##VIDEO ID:bMA-gxUvzyw## hey good evening and welcome this is the October 7th 2024 meeting of the school committee called the meeting to order 708 the meeting is being both audio and video recorded this evening I would ask that everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Al flag of the United States of America the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all said ready 7 508 Thank you Pam clear the record not two hours behind schedule um let's see roll call please Samantha if you could start please last Bo secretary am assistant superintendent for business Sarah chulia Gordon Smith superintendent of schools Gregory Thompson an William stth Brown director of curriculum okay thank you I have minutes for approval I'd take a motion please to approve of the September 11th executive session meeting minutes second motion made by Sarah seconded by Anella any discussion all those in favor say I I I oose nay that motion carries 5 to zero move to approve the September 11 2024 regular session meeting minutes made by Sarah second by antel discussion all in favor say I I I those oppos nay five to zero approve September 23rd 20124 regular session meeting by Sarah second by Anella discussion all in favor say I I those oppos nay carries 5 to Z as well committee and subcommittee Communications uh about two weeks ago I think I traveled to Maple Shade side of Pam and Greg and Gordon and we got to tour the building and meet some of the Educators and the students and spent some time talking to the principal Conor Martin about his goals and objectives for the upcoming year excellent thank you Sarah I don't have anything right now okay William anything tonight um we visited Mountain View um last week um it was my first visit um and I was accompanied by Gordon and Greg and and Pam and I found it to be delightful I you know I certainly see their need for you know expanding their classroom so you know that's definitely something they're looking to do um I I'm a people I'm people Watchers so I was delighted to see the interaction with like the principal and and the superintendent how they knew kids names and and stuff like that so it was it was a good cool thank you and Emanuel another big win putting them three zero wow game is October 11 their senior n it was a really nice ceremony to see uh football seniors cheerleaders band members get uh like recognized for their hard work uh Club fair was also that same day it was really nice to see all the students um interested in joining clubs and club members like promoting that senior semi is October 19th excellent great thank you okay we have an opportunity for visitors to address the committee seeing none tonight we have the public school 20242 fall status report with draft markles Mr Smith so just as you said Mr Thompson um up on the union surround the room in your packets we have um our fall status report and then as we've done last year and continue to do it this year we've intertwined our draft SM pools so taking a look at where we were in the spring those the accountabil results taking a look where we are with um our I ready diagnostic um from the fall or September and um throughout you know all intermixed um our close draft which hopefully then sets the stage for the buildings two meetings from now to provide their goals but also to tell their story for this year if you if you will with that said second slide just gives you all this um can be found now on desie District profiles if anybody uh visits the the web page the department of Elementary and secondary education web page um you just you can Google it and get there fastest was by putting in Desi District profiles and I'll take you there but uh the most current um demographics are still last year's because they closed their window for collection on October 1st for all school districts and that information now is being um uploaded to the uh Desi portal and then they'll update uh throughout the year um different information on all districts but we take a look um we haven't had drastic changes but um just as we've said the last few years in terms of our demographics and our enrollment um we are becoming a much more diverse um School Community uh some of the biggest increases that we've seen over the years have been our lowincome and um our students with disabilities has notched up not as quickly as l income but um students with disabilities a few years back was hovering around 177% 18% now we're closer to 22% so those are areas certainly that we're looking at and as you go through uh the accountability data they break things down by subgroup um both something we want to celebrate but it's also we want to make sure that uh as we break down information on subgroups so we make sure that students Prov the opportunity to achieve and are provided the support they need to reach their own potential our first language not English um formerly English language learners but have mastered the language is that can be kids whose first language is in English but they're completely bilingual they didn't necessarily that's what I mean they're bil they already fluent English bilingual okay when they entered or they could be bilingual because they are become fluent thought you asking me what was our number one language outside of English spoken and I do know that well if you have the answer we might as well know it what is the number what is the number one is number one interesting uh it's not outpacing um by too much uh interestingly enough Vietnamese Chinese and Russian and Spanish and top I'm sorry and Spanish thank you um are in the top five have over 25 languages in addition to English in our commun really really interesting with that uh it brings us to somewhat new looking supporting the whole child goal uh we have three goals that all work um in alignment with each other supporting the whole child teaching and learning and celebrating diversity um and so this has been revised somewhat to both continue to reflect our changing um look at how we're supporting all of our students but also to make sure and this is where the metrics come in this year it's a little easier to understand and align to for schools and then also for our Educators who are creating their own individual education plans um while doing all of that if you remember we had a drastic change in how we wrote Things um in terms of goals smart goals basically because desie had put out this vision and um it was capturing a lot of what we've been doing but hadn't necessarily been writing it the same way um so we're still supporting des's vision and matching many of the elements that um are captured in their Vision document but we are trying to make sure that we're clear so it makes sense to people and certainly makes sense to our Educators as they look to align um so as you look at supporting the whole child um we're looking at metrics to see how we're doing around attendance because that continues to be a focal point best you actually have to be here um looking at Chronic absenteeism and you're looking at how students are reporting on climate and well-being uh Gordon when you mentioned average daily attendance rate is that only of students or are we considering looking at educator and Par attendance as a function of this the slide that's upcoming is just students but we certainly can get that as well if we have a go around students attendance then it might make sense to also have around staff attendants because if students are coming but then we don't see that same presence out of Faculty like that's another piece of our supporting the whole child sure we can start taking a look at that um going to the accountability so this is now looking at where we were last year at the end of the last school year and um you can see that as a district we met our our Target um you can see how the subgroups in many cases exceeded or met Target or even just improved them we're a little bit below the target interestingly enough one of the things that uh is something I'll be talking about later as we look at achievement we declined actually with our lowest performing group but they in achievement and in growth really did an exceptional job um in terms of what they produced um so that's an interesting um anomaly I guess so that's something that we'll continue to dig into because we still do have our family um Outreach coordinator and we still do have teams operating centering and focusing on attendance so this really what you were talking about uh we shared so this is daily attendance through uh last Thursday October 3D and so right now we're averaging above 96% which is great not higher but um right now the highest is 97% at Mountain View um followed by most of the schools hovering right around that 96 96.2% uh in your packets so we apologize we um had done some work in tweaking the survey which we talked a little bit about and then unfortunately had a technical glitch so we did have