##VIDEO ID:8VU6CknYAcM## okay so um good evening I will call this meeting to order um it's September 30th I'm Christy budo chair of the Hatfield school committee and we're delighted to be here with so many of you this evening and many folks online as well um as we kick off I just want to acknowledge that um when we record meetings via zoom and we're all sitting in the room together it can be a challenge technically and if there's anyone who's sitting online who's having a hard time hearing us if you'll let us know through the chat um but we're asking for those that are online that you not chat amongst yourselves um on the zoom chat because that is outside of public meeting rules so um we're going to keep it open in case we hit a technical issue and that way you can tell us um but otherwise the remote participants will abide by the same rules that are in person participants will um so as I call us to order the first thing on our agenda is public comment and I just want to review given that we are likely to have public comment which we love um that anyone is welcome to come and speak at our meetings um we do require that it whatever you have to share with us Falls within the responsibility of the school committee um and is also pertinent to what is on the agenda this evening um we typically look for comments to be no more than 3 minutes in length um and public comment lasts about 20 minutes however there's burning interest will will accommodate that um but we also make sure that everybody has a chance to speak um so if you've already spoken once we would ask that you wait till others are finished um so with that I'm going to actually open up to those um who are with us remotely if there's anyone who would like to make a public comment can you put your name in the chat that's a good sign it means you got that up and running thank you okay um and so we're gonna have you mute excellent Okay so anyone that is with us would like to make a public comment Mr wall has graciously put some technology together so that you can do that and the people who are with us on Zoom can see you as well is there anyone who's with us that would like to make a public comment M shet yeah so can you please um I'm gonna mute my audio and if you would make sure that you are unmuted and your video is running hi my name is Jenny sheret um I don't know where to look but um I've spoken to you on this topic many times as the sixth grade teacher and as somebody who fully supports this move of sixth grade to the um to Smith Academy but I thought tonight maybe it would make more sense to talk about a parent as a parent um I have two students in Hatfield schools I have a fourth grader and a seventh grader so my fourth grader would be experiencing this potentially in the next couple of years um and my seventh grader just experienced the transition from the elementary school to Smith Academy um and I asked him today I said well you know I'm going to talk about this again I know you know that we were talked about this in the past and what are your feelings if you had to go to Smith Academy last year compared to this year and now you've experienced what would you have thought about it and his gut reaction was initially I don't think I would have been ready that was his first response to me and I said well what why do you think that what didn't what wouldn't have made you ready and he said I know that you and Miss Bailey really got me ready last year for this and I wanted to share that with you because I know that the plan that Dr Driscoll and Miss Petra I going to talk to you about today really talks about what we've done to the school year this year to make this transition um in answer to some of the questions that we had last year about this they've really made a plan and we've changed the way that things are happening in fourth in fifth grade this year and sixth grade to make sure that this transition for um or potential future transition has set them up to be successful as Sixers going into this um my son definitely head this you know the the bumps in the road on the way into Smith Academy I think like any student's going to have going to a new school learning new systems but he feels so comfortable here already as the youngest student and I've asked him some of those other questions about how he felt um being with older students was and he said I really don't see them he said the only time a day that he typically sees them is during advisory which is 10 or 15 minutes out of the day where they might be in the cafeteria getting a snack at this same time um he talked about that he does see them playing soccer he's on the soccer team and he's really gotten to know he's was really excited that his learning buddy from elementary school when he was in first grade his Jack was his learning buddy and they're on the same soccer team and they're practicing together and so he's starting to build those relationships with Juniors and seniors who are there and mentoring him now and he really really has made a easy transition and he is a student that I wouldn't have I feel weird telling the public about my own child but he wasn't um the most mature in sixth grade he wasn't the most advanced Learner in sixth grade and I do think that I've prepared him well and I've done a lot as his mother but he isn't um who I think people would have initially thought would have been maybe the most successful in that transition for some different reasons and he's having an amazing beginning of the year here I know that he is a year older than the students that we're potentially talking about but I think what he leaned on as the thing that made it the easiest transition is that we prepared them at the elementary school and I know that that's what we're working on doing for this current fifth grade class and what we'll do for future fourth and fifth grade classes as we've made some changes to the way that things are happening at the elementary school so I just wanted to share that story with you all um like I said I know I've shared my my teacher side a lot but that's my my parents side and I know that I would have no reservation sending my current fourth grade up there and just a year after this transition if that was the case so um just thought i' share that with all thank you for letting me speak and thank you for including me in the conversations about this throughout the last year I'm Emily case I'm the middle school science teacher and team leader um and I just wanted to reiterate the Middle School team's support for bringing the sixth grade up I've been teaching her since 1997 um and I have to say they always feel ready and some of them feel over ready when they come um academically and socially and emotionally um and we have a lot in place to support them as they come I'm also I'm one of the mentoring coordinators for the district and I can tell you that the best predictors of strong collaborative professional relationships are um proximity and schedule and a lot of the standards run six through eight and six through eight is a time when all the standards kind of Step Up A Notch so the ability to collaborate um and spiral our curriculum in grades six through eight I think would benefit a lot and benefit the kids a lot just by the proximity and having the same school schedule thank you okay Heather Dostal um I just have I maybe have a couple of questions and I don't know if someone can answer this I'm just sort of stepping into this a little bit and let me just tell you this at the start by all means ask you questions but public comment being the way that it is actually respond to it however your questions could help give us ideas for questions that we can ask when we get to a discussion this evening okay so raising them now you may not get an immediate answer but you may find that you get an answer later okay thank so I am involved with a lot of the students at Smith Academy um their lives cross my path because I'm their writing instructor uh I asked them how they feel about sixth grades moving up and I'm not sure if this is a question that any of you have actually asked the students that are here already um and I've asked all different types of kids that you know that have all they're very strong in their opinions um as kids are these kids are really strong and that they don't feel that they would have wanted to move up here in sixth grade and they feel scared for my daughter who is in fourth grade now like for her to make that transition they just their General is that they don't feel like they're ready emotionally and I I I don't know the answer to that and I understand some of the things that you've already said um I don't know what my daughter's going to be like in a couple of years I know that there was huge growth this year but like you just you don't know um and I have great concern as a parent as I know a lot of other parents do on how you're going to truly segregate them it's um nice to hear that you're saying that you know the seventh graders are saying they don't run into them except for occasionally to get a snack but you know a sixth grade child and a 12th grader that's a a massive age Gap and it's really it for a parent that's a a huge concern so I I hope that that has been taken into account and that there will be truly some steps in place um uh and that we I guess my my biggest fear as a community member is if this goes into place I know I'm one of the few parents that is here tonight but and I know there's people online but we can't afford to lose any more kids and I just my concern is that there are people in the sidelines that are just waiting to see how this plays out then they're going to rip their kids out of here and we've already had that we've watch that happen in all both schools and I as a community member that grew up here and went to school here and I don't want that to happen I want everyone to have their jobs I want the community to stay and be as wonderful as it was when I was a child for our children but I want there also to be some sort of um Social Network I think it's just getting smaller and smaller and smaller and kids don't have any social life like when there's nine kids in a class and you might be that one kid that doesn't get along you you just you they need more and as a parent you strive to get them more but if we make really big decisions that make big changes and people aren't speaking up where does that leave us I guess is my question thank you okay is there anyone else would like to make a comment hi my name is Kevin Wall I'm a middle school social studies teacher here at Smith Academy um but like Jenny I'm also here as a parent um I have a student who's in ninth grade this year um and he's gone through Hatfield Public Schools since kindergarten um and I fully support this transition I think he would have flourished having been here in sixth grade um I think the connections that they can make through Middle School is tremendous um and by the time they're in sixth grade I think they're ready um my son entered Smith Academy as the youngest kid in the building when he came in in seventh grade and I think if he had come in in sixth grade he would have been able to make connections with students who are now in 10th Grade or 11th grade um and I think that would have been a tremendous benefit for him thank you is there anyone else did you keep off me share your name said hi my name's Katherine Johnson um I have have two kids in the elementary three kids in the elementary school one is a preschooler and two first graders my question is aside from um your plan for today talking about potentially moving sixth grade up into the high school what have you started a conversation about other measures in order to prevent this school from closing by the time my kids get to the school and to prevent nine kids per class to be the norm that sort of a thing okay so that's a little a little bit beyond our topic for this evening sure but it is definitely something that the committee speaks about um and just to disabuse the notion that nine is the norm it is not right sure so you know okay okay but thank you get the idea okay thank you and I your sentiment is is there anyone else who would like to see Mr W would you mind muting that know that camera okay um one last chance for those who are joining remotely is there anyone who would like to make a public comment okay um so with that that's thank you all for joining and for sharing did we see someone that had a public comment that they didn't get a chance okay so solved the mystery um with that we're going to go on to Mission moments and for those that aren't in our meetings all the time um Mission moments are a way for us to kick off meetings and give some reflection to to ways that we are meeting the mission that we have called out for Hatfield public schools and so um stories and testimonials and ways that our district Improvement plan is actually coming to life so if there's anyone from the administration or the committee that would like to share a mission Dr Driscoll thank you I'll I'm going to share a mission moment um that actually has nothing to do with our topics tonight whatsoever um but it's timely it just it just happened and and I I think it's important to share um so so this week I was fortunate enough to be able to go into our Spanish class um Miss barosi has done a tremendous job with with that program uh and this year she's partnered her classes with a school in Columbia uh that is specifically an English uh dual Language School in Columbia um and so she set up kind of a a penal and video chatting uh relationship with this school uh all the all the way down in Columbia they have to come into school early or uh stay late to to make sure the times overlap um and I was able to to see this in action the other day I went in and um watched our students uh in Hatfield um engaging across continents with uh a school and it was it was incredible to see that connection um the students were they were into it they were conversing in Spanish the way it works is the uh they kind of split up half and half so that the Colombian School gets a chance to practice their English and then they switch and then Converse in Spanish um and and so it was really nice to hear those students just interact in a really organic um just very very neat way just talking about stuff with each other um across continent it was pretty it was a pretty great thing to see so