steps. One of our MMSA reps calls reveal the program of choice because there are so many choices built in uh with the materials provided. So we know that whatever we choose, we're going to be
041consistent with the teaching of that lesson. Um, I talked about the non-spiraling curriculum. Fewer people across the state now are using everyday math. Um, and so it's a program that's not as supported as something like Reveal, which is newer and will have more um, iterations as time goes on. And so that was part of our um, decision making. It's discussion based as we've talked about. There are multiple entry point points through the lesson design for students to feel like they can be a part of the math learning. And that starts right from the beginning with the launch and the be curious. There's lots of opportunities for kids to get involved. Even if they're sharing something that you wouldn't consider necessarily math talk, it's an entry point for them to engage in the math. And then
042the teachers who piloted last year for the full year noticed that the lesson design really supported engagement and success for students who uh were were typically struggling. And so they found that those students for the most part were able to engage more with the math and do better on the end of unit assessments and on the exit tickets that they were seeing. So those were all reasons we were excited about reveal. If you want to go to the next slide, Damen. In terms of our implementation, just to give you an idea of what we've done so far, last spring we had a virtual meet with K2 teachers from another district who had moved from everyday math to Reveal. So, we got to hear about their um experiences and they were so generous with what they
043shared with us and they were very, I thought, honest, um it was really helpful. It was like getting a lens into our future um which was nice to see. uh Cap Wetzel and Kim Plameumber and I went to um a center in New Hampshire where they teach reveal in all of their kindergarten classrooms. And so we got to observe and see what that looks like at the kindergarten level. Uh because that was a grade level that we had questions around like how do we do activity based lessons in kindergarten. So we got to do that. In March we had our first professional development day. We had a virtual session with the McGra Hill trainer who basically told us about the nuts and bolts of the program. And then in May, we had grade level days
044where each grade level got together for a half day and learned about the first unit so that they would be ready to teach that in the fall. Um, and we also spent a lot more time in the digital platform so we would be able to find what we needed. And then this year we started the year by reviewing what we did the in the spring because you know summer is long love and lovely and so we reminded ourselves of what we had done and then we had another virtual session with the McGra Hill rep. In October, we just finished up, actually we didn't, it's December now, but in October, we did demo classes where we met with MMSA, uh, a rep from MMSA for a half day to plan a lesson all together. Then we
045went and watched her teach it and then we debriefed as a grade level team. So, that was very helpful. And then we had two more professional development days where we had sessions that were split up by grade levels and we had grade level planning time. And then now we're continuing to build in grade level planning time for grade level teachers to talk about their units um together. And if you want to go to the next slide, our next steps are in January we are going to meet as grade level teams again and observe um some recorded demo lessons. So we're we are going to be watching ourselves teach and uh debrief around those as grade level teams which we found very helpful when we were learning UFly our phonics curriculum. So, we're going to do
046that process again and then ongoing grade level teams are going to have the opportunity to continue to talk about the units that they're teaching and the games they're picking and you know when they decided to do activity based versus guided lessons. So basically working together as we learn more about the program this year and then eventually we are keeping track of our data at the end of each unit and so we'll be able to work together to figure out like where are our kids doing well and where do we need to problem solve around and then um in May our third grade team is going to work together on a specific unit two that was tricky this fall so we're going to bring everybody together to plan for that before we teach it again and
047work on um learning more about the progressions of subtraction because third grade is in a tricky not tricky but they have to know everything the kids knew before and then be ready to teach um for what they need to learn in third grade. And so what we're finding is that helping them to know more about what happens in first and second grade around subtraction is something that will help support their learning in third grade. And then our math committee is going to continue working um on discussing more ways to connect families to this work beyond the um unit letters and the cover sheets that we already are using. And then we are taking surveys of our staff every couple months in this first year. And so we'll continue to respond to needs that come up