to extend the window so we didn't get all results back until Friday night um so we couldn't get that up to you told but Brown's going to present on that so uh the way these surveys work is um everything is put in terms of favorable so when you see something like challenging feelings and it says something like 65% were percent um responded favorably that means that 65% of kids did not share that they had challenging feelings so that that's just one thing that just to remind folks every year that's how these come about um so this is a three to five and we didn't change any questions this year but we did simplify how they answer the questions so there were um quite a few different variations of yes and no and so for some things we had you know very excited not excited excited so we we kind of simplified that um and you can see that um supportive relationships 90% we we're not in the highest percentile comparatively nationally interesting considering it's 90% of the kids um engagement there are quite a few other questions asked for engagement then in 6 to8 I'll talk about that when we go into 6 to 12 when we go into that but 89% of kids responded favorably in terms of their engagement uh School climate uh school safety and challenging feelings 6 8% responded uh favorably so one of the things that we do use this for is breaking down and making sure that we it's for mtss purposes we're also catching kids who are um sharing that they're having challenging feelings or they're not having positive feelings to make sure that all kids are getting what they need um and we use it as for Trends in terms of our school Improvement so 6 to 12 um one thing we talked about as a leaders ship team is that when a teenager says sometimes it usually means like it's okay um and then the way the survey um calculates sometimes is negatively and so the intention was to change sometimes to be a positive response um but after the technical glitch I totally own it I forgot to go back and change it again um so for um the engagement piece 59% there it's actually two different questions um one is uh how often are you focused and engaged in the activities taking place in your classes and without sometimes being uh favorable 72% responded favorably so if you add the sometimes 95% of the kids are focused are reporting that they focus and engage in activities taking place in their classes the other question for 6 to 12 was how often are you interested in what you're learning in your classes and without the sometimes being part of that 46% responded favorably but if you add the sometimes which was a big chunk of kids it's 84% are responding positively so um I just wanted to point that out in terms of Engagement it's it's really skewed based on how we interpret sometimes um but we did have a lot of discussions about that in terms of how teenagers um and you can see say if I may just follow up so that would be a question I mean the lower score obviously is on so they're willing to be attentive and engaged but they're not always interested so how can we flip that a little bit in what we're doing what does that mean so I think that's going to be where a lot of our follow-up discussions will be with with uh secondary students wherever possible the meading the charge will be when we sit down with Manny and his crew um from The Advisory Group uh to just help us understand that better what would that be a big shift in US implementing high quality instruction materials a lot of them are very much inquiry based um so we are implementing new Ela curriculum at the high school this year um more modern texts more modern ways of looking at classical text so we're hoping that some of the shifts that we're making um in all the subject areas are going to increase interest as well do you have a way of breaking the survey data out by what classes students are enrolled in meaning are we seeing that kids are saying they're engaged in classes like AP and honors but when we look at our core classes that maybe aren't is that where we see a decrease in it doesn't get down to that level it will go school level and then you know we can we can break it down in terms of how kids responded but there it's not for a particular class it's generally speaking so I might be taking AP class in then a standard class and so it's hard to know which one um so it doesn't that granular the typical course mode at the high school is six classes actually I think it's seven or eight eight eight so it might be interesting to see if a student is enrolled in minimally of three out of eight of their classes putting them into like a a report group to see though if they're in three out of eight classes that are honor level or above do we see a difference in their engagement with the content that's being delivered as opposed to students who are sitting in a core English class we can see how we can break that out we we've never been able to necessarily get to that we'd have to use it different um yeah so what you can do is you can start to look at say who responded um negatively to this question and then you would have to individually go into almost every student to see what their course schedule looks like it does disaggregate into groups but not by course right action steps um so connected to that um the goal around the whole child uh our action steps uh at least uh right now as we have them drafted um is to continue to communicate with the LPS families the importance on attendance that's going on at the school level also at the district level and we've discussed it a few times already at the leadership team level um our Wellness committee which is um something that uh was really good to see brought back last year um is going to be operating all year and so I think that's going to be really helpful not only do are they tasked with looking at our wellness policy which needs to be um revised and updated um but also then how certain things that are captured in the wellness policy and that could be coursework uh specifically around health and PE but um also how Food Services is incorporated into that and some of the other activities um or things that we do at the usually at the secondary level but it is a district-wide wellness policy and then the um schools continue to break down they actually do it more than two times a year but um we do our survey for students three times a year and so they're breaking down that data that's one of the references I made as I was um making a small joke not putting Manny on the spot but uh that part of our our group that helps us discuss the surveys is the student Advisory Group this one though a lot on the page was written to be a little bit more streamlined in teaching and learning and um certainly the um under sorry under the action steps are the schools then communicating with us what that consistent plan is for each site to emphasize the importance of School attendance when they come to us um or is there like they actually visualize their plans around students they have an attendance team the attendance team looks at the data and then they create individual plans for students that are starting to struggle with attendance that would be for students who are speaking about like chronic absenteeism but I'm talking about we're talking about creating an increased partnership with families around attendance that to me reads more like a proactive measure than it is like a reactive measure so if we're seeing students who are chronically absent now we're reacting right to that as opposed to how I'm reading this and maybe I'm reading it incorrectly that we want to communicate consistently to emphasize the importance of attendance in a proactive way right so that has generally come through announcements which we've increased but we haven't uh we don't have um specific Partnerships with family groups if that's what you mean although I do know that you know they may discuss it at their um school council which does have parents and students on it okay um but no a good uh that's certainly a good question something that we can talk about um not sure what that partnership would look like because it becomes individualized unless you're partnering say with your PTO or other groups in town to help advertise the idea of um attendance matters possibly I mean because if not then families only receive information about that once a situation arises well actually the high school sent out um an attendance uh attendance matters at as they're welcome back and then the district also sent something out around attendance but I'm just saying like consistently so if we're talking about consisteny across the sites then we should if if that's a goal then to me then the action step should be there should be something uniform between the sites if we're saying that attendance is something that we're focused on then we should have an action step that aligns all of the sites so that there is a consistent