kudos to her uh and to our students for for being brave to do that any other Mission moments I think we heard some last week so when we met um with that thank you I had the chance to see part of that conversation in the hallway as I came in the other day um and it was fun to see because it was like the recap of like what did you find out um so that was neat the is there anyone who has an interest in pulling anything off the consent agenda okay so the minutes from last meeting on the 16th are approved and with that we'll get to the highlight of the night which is our presentation about sixth grade potentially moving to Smith Academy for the 2526 school year and so I will turn this over to Dr Driscoll will you also be presenting sharing your I'm G to share my screen and it should both present up here and it should share um on Zoom so let me share my screen I should be unmuted okay checking good um now if I can minimize this I won't cut anything anything off correct there we go all right so uh as you've heard already tonight we'll be speaking and talking about um the potential of moving the sixth grade uh which is currently at Hatfield Elementary School uh up to Smith Academy um to the middle high school so just as an introduction and kind of review of where we left off uh so last year at the request of of teaching staff and with the supportive Administration uh at both Hatfield Elementary and Smith Academy uh we collectively kind of explore the possibility of moving the sixth grade to Smith Academy um so this started with uh kind of getting teacher input and finding broad support there uh it expanded to conversations in administration um and we expanded that conversation to uh fifth grade families as well um so we we reached out and touched face with those uh across all all of those groups we found pretty broad support for the shift uh in in moving sixth grade to Smith Academy um we then moved the conversation forward with the committee uh however because of the timing that was a conversation that was happening it really started in February and March toward the end of the school year um it was decided to table the issue until this fall with the understanding that we would pick it up now with the potential uh for the change to occur at the beginning of next year uh giving us the whole year to help support a transition um among Uh current fifth grade students um and and this may be some review from last year but it's also important I think to share again uh about kind of the rationale for where this conversation why it started I mean we've sixth grade has always been at the elementary school so why did the conversation begin at um about moving sixth grade up and and it should be acknowledge that the conversation has happened a few different times but last year was the the most traction it had had uh received um across groups um so we often hear uh in terms of student Readiness that uh the sixth grade students just seem ready for the Middle School experience Um this can be seen at kind of all school meetings where they may be a little more disengaged at the elementary school as you know um opposed to when we bring them up for Pep Ries here and they are really into it they're really engaged in into it as um uh socially in that in that way um they could benefit from a larger variety of elective opportunities so our schedule allows for xblocks which are kind of Club exploratory options for students um for a an embedded genius sour that occurs with those which again gives students a chance to kind of look at and research and develop uh passion projects of their own um it also provides for daily specials and electives so things like band art PE or health that may happen on a more frequent basis um than they do at the elementary school uh which which can be good for students to have those kind of outlets throughout throughout the day on a regular basis um it allows students the opportunity to engage socially with middle school peers um I think we heard from uh Mr wall about how he felt his son could have benefited from maybe knowing some students who were in seventh and eighth grade when he was in sixth grade and we we see that a lot with um students who come come to us and uh they you know they they expand their they expand their Social Circle to include other middle schoolers um and they're able to find connections and build relationships with students um who might not be in their core class or or or core grade level uh and that really has a lot of benefits for them um you know when when we talk about having um students who might not you know they might not be um in your you know your your they might not be into sports or they might not be into something else and and this allows them to have a bigger group to connect with and it really um it can be nice to see students make those connections and we see it on a regular basis um that that that occurs um it would also allow our our sports program to expand so it would allow students the ability to plan on middle school teams uh with the opportunity to pH C play up in select JB games where it's a appropriate um and I've spoken at length with Mr Duncan our athletic director about this um and it feels like a important time to say that we would not have sixth graders playing on Varsity Sports wouldn't have sixth graders playing against uh High you know seniors juniors in high school um we have there are some JV teams that we know in our league that are mostly compris comprised of middle school students they might have a couple ninth graders and it might be appropriate for a student to play in that uh but it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for uh middle for a sixth grade student plan of our CD team and that wouldn't be something that we did um it would also allow uh access to Smith Academy um social emotional learning opportunities so things like advisory um team building uh Team Building opportunities that exist within our uh within our day uh to support staff specifically trained to uh help handle kind of older older kid challenges that that may occur um and also peer mentors um we hear a lot of concern about what if my sixth grader interacts with a high schooler um and we will'll see in a little bit we'll see some of the Guard RS that we have in place for that um but what we what I think it's important to to highlight too is that we have some phenomenal peer mentors in our school and older students who are just incredible role models for for any student and so this would allow them to shine in that leadership role and to help work with our with some younger students um who could really benefit from having kind of a you know big brother or big sister who might not be their actual big brother or big sister um so it would allow us to develop that that program um as well in terms of academic Readiness uh we've heard um from teachers that curriculum design really does favor Middle School models uh the the um grade bands that that desie has has published tend to go Elementary School through fifth grade and then Middle School sixth through e8th grade um having a full Middle School sixth through 8th grade in the same building in close proximity to each other means that even if it's not scheduled and the schedule would support this but even if it wasn't specifically scheduled that proximity allows teachers to focus more on students across subject areas across the board um it just happens in addition the schedule supports it too where the middle school team meets very regularly uh and they meet to discuss students to discuss what works with students frequent challenges that might be occurring across grade level uh across grade levels and across subject areas um and it allows them to develop a really specific common approach for every every student that comes through so that they're all working with that student in the same way it also allows that student to have more variety in their school day so it's not that one person uh doing you know having that same approach and only that one person it allows for a collective approach um to to helping students that can really benefit them across uh across the curriculum and it should be noted that our Middle School team our seventh and eighth grade team here has um has a track record they have a f fantastic track record and and um it's it's an it's earned um they have done really fantastic work with our with our middle school students across uh a number of years um and this would allow that that model to expand to include uh our current sixth grade team which is also fantastic and wonderful um to be kind of included in that and it would it would allow them to be included in planning uh in developing cross-curricular activities uh in just kind of a wraparound approach to supporting our students in the Middle School um the information list side comes from the association for middle level education um so that's full disclosure and this kind of it dives into what what a middle school team kind of can can do to help support students um and and and what having that team uh set up can allow a school to do to help improve um across across all areas uh so firstly it allows teams to respond to needs and data um so by having a middle school team structure uh where they have regular team meetings about students where they review data uh both academic data social emotional data uh behavioral data uh it allows them to work together to align their goals in their curricula for a more structured experience it allows them to say here's what we're going to do let's make this plan together uh and let's hold each other accountable to making sure that it happens uh and this would allow that to exist from sixth grade to 8th grade uh it allows teams to integrate curriculum and skills um so our our Middle School team has historically done a really fantastic job of integrating um curriculum across disciplines so um developing projects that might include Math Science Social Studies English uh and and and having having pieces of those brought in um to to a student project uh that may expand what they're what they're able how they're able to use those skills um I know that the sixth grade team has done this in the past too and this would allow them to kind of create that cohesion uh in a uh in a middle school team that I think would benefit students academically um it allows them to share what's going well um that having been a middle school teacher I can tell you that it can't be overstated how important it is for teachers to come together and say hey what are you what are you doing that's working really well with this group because I'm struggling and to put their heads together and and and to really say hey this is this is working for me uh and and it allows that that um sharing to benefit students um and it allows them to maximize time that they have with students creatively um so the autonomy that we have within the Middle School to utilize the schedule to best benef benefit students could be expanded to include sixth grade um so it might be that uh grade levels or classes are working on projects together so rather than spending you know for if they're working on a project rather than spending just their 50 minutes in English they might have a longer block that combines English and social studies where the group works together and really dives into uh into learning it could it could mean that um that those opportunities ex exist vertically so we have students working um at multiple multiple grade levels on similar kind of things uh so they have the the autonomy to do that uh we've talked about these a little bit already but there are other benefits for students as well um so by having a true Middle School experience it would allow them to access things like Health curriculum X blocks and and the other opportunities that we've talked about um more elective opportunities uh a middle school band that could go from uh sixth to e8th grade would allow those opportunities to be expanded further in the elementary school too so we could get students started on instruments earlier um it could it would allow us to expand uh and create Middle School sports um even where some sports don't exist at the middle school level now we we could possibly do that by having more um more sixth graders more students involved in it um and it would allow us to to continue to embrace our sixth grade in our social opportunities here Pap Alle homecoming clubs things that make Smith Academy so wonderful um it would allow us to expand that as well uh in addition we have uh daily support with teachers after school so students come regularly after school to get support if they're struggling um so we we could have that happen every single day for students um at this point I'm going to take a sip of water and turn it over to miss Petr to talk about how we are preparing our current fifth grade students this year at the elementary school so when I first started almost three years ago sixth grade was the only grade that departmentalized which meant that they were the class the grade that two teachers would have taught just two subjects and then they switched the classes all other classroom teachers teach all subjects all the time so what we decided to do is to ensure that in order to aold and get students ready this past year fifth grade or fourth grade um let me stop for a second last year fifth grade departmentalized for science and social studies only and so again students would have an experience on moving from one class to the other for just a small block of time and the sixth grade continued to be departmentalized this year fourth grade is departmentalized for just science and social studies fifth grade is now departmentalized one teacher is doing math and science the other teacher is teaching Ela and social studies and those students are switching and this year our sixth grade teachers are actually following a middle school model um again basically kind of following the same schedule so these are the different ways that we are ensuring that students feel comfortable and are ready to make that transition over here to Smith Academy the other piece that's also different and I know that might be mentioned a little bit later on is you know one of the things that was mentioned last year was this Duke study and about how behaviors increase in a middle school but you also have to understand that at the elementary school we historically have