048from there. And I think that's it. I know we stopped for questions along the way, but if there's any others, I'm happy to answer them. >> Any questions? Go ahead, guys. That was really great. Thank you. >> Very thorough. I'd love it. >> So, the the new curriculum, it sounds like it's very good for uh struggling students, but is there um curious, is anything in there for students that are already performing at or above grade level? Is there any sort of enrichment opportunities that are built into this program for for those students? >> Yes. Well, that's part of what we're learning too in this program of choice, but there definitely are. In the differentiation part of the lesson, there are materials for students who need um reteing or fluency work. And then there's also an
049enrichment part that has materials for students who are moving or ready to move beyond. Um and so that's one option. Um, I think figuring out how to leverage those materials in a way that works uh best for each classroom is the learning of this year. Um, and then also teachers can pull from resources that they have already. Like we were we made a point to keep the games that we knew we liked from before that we want to keep using. Um, and so they can pull from those materials as well. >> Just a quick comment. I think I said this last time, but I always learn so much from you. And so knowing that limited resources for time and money, but as you're looking for ways to get information out to parents, even just a
050quick 60-second video of you explaining something, I think would go a really long way. Um, and it just struck me because you said that even though you grew up learning how to, you know, do the subtraction one way, that now you're doing it the other way because it's more efficient. Um, and that was just impactful for me to learn as a parent because I'm not probably going to be like, "Oh, why are we doing it this way?" You know, it's like, um, anyway, those are my two sons. >> Thank you. Good ideas. >> Good. Um, thank you Beth. I learned from something from you every time I listen to you talk about these things and after doing it even more than other people. I just I still learn all the time. And um, so if
051it's a discussionbased approach um, how do we help students with have central auditory processing issues if it's more is it equally as visual as it is verbal? Um uh and then I heard that there's a lot of opportunity for differentiation, but that can sometimes be one of the harder things to do with a big classroom with a lot of kids at a lot of different different levels. So a question about how are we assisting teachers with that skill. And then I think last was um whatever program we do, I learned that if you have one program that across our big district, it gave all of our teachers common language >> and it gave them consistent information language when talking to all their students and it gave them that consistent language from K to five. So
052there wasn't you weren't try student wasn't trying to figure out individual teacher choice of words that it was a wonderful like flow through. Um, I love the way that you're saying that you're videoing um teachers doing a lesson, but how if if there's so much choice in how you do the program, how are we making sure each grade level across each school is consistently meeting the expectations. So, couple of questions in there, but >> yeah. Um, back to your first one, I think, you know, part of what happens with discussion is then, you know, we're using our Prometheium boards or our chart paper and we're reflecting what is being talked about or we the teachers might be the bridge between the visual and the verbal that someone's bringing up and like, oh, this is another
053way to represent this. And so, I think, you know, there's manipulatives that are being used with base 10 blocks or 10 frames. And so there are visual tools and manipulative manipulatives that um people are using to help for people who may need a different way of um grasping that concept and who you know listening to something maybe harder. Um what was the second part you asked me? Yes. So different. It is true. We have a lot to learn about all the different choices and that's part of the PD that we've been it's a big part of the PD that we've been doing like getting to plan together a full lesson and talk about some of the teachers in the room had taught the lesson some of them hadn't yet and so being able to talk
054about well did you use the activity base like what part did you use? Um, that's the work that we're doing and getting to hear from Kate Greley who was our MMSA rep at the time who is very familiar with teaching this program and getting her um input on like well what if we tried it this way and you know having someone show you how they're leveraging the different parts of the curriculum is helpful and that's the work that we're now building into our grade level discussions as people talk more about what they've done. We also have this great benefit of having teachers at every grade level, almost every grade level, who piloted for a full year. And so they can tell us more about how they're using some of those materials, too. And part of
055that is going to come from experience as people are trying different parts of the lessons. So, our conversations will just get richer as we have more and more experience with it. And then what was the last part you asked me? Oh, yeah. >> I was surprised I'm always surprised how differently even having one program actually and I remember writing best practices for the everyday program but I was trying to find this is kind of what we expect and I don't I don't know how well we didn't deliver that >> so we have um I mentioned it quickly but we have those working agreements that we have built at each grade level and those have like here are the parts of reveal these These are the parts that are expected. These are the parts that are