message to eops families as opposed to the high school send something M but I think the message would probably be that attendance is important however I would imagine that the uh message is different at the different levels the reason I'm saying there is no message I agreed and so I think Gordon was starting to to touch on it in terms of reaching out at the beginning of the year but perhaps we should do it more often just a reminder why importance is or why attendance is important somehow I don't know what that is but so messaging went out from The District in August messaging at least from the high school went out um we've started to talk about it they're still Drafting and finalizing their goals um but certainly that's something now off of this meeting we bring all this information back to the entire leadership team and and I know it's a goal of desie do they have any guidance in terms of things they would recommend certainly many of the things we're doing is around messaging um through um our administrator for Health Services candy goette who works closely with the um parent Outreach coordinator um she through her Grant has purchased uh purchased sorry excuse me purchased signs that all schools hope to be putting up I don't believe they're in yet but she um that was some one of her task this summer was to put in and um through the Grant and purchase signs for all schools I remember the principal speaking about this I think all of them had something anecdotal to share but I agree as they presented story throughout the year y about you know emails that kind of go home at any given time and and say we need you here kind of thing but um I don't know if that's what you're talking about the initiative that she's looking to the grant but I've seen that in surrounding communities where signs and I think it's like that positive message like need to be at scho whatever it is so that would be fantastic yeah and just because if we're looking at the most the most amount of points that we're eligible to get within any category is four so that means if you look at attendance we have 15 points on the table so I'm thinking about accountability measures if we don't have a consistent plan in a proactive way then we can't expect to do anything different with our data if it's not consistent across the sites that we service because 15 points is a lot to not capture and some subgroups didn't get any of the four that they were eligible to get just thinking about that then maybe there needs to be something that gets everybody on the same page on what it means to be proactive around attendance as opposed to sending a letter once a child has a certain I think that's where the announcements came from as well as purchasing of the signs but uh we will certain bring that back to make sure that all are discussing it did they not get the points because their groups areen larg that the reason oh that's where the dash is they all dashes no they're zeros this the percent points up right but all of yes okay yes okay okay moving to teaching and learning uh slightly revise the top part but um probably most importantly we try to take a look at the metrics we've been using and focus in um more than just the traditional we're looking to reach 80% we know exactly where we were and so what's realistic so that we're not necessarily putting something in front of our teachers that may not be realistic because we haven't been there in the last three years we haven't moved back in a Le of 20 20 percentage points and so that's what we started to focus in on here in terms of what we're looking at with iady growth uh both typical and stretch and where we were looking very clearly where we were last year um this year though one of the new things that we're doing is adding in the Dibbles which Miss Brown's going to speak to um in a later slide as we break down where we are currently this fall and dibles do the schools have those same exact percentages or are they based off of their previous grade levels performance last year the schools are looking at their previous performance but um last year they had exactly what we had in many cases and so I think it's probably this is one of the reasons why we went to my a more specific look at this because I'd like them to look at their specific data and say okay off of the district goals and metrics our metrics can be slightly different based on we have metrics that are similar in terms of how we're approaching the goal itself if that makes sense it does I just when you think about typical growth means students basically maintain the performance level that they had upon entry into the grade level so if I came in a year below I'm a fifth grader I'm showing that I came in as a fourth grader and I reach my typical growth that means I'm exiting as a fifth grader going into sixth right so that's I came in as a fifth yeah so if we aren't saying that students should minimally grow a Year's worth while in our classrooms again going back to the conversation around accountability data then we're not going to change the outcomes when it comes to Performance data on mcass or closing the gap between the number of students who are meeting with proficiency and the number of students who aren't because right now we're saying that 65% are going to reach typical growth in reading that means 35 % or not potentially aren't and that's just the current year that's not taking into account if students have any catching up to do so is average growth defined as one-ear growth it's the same typical growth means we want to see a 100 we want students to achieve 100% of their typical growth when they're looking at I already reading and I already met but if they come in behind they can still finish behind and receive their only if they only Target that's why they need the stretch grade level for the stretch right correct y i me we can put it back we were trying to be realistic in terms of what we've done in years past um and give them something that uh they actually can shoot for so do 35% of the students fall further behind every year if they're not no we actually if you look we uh and again this is um aggregate data so we actually got to 52% meeting typical growth at the end of last year on I ready so k to8 but I think we have to be cautious when we look at projected proficiency and alignment with our mcast results because we still that means even if 52% achieved that when you look at our mcast results 50 over 50% did not meet the mark on mcast so it means we're leaving half of the students not where we want to leave them so if we don't change this metric I don't know how we start to change the metric that we're accountable to by the state and we had we I mean we were looking 8% and the unfortunate thing is that we've never gotten to 80% and so we were looking at how do we make this more of an attainable goal that maybe doing some of the things that you're talking about we really go after if we're putting 80% are they just then dismissing it in terms of 80% okay well that's a hope um hopefully that's never the case but we were trying to be much more realistic where are we um in based on last year where are we going this new year I don't know I'm one person I I'm just saying like I think I mean we certainly can can keep that does it become unrealistic though is that the problem it it's been unrealistic in terms of what the actual results are yeah so what we're trying to do is continually continuously incrementally go up and it's it's not just in terms of the targets probably more you get more traction in terms of the work we're doing say in common planning time meetings in the work we're doing where we're finally breaking down better the student data that they're seeing whether it be the I diagnostic or other data that they're looking at um and how can they utilize that data those discussions are happening more and more they were not happening frequently in years past so I mean this is this is a draft that's why we're doing it so we certainly can um make changes to I think we maybe it would help us to see what the targets were what was achieved by grade level by school because I think that has to play some kind of role in it and then we're not using it in one and two we're not using I reading in one and two we're using Diles data two as the screener not at for diagnostic or personalized instruction no we use Lexia for um personalized instruction and then we have other tools for Diagnostic after the universal screener okay um I'll talk more about it but dibble's actually got a needs approval from desie as an early um Universal screener where I already did with some caveats I'll talk more about it so then the licensing did we adjust or amend our contract we did yes okay okay so um we actually were excited about our accountability results um for one reason is that we did move substantially forward in terms of our substantial progress toward targets um