not given detentions it's not been part of our repertoire when students have misbehaved that has also changed in order to get kids ready for Middle School the fourth fifth and sixth grade teachers have all collectively created and sent home a letter to famili stating that there are basically three strikes and you're out so to speak there's ways of students getting reminders about their behavior with the fourth time if a student is still continuing to be um not following a classroom rule or expectation would be staying after for detention so we again are trying to get students ready for this understanding of their behavior does have consequences and a detention could inevitably happen and it's the six teachers that collectively take a turn to ensure that there is someone to stay after with them so these are some of the steps that we are trying to ensure the kids are ready for this step um we'll talk about the budget in just a second but but um because Miss Peter I mentioned I I did just want to spend a little bit of time discussing that the um the Duke study so one of the things in researching last year that we discovered was that the the most cited um study was out of uh Duke University and it was a a meta analysis of data uh among middle schools um and it found two big uh there were two two major points that the study made and the first was that there tended to be an increase um in uh office referrals and behavior in sixth grade if it was in the elementary school and the second was that there there tended to be a dip in um academic academics uh as measured by standardized tests um in the sixth grade if it was in the Middle School um and so that that information is there I I think it's important to note that there there's a other other pieces to to think about that um the first is that is how data is collected um middle schools operating on a team basis when when they have common issues or or or things that are going on with students um it's more common for them to refer a student to the office to to support that and so that the office knows what's going on with the student um that that doesn't always happen at an elementary school and the the mechanisms for create for collecting that data don't always exist uh and that's not not a limitation of our district that's that's a limitation of schools in general um so there's a a big chance that the uh that that data is informed simply by U Better data collection at the middle school level when it comes to behavior infractions um the other piece academically found that uh there was a slight dip in sixth grade scores uh in this case would be mcast or uh whatever standardized tests were used during uh sixth grade when when the move was made to Middle School um what the study mentioned but didn't really focus on was that that same dip occurs in seventh grade for schools that are not that don't move uh to a middle school in sixth grade that same dip occurs because there's a transition I mean that's part of a transition supporting students through that through that transition uh and it did find that by the time that are in nth grade that those those have evened out um so so the other piece that I think is really important to note about that study uh is that it was a big meta analysis what it didn't focus on was middle schools doing it well what middle schools have been very successful how they've been successful why they've been successful and what pieces can be uh replicated you know across middle schools and that's um we'll see in a bit that's that's some information that we have collected and then we've seen in our Middle School team uh what can make what can make Middle School successful um our next the next piece here the budgetary implications I don't want to focus too much on this um but I think it does it is important to acknowledge uh that this shift should be budget neutral uh we currently have a sixth grade team at the elementary school we've moved that team to the elementary uh to the Middle School um so the the shift should be budget neutral uh there are sometimes unexpected needs that arise and this is not specific to this potential shift this is just in general um that there there are associated costs so um I I think that the model by having middle sixth grade in the Middle School up here would make it more likely that internal supports found within our our current uh Personnel here U could be utilized to help address some of those unanticipated needs should they arise uh in the sixth grade so here's um a draft schedule of what it could look like for sixth grade for a sixth grader who are coming was is coming to the middle SCH school um and I want to I want to dive into what this sixth grade academy is uh in a little bit um students would start out in home Nest that's what uh May in some other places be called Home Room but we the Falcons um and then they would have two academic classes in a row so they would have history or science potentially uh with Miss shet and then Miss Bailey uh following those two academic blocks and there's a transition between those academic blocks where students get a break they get to stand up move around go to the bathroom come back to class uh and get ready for their next class they would have advisory um so this is a short block and this is a block specifically designated for community building for team building uh for skill setting uh oh sorry sorry goal setting um so that students can take a look at where they are academically socially and say Here's Where I want to be and here are the steps I'm going to take to get there um it's also time when sometimes uh we have uh breaks that are taken so that our um middle schoolers can have a have a little bit of time outside to run around and to play sometimes this includes games between advisories where uh Mr Wall's advisory might take uh Miss case's advisory on in a um rock paper scissors I don't know game I I don't know championship um um following advisory and and that break uh oh and I should also mention that this is a time where students can have h a snack a free snack or free breakfast as um by going you know getting one from the from the cafeteria um there we there are there's another class and this switch this year we used to have two more academic blocks but we we made that switch this year for Middle School uh so following that break another academic block so this again would be either with Miss Bailey or Miss shet um following that is the lunch and recess time so students have time to eat and then um we are are working to make sure this is more common uh in in Daily that uh students when they're done eating can go outside for a little break outside um following that they have their last academic their core academic block they're all academic um and again this would would be either with Miss shet or Miss Bailey following those kind of four academic blocks core academic blocks is the time where we have um we have our electives so those includes thing include things like art band computer science uh skills class which we'll we can talk about in a little bit uh PE and health so those are things that all students have access to uh and that all students are are able to get on a on a regular rotation here so we have heard from a number of folks about concerns uh for students interacting with with older students so sixth graders and 12th graders in the same same building um so here are some guardrails that we would put in place to make sure that we are we're making sure that they're there um that interaction isn't isn't done in a way that is either unsupervised or or unstructured um if if it exists at all so the location is physically separated um so we'll be we we remind students of this constantly during advisory uh we have signs that we have purchased and and are going to be putting up in the Halls anyway um and this would allow you know more um just more visibility of what the separation is between um the high school and middle school we also have uh we we able to monitor the Halls we're able to monitor those during passing time where teachers come out into the Hall to make sure that students aren't going where they shouldn't be we're also able to monitor those outside of passing time through cameras um so we're able to see if if we have someone who's wering down the hall they shouldn't go um we can get out there to remind them uh we have separate middle school and high school bathrooms so our high schoolers use the bathroom at front our Middle School uses the bathrooms in the back of the building uh that even includes when they are um in separate parts of the of the building so when they travel uh it takes 1 minute and 8 seconds to walk the long way if you go the long way at a reasonable Pace from the furthest place over there um down in Dr Bo's room to the Middle School bathroom um so uh and again we we are able to monitor that we have hall passes that are required when out a classrooms and this is for every student not just Middle School um but high school as well so if we have students who are leaving class we know where they are and where they're going um we talked a little bit about sports but sixth grade participation in sports would be limited to Mid middle school teams uh and those middle school teams may play select JV games with teams that are primarily composed of middle schoolers um we're in a position and and most other districts in our area are in a position where we often have eighth graders and and occasionally seventh graders but more often eighth graders who do play out who who get spots on either JV or VAR City squads um because their skill level is is appropriate um but our our sixth grade students uh would allow us to focus on developing our our middle school program here too um one place that there is potential for students to interact with each other um younger students and older students is xblocks in clubs those are always supervised they're in designated areas um and and that's a place quite frankly that would be a a prime spot to develop some of those Mentor uh mentoring relationships between um middle school students and are are good role models in high school um so in in researching and and and doing some of this this work uh there were two two districts that really gared a little more attention um the first is is Gateway um they went through a shift from uh having their school go from 7th to 12th grade a few years ago um and they noticed they made shift largely because of a similar theme in sixth grade of those students being quote unquote done with the elementary school this comes from their principle not from me um they they also were able to kind of highlight and describe similar academic and curricular challenges of not having uh sixth grade in the same building not being able to align that curriculum the sixth grade team uh in the middle school teams wanted that collaborative teaming experience that the middle school would offer um and they felt that it would benefit their students um similar to what we what we discussed last year and this year um and so to to answer this and and I I quite you know I didn't think about this much before um but it made a lot of sense when I was speaking with their with their principal is they develop What's called the sixth grade academy so this is really it builds a transition year into the middle school model um and what it is is it takes that the sixth grade team and it allows them more more autonomy and more focused time with that with that group of students um for for us that middle school that sixth grade academy would be having two core academic teachers rather than four um so having students have more time with fewer fewer faces they felt that Gateway um that this would benefit benefit their sixth grade it would help facilitate that that transition year um and help get those students into Middle School kind of Middle School light um light model they also felt that it would support um team building uh in social emotional development they were able to kind of build uh build field trips around uh around building that community in their school um I I should note that uh in in speaking with the principal the uh the principal felt that the sixth grade academy that model uh did did help students transition effectively they felt that that that step in there was really good for sixth grade uh and it allowed them to make that make that move effectively and and and succeed and they and they their data kind of at least social emotionally plays you know speaks to speaks to this they uh have conducted student surveys and they have uh we all kind of talk about the the sense of belonging that can exist um and they have found an increase in the sense of belonging among their sixth graders and their middle school as the whole uh since they have have made that move a couple years ago it's still relatively new for them um but they you know they are um they are seeing that uh and they they s they said that academically having um after school support and having having those those teachers be able to offer that has been a big benefit for their students specifically for their sixth graders uh and and now after that year of transition it has become kind of their their normal um that that they didn't get uh much negative feedback once they made once they made that switch um and that now it's become kind of routine for them um another another District that I reached out to was Harvard uh in Harvard uh we reached out to them specifically because they're a smaller District they're a municipal district and they uh have done really well on standardized testing they're they're very successful District um they they really highlighted a few points when I spoke with them that having the full six to8 grade span has allowed the Middle School to really develop its identity within a school so they have really become uh more of a of a school within a school more of a middle school um since they had that approach the they talked quite a bit about the team based appro approach having both horizontal meetings so everyone who teaches a certain grade level so all sixth grade all seventh grade all eighth grade teachers but also vertical alignment um to allow for some of those support that work for a student in sixth grade to also be implemented in seventh grade and 8th grade to have that alignment uh over over several years um they said that it's allowed teachers to be even more attentive uh