056teacher choice. Um and so we have more guiding documents than we did um when we brought in every well maybe not when we brought in but when I was aware of when we were teaching everyday math. So that's a big support and those are also considered living documents. So our math committees looking at them and then we'll go back as a grade level team and talk about them. Um I think also we have you know our unit assessments, our exit tickets. We have lots of ways to know how our students are responding to our instruction and that is the key part of that consistency. Um, we have spreadsheets that we, the teachers look at, the interventionists of shared students can see. And so we have lots of ways to know how kids are learning, which
057is the important part of that consistency piece. And then we're also just building that into our PD, you know, talking about how did this part of the lesson go, how did this part go? And that builds in a natural accountability because we're problem solving together. And uh just like when we brought in you fly, I feel like it builds that problem-solving um community where it's like I'm trying this part, but I don't think it's going that well. Like what can I do to make this better? Or someone could come in and say, I tried this. It worked really well. Like every single time I teach this lesson, I'm doing it this way, you know, because it worked so well and I think it'll work for lots of kids. So it's I guess it's a multifaceted
058answer, but it's supported in multiple ways. That's great. You're welcome. Thank you very much. I really appreciate all your effort and really thorough just really well done. Thank you so much. No problem. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you everybody. >> Okay. Thanks. All right. Um we are on to uh committee reports. Um do we have a finance committee? >> Yeah, Deb just going to give a quick overview >> of just the financial piece that Hank did. I think I sent this to you electronically so all of you have it. But >> um so just to let you know we did have the finance committee meeting and Hank um did the financial overview which you all I think had in your have in your packet. So basically it's um he goes over the general fund balance
059and is showing the past uh five years and how it's determined and based upon this presentation um this year you can see that there's been a large increase in the fund balance and that was because of um the balance in the Morse High project. So basically um the balance that was left from the bonding and also the interest earned is now being transferred into our general fund. The state came down did an audit. We had to return like $800,000 to them. Um but the rest of it will go into our fund balance. Um, we have a restricted fund balance, which is basically um the BRCTC balance and also the $1 million that we use each year as a beginning balance for the budget purposes. So, he goes over those fund balances. Um, and then on
060the next page, he goes over our general fund revenues. And this is basically budget versus actual of where we were in 2425. Um, and you can see that the charges for services is tuition and that was down and that's basically because of our number of students and the tuition rates. Um, and then our general fund expenditures, we we're pretty close, although 336,000 seems like a good balance, but it's lower than what we've we're spending a lot closer than what we've done in the past. Um, so that's where Hank tells us to keep our eye on what we're using for a fund, a beginning balance because our expenses are getting closer to what we actually budget and also our revenues. So basically, we had 336,000 left in um expenses and we had like 36,000 that's it
061left um over in revenue. So we're closing that gap. Um and then the next page he basically shows us that the distribution between state and local. So our um local assessments are pretty close in the last 5 years. I mean we were up you know we're 50.74% but it hasn't dropped you know significantly. So we're keeping that pretty flat. state funds um are decreasing a little bit over the five years. And then the last two pages, it's just a distribution of how our cost centers are spent throughout the whole budget. And really, they're almost exact is it's a little bit less um for debt service because we pay a little bit less each year because of interest. Um, and really that that was the only real change as far as how it's spent in the
062distribution, the whole budget by cost center questions. >> Um, De, I haven't had a chance to look over this. I think I might I might have once I kind of digest it a little more for you, but um uh fund balances are their requirement that they don't exceed amount and at one time didn't ours exceed amount. So, we had to return some money out of that like can't like the balance can't be more than 10% or something. Am I I'm sure I'm struggling here. >> So, you're supposed to keep your fund balance within like Well, right now you can go up to 9% of your total budget. Um it's between five and nine is what you know the target is >> and we um >> we don't have more than that. So we're we're within
063a good range um based upon this big fund balance bigger fund balance because of the most high project. Um he assures us that it's probably going to be we can be safe using a million dollars as a beginning balance for a few years down the road. But he does um recommend us to try to reduce that as we move forward in the years. He says the perfect budgeters would have zero funding. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> You know, >> so um we used to use like 400,000 and now we're up to a million. So um just to keep an eye on that. Uhhuh. Is there is there a how hard is it from a management standpoint when the revenues and the expensive get when that budget gets closer and closer and you have less left over,