and for the first time at least in my tenure we had two recognized schools Maple Shade and um the high school and they were only one or two out of 57 that were recognized of the 1,751 public schools by desie based specifically on moving towards your targets but also really focusing in on that lowest performer group and their achievements as well and not only were we um two schools out of the 57 only six school districts across the Commonwealth where there I think there were 306 um had more than one school recognized and the those had a lot of schools in their districts yeah true true I mean Boston obviously Springfield were were in there they had as well yeah um if you go to the link it just shows you where it is real quickly so it's on their website um and then you can see the schools that I'm mentioning here as we zoom in a little bit and there's m f East Long high school and so we were we were really excited about that um because that's not something that we've seen in years past um it's certain something that we're sharing with the teachers so that they're very aware um this work pays off you know a lot of things we're doing is paying off have either of those principles been able to articulate in terms of action steps that were implemented last year that were particularly of note in terms of helping them to earn the recognition we started to discuss it in the last leadership team meeting and breaking it down further um they haven't broken it down to that level at least they hadn't last week um but I think as they share with um their staff which they do at faculty meeting starting to break it down more specifically um so taking a look at growth and um one of the um measures obviously for desie they're looking at at um 50% uh anywhere in that 40 to 60 um SGP range they consider um sort of the target growth area uh we always want to be above wherever possible 40 and um we're starting to Broach into the 50 um 50s if you will and so you can see 3 through eight Ela which are interesting um this is something that the commission brought up in August meeting with superintendent um Ela across the Commonwealth was down um both thing grow yeah both in growth and achievement yeah you can see um this similar to last year we have more high growth than we've seen in years past as you start to look down and take a look at the different subgroups as you go to the high school level um although they're seeing low typical growth they're notching closer to in many the subgroups um to the 50 mean that um we've talked about um certainly students with disabilities at 35 that's something we have to continue to look at in math we actually uh better we're seeing high growth across most of the subgroups there and um as you go to high school level um you're seeing variation where you that low typical growth um you're seeing actually high growth well as performing students and um you're seeing you know all students 49.4 um so achievement as we start to look at achievement um one of the things that um I think all of you know but I want to just reiterate uh as we came out of as um all districts in the Commonwealth came out of covid desie started to um reset targets and look at the 2022 year and how students did versus the 2019 school year and that's where you get the um the label recovery path or path forward recovery path is if your 2022 was not above your performance in 2019 and um path forward is if you're recovery path or excuse me your achievement in 2022 was better than your achievement in uh 2019 preco um pandemic either way they set targets and we consistently continue to try to achieve those targets uh whether they're labeling it recovery path or path forward nice thing here as you start to look at these charts is that um we're seeing although um not always meeting targets we may be improving below Target we still have some areas just as we know um such as low income where you're seeing a decline and so we have to start to dig into that um one of the things we're seeing as you look at these comparison charts we're actually seeing um better better results when we compare against the state this was not the case the last two school years this is like the type of slide that when we're talking about those I already targets so the math correctly that means that we had 677 students who did not meet or partially met expectations it's more than half so if our Target that's a benchmark is not pushing beyond that then that means in grades three to eight half of our grades 3 to8 population in ela did not meet the minimum requirement set forward for proficiency on the mcass I mean there is growth but it's just we also have to recognize that that 6 you're counting partially meeting as not right part of it partially meeting would not a 500 no it wouldn't um however in many cases those students are just a few points off of sliding over into meeting expectations no and that's where we have to you continue to break down yeah if we had that then that's good too like if we can see like of what percent where are they falling if if of the 492 that partially met if 400 are within three points that's a different story in the data than 400 being closer to not meaning expectations without having that the scaled score next to it or by location like site it's hard to know like is this something that we need to focus on 3 to five which means really examining K to2 is this something that to focus on six to8 which means we really need to examine three to five as the feeder to six to eight again like that that idea and that philosophy that we still have about half over half of our students who did not meet the minimum that the state sets which is a 500 scale score are there other districts that blow the percentages out of the water um when you look at how Desi Compares us to other districts we're generally right in the middle in some cases we're towards the top that's that dark tool so when you look at um those comparisons and so these are the districts that say desie says uh we're most similar to we're kind of right in the mix of those um and we can certainly bring that information too well my point is uh the s Point you're talking about 58% partially meet or not meeting the state is 61% and so is the test impossible to get higher percentages if I ask if there are other districts away and meeting is there are there I haven't seen it but I I know that's what I mean if this if the test doesn't allow for statistically speaking you know what I'm saying we're seeing at least the districts trying to make excuses here I'm just trying to answer your question in terms of the districts they compare us to these are the charts very similar right well that's I imagine yeah okay yeah because pick out demographics are similarity in terms of socioeconomic and everything else size all those things mathematics um so in math uh we actually outperformed where we were in ela so that was nice to see you see L more the improve um exceeded targets improved below Target and met targets we were seeing in other other Tru on 3 through eight M as you see you can see sort of how we compare to the state so you're seeing that we have um it's actually a pretty similar comparison although we have fewer in the failing category or in terms of 11% versus 18% um at the high school level this was probably some of the reason why you're seeing them um recognized category your students exceed Target uh in most cases the exception of white students at the bottom there and they met their targets and that's have to remember that um they do school and District we do have students that are out of district and so they just add those in when they start to report at the various grade levels um so while we have four in the school and five in the district and not meeting yeah so the one all the way to the left is East Long High School itself that makes sense [Music] um similar to what saying you know math continues to outpace this year anyway uh how we've done versus Ela uh and so you're seeing again exceeding Targets in many of the subgroups um and met Targets in two of subgroups which was a very exciting High School level for us to see so will all Targets be higher than the 2024 achievements yes yeah the targets get reset each year yeah mhm yeah but even if they're not met they're set higher yeah yes and I remember that they keep going up keeps going yeah but because of this year's uh results it it will have a direct impact on next year's or is it is the path they may may change the increment yeah goes what the increment is going to you know I wasio earlier they had sent an update um Target um formula last year in specific increments yeah that the same for every District or just for us specifically no each Target is is specific Bas on your where okay subgroup yeah okay um so you can see terms of the math achievement uh again it breaks it out um for the high school anyway uh by school district and state