to students which I think is a good goal for everyone they mentioned that having a focused Middle School experience aligns with the team's vision of where student should be by the end of 8th grade so it allows teachers to say Middle School teachers to say okay we're getting these students in sixth grade with these skills we want them to be here and and we're lucky in our in our case that we're in the same building as a high school so we can take that data from high school and say Here's Where we want kids to be but allows them to kind of plan backwards and say where are students coming in here's where we want them to leave and kind of plan for that in the bottom line with uh from Harvard what they what they said is that having the Middle School model allows teachers to know students well and to collaborate with colleagues around their needs um and I think that that's something it up quite nicely it's had a big impact on student sense of belonging and the data that they're seeing speaks for itself so a few final thoughts before I I stopped talking um or we transition to questions um there continues to be broad support among the teaching staff Administration here at Hatfield uh Public Schools HS and Smith Academy for the shift to take place um we believe that making that making this change will allow us to better serve our sixth grade students and have a more complete rounded out Middle School model and we have we've seen from other districts that have successfully run similar models even made the made the transition and made the change and has seen positive results both social emotionally as well as academically for their students yes please hi um one more final comment as I was thinking about some of the things that Connor had been sharing um you know again as we were thinking scaffold and support we have made a lot of effort in trying to get our fifth and sixth graders here to come up and see the kids here at the um High School the middle school but they are literally sitting in the bleachers being incredibly passive they watch they're not able to participate because we don't allow them to do that we just want them to get comfortable being here but as sixth graders they'd be able to actually participate and do all of those things and then we can start bringing our fourth and fifth graders up to begin to see what it's like to make the walk over here to see building to not make it be this big scary place and then at the same time also we have sixth graders who are buddies with first graders and we have fifth graders buddied with kindergarten and that age difference is no different this is about being able to set kids up with mentors models to have these older kids take these younger kids under the wing and kind of guide them into what school environment is like so it's not that really big of a difference between what we're already currently doing at the elementary school and what we're looking to do here for our sixth graders here at Smith just wanted to share I'll add that we did have the sixth grade participate in tug of war last year and I think they beat the staff so all right and at this point um we'll open up to questions from from the committee uh anything that we can help clarify or um points we can make so let the committee all come back on screen um thank you on behalf of the committee um for the prep for the homework for the prep and homework uh because we know that that's been happening and um has been a fairly significant amount of work not just last year but through the summer and into this year um and I guess I want to kick off as we go into questions to also know recognize that a lot came up last year and I think it was really worthwhile to have the conversation um and I'm so glad it's back in discussion and that we're doing we're having this conversation at the end of September um because to the points that came out in public comment people need to be prepared I think that was really one of the biggest issues we had as we closed out last last conversation was that we hadn't spent a year preparing kids so I just want to recognize acknowledge and appreciate that um and with that I want to um open this up for the committee to ask questions but also recognizing that tonight is not a vote tonight is a conversation um it's an opportunity for us to hear public comments where their concerns are where the questions are to ask the questions we have been hearing and that we have ourselves um and that this is going to come back again in October um so there is going to be more time for conversation because the Community needs to be involved um we want the community involved as well and so tonight is just more additional fact finding um and so with that I open it up to the committee what your questions are and please take yourself off mute so who wants to kick off because don't all speak at once right okay uh Iman green um I wanted to ask you touch Bas on a lot of subjects that students from um sixth grade would be experiencing if they moveed to Middle School how about foreign language um I didn't hear much about that would they be able to take a foreign language here in middle school so so right now our foreign language starts in 8th grade um we have students that that um begin there and and kind of move up through High School uh we we don't currently have the Staffing to expand it down to seventh and sixth grade uh that being said we could possibly look at look at the schedule and do kind of an exploratory option um with our foreign language languages to see if that uh it you know kind of an introduction to French and Spanish um so students would kind of be um be ready to ready to start but currently no currently we don't have plans for that I have a quick question to start off here looking at the um the draft schedule it looked like Mr and Miss belly would have four off periods how would we utilize them during those times um so the short answer to that is is no um they wouldn't have four off periods um so when uh when Miss shet is teaching one class uh half half of the group of sixth grade Miss Bailey would be teaching the other half so those would be the academic classes um so a b c and d block we call those uh we have two other blocks during the day so either e f or F block and then G block kind of floats through um and so teachers have they have uh they have five academic classes they teach uh typically and then uh they have a duty PL block and a prep block um so a Duty block might be uh if there's coverage that's needed for another class um or if we have them you know teacher assigned to monitor the bathrooms or the Halls during that time uh we that could be an example of a Duty uh and then we have the the uh prep time as well um but all all teachers are assigned of a full load um if if someone has a has a gap in there uh given an extra duty to support or a different class to class to teach more I don't if other people have them I think we all probably have a list so have a couple I was just gonna ask one that went along with the schedule um so just speaking of the You Know sample draft schedule uh thank you so much that was definitely something that I wanted to be to visualize a little better I found it very helpful to see that written out um I couldn't help but notice that the break time is at like 9:30 and then lunch is at 10:45 in the morning um which I'm kind of assuming is so that they have an independent lunch but I'd like to hear a little more about like how lunch works and who else would be in the in that space sure so lunch um this year we have a middle school lunch and a high school lunch so we have seventh and eighth grade and then ninth through 12th grade um with the addition of sixth grade we would probably go back to having three lunch blocks we would do a sixth and seventh an 8th and nth and then a 10th through 12th grade um so that would allow uh a little more little more breakup there um in connection with with uh age appropriate appears I'll pipe in with my schedule related question um so how does the schedule today and I think you spoke to some of this but I want to kind of try and put it into one question how does the schedule that you outlined different for sixth graders than what they're doing right now um the the the primary difference is the number of electives that they are able to take part in um the you know right right now they have two core teachers they have uh Miss Bailey Mett that wouldn't that wouldn't change we would keep that keep that piece that's working well in the School kind of mimicked the uh the sixth grade academy that we heard um that we heard worked well the they have uh two full blocks of electives every day at the elementary school unless unless I'm mistaken I believe they have one full block of electives every day um and so that rotates around it does yeah so at the at the elementary school that you know you have PE then you have art then you have um you know have th those all those elective blocks uh here we have e block and we have F block so those two are two 50-minute blocks designed for that and so they get they get more exposure to more electives and on a more frequent basis uh they also that time would also include um a skills block to help support study skills so um not just talking about English or math but hey this is you have we know you have a test coming up here's how you can develop your study skills to help you know help study for this test here's how uh we would recommend you taking notes and kind of going through those skills that are quite frankly they're they're important they're really important and they're also sometimes hard to get in when you have content to get through and this would this would allow for for that to be included within that elective rotation um I will say that you when you look at the schedule you see things like PE Health something else because there there is a rotation here too um so we are on a 7-Day rotation so over the course of seven days you might have uh PE for three or four of those days and health for for three of those days or uh PE for for three health for two and skills for for uh two um so so that that rotation uh that that's how that works so it's not a Monday through Friday schedule it's a day one through dat s schedule so my followup to this is how does the schedule that you outline different from what today's seventh graders are doing at SA or if it's different um it's it's not much different the the primary difference is having those core teachers for the those core academic blocks so having fewer fewer teachers uh teaching fewer uh well teaching those the same academic blocks um and that's a you know that that is um that that's a benefit that um I don't think we went into to quite quite enough last year um but we have seen play out with some of those districts that we've we've uh looked at the the other difference uh is that right now we don't have a a a generalized skills class for seventh grade um they you know if students are identified as need needing that we can offer that support um but this would be would allow us to have kind of a more generalized skills time for sixth grade to to help facilitate that transition still kind of related to schedules um looking at that schedule I was wondering how much time would sixth graders actually spend with other middle school students I mean we've heard concerns about how they would spend time with high school students but that schedule really is limiting that within sixth grade other than lunch um what are other times in that schedule that they might be with a seventh grader or an eighth grader that's a great question um and and I I will mention too when I was speaking with um with Gateway in particular that that District their primary concern from from the community had been about limiting uh the sixth grade interactions with than middle school so having having a really kind of more um more more condensed um uh sixth grade academy um but we have uh there are a couple times where that that could be happening so art class band class are times where we we may have um we may have interaction there uh xlock is a time where students from the Middle School is primarily from the middle school but it could be from the high school as well um if there are if there are other other clubs uh would would have interaction with each other and those those occur daily so those would be would be daily occurrences that that they' have exposure again that would be supervised time it wouldn't be um just kind of go for it it would be structured and supervised within in this way sure feel free to cut me off um so going into the meeting that we had last year when we had a lot of audience participation that night and it seems like most of the audience that came that night would maybe excluding one or two were largely in favor of the idea um and around that time most of the feedback that I heard was largely supportive um or at worst kind of ambivalent to the idea between then and now whenever I interact with someone in the community who is hearing about this idea it's at best ambivalent and um more common negative to very negative um and just kind of making notes of things that I've heard some valid not or some valid some not necessarily valid but concerns about sixth graders sharing a bus with upper classmen uh exposure to topics not educational topics but just conversational topics um now at a sixth grade level that you you know which would result in families having conversations with sixth graders that they were not quite prepared for that would have not happened necessarily until seventh or eighth grade just things that they're picking up from their peers um uh concerns that not many other schools have done this um you given us a couple of examples of it being done but um if it's if it's such a a a good idea and I think you're presenting it it your presentation is great and it sounds like a wonderful idea but other schools AR don't seem to be jumping at this um you know why hasn't like Frontier consider this or Hadley or anyone else consider this we would be kind of an outlier in doing it um and then a couple of my concerns that come up is how sustainable is the move if budgets get tighter going forward um and if it had to be undone could it easily be I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to hit all those points um so the the first point was about um the the interaction uh and and kids learning about things