okay good evening and welcome this is the March 25th 2024 meeting of the school committee call the meeting to order 642 this meeting is being both audio2 thank you 542 um meeting is being both audio and video recorded I would ask that everyone rise from the Pledge of Allegiance I put ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay I would ask for a little call Heather if you start Heather Brown director of curriculum Gordon Smith superintendent of schools GRE toson Sarah Julio Amy delanta Emily Baker student rep okay thank you all we're going to do our uh teacher Award winners yes uh we have the uh incredible opportunity to welcome three of our four uh Pioneer Valley excellence and teaching Award winners so if we can step forward we have Ana tur who is our award winner for um being in her first three years of teaching and she's at the high school she's one of our science teachers and we have McKenzie Pini who is District recording in progress sorry now we're capturing this all who's districtwide and who's one of our adaptive physical education teachers and he in all of our buildings which is incredibly cool and we have chy parity who is one of our teachers at Mountain View we're all exceptional one of the really neat things about the Pioneer Valley um excellence and teaching Awards is that it comes the nominations come from their colle so and actually parents too we have parents who nominated in the past and so this is an award that has come through recognition from colleagues administrators and community and so we wanted to celebrate them here tonight we also want to invite you all to march with us July 4th for braid and hopefully we'll have I know it's aough day but think about it um because did have Marchers last year and the year before and we'd like to keep building the winners from previous years and this year because I'm thinking about it right now as opposed to June uh what we'd also like to do is Order t-shirts so you're be getting um an email from me asking size t-shirt so forth and that will be our parade here I W something all of you t-shirt sold me our fourth winner Tracy M couldn't be with us today and she's um an instruction coach at mbrook uh we will be celebrating again with the um basically east side of the river at the log cabin in May uh the dreb foundation puts on that banquet for all the winners their asswards also being so patient and waiting for moments past the 530 start have some minutes for approval um you appr the March 11 2024 regular session minutes say I zero Communications start school last week um some classrooms and see culture of the building remind me very um right myself and on teacher negotiation so that continue to move forward we have a our fourth meeting tomorrow it was really fun they such great J em um so lot going on right now the senior banquet is happening in April 5th the house it's really exciting um the NHS just ran a big sale um to support the Drew kellerer Foundation the past week it went really well there was a lot of people that helped out with it had a really good turnout a lot better than we were expecting um the Special Olympics is coming up on April 12 Miss pen that was just in here is actually running that she's the Adaptive at the high school um it's being working with it's working with and recognized by like the National Organization uh there's a lot of other towns that are being invited the police the fire iren and then uh Key Club right now has sent out a form to all students to sign up and help out so hopefully there's a lot of people that show up because it's really exciting um what else do we have uh mcast for sophomores tomorrow and Wednesday we have 83 night tomorrow and then the middle school and high school band for the show thank you okay and now we have an opportunity for visitors to address the committee it's so please yeah please we sit sure microphone there so we can hear better good evening thank you for uh allowing us to speak tonight my name is Sean DS with my wife Heather um we are the proud father of a seventh grade uh student at buron Park Middle School two years ago he was allowed um we registered him for the school choice program through a different district and um he was happily accept Ed program um since then he has thrived in his current placement at bin Park socially and academically um he has done very well um heong meow made it very very easy for us to do the whole registration process um while dropping off the registration materials a couple years ago I was uh speaking to someone in the office and they asked me you know we having a little chitchat back and forth they asked me about oh do you have any other kids and I said yeah she's in fourth grade she said oh that's great then she'll be able to get too um so I was like oh that's amazing that's great because that was really Our Hope um after a pretty tumultuous year in fifth grade for our son um we were hoping for a different district and a fresh start and we got just that um since then he's been doing amaz L amazingly he's involved in sports has a lot of friends doing well academically so we were very pleased um a few months ago probably in late 20123 we just reached out because we're like all right we're getting close to that whole to the school choice decision based on sixth grade school choice and we called someone they said oh there's no guarantee and we were kind of upset about that but we're like hopeful nonetheless um so we were just really asking the committee to if you would um if you haven't already done so make the decision to open up few possibly open up a few sixth grade spots we know that it would be really beneficial for our daughter to go to the same district as son um yeah no just overall his parents were happy with where he is and have this experience I appreciate your time thank you for coming and I would just say um historically how we pick spots and how we give of spots it's based on enrollment class size so just to make it clear to um anybody listening that um specific requests based on specific grades because specific kids would be tough for us to open up go but I certainly welcome we're going to have a discussion tonight about about that um response might open up I just wanted to make that clear that thank you so much for coming we just can't always open them yeah on the size of the class but we're gonna have that discussion today so if you'd like it was just suggested to us to sure and thank you so much for coming felt like we kind of wanted to so we feel better at least yeah dep and it's nice to hear that you're out older student is doing well yeah it's doing very well the only reason why we're here is because we were given information that was slightly different than the information you were given mons ago so we just