science actually um at least at the upper level has been a strong point um this is the first time actually we're seeing science Ines through eight be as strong as it was which was exciting to see so you can see that um a lot of our subgroups exceeded um or at least two there exceeded Target and the white subgroup at the bottom exceeded Target um but we got Improvement although just below the Target and then we um had one subgroup the Asian subgroup um actually decline so those are have to need to dig into you take a look at how by grade level Fifth and eighth grade um have done comparatively in science against the state and this year will be the pilot of the Next Generation science assessment at Fifth and eighth grade that's my understanding our eth grade eth grade actually our Middle School piloted it yeah that's not reflected in this not no no they got to take both but next year and the Civics and Ela and math so these poor eighth graders eighth graders unfortunately are well tested by the time they yeah finish the next year just one science and that will be the new the ngss but next year when we compare we won't be able to compare it won be data to the right new data reset your benchmark um and then at the high school level we we've seen success over the years in high school predominantly this is biology um in terms of the science that they're taking on the mcass and um in this case we're seeing a lot of uh exceeded Target and one improved below Target um so that that was exciting to uh terms of the graph against um State obviously 3% and a warning category versus 11% and the warning or not meeting expectations category so that that's where we were now I'll taking a look at some of the ready uh data diagnostic this is where we are at least as we September um and entering fully into the first week of October um so as M triio pointed out this is the beginning of and I ready and what it does it just is looking at if the student is green it's not saying that they've mastered any of the content and they're have they're ready for that content because they coming with but they uh needed to know from the preious R so if you look we've got pretty good percentages in the um and uh at the middle school the the yellow is shrunk but the the red is is bigger so um overall we've got 72% um at grade level um 14% one year below grade level and 14% two or more um so it's it's a starting point it's really important for us to to look at the data and figure out you know obviously the trends but also what do we do with kids who are not coming to us with grade level skills but we still have the the duty to help them access grade level content and skills so is that something that when the schools present that they'll be able to speak to in terms of this is how we're addressing corn instruction since almost three qus of our grades 3 to eight student populations are showing us through through their beginning of the year data that they're ready for core instruction that's in alignment with grade level standards and then what is happening for the students because it's October and we know in October that 28% are needing more than just the core what's happening for those 28% of students either send to learning opportunities intervention those would be some of the things that they should be able to present include in there okay as they tell their story yeah and of the things that we continue to do in common planning time at the elementary level is helping folks because you know our high quality instructional materials are at grade level and how do you help make sure that all kids can access it and they might need to use certain tools and other things like that so we're constantly having those conversations because it is a big shift um from the past in terms of what we're expecting kids to to know and be able to do um so this is a projected proficiency versus mcast um so I took the uh projected proficiency at the end of the year so I already will predict how kids will do on the state level tests um and then we have the actual mcast uh results so I ready level four they have three two and one and it correlates with mcast exceeds mcast meets mcast partially meets and mcast not meeting um and the one thing um you'll see with the math these numbers are even more aligned uh the one thing with mcast is that uh they're also assessing writing and I ready does not assess writing it is purely a reading assessment um so you can see that these are um pretty in sync and so it is going to be a useful tool for us to um make some predictions about the mcast this was actually this uh data was shared with the leadership team at the last um meeting so that they're very aware of how highly correlated it is especially at the map level right which I think will be very helpful because then it lends itself to taking a look at individual grade level data um in terms of where students are and then getting down to the individual student data which um Brown and I were talking about how that can start to work into our common planning time discussions so at birchland I believe I recall uh Connor talking about I mean Maple Shade no berin meaning Pearson talking about how students are expected to meet their personalized instruction minutes which is directly correlated to students being able to move into higher levels of proficiency and Achieve higher levels of both stretch and typical growth is that the case for Maple shaded Mountain View are they held to the 45 minutes a week that curriculum Associates recommends for personalized instruction in reading and math no so for math we utilize ST Math we have for the past few forever um and then for ELA we have this teachers have access to the I personalized path but there's no um kind of universal expectation um for using that at this point is that something that they're considering as they move forward or is that um that's something that we've purchased yes and you know quite frankly there is very little time in the day for all the other core instructions so it's matter of whether it would happen at home or not um so that's always the conundrum is is when and then math we're starting off the year even stronger um meta Brooks on here because we did use the math um their math Universal screener with first grade in um second graders kindergarten will have their first one towards in December um so a smaller amount of kiddos who are at risk for tier three or that you know two or more gr levels below 12% one grade level below and 80% as a district at grade ready for grade level uh work all right so as I said about the dibles um I already is um a partially impr approved Universal screener for k to3 um with some caveats they have some literacy screeners that are one-on-one screeners that are very similar to the ones that Dibbles had and so we made the decision at meow Brook to just switch over vles because um one1 screeners uh one1 interview style uh screeners are part of it and what we found is it's been very very helpful um in terms of not just um helping us figure out who we're going to further screen for intervention but also for the core teachers to know more specific information about their students and and like I said we're meetings at at a brook and our common playing time is how do we support kids um different skill uh gaps in the classroom so all of these things do do mean things um this year we're not getting a composite score from Dibbles because we did not do all the sub tests next year we will we're just kind of easing into it um it was a bit of a lift because these are new assessments for folks to learn and they've also been learning new curricular materials um but there's uh LNF is the letter naming fluency psf as the phon segmentation fluency uh the nwf Cs is the nonsense word fluency correct letter sounds that assesses their knowledge of letter sound correspondence and so that is what's in this H colored chart that's the main one that they're focusing on and then they have the nonsense word fluency words read correctly and then word reading fluency and the one um until we have the composite score when we start using it next year the one uh category that is the same across kindergarten first and second grade is that uh nonsense word fluency correct letter sounds that will be kind of our base for comparison and then the uh second grade um uh in addition we have an oral reading fluency so it's where we measure their accuracy rate or fluency um and then we also add in the Maze which is um basically like a close exercise it's meant to manage your comprehension as best as we can um and so it's really that we're measuring indicators that show um that students are comprehending but you can't I I don't need to go up down this tangent sorry about how we can or cannot measure comprehension but so we have everything here and you can see the kids going across the board the blue is uh be uh Beyond core green is core that they're