socially um that they may um may have not learned about for another year um in terms of the bus I I would love to have enough bus riders at the Middle High School where we had to designate you know sixth grade sits up here seventh grade sets up here all the way to the back of the bus um we currently are in a uh in a position where it's really easy to monitor what goes on on the bus because we have so few Riders um are we're in communication with the bus riders when with with the bus uh company and the bus drivers whenever ever anything happens that does need to be addressed um and those those incidents are few and far between we're we're able to uh get the video from there's video and audio that um that goes with it from the buses Whenever there are incidents um we could we we could look at having more separation between the middle and the high school where the Middle School sits you know from rows one to eight and the high school sits you know row nine to far back they go um but but again right now the uh our bus ridership is is low enough that um you really can't hide there there's no there's no opportunity for students to hide and and and kind of get away with things on the bus right now um just because we we have fewer kids um can you remind your your second question um while you're the is it fair to say that there's more of that happening on the elementary school bus we have little that the age range and the knowledge between a first grader and a sixth grader yeah I have a greater yes so there we have a much larger rate of students on the bus I can tell you that the kindergarteners have assigned seats at the front and historically it goes then progressively back to the back of the bus with the oldest students being the back so if there is going to be a conversation that should not be happening it's probably going to end upating on the bus it's not going to be in any other time frame because for the most part again students are either supervised because our sixth graders or fifth graders are with buddies and the teachers are right there or we don't have sixth graders in fifth graders eating lunch with kindergarteners and first graders so that separation also isn't going to happen so again with social media I can't always I would love to say that you know kids are not on YouTube and doing things they shouldn't be but we all know that that's not true so you're always going to have that opportunity where there's going to be somebody who sees or sees you know has access to something and repeat something not knowing that it's appropriate or not appropriate it's just a matter of being able to start doing that education and conversation yeah I was just gonna comment that from experience my second grader last year he was in second grade loved hanging out with the sixth graders on the bus and came back with many inappro apprpriate things that um yes like that's going to happen but also there's more of a chance of it happening with the sixth graders being near so many younger children uh so I'm like I would rather my my younger kid didn't ride with a second sixth grader honestly just because the huge difference between them uh and what they're doing whether what they're watching on YouTube or what the way they speak as well uh and that's that's I feel like that's the kind of like you you're gonna find it either one side of the other yeah either they're sixth graders are GNA be that influence on the younger kids or they are also gonna be in that place when they are in Middle School can can I can I just add to that too just because it's something that I I I didn't mention not because I uh wanted to not mention but because I just didn't think about right then um most of our 11th and 12th graders they drive um we we I cannot think of a single 11th or 12th grader who takes the bus they either Drive where they get picked up by friends and come in um so you're really talking about you know sixth through 10th grade at that point um and and my experience has been that most of the time um in a situation like the bus the the nth and 10th graders probably not going to want much to do with the the sixth or seventh or even eighth graders um they tend to keep to themselves um and and not not want that interaction to happen my other questions were why haven't more districts done this if it's uh as wonderful as an idea as as we're we're hoping it is and then also just the sustainability of it thank you um so so in terms of why haven't more districts done it I I I don't know um I know that the ones that that I've SP I've talked to again I I I talked about those two that have done it um they've they've had good experiences with it um I think doing it and doing it right is really important um and I I wonder if maybe there just hasn't been the um the the Readiness on on behalf of the teachers to do it um because quite frankly that's where that's where this conversation started was with a with the middle school team and a sixth grade team that wanted to do this change um when I talked with when I talked with both uh Gateway well specifically with Gateway but but also in speaking with Harvard I I believe this to be the case um that's where that's where the the conversation started with them too and they were able to do it well because we they had that that buy in on behalf of the staff um and I I I maybe assuming and we all know the challenge with assuming um but I would I would maybe assume that they uh there hasn't been that level of we want to do this on behalf of the staff I would just note that for some of the surrounding districts who are slightly more comparably sized or have sort of a Elementary and then secondary setup that they their um structure of their districts is different so their Elementary School actually separate distri districts um their teachers are on different contracts so the ease and the fluidity of some of the staff bringing that like that's a very different world I would guess yeah and I would add to that too that when you're talking when you're comparing Regional districts for example um you really are talking about uh the identity of some of these small towns so if you have a k through six School in one town and you have four towns that are set those School th those students to a regionalized middle high school um a lot of those small towns having having worked in worked in them they they really have the identity within that in that school and so they they tend to be maybe resistant to that kind of change um there may also be budgetary concerns there may be space concerns um I know that I I believe amorist is is thinking of moving this way um to have a a six sixth or eighth grade middle school and I know that's when have a separate middle school that's typically the um the age range that you see in a middle school had a a point there and then I just wanted to ask the clarifying question for Adam did you mean a six through 12 or a six through eight uh six through 12 did you have a sure I actually just um in in the region where I live I I grew up in this kind of a model it was is a Regional School District with a junior high school the Junior Senior High School and uh two of the districts I've worked in again Regional they did have the same type of model where they were looking at one building grade six through 12 and and essentially either separate wings or half of the building things were devoted and one of the the districts Ashley was constructing a new elementary school at the time and Incorporated I believe grades four and five into that model for a two-year period very successfully now I would add when I taught I taught uh sixth grade up at Turner's Falls up at Great Falls Middle School and they have a school within a School sixth through eighth grade model um I then became principal at gil Elementary School which was in that district and was a k through sixth grade school was the only K through sixth grade school um and there there was a lot of pride in keeping sixth grade there again with that small town um you know really wanted to to keep it that way um Adam two more questions though the question about the sustainability and then reversal um if need be um in terms of sustainability um I I think again this should be a budget neutral kind of shift um and so if we needed to if we needed to combine classes in one of those grade levels we you know we could if the numbers needed you know necessitated that um the same as we could if it were at the elementary school or at the at the middle high school or at the at the high school level um so I don't I don't see this as putting any additional strain um and I I don't see any I budgetary strain and I don't see this as something that would change how we would have approach budgetary um you know e either cutbacks or or constraints um one way or the other uh and in terms of reversal I don't I mean the the the experience when talking to districts that had gone through this is that um people you know it became kind of what was done and uh and and that was that if if there were if if there were a lot of really pressing reasons to uh reverse it I would think it would go through a similar process that making this is how uh making the change uh to move it would go through is is okay we've tried this maybe it's not working um and the committee could put it you know put it to a vote to make that shi back I don't think it would happen mid year I I think that would be something that would we would want if we were to go you know if we were to make this change then want to go back I would think that would we would you for the sake of everyone want to do it um in a way that is you know a logical kind a Breaking Point my concern just a couple of follow-ups my concern was more if if enrollment continues to slowly decline as Smith Academy and the town decides to make a change to how we do secondary education here is it an easy enough thing to reverse if we had to and then on my other point when we were facing perhaps rather Draconian budget cuts a couple of years ago one of the things that was on the table was was eliminating the Middle School model does this make the Middle School model any more or less sustainable in face of that kind of a situation thank you um so so the the first question if if the decision were made at a town level um at some point to regionalize um then they would have to look at what the you know what the entrance age is at that at that school um so if it were a you know if it were a seventh through 12th grade school uh in again I I want to make sure that everyone knows that that's not a conversation we're having and it's not on the table um and it's not you know but but were that to happen that would be you'd have to look at look at the starting age for for the school and then we'd have to find a place you know for the sixth grade if it didn't start till seventh grade um and in terms of sustainability that's something I hadn't thought of in terms of of if if that and I think it would make the Middle School model more more sustainable if we had if if we uh saw our enrollment continue to decline because simply because we would have more staff licensed at the appropriate um at the appropriate grade band um so I think it would would allow us potentially and again this is this is this is not something that that we're that we're we're seeing hopefully um but it would allow us to potentially weather that a little easier than if sixth grade were not at the middle school so I just wantan to I may generally look toward the audience to confirm this recollection um when we talked about the in the spring am I remembering correctly that we had more students we were losing more students to the district who were leaving for going to into a middle school at sixth grade I'm seeing lots of head-nodding so in term of the sustainability impact one of the possibilities is we actually keep more students in the district by moving sixth grade into a secondary environment yeah I think that's an important piece to be to be fair and fully transparent there we don't have a comparison for if folks would leave because sixth grade is here I mean that that's we just don't have have that information um but we do know in having ped students uh families who have have choiced El Elsewhere for their students in fifth in sixth grade um that a number of families have expressed that they are looking for more of a middle school model and more of a a larger kind of school experience um and so we have we have seen that and we have seen um we have seen that is kind of the second the second largest area of of uh student loss from our current students so um the largest is the the shift to nth grade when we have a number of old school applicant applicants um but that has has in recent years been the the um a close second um just now that we're talking about sort of just the sustainability of this and sort of like looking forward to how this would be um if implemented I'm wondering from Administration um what your thoughts have been on like if we do implement this how are we going to measure if it's successful like what what specifically are we looking for and how do you see us sort of keeping track and like see that we want to you know see how it's going I guess yeah that's a really good question so there there are two primary areas where I think we would like to you know like to see um success the first is academic and the second is in that sense of belonging or or that you know that cohesion so um we would look at we look at student surveys so we have surveys that go out that we measure kind of social emotional learning with um we're we're uh getting a I believe the Des is a tool that can more more accurately uh kind of quantify that data uh which is inherently hard data to quantify because it's about how you feel um we could look at uh test scores so both mcast but also our our district measures the I ready and and just quite frankly teacher assessments and how well kids are writing and how well they're doing on projects and how uh how how invested they are in their learning um how they're setting their own goals and are they achieving the goals that they're setting for themselves those things that really um they're they're harder to dive into but they're they are what our team dives into all the time um and enrollment I mean that's that's the the biggest um you know the biggest challenge we're facing right now I think as a district um and this this