appreciate so work um we'll go into the eops student Opportunity Act okay so in your packets you have a draft version of our newest student Opportunity Act in year uh Department Elementary and secondary education has asked us um every three years to present a new draft as what you're focusing in on as a district um regarding student tunity that and similar to what you've heard me say in the past they give you um areas of focus and from those various areas of focus we try to tailor in on um a few of them in this case three that lend themselves well to where we um are focusing on District smarts is actually be talking about uh prior to the start of school community meeting um so in this year Miss Brown is going to give you the specific details because she's done the line share of the work drafting this but we're focused in three areas continued professional development around um our implementation of the new pla or literacy curriculum and the new MTH curriculum then we're focusing in on on how we do a better job co- teing and providing some intensive professional developments starting first at um our secondary school for in high school uh to be more inclusive um with our special education models and make sure that we have the right supports in place and then um finally taking a look at this is something that goes back to our Equity audit report that um came back to to us in the 2019 2020 school year um how we go about hiring uh mentoring and supporting and hopefully retaining not only staff but diverse staff um especially as our student body continues to so those are three goal areas more of the specifics that you'd like to yeah and I I plan on being brief but I want to kind of walk you through what they asked us to do so that you're aware so that first part is a summary like Mr Smith said the three things that we chose from the list of evidence-based practices that zi asked us to choose from that we're connected to our smart HS and the work that we're already doing um and then the basically they asked us in the next session to do a data dig to identify disparities and we can do a root cause analysis to analyze why those disparities exist um and so we utiliz uh mcast data we utiliz The Chronic absente ISM data uh the survey data and came to similar conclusions that we have with our Equity audit and um kind of our process that we do every year just um to identify those groups and our those groups were our English language Learners our special education students our lowincome students our black and African-American students and our Latino students um so those became our Focus grp groups and as uh Mr Smith said we are in the process of uh implementing high quality instructional materials not only at the elementary level but we have math is K to 12 uh science will be science 9 to 12 will be selecting new materials next year um science 6 to8 has already um there in three year three of implementation um and uh the high school actually uh is in year two or three of implementation of their new High School um materials and to implement curriculum well it takes a lot of really robust professional development um and so that's why this is a priority it's not a oneandone I was just having this conversation with someone it's never a oneandone it really takes it's all hands on deck and so we felt like that was a good investment um of our time and resource uh like Mr Smith said the co- teing models um we do have co- teing going on in different parts of our uh District uh but it very much is a teacher uh teaches teacher assists model and there are a lot of other models that we can utilize um not only that but co- teing professional develop will really help in improve our co- planning um and again with high quality instructional materials they're rigorous and a lot of teachers struggle um which is a normal thing providing access uh to complex test and those grade level demands for our kids especially our kids who um um do have disabilities or are not functioning at grade level for whatever reason and so we're hoping those Partnerships and that cold planning will really help ensure in addition to our professional development around implementing the high quality materials that all students accessing and that we are removing all the f um and then finally as Mr Smith said with the intentional hiring systems this came out of our Equity audit population is Shifting and it is important that our teacher Workforce reflects um the student conversation um and so if you uh go to section SE section three uh we had to say that we're going to use their their Improvement targets that they came out for the lowest performing students um section four is how we engage families and caregivers um different ways um and then uh section five was where we had to uh select those evidence-based programs so if you turn to page four that's really where the meat of this is um and it talks about um what I just talked about why we're doing these things but also what we've done so far what we plan on doing and the metrics we're going to use to um ensure that we're meeting um these goals so we've done that for the high quality curricular material professional development for the co- teing professional development and for uh our hiring practice I'm not going to read all of that for you but I just wanted to he give you an overview um as to what it it entails so that it makes sense um so that very first part really Happ them FL that summary because you go through the whole process Gordon I know you mentioned draft um on pages four six and seven when it talks about the metrics it definitely mentions increases but are there targets by which we're trying increase not been popula correct those will be the targets that they um gave us thank you for noticing that yeah those will be in line with the de okay and the same when it comes to the local metrics like if we're saying increasing e efficacy of HP implementation of measured by cling walk and tools we have like a baseline this year or be establishing a baseline in the fall next year so that then we can actually quantify what that increases so we are currently uh working on cre walkthrough tools that are um both calibrated like you're talking about but also um not overly complicated to use and so we're finding that a lot of the things that come from different FR materials are pretty overwhelming um so we're working uh with um I'm working with the instructional coaches right now and then we'll bring those to the leadership team but yes so those will be um in place next year and something that we can utilize to collect Baseline establish yes any other questions comments you need an acceptance of the plan you okay I take that motion that we accept the eops student Opportunity Act PL plan to 2027 just one quick