ready for core instruction yellow is strategic um and uh red is intensive um so those red kids obviously are going to get either they're already getting intensive um support by being in in special ed or they're getting um more intense intervention in with the reading interventionists and then some depending on U what subtests yellow some of them are if they had yellow and red across the board are getting interventions otherwise we're working on helping support them during tier one instruction especially if the issue wasn't um accuracy but really was about fluency so are there resources within fundations and Lexia that will support shifting data oh definitely so this is corresponds exactly with what uh foundations um is working on with kids and then we brought in um crafting Minds who helped us with a kind of a new format for data meetings that really helps everyone come to the table we can use that time to determine who needs inter who needs further screening for intervention but also talk about kids in terms of how we can support them during the the tier one instruction and any other times that we might have like their Flex block and then uh we also brought in decoding Duo so basically what decoding Duos is is um like fundations has the whole scope and sequence um but there is more uh time for application for decoding so kids have time in their intervention to practice decoding with a decodable that's something that's actually missing from the found foundations curriculum but we are working on bringing those in with with decodables and working with the coach so that we can build in time for that there's a lot of encoding practice which is the spelling and writing but not as much decoding and so that's something we're working on to make sure that these continue to go up and then since you mentioned the coaches with the shift in well the coach sorry at metab Brook but in general the co the shift in the coaching description as a result of the last contract negotiation is that something that's also going to be brought forward when the leaders of the schools they'll talk about how they're being utilized for all the common plan time which are weekly meetings and uh on that is it's another Avenue for more one-on-one coaching when folks are saying that they're having trouble with the pacing or they're having trouble with anything it's now part of the the um expectation that principles can say hey maybe you should work with a coach and actually we're finding that more people are actually reaching out to coaches because they now have this expectation to keep up with pace and it it's it's a challenge um it's PR rigorous Pace that we're asking them having that weekly direct access has really helped people break down whatever barrier may have been there before in terms of asking for that help um and you remember actually last year the schools were presenting the Middle School sort of led the way because they were doing coaching Cycles with um all of their teachers which went very well they thought so just to remind everyone at the elementary level we kind of reset and clarified all the guidelin SL expectations curriculum you know what folks can do what they may do if they want to like almost like boosting things things that we're working towards later and things that we're asking them not to do and on top of that we gave them a pacing guide with what we were talking about earlier those flex days um built in so you know if they have to work extra or they have some sort of extra project that they wanted to do but the expectation is that um units and modules are being finished by certain days and that assessments are being given and that we're following them in trackers and all of this is because instead of just meet meeting kind of looking at how much we're teaching the shift now is how much are kids learning learning and so this data is going to be more more important and and and uh I think more people will see the use in it as we're trying to measure those things and catch kids before the end of the year and really make sure that we're getting what they need and there are those like unit assessments or unit schol being sent to the coach sent to the principal sent to you in terms of like monitoring um we have two things at the elementary level uh so Whitten and wisdom comes with something called a firm and you can give online assessments it's more developmentally appropriate for the higher Elementary um kids um so in addition to that we have wit and wisdom trackers which are basically spreadsheets but they're connected to the skills and and standards that uh wh wisdom's asking there are also foundations trackers that foundations actually provides um and that allows the teacher to see you know how many kids uh got 80% or more and if less than 80% of my class didn't meet this then maybe I need to do some reteaching it also gives you at an individual level so that you can kind of figure out who you might need to meet with more and then for illustrative math there is an online uh Pro um what am I trying to say there's an online yes thank you um it's a little frustrating in terms of Standards based taste testing um and someone was actually come commenting on this if mathematicians created this and I said mathematicians did not create the IM online thing um it gives them this percentage score which is kind of the antithesis of standard space you know you really want to look at different things so we also created these IM trackers that are also connected to the report card standard so it's it's serving two purposes it's it's helping everyone kind of see in real time how pacing is going and more importantly it's helping teachers keep track of how kids are doing in different skills um not only to drive their instruction but when it comes down to the report card time now you have all of this right in front of you so the idea was to try to make it a tool that was useful and who gathers those so they enter the information but they're shared Google Sheets have access coaches have access I have access and is that something that they bring to leadership team meetings to discuss we just talked about it last leadership so um something that we were uh Miss Brown's attending um once a month many of the common planning time meetings and so there's no literacy coach three to five so I'm the literacy coach this year once a month congratulations so um with that we brought back feedback from those C plan Town meetings to share with the entire leadership team to show hey here's where we can make connections they saw the draft of this present ation uh wasn't fully completed by last Thursday but um was pretty close so they know where we've been and that we were you know obviously going to get feedback on our presentation so that we can provide greater feedback for them so yes when we meet as an elementary leadership team this because these you know uh there is I am at the middle school but not at the high school and the middle school is now looking at they're in the process of field testing two different Ela curri so they're in a different place but the other thing will be when we go for walkthroughs before we go through walkthroughs we're going to sit down and look at this make sure everyone's understanding and seeing where we can intervene and support teachers and that's always the goal it's about supporting teachers and that's the message we've been sending at all the common planning times it's not a gotcha it's if you're three weeks behind imp pacing then everybody else in your team what do you need to help with and actually just spoke with a math coach who said they had a very productive conversation at common planning time where everyone in the team brainstormed to help uh each other kind of get up to speed with each other because the idea of collaboration is you can't really look at student data you can't really plan together if you're all over the place right so that's part of it all right and then I wanted to share some information about uh ourm at least for elementary at this point so one thing on collecting data for the middle schools um program but um if uh what I did was uh for three to five actually actually I was able to do this for K to five so since everyone took I am math last spring and this fall I was able to compare um the the increase so uh we had 51% of the kiddos who regularly attended the math academy um went up one grade level um 7% of the kiddos went up two grade levels great and 41% there was no change um okay so obviously want more than that and this is just one data point uh we did do pre and post ST Math but um it wasn't quite universally uh implemented so I didn't think that data was as useful um but we'll I'll tighten that up next year and we'll have that before and afterwards as well does that mean these students are catching up yes that's the idea and it's been really exciting just being in these meetings with