is a place where we have seen uh our enrollment decline uh and so as we make this change and we look at it we would like to see students staying in you know in in uh from fifth to six grade from sixth to seventh grade in staying with our district and from 8th grade on you know you know really kind of have that that full th those full three years to to bring them into the Smith Academy community so I'd like to hear a little bit more about students who get services so um I think we're we we probably the committee at least has a fair idea of services available um at Hatfield Elementary and families who figure out by the time they get their kid to sixth grade they like that's a fairly well oil and it feels really stable and I I can imagine concern um moving their kid and what do Services look like and and how are they different when they get to Smith Academy and I will call out in particular um reading knowing that we've seen across the state not just us um some issues with reading for kids who were in that core age right now they were learning to read when Co Hit And So reading maybe a little bit behind we've seen that in State numbers um what does that look like if we move six grade up to Smith Academy so Broad and specific I guess go um so we're able to we're able to meet students needs here on their iaps U we we do between sixth and seventh grade we do amend iaps so that the services uh reflect the hours in our um in our classes so if a you know our classes are 50 minutes long so so that's the primary way that we amend IEPs um and as as as students make progress the goal is always as is is for students to make progress to uh eventually come off I APS that that that's the goal um the I I don't foresee a problem meeting meeting students uh needs here um if we make the shift we have I believe we have enough uh enough staff to do it I will say one one difference that we're able to make here um when it when it comes to supporting students is we talked about the duty blocks that our staff has oftentimes we'll have licensed teachers who are able to kind of co- te so if we have a student who um struggles in math um instead of having and this doesn't happen all the time but instead of having a pair of professional we may have another math teacher who is able to push into that class and work with a small group or work with a student um to help provide extra support so we're able to provide licensed uh licensed teachers often times where um where that's not necessarily the case um in terms of of reading the same thing we have you know we have those skills blocks we have uh if students have skills on the blocks on their IAP um typically they are specific skills it's not just you know skills it's English skills literacy skills it's math skills it's it's focused so that they have a skill it's study skills inhabit so it's they have a a specific focus on what what they what they need and so if we need to increase the number of skills classes we we would do that um but again within our schedule I think we we'll be able to um to to meet um also just to let you know that you know again this is behind the scenes so most parents might not be aware Every Spring we have transition meetings the Special Education team from the Middle School comes to the elementary school and they meet and they're talking and about the students and what their needs are before they even leave the school to go up to the middle school so those meetings happen every spring so that the teachers are well aware of what students needs are before they get up to the middle school thank you um we've we' spent appropriately spent most of our time this evening talking about sixth grade um but have a question for both principles really about what this change would mean for other grades so this would have an impact in different ways and would love to hear your thoughts about what that might look like so I can tell you that at least in the elementary school we would continue to do the same scaffolding that we've been currently doing for our sixth grade students so fourth grade would continue to be departmentalized where they would switch for science and social studies and our fifth grade teachers would continue to be doing the departmentalization where two teachers are teaching two different subjects and kids are switching and they have also built in um a skills block so the kids are understanding that you need to go to your locker when you go to your locker make sure you have your pencil and your binder because you can't be taking that next thing with so all of that is built in they spent a lot of time getting kids ready and understanding that that's a skill that they're going to need for when they transition into the the middle school high school we would again continue to work on getting our fourth and then then fifth graders to come up to do visits to the um Smith Academy just again to be seeing what it's like so it's not as daunting of a a task or an idea to come here to visit and to see it when they finally get here so I think those continued scaffolds will strengthen their ability to feel more comfortable making that move are there other benefits or challenges when you move a whole block of students out of that building yeah so you just to kind of talk about special a little bit really is a 6040 split between the two buildings and and essentially in its simplest form you've got two full-time special teachers at Smith Academy and two full-time specialed teachers at AT hes so by moving grade six you would kind of equalize those case loads a little bit and and there is quite a bit of work on on kind of like another path that we could be doing with with inclusion and that might give us more of an opportunity flexibility for for a greater level of inclusion with making that that kind of a change I mean I think that's something that really hasn't come up much is that there's some upside for all students Downstream of those sixth graders because they what about s through 12th gr yes so the um the short answer to that question is um more opportunity we we bring bring two more teachers into our teaching Community here which means potentially four additional XS that could be offered um so xblocks are TP typically they're they're either passion projects of Staff here like if you have someone who really likes fly fishing um they might create a fly fishing club um but we have other other clubs we have um and and typically they're they're either passion projects of teachers or real Collective interest of students where they might come to a teacher and say hey Miss case we really really want to do cheer cheerleading there you go um and in in which case we we we would be able to to honor that um and by having two additional staff it adds we have two Xbox that we run every 7-Day rotation um and so it would add potentially four more four more xblocks to that mix um it it would also allow we talked about the schedule and you know those the the number of number of preps and the number of classes that would allow potentially other electives to be offered um you know right now during the Middle School bandw we have band and art that are offered we I would love to offer another kind of steam uh class in that mix um and by having having more staff that are not already obligated to their you know contractual maximum we would be able to potentially do that um so so um in addition to giving sixth grade the opportunity to to have more more of that Middle School experience and more electives that kind of thing it it also would have the same impact on the rest of the middle school and potentially High School too so when you've been exploring this have you spoken to students about their their thoughts I I have um um primarily last year um I I I haven't really got into it with students this year and um mostly it at least what they told me which again May um you know may not be the most candid time um was pretty ambivalent it was it wasn't like we're really psyched to get the sixth grade up here um we can't wait to can't wait to do it um but I was like yeah if it works great if it doesn't great there was there was that I would say amb would be there are there other questions from the committee question for you just talked about high school students about the graders or fifth graders have we heard from them their opinion I mean I can say I have a fifth grader this year and is would love to be in middle school next year um in his reasons for for both of us to be a little more challenged in academics and having that experience with other peers who are a bit older um but also I would like to hear if you've heard from other I mean I've heard from my child but I would like to hear from um and your child um from if there had been any comments from fifth and sixth graders I I can speak from from last year's conversations is that um they they were pretty excited about it um the uh in a lot of families echoed that they you know when I talked with them because I I spoke with every fifth grade family last year um and a lot of families echoed that they said they said well you know we were a little nervous when we talked to talked to Connor about this and he was psyched so yeah think it be a good idea um but yeah I would say that among the uh the fifth graders last year so uh current current sixth grade um there there were there was a lot of positivity and Miss Petra any are you hearing anything in the hallways of I have not but I also haven't really sat down and surveyed any of them or had one-onone conversations with and I would add just so the committee and the community knows that that that's been itional we wanted tonight to be kind of a well actually we wanted a couple weeks ago when I I couldn't be there and I apologize for that um we wanted that to be kind of the kickoff for the conversation of this year so um to for for this event to be that so so those conversations will will happen now that that this has happened else before this conversation that was my last thing I wanted to ask about was how we are going to engage the current fth grade going forward sounds like we're planning to can we engage with families younger than fifth grade as well absolutely yeah I I think we I think we should um I I will say um that I I suspect that if we talk to current uh and I suspect based on last year's experience that if we talk to current kindergarten families um they the younger the students were the the more opposed to the shift families tended to be um and as as their students were older the more in favor families tended to be um because honestly I mean I have a I have a seven almost eighty old um I've never seen her as a fifth grader um and so I I I wouldn't know what that experience might be for her um and so without that it's hard to it's hard to have any barometer um to to measure how the the change might go but yes I think we should we should uh also talk to Smith Academy families as well so younger older all the the whole community that kind of aligns with feedback that I've either received or kind of overheard that you the younger the the students that families have that the more apprehensive they are about this you know that they they student won't be emotionally ready in sixth grade because they have a second or third or first grader um or I've gotten a couple people who who feel like there's there's still this this dialogue that you know this is more about like subfusion like playing a shell game with the numbers and things like that which I I I hope that your presentation kind of puts that off because I I think it's clear we're not doing it for a reason of just moving numbers around or anything or or trying to trick someone into staying that otherwise may not have but um I think definitely engaging younger than fifth grade would would help build that yeah we could we can absolutely do that and and just to to hammer that point home no this is this this is a a an enrollment at this point enrollment neutral um potential I mean anyone can add from one column and subtract from another and that's really what we'd be doing here yeah I would like to encourage us to when we can when we have those younger families to also probably have some Smith Academy families in the room because I think that's for me as a parent who you know again I don't know what my kid looks like as a fifth grader quite yet um hearing from people who are like let me tell you what this looked like when my kid was a sixth grader that became a seventh grade like that perspective was really helpful so hearing like we did tonight from Mr wall and others um and also just understanding that our sixth grade teachers have been watching sixth graders for many years and they know what sixth graders look like year in and year out and and that's been really valuable to hear so um and I I will just also acknowledge that the committee has heard from several teachers who weren't with us this evening that we have heard from in writing um to a one they have all been highly supportive um so we thank all of them for reaching out as well um and with that we're g to move on in our agenda this evening if there is anyone who's with us that needed to move on we understand if you don't want to spend your whole evening tonight um at the school committee meeting we won't thank less of you if you leave but we are really fun but we are fun we might have snacks later no longer have bunnies thank you all for coming yeah um so with that do we have a conversation about trips Smith Academy travel yeah we don't have um can you add me guess it didn't there we go oh thank you all for putting putting those back um so uh I I don't have anything to present for a vote tonight but I can give a little bit of a kind of preview of of what we're looking at for trips this year um so the band trip is looking at developing a um a a longer trip um and they're looking at a Washington DC band experience so there's a festival down there uh that they they would like to go to so they've done Philadelphia in the past um and this this one is something that's in DC and they seem um pretty excited about that possibility and Miss Gardner is in the final stages of putting that package together it would uh it it I think it would be in May April or May so it would be um far enough out to uh to to do that and and the trip I will say Would Not Duplicate anything that we would have done or would do on our Washington DC trip um so they they've taken