question started so then next year when we're looking at our goals at the onset of the Academic Year we should see direct connections back to this two threeyear plan yes okay we have a Riverside rep this is the third grade team seing St state so um they're looking to do and sh field trip to the Riverside reptiles Education Center in field Connecticut on May 24th leaving in approximately 9:15 by Sarah second by anybody big rep yeah only if you want to yeah yeah option okay uh I believe we have motion May second in favor no favor please say I no and finally we have a discussion of school choice for the upcoming school year so um in your package we have the most current enrollment statistics these actually are the March Sim submission to desie so this is um our actual accounts right now um since uh enrollment statistics come out three times a year the they use the October one to really set your foundation moment for funding for the next school year um but then obviously uh as school years go there's fluctuation the moment so they colle one in March colle one so this is the most current en at each grade level um this hopefully helps you take a look at where and how we may choice for the next school year current grades where you have low lower enrollment um are grade one so that you be you were to do something around grade one You' be accepting school choice students in grade two um grade two at 184 is also a lowering moment and that would be allowing students in the coming grade three that's transition year that tends to be a popular for families come in one of the transition years because every everybody's moving to a new school um you also which you've done in the past you look get gr four you only have 188 generally in 345 you can have enrollment up to at least 200 and you're not Stretch Class size too much um I wouldn't say the same for metal stay under the uh sort of the 190 threshold and doing better with class size and then certainly our secondary level um had for wrong time G Class sizes in terms of grade levels over 200 we're not seeing that as much anymore but you could certain approach 200 in terms of six but they'll be going to grade seven right grade five yeah so grade five is another area we have 184 It's relatively low in terms of the pay enrollment could add there which we've done in the past it's kind of nice Lin up with those two transition doesn't always do that I last year we accepted students open yeah so with that being said the criteria that we generally tried to to use our smaller class size transition year in lower grades so with that said and with 43 hour right so um sorry I also included Your fact chart um it gives you from fiscal year 15 through fiscal year 24 um the enrollment Trends just on school choice and so up until um FIS year 21 we were just a district that uh was sending students and you see that that uh started to increase and then had a slight dip but um is increasing again at least from last year to this year but the last two years we have been accepting more school choice students than sending out school choice students so we're at this year 43 students um across grade levels were in our district under the school choice program and we have 33 students who have go out uh through the school choice program to Public District that doesn't include Charter School not District placement through special education um still yeah still considered an elps student and they have their own transportation yes so if you come into any District through the school choice program the transportation on the fan to get the students to they really based on 24 we reallys it does do they do siblings get first so yeah according to desie if you have a slot open that lines up with a current Choice students sibling you have to give priority to the um siing and then you any other seats would be open for but just worth mentioning again C in the future that take specific requests based on individuals not service well more based on small class yeah I just want to reiterate certainly everybody's were able to and last year we we looked at gr but so my thought was um because we are a Net 10 that we don't need a necessarily huge group and if we could focus on the younger transition year that would be second and the third possibly Fifth and the sixth with a total number of maybe eight we to discussing four and four um according reminding to the worth mentioning second and the third does split up into two different schools two for school I don't think they lean on each other individuals but not necessarily but we do new student orientation so it's always nice if you have few people why we think only why because we're at 43 students already and if we were if we keep the pace of 12 per year then we're going to get well over 100 pretty quick I don't know what the magic number so I'm just because we're in Net 10 already we just thought we might slow it down at 12 I'm not stuck on I just thought that was reasonable it fit into that 184 number pretty nicely giving the same as they going for3 you know thir six which is still reasonable number I think the 165 is nice for that small for for first grade you know it's a small number but nice to have small boxing and that one tends over time to change quicker and right yeah just to give you an idea so this year we have 156 teer gers last year we had 158 kindergarteners and you can see grade grade one is 165 so we grew over the summer as uh students were coming into first grade and families tend to move in town I feel like you the younger years students education we get that maybe just grade two SE yeah anything just because we said anything we want to do we have in the past I think it's been mentioned by multile members in the past that earlier on is more advantageous both to the student and to the district in terms of involving the whole student and so I see value in that but I mean it is the same well yeah plus you're bringing someone out of their home District to and they hit yeah any talks on not really yeah you understand what it is cool you see the class side so this is this year there will be next year's I me I don't think you're going to overload either of those grade levels at grade three next year or grade six um I me you look at grade six this year they're 210 yeah they'll they'll most likely be below that even if you for students from school choice get some yeah pleas was basically same next year make available Y at grade three and grade six it's okay motion by any second say hi get that up on the website for advertising I'll put something in the reminder once we have the application set up we actually got quite a few calls today okay we've come to the end of our meeting so em thank for being here Jamie thanks for being here and all refs I motion