teachers where they're like wow so and so is really like you can I I've heard more than once that Summer Academy really helped this kit and how many students participated roughly there about 50 kids in H A Little Less in math and when you count the kids who actually came regularly and that was what we chose to use some of the school that's correct to continue to support sum the students T typically take more than one so the way we do it we have three hours every day um Monday through Thursday for the five weeks and um the curricular materials that we use are really like 90 minutes of instruction and we wanted to have also something fun for the kids to get them so we have an elective so what we do is we look at the data we talk to uh teachers we talk to parents and then we place them in the one in the academy that they most need so it is challenging when kids need both Ela and math um but that's really kind of those conversations that we have we don't provide both okay I think we could go all day long to that but might we alternate with a student one- your math yeah and you know if they're struggling depending on which is the needed exactly okay um and then literacy is a little harder for me to give you the information because not the K did not take I ready this uh fall they took the dible so the chart up above with the blue those are the the kiddos who took I ready end of last year and the end of this year our third through fifth grade kids and we have 65% of the kids who attended went up one grade level 12% went up two grade levels and 24% of the kids had no change and then um down below are the before and after literacy Academy and um I had to compare apples to oranges so let me explain uh we have um the for the uh I ready this so the I before literacy Academy is the I ready in um this spring so we have uh 133% were mid or above green level when they last at the end of last year um red the 59% were one to two grade levels below and the kids in the yellow 28% were early on grade level we switch to Dibbles it's kind of hard to compare because that 9% are is really um kids who they according to Dibbles are not really needing any extra support in order to access the grade level content it's kind of measuring different things um and then 44% of the kids uh would need strategic support and 47% would need intensive support so um the one thing that I want to point out is the shrink between 59% and 47% because those are the kids who would really need that intensive in um intervention also um so this is not the best measurement um next year we'll have Dibbles beforehand and Dibbles ahead so we'll have a better idea but like I said anecdotally I've heard a lot of folks both for math but more for literacy of how much it really helped the kids if not grow at least not slide back okay and rounding out um the three goals um continuing to build that inclusive and supportive culture and climate um this is something that uh you've seen the last few years tweaking it a little bit in terms of we continue to use problems and climate surveys some of which you've seen we've seen staff surveys in years past we haven't done a lot of family surveys but that is something that we would like to do and add part of the metrics and the information we receive around this this goal um and then our action steps oh sorry um is um make sure that all those policies and we have one remaining in the um agenda tonight uh making sure that everybody is understanding of the new policies we've added and the Visions we've added uh as a first step because that was a lot of more put in by District diversity and Equity steering committee um and and what does that state in terms of setting a direction for LPS and becoming a more welcoming and inclusive environment um we also are looking at how are we doing we've we revised the elps recruitment hiring and retention process but looking more specifically at Recruitment and Retention in terms of we've done a decent job over the years of retaining our teachers um but we can probably do a better job in making sure as we diversify more both as a um student body but also as a staff that we're doing everything we can to make sure that we're supporting folks who are coming into the LPS Community good excellent lot of information any other questions on that had 10 minutes I want to try to crank through the rest of this um if we could so that we canuel how you doing on time all right you're certainly welcome to leave if you have homework or other things to do okay we're gonna Crank It Anyway so you'll be out of here quick but anytime you want to leave the future meetings if we're running along just give me a wave and you can get out you can Heather you gotta stay wave doesn't work for you out let's let's go nothing much time all right go ahead all right so um this is is uh the elap program is something we participated in last year it's the equity leadership acceleration program uh we had uh folks getting mentored by uh and then this year those folks who are mentored then will Mentor other other um folks who are interested in leadership roles um as part of their continuing their professional development and there are three people listed here but actually um now there are only two um and they are going on what they call the emerging leader fellow on track basically CLE got a ton of federal funds and so they're offering um to reimburse us for up to $6,000 for each of these fellows for professional development for stiens for leading professional development or attending professional development um so uh what we're asking is can we don't actually get this money up front it's a reimbursement but can we get permission to accept the $66,000 reimbursement for each uh emerging leader fellow that would be $112,000 total you need to name the two that are doing it or just two in general it's yanita and um Hannah is working with Conor Martin and yanita is working with Natalie and the 10 days for the substitute that's 10 days they won't be that's in the budget 10 days not necessarily 10 days be committed to yeah that would be up to 10 days would not be with their classes correct but that is most likely not going to happen with either of them and is this leading towards lure or is lure comp of this um is not the aspiring principle which there's more Hoops that they have to jump through okay more just leadership skills um I know that one is interested in pursuing admin um and the other is just more interested in in leaders but it is a little but neither these will give them lure right it's a little more generic um so the elap program was something thater leadership in educational Equity had written a grant for and um is utilizing that Grant we were part of their program just as Miss Brown said last year we're we continue to be part of it in year two um however to the question that you just asked theirs is much more General because they're across different state lines um and it is one of the the elements of feedback that we provided them is that we lost potential candidates because it's not a lure program in Massachusetts um and desie then rolled out a lure program that is is sowhat similar to get back to the substitute piece though Hannah is one of the folks that went through our Whit n wisdom leadership program that intense of 90 plus hour uh PD and so um if she were uh to be tapped to leave the classroom it would be to lead professional development with um third through fifth grade teachers and she co- tees they have a phenomenal uh um kind of co- teing situation and so uh I think the kids would still have excellent instruction if she weren't there need a motion to accept accept or to request the reimbursement um requesting it approv yeah basically approving our our ability to Grant up to 12,000 so I will set it up as as a grant very to the don't have the funds we won't get the funds until after they're expended very similar to the Springfield partnership and earn literacy yeah so so I will me the motion then approve elab District fund request y up to 12,000 yep sounds good for the two okay candidates y go ahead sir to approve the East Long Meadow elap District fund request proposal up to $122,000 for two candidates by Sarah okay second by in any discussion all in favor say I I I those oppos nay carries 5 Z another new policy so this is y go so this is a policy that um actually you saw back in August when we did the policies in the a section policy manual um unfortunately though even though we had made the revisions off of that meeting it did not get included in the revised policies that came back in the first meeting uh of September which I think was September 11 um so basically what we looked at was um revising the second page in terms of how we're making sure that we're being inclusive of everyone to make sure that these are actual actually doable in terms of what we're doing so for new staff members what we're doing for students