care to make sure that when when we kind of go in our rotation to Washington DC um that they'll have a unique experience um our school trip this year that we're looking to do and again this goes back to the conversation that we we had uh a couple of years ago about doing kind of a bigger trip to a different destination every year uh we're looking at New York City this year um which would be we'd get down to well New York City and and some kind of New Jersey Islands we'd be getting into Ellis Island and Staten Island we'd be getting um to the Statue of Liberty we'd be seeing Broadway a Broadway show um and really kind of jam packing into a couple days um the New York experience which I think would be would be great um for a lot of our kids um and then the senior trip um this is to be determined uh what the destination will be um but they are talking about doing a a specific class senior trip which I think would be great for them um I think that's a kind of a tradition that I'd like to um like to kind of rekindle is uh having a a big destination trip for the senior class doing the fundraising for it and making sure that it goes off that hitch within the United States or yes yeah they they would they would uh would be a domestic trip yep I I'm I'm confident in saying the lower 48 as well when is New York City we we so we're looking at um we're we're looking at probably an April April time for that trip as well the the the challenge is um athletic scheduling and so looking at making sure that we're we're trying to schedule in a time that's not right at the beginning of the season because we want those you know we want those the practice they have to practice for 10 days before they can be eligible to play a game um but not too late in the season because we'll start to have makeup games that kind of thing so we're looking at trying to figure out what the the perfect time is for that um is is there also I know we've voted in the past about like the Spanish classes have taken a trip looking at that for this year they're not playing a trip for this year no um they they uh they did one last year they did one the year before so they're um typically they do it every other year they they they had partnered with Hopkins um frankly because Hopkins they only had like three students sign up for their trip um and they couldn't run it without a kind of a core group and then we had we had like 18 of our or some you know we overwhelmed that trip um not overwhelmed they had a great time and they they were did a great job partnering together but um to get back into every other year routine for us would allow a larger group to go from the 11th and 12th grade which would keep the cost lower I was going to ask um thinking about timing of the trips is there a school play or musical this year and would these trips fall in line with that kind of schedule there there is um we haven't we haven't made any decisions on what it will be yet um but we are planning to run a school another musical this year um but and yeah we would we would coordinate with with them so we wouldn't run the trips during the time when you know it's right up right before the show or during it I I would just note that I hope that class advisers are having really clear communication with students about what trips might look like and what are planned only because we saw a fair amount of angst and heartbreak when plans changed that probably were designed to be different but maybe not everybody figured that out until late in the year so if we can make sure that as these get scheduled that that's really clear to all the families so that they are just absolutely aware yep yeah absolutely we would do that so moving on to administrative reports but really just looking to hear the district and Smith Academy report um I think you can hit the highlights in fact I might just look to see committee members do you have specific questions my single question is outlined and a sub okay so let's just stick to the sub points which are my school bucks enrollment and Staffing it's starting to feel a little bit like fusion power but um but like hypothetically within like two to three weeks yeah I would say you know this week we should be able to have the you know have have the dates and costs all ironed out um and then it will just be a matter of them I believe hitting a button to make it make it go and we can and we'll put it on our website so nobody's paying for October on my school bucks but by November yes one more check I have a question another sub point I was hoping he would go ahead I thought you were um uh enrollment uh we have uh we're still similar to where we were at the beginning of the year we have uh 106 students right now at Smith Academy um and we have just about 203 at the elementary school um so our our enrollment is um is down this year a little bit we did have 39 school choice uh people who chose to come here um applicants we one family of to two um after a week they couldn't make the they couldn't make the commute work um so we're down to 37 new school choice students this year which is good that's I mean that's a that's a Target number that we had had set two years ago to get 40 students a year which is great um total enrollment I believe were're down about nine students this year uh and that that and you know that that's not good news for uh you know for a district that's struggling with enrollment um comparatively it it is a softer hit than the last few years when we have been down a lot more students um and so we're hopeful that uh through you you know through a lot of different things we'll be able to recruit more students um one thing that I wanted to highlight because I think this is um it's included in the reports but I really wanted to wanted to talk about it a little bit because I'm excited about it um and I think it will help with enrollment is um a partnership that sort of came about as we were looking at uh an innovation Pathways Grant so um as I was exploring the Innovation Pathways Grant um a couple of schools uh colleges and universities were recog mended to me about having kind of really good programs for uh outdoor education outdoor management that kind of thing um so I reached out to Vermont State University uh and they had said well yeah we we don't really do dual enrollment with you know virtual stuff um but what we have done is with some other private schools in in Northern Vermont is actually accredited some of their teachers um either Masters level or above teachers to teach college level courses um and that's something that they're they're interested in doing with us too and so uh we would be able to offer in-house on our schedule college level courses for our Juniors and seniors so they could take a Vermont State University course and get uh credit for that course um well here in the building at Smith Academy from our teachers who have submitted and had their um syi approved um and we could in in theory we could we could have you know a different different course kind of every semester um and so we're we're in conversations with them about that now and we're talking with staff about developing those courses and and having that that work done this year so we're able to do that um and I think it could be a real benefit to our students because the biggest challenge that we have when we're pushing dual enrollment for uh either even Smith college right down the road is well we don't I don't want to leave school I want to I don't want to leave school I don't want to miss another class to take a college college class um and this would this would alleviate that um so they would get that that high level course they would get the the credit for it um and it's a benefit you know this is this is something that originated on the VSU side because they're struggling with enrollment at the secondary level especially in Northern rural Vermont too uh and so this allowed them to kind of get Outreach to to um schools in their area and now out beyond their area uh so that students have that kind of foot in there too can you give us just a really Topline Topline idea of what types of classes you're talking about so yes and um because they really opened it pretty wide um they said you know you we here are our introductory level courses that you know you can look at and and there's a whole cat whole catalog um so we we could do anything from um social sciences from um you know psychology sociology which we've offered here in the past um we could do history classes we could do advanced math classes you know right now we have an AP Calculus class they have a college level Calculus class I'm I'm sure there's a lot of kind of overlap there um so this this initially came out when I was looking at the innovation pathway for out Outdoor Adventure leadership um and those courses were focused on you know some some finance courses or some um public speaking kinds of courses and in my conversation with them they said well actually you you you really you know have your teachers look at these because if there's something that they feel strongly about that they'd like to offer we would we would be interested in in kind of validating it's not the right word but but but approving that that course and the syllabus to be to be offered to our students so that would be dual enrollment you getting your high school requirements and college credit yes yeah in So High School requirements college credit with you know th those credits would definitely transfer to the Vermont state school system um but they may also transfer to other universities depends on that you know we can't control what a university will or will not give credit for um but a student could graduate with you know those with the transcript from the courses that they they have taken uh potentially with a whole semester under their belt um because they if they take a course each semester their Junior and Senior year that's that's four courses uh what is the interest like this sounds like a great idea um but you do have to have Buy in from your teachers uh have you do you have teachers who are interested in this or teaching for two reasons um a I think it it you know it's just kind of cool to be able to do that and our teachers are exed all of our teachers with a few exceptions have master's degrees or above um and this kind of it's a almost a validation where it's like yeah you know we we trust that you're you're able to teach high level uh and we've seen it day in and day out and now this is kind of an outside um entity saying yep we we acknowledge that as well and and we're able to do that and and secondly our teachers they they feel the enrollment crunch too in a very big way um and this is something that I think they're excited about to be able to offer uh that they they think could help enrollment how can you fit these college level courses into our current schedule or what this be in in lie of an AP course with the option to take the AP at the end or would this be something else that you have to just find a way to squeeze in because you still have to have like you know if if they have a college level English class you still have to have a basic level English class yeah so so that's a great question and so there there are two ways the first is to uh to work within our AP schedule uh because AP classes are really designed to be college level introductory classes so we could have students take a college level course and and take an AP exam without having to go through that you know that the specific AP curriculum um the AP curriculum is a is a really good guideline and it aligns directly with the AP test um but I I'd be confident if our students were taking college level classes that they could you know they could sit in on an AB test for that um for that subject and do well um and and the other Cas is if we if we do have any any gaps right now and we also have a provision the contract for if teachers would like to teach an additional course um but if we have any either any gaps in the schedule or we have teachers who are interested in teaching that additional course uh we have Provisions for that that they they could do in the schedule can I just can I just clarify on that because you brought up the AP thing and I think I got lost um yes so they don't have to they don't so they don't have they'll get it College transcript took except it for State University exactly so they could still sit for one because it's like a standardized okay because you're you're guaranteed to get college credit with an AP score of four or five oh nope you're you used to be um it's it's school by school now so some colleges do some colleges don't some colleges will give you credit but not have it take the prerequisite or the you know the introductory things you still have to take a course even though you have credit so it really is school by school um yes so Staffing we are uh fully staffed here at the uh Middle High School at Smith Academy we're looking for um three or four esps four esps uh and and one teacher at the elementary school we had a resignation last week um I believe we have an interview set up for that for Wednesday for that position now questions question that was my question that was your question okay any other administrative related questions okay um so we're GNA move on to superintendent goals and my apology to the committee there is an update to these and Dr Driscoll has copies to share with us I'm G to give everybody just a quick chance to look at those um given that there are some updates I can I can share what the update is too so you don't have to have to find it um it's under goal three and it's into the benchmarks and it's a benchmark specifically around um goal key action goal three action item for Dr discal for the sake of anyone who might come along and get all the way to the 9 o'clock point of our meeting could you share a brief highlight of your proposed goals for the year with the committee you bet yeah so there are there are four goals outlined here um and they're broken down into a couple broad categories the first goal is around entry um that is a goal that is really um it's a first year superintendent goal that is uh the the new student induction program encourages all new superintendents to have um and so it's about creating the entry plan entry process and entry plan in the summary of the report that will be delivered to the committee um the second goal is around professional practice and again this is this is a goal that the the new uh the the um Ms Massachusetts School Association of school superintendents encourages all um super new superintendents to have is participation in the new student induction new superintendent induction program um and so that's a lot of professional learning that that goes along with it the third student uh third goal is a is focus on relationships connections and belonging um and so this this uh goal looks at um developing structures within the within the schools to uh increase increase interaction between the schools in the community to uh utilize our our students in our community to Help U Foster relationships um between them and our new new students and new families um to increase the the amount of offerings in assemblies and in programs that we have focused on belonging among our students um and and to work with Administration um both in in the special ed and the at the elementary level um to uh address some of the kind of more common conduct violations that we've seen over the last couple of years and and systematically be able to address um address those challenges uh the fourth goal is student learning um and it is around uh improving outcomes academic outcomes for students um so it it it's not just about you know mcast scores will go up uh or IR scores will go up but about you know here are the steps that we're taking to ensure that we're calibrated we're looking the same things when we go into uh into classrooms uh the impact that has on student learning and then on on student outcomes thank you um so committee you know this is one of our primary focus areas for for any school committee is a is management of the superintendent and this is the process by which we do this so um we're taking a look at the goals in September we we um are scheduled to come and do a midyear check-in I think it's in it's on the schedule for either December or January uh and then we'll do a review um before the election cycle so that the same committee members will be part of that process at the end and you're familiar with what that review process looks like um are there this is something that we vote on this evening so questions requests thoughts so if we look at goal number four on stuent learning um I see the action steps and the benchmarks in general but can you be more specific about how the committee will measure that so it what what's the goal how do we know if we succeeded so I'll be able to provide um minutes of meetings or schedule of meetings that have where we have data meetings um the summary of kind of our our experiences during learning BLS um I can share our kind The Joint sheet that we're that we're using to do those um the we I think provide updates about the evaluation cycle for staff you know kind of where we are with observations um where we are with with within that process and make sure that we're we're on top of that that's a topic that is on our on our administrative meetings every every week or every other week as well so so we could I guess I'm looking for measurable things on that kind of so by contract we outline the number of staff that would have an evaluation in a given year can are so evaluation check-ins and progress are we going to be at 100% of contract or I mean I'm looking for the like just literally how do we measure that sorry I'm taking notes here as we're talking yeah we can say that we will meet and exceed our contractual obligation of observations and evaluations because that's a literally measurable it's not a binary we we checked the box but like we got all X number on yeah I provide updates on too e um so I'm looking at this and I understand that this is like for the entire school year so at the top of every goal it doesn't say like by the end of the year did which is fine um but I'm sort of wondering um like how you are breaking this down incrementally like we're going to be doing a midyear checkin and are there certain aspects of this you're going to be prioritizing first sure so so the um um I apologize for having been muted on the last question for anyone watching uh so the question was about breaking down the the action steps and the outcomes so a lot of the action steps are throughout the year um so for example that the goal one entry uh there's there are specific dates about that we've already done the entry plan um and there's kind of a timeline for each goal what I have um and I I could share this I I I may want to share a bridged version version because I have kind of like notes that that that are in there about each thing um but I have a a spreadsheet I love my spreadsheet my spreadsheets with a you know anticipated date where it started anticipated date completed um and kind of outcomes on that so for each kind of um action step that's a um a logic model that I I just have created so I have that and I could I could share that I just would like to share a um I would like to make sure it doesn't have kind of identifiable data in there or or you know information about you know observations have G on these teachers and not these that that kind of thing I guess for me I'm sort of more wondering like not so much about like your personal plan for it but also like if there are goals on here that are going to be completed before the end of the year or what we can expect at mid year like one example is like goal three on Benchmark one it's like about an events calendar like is just coming May no so so yeah so that you know those right yeah so th those pieces have either you know there are some pieces that have may may already be done so the events calendar and and we may add to that throughout the year but you know we have we we know when our big school events are we know in our open houses work or are um those kinds of things um looking at just uh goal three Benchmark by well now I'm numbering it five yeah um a 25% reduction in overall students being referred to the office for conic violations and a 30% reduction am I unmuted I am uh and rates per month of individual students being referred to the office multiple times how how do you get to that goal so the um so there's two different parts of that here so there's one part is like overall as a school where we have you know X number of students that were referred to the office in September or October um and say that's you know say that's 10 students um we'd like to see or or sorry 10 10 10 referrals so it could be you know you have the same student that's been referred four times um and and that but that's all that that's all counted together in that the total number number of referrals um so we want to see a decrease in that because we want students to be meeting with success in the classroom the other piece is for those students that may have been sent down multiple times or referred multiple times you would like to see individual um decreases in in those numbers so if was sent down to the office four times in September um the goal would be that you know over the course of the year he's you know sent down fewer times the office um the the the 25% or 30% those numbers they came from um what I thought could be um attainable I mean I I would love to say we're going to have a 100% reduction in office referrals um I don't think that's realistic um but I think you know having uh having these two Focus areas specifically that second Focus area um a reduction in those kind of students that have been referred multiple times we'll see a reduction in the overall referrals to so what is the Benchmark data for that is that versus a year ago is that versus September I I would like use to be your goals so I would like to look at I I don't think necessarily September is is is the right one I think maybe we could do a September October combination because um there there's often times honeymoon period for um for students so I think having a two-month kind of Baseline would be a good place to start and then having a having a two-month um you know period at the end of the year would be be help so a May June collection and a September okay the collection would be would be year long so I mean we've all been in school you know the summer and we sometimes see an uptick so you know we'd like to see that we'd like to see that that kind of study decline even if there is a slight uptick at the end is this meant as a means of tracking how well we're supporting our students or how well we are how well our staff is working to support our students I don't if I worded that right but I think you know what I mean yeah no that's a really good question and I think it the way I have it doesn't doesn't break it out by that but I I think we would like to see that decrease because of both reasons um so we'd like to see our our staff feeling that their professional development and that their you know their their toolbox of how they can better support all students um we'd like to see them being and feeling more effective uh in doing that and we'd also like to see our students developing those their own tools and their own own of um coping and making sure that they're they're meeting with success too and you know the that that we have our the the right services for our right students you know if if it take sometimes takes a little while to figure out okay Connor is you know this is going on with Connor these are the supports that he needs um it takes sometime to figure that out but you know as that's figured out as those tools are being utilized we should see the data reflect that that's not a great answer um because it's not it's it's it's not not broken out like that um but I'd like I I'll have to think about how we can how we can collect that to distill further what the kind of what the cause in that overall decrease is do we have the requisite PD lined up for staff for this to be a reality this year I think we do um I know at the elementary school we have a lot of responsive fashion training that's that's going to be and coaching that's going to be um helping and up here we have a lot of um trauma informed instruction instructional practices that will be uh will be happening that that kind of creates a um more kind of General atmosphere of support um and and we have uh Provisions in place at both schools to to help um identify what works with students and help teachers get put those those pieces into practice through the BST process and through uh the team processes but the short answer to your question is is is I don't know this is the first time I've done this um and so you know it it it may be that um you know when we I hope is that all these goals are met that that all the benchmarks are met and that everything is yeah you you've met or exceeded all these goals um but I've I I've been an evaluator in the place where okay didn't meet this goal so what you know what is that how does that inform what what we do going forward how do we you know what is that what does that mean and how can we make sure that that is you know it's not something like oh you just you didn't mean it so we're just moving on but okay if it if it if for some reason one of these goals isn't met how can we how can I put more more pieces in place to help meet it in the future because these are all goals that shouldn't be going anywhere it's not they're not one andone one andone kind of goals nor should they be so I I will speak generally that this is I don't know my fourth set of I'm trying to track how many different superintendents we have seen goals from and my number is much smaller lower than others but it's by far the most attuned to what our district needs and not as generic as I have seen others and for that I'm very grateful um I am yeah so I I appreciate that it's both practical in the sense of looking at entry and professional practice and some of the stuff that probably would be happening anyway and I think it's totally appropriate for that to be here um but as we look at things like focusing on relationships connections and belonging and the student learning goals that those are more specific that they have and and maybe we'll find their imperfect measures but they're at least striving to be measurable I think is really worthwhile so I appreciate that a lot other thoughts from the committee um wondering in my head right now if we shouldn't have a benchmark on um just on like retention of staff for staff turnover um and goal three as well is that retention of stud oh of students staff right I can't read my own writing okay yeah I I will um I I thought I had done that in this um and that will that's an important Benchmark both students so often we see the edits come back in before we vote given that we're going to be seeing this multiple times I'm I want to see how do this committee feel my sense is to have the grace to vote through based on the conversation knowing that five and five is going to get at like The Benchmark will be labeled five and there's a six coming in that in goal four that number three is going to be specific to meeting at least 100% the contract if it goes over great but I'm like my interest is making sure we hit the hit the contract goals um and that we can specify how we're benchmarking just for the sake of we all know that like yep that's how we're gonna look at that um I would be fine if we voted through if there's comfort and let those amendments happen offline is that how do you guys feel okay so I will make motion to approve the super superintendent goals 2425 school year with the Amendments discussed okay we have a motion by Kathy and a second by Becca all in favor say I any opposed awesome I thank you very much Dr Driscoll and um with that we are going to move into executive committee I would like to invite Dr droll to stay um this is pursuant to Master General Law chapter 30 section A 21A to conduct strategy sessions and prep for negotiations with non-union or Union Personnel to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union or Union personnel and to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if any open meeting may have a det effect and so I would entertain a roll call starting on this end motion well yes that would be handy I just want to get right on into it so can I have a motion to move into executive session is there a second I havean I and with that we are moving into executive session without the intent to return and so we're closing off this Zoom thank you for those who stayed with us it's 9:27