064you know, >> you get a little bit more anxious towards, you know, May. >> Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, right. I mean, >> you know, you think, oh, geez, because you can't spend more than your budget because you would have to go back and ask for, you know, voter approval. So, you want, you know, it's that balancing act of, you know, you hope that you've budgeted, you know, right? And you your tuitions aren't way off or um you know, your staffing isn't much different than what you had planned. I mean, it's all a plan. So, >> right. >> Um, >> yeah. So, it's closer than what we've been before. But, >> and the last thing I want to is I started doing a little reading about EPS and if it makes you want to go
065to sleep, just those words, but I'm reading about EPS and the fact that um EPS is not keeping up with a cost of living or or an inflationary valuation with it over the years. It's one of the things they're starting to look at differently with EPS. And do you feel like EPS is keeping up our state funding formula even though they've said that we're spending 55 trying to get closer to the 55%. Do you think it's keeping up with our actual costs? You know, the allocation is and how different cost centers are increasing like over the last five years. >> I don't know. That's hard. You know, that's hard to determine. I mean, I think for us, um, as long as we can keep our local assessments and, um, not go, you know, way overboard
066as far as budgeting and just keep, um, that in mind that we've been able to do that with what our state subsidy has been. So, >> okay. >> For us, it's, you know, we're keeping pretty consistent. >> Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have questions for Doug? Right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. We're at 9.0 student board rep report. Charles and Charlie. All right. Um to start off, we had a poetry slam last Wednesday um with the Mockingbird Bookshop. Um they partnered with Morse to host a poetry slam. members of the community and parents of the poets attended to watch um senior Liv Duniac win bragging rights for this victory. Um and then as far as athletics go, the indoor track team had their first meet last Wednesday as well. Um we had
067a standout performance for our girls team, placing second in a competition of powerhouse class A schools. Um, freshman Avery Mayer won the girls onem race and has hit the state automatic qualifying mark already among a few other athletes from more. She reminds me a lot of Shayen Brochu from last year. Um, and then boys basketball is playing Mountain Valley tomorrow. Um, girls basketball is playing Mountain Valley tonight. Both teams haven't won a game yet, but have had tough teams to start off the season. As for the theater department, Mohiba is over, but they're on to the next thing. Auditions for Jackal and Hyde, which will be the spring musical, have been occurring, I think last week and the beginning of this week, and they should find out tonight who got which role. So, those performances
068will be March 20th and March 21st. for the Vogue bath tech part of it. Chef Baldwin, the culinary teacher, received the Paul Harris Fellowship Award from Rotary, which is one of the highest awards they give out. So that's amazing. If you see her, make sure to say congratulations. And the SEC and National Honors Society partnered with their programs to adopt a family. Um, eight kids in the town of Bath will be getting receiving Christmas gifts and we raised over $1,000 for that. Fantastic. Thank you. Um, superintendent report. Okay, you you two always tend to take a few of mine, so I'll be brief. Um, just would like to thank the Mid Coast retired educators association because they they gave out two grants recently to two of our teachers, Leah Haymon at Bath Middle School and
069Ashley Hoskins at Woolwitch for some projects that they'd like to do um with their students. And then lastly, I'll just uh update with architectural firms. Um applications were due last Friday for the Dyene New project and we had nine firms apply which is I think very healthy. And so the committee will look through those and then on January 7th we will interview u a certain amount of those firms and be able to report at the next meeting who our architectural and engineering firm will be. So it's exciting. That's all I have. >> Great. Thank you. Um, financial report. Deb's back up. >> Back up. Um, okay. So, tonight, uh, we're looking at November and we've spent almost 18 million of our budget. Um, this is the first month that you'll see an encumbered amount. So,
070that's all our projection for salary and benefits. That will take us through the rest of the year. um that makes it easier or it's more helpful as far as looking at where we're at for the whole year for the budget. Um our expenses, our total expenses are 85% which is a little bit higher than what it was last year. Um but it's pretty close. I mean, it was 80 82%. And as far as the revenues, um everything's coming. We're at 45%. Um, and we have a little bit of state agency client money that comes in for special education that wasn't budgeted for. So, that's why it shows it as a negative, but that's a positive really for for revenue. Um, budget versus actual for tuition, our tuition rates came in. Good news for us, bad
071news for sending towns because the rates increased like 11% for elementary and um a little over 10 for secondary. So that means more revenue for us. So um probably about 200,000 to the good for our tuition revenue this year. So just the opposite from >> from last year last year. >> Yeah. Um, and we're we're ready to move forward with budget. I've set up the new budget year for um all the schools so they can have they have their request files open. They can get in there and make their changes and the process will begin in January. >> That's going to be January 6th, right? >> January 6 starts it. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> Okay. >> One quick question. Is there anything that's making you anxious right now as you look ahead to
072the next budget year? And you might not be able to answer that yet, but is there anything that >> The one thing that will be higher will be health insurance. That's for sure. Because the benefit is more um and you know, we'll see what happens with the rates. So, >> because the uh contract that's the full 91 what is it? 91% >> 91% >> of current year instead of 91% of previous year. >> Well, right because we over the last few years have gone up a little bit. Yeah. Okay. >> so that'll go up regardless of how much the health insurance itself goes up. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Right. >> So, it be a double wing, >> but it's a great place to work, right? So, they all they'll all come >> No. >>
073Any other questions? Thank you, >> Deb. >> Sorry, old business. So, we have the uh second reading of board policies. These are an action item um beedh the public participation at board meetings which was um you know redone and the uh school volunteers. Um can we take these together or are there questions about what was written? I move to take them together as written. >> Okay. May I have a second? Okay. Thanks, Patty. Um, any further discussion? All in favor? All right. Those pass. Um 12.0 new business. First will be the field trip. Uh, is there any discussion regarding that? Does everyone understand what that was for? You have a motion. I mean, do we need to >> Yeah. Okay. Need a motion to approve. Jamie motion. >> I'll move. >> Oh, you mean Oh,
074Jennifer's got it. >> Okay. Second, Patty. All right. All in favor? Okay, that passes. And then no action on this next one. It's first reading of board policies. Uh, student wellness. It's a uh JL. Does anyone have any questions on those on that particular policy? If not, we'll Okay, that'll be next time. Um, then we get into hand over to Patrick for all these personnel items. >> Yeah. First one is just accepting a resignation. Cassandra Jerome, her last day with students will be this Friday. Um, and we have a we're advertising for it, but we also have a retired recently retired teacher that will be fulfilling that role for the month of uh, January. So, I'd like to thank her for two and a half years of service to us. Next ones are retirements. Um,
075and these are big ones. um 212 years of service total and we've received I think two more since um since your packet went out which would bring this to almost 300 years of service to the district but we'll we're not going to we'll take those up at the next meeting. Um so Sue Soier grade two teacher at Dyke Newell would like to thank her for 37 years of service to the district. Uh Jackie Johnson, art teacher at Bath Middle School for 33 years. Cecilia Smith, academic interventionist, uh Dyke New School, also an edtech for us for for many years, 25 years. Carolyn Nichols, science teacher here at Morse, 24 years. Uh Dennis Wlette, facilities director, four years in the district. Uh, Chef Baldwin, culinary arts here, 24 years. Joe Han and edtech, mostly math, uh,
076for 20 years here. And then Deb Clark, 45 years. >> Wow. >> One of the unusual ones. You don't usually see that. >> And just a funny story about Deb. Deb's, you know, Deb's been here since school union 47 when I was a principal at Pittsburgh. I would call her for advice when I didn't know much and I still go to her for advice almost every day. Um, so I certainly will miss her, but um, you know, Deb, I don't remember how many years ago it was. Was it 10 years ago that we we interviewed for a business manager and Deb didn't apply? And so we sat through interviews and we just looked at each other with some other people and said, "This doesn't look good." Um, and so I had a conversation where I
077said, "Would you please would you please just formally apply? You can do this job." And it's been a pleasure working with her. So, um, I'd like to congratulate everybody on this list for a well-deserved retirement and thank them for all they've done for R is one. >> That's amazing. That's a big list. That's huge. Um, okay. It's a lot to take in. uh board goals. >> Um so for uh this evening I think that we have done well to um match our um K through five programming um in terms of that wonderful presentation about our new math program. Um and I um uh hope that as we're moving forward to talk about facilities which is also on here that we're talking about our next step and you know how we're starting that process. So, I
078think we did a good job at meeting meeting goals. >> Great. Um, okay. Next meeting dates, uh, going to be in the new year, 2026. Um, hard to believe, January 26th, here at Morris. Uh, any further questions or anything? If not, may I have a uh motion to adjourn? As as it should be. Way to go, Anita. I don't even think we need a second. Thank you, Anita. We are ajourned, folks. >> Wow. Have a one.