and so forth and so we revised based on the feedback you gave us one through four in some cases actually one through six or something we eliminated a few that uh probably weren't achievable questions comments motion for approval of Aly H I'd like to make a motion to approve policy ACC non-discrimination on the basis of neurodiversity as present motion made by an second there discussion favor say I I I those oppose a that carries five to zero very much next up superintendent evaluation okay so this is um just updated something that I had given you at the end of the school year last year but I updated it with um highlights from the accountability um information um so it's it's really just for your uh information and um ultimately I think in the month of October because that's when Des collects the data um so between this meeting and next meeting which should probably close out the 23 24 so we'll bring it back sure do you want to do it yeah no that's that's that's up to you it gives you a chance to look at it I move the um shared folder the evidence folder forward excellent and um you know place this another copy of shared folder okay so if folks have input um they can bring it to you between that next week or the next okay should submit so at least it gives you a chance to compile makes sense we got that if they have things they want to talk about okay thank you we have a preliminary approval for of the 2025 senior trip to London April 19th through April 26th so this is actually um a new idea that our uh senior um advisers class advisers have put together they would like to we haven't done a um international trip in quite a while I'm sure the pandemic had something to do with that uh and so this is giving the opportunity potentially up to 18 people I don't believe that's in the um preliminary outline but um in talking with Miss Reed today it would capitated 18 students uh and they would like to um the ratio of rly one to 81 in terms of supervision but this would allow him to during April break he wouldn't actually miss any school um take a trip to London as you can see in the um the outline that she provided in an email this preliminary approval allows them to have their meeting and start do any fundraising to bring down that cost of the trip which is about $4,150 at the moment they have the second chaperone that's a sta how they get the one nine do we know yeah they would um I don't know that they know currently have list but that'll come back the next time around no I don't think um them to have their meeting see what kind of Interest they get if they have enough students or more than enough some type of Lottery process I speak English I could go but yes it would be it would be elhs staff that would go okay so approval of the preliminary details for the London ump well first they're going to have an informational meeting that they will advertise once they get approval and then if they get overwhelming interest they would probably have to go to some type of Lottery system and then would this impact would students participation in this be impacted by things like sports and there's always um an good citizen in the code of conduct uh criteria and so students who are not able to uphold the criteria for being a good elhs citizen it does impact uh participation in activities and so forth okay and they'll come back once they have more details more information this just gives them the green light to start that process and then they would bring it back they would have to bring it back probably January so they can finalize um there are deadlines that they'll have put in place the the company that's helping them um organize this trip for and then are the Educators who would chapon accountable for the same figure are they paying the roughly 4,100 um that's a good question that I don't know generally there is some kind of discount for uh chaperon uh if not a full uh depending on how much they raise a lot of it's built on how much money you raise okay okay i' take a motion to approve the preliminary details for the 2025 senior trip to London I'd like to move to approve the preliminary approval of the5 senior trip to London from April 19th 2025 to April 26 202 Mo Me by Anon second by Sarah discussion fa say I I I those oppos nay that carries five to zero thank you let Miss Reed know does g know how to get back he's here already prob he's here I do it okay um in your packets we we've already begun Capital the next year year 26 is uh feels kind of crazy to say but that's what we're planning for um this is last year's Capital plan with some color coding to show you sort of where we stood as we went through the capital cring process from all of you back in November of last year um through the town Capital Planning Group and then ultimately on to the Town Council so um the Maple Shade roof project that was one take outside of the um Capital planning process in terms of the town and we are awaiting we did do application to the mass School building authority and we're waiting to hear if we've gotten into their accelerated repair program one um good sign was that we did have a visit from two members of the M School building authority and they walked the roof um with Mr Martin with me and um facilities director SE it firsthand um so we're waiting we'll get that towards the end of October um then the modular replacement was a project that um unfortunately needed additional funding we received that additional funding as the budget was passed um so that came available July 1 that is in process to go out to bid again uh with hopefully um break around either late spring or early summer um then uh the window sashes that was also approved from birchland um it's amazing that our our youngest School our newest school is already 24 almost 25 years old until we're replacing window sashes that um project is underway they are um accumulating and purchasing the window sashes and then they'll start to implement or put those in rather and that will be done by the DPW then the last one um which was the uh field replacement um that actually interestingly enough uh it it was definitely supported by the town Capital planning in January and February however when it went it did go in the draft budget from Town Council excuse me from town manager to Town Council IL however uh somewhere in the discussions um between Town Council and financial oversight committee it did get placed on hold um and one of the reasons was that given that right now we have a pretty good maintenance program um with our field twice a year a group coming out uh not only um running a incredible incredibly sized magnet which picks up more debris than you would ever expect actual metal debris that's on the carpet but identifies where seams are starting to wear and what repairs we need to do we then do those repairs um Mr McGee actually uh is quite good at many things but uh incredibly detailed in terms of how he uses the maintenance program the discussions As I understood them I was not part of the discussions um to put it on hold but you know know that we're using our um Athletic Field over the next two years as we are in construction and field gas Fields go offline it's getting more and more usage and the thought was should we put that kind of usage on a brand new field or should we wait and as the um building comes online then we don't lose it from The Five-Year Capital plan but not make it a prior this year or next fiscal year un took a little bit longer uh we'll have with that you don't have to accept this I just wanted to update everybody but we'll have the new fiveyear plan um for the next meeting okay so that thank you for that update and then finally we have a donation of $700 from the class of 1974 do we have any information on that um I didn't uh any more information on no there was no other information they must had a fundraiser and they had month left over money they wanted they probably had a gathering I think they had the reunion this must be left room and they donate back I take a motion to uh accept the donation please make a motion to accept the $700 request of 1974 that works by second by William any other discussion all in favor please say I I iose nay that carries five to zero yeah we'll get that to pass all right um pokon a five minute recess take a motion that's motion made by Sarah William any discussion all in favor say I I I we're gonna uh basically be done with you we're gonna go to Executive you you don't need to see that you can adjourn only to go to exe vote to go into executive only to come back and adjourn yes I'm going to do do that after the recess oh okay that right or not now that I can okay fair so I would take a motion um what did you say to adjourn to go to Executive though adjourn the open the open from exective got it want to do that so move move William you got that to journ I got that seconded by Anella all in favor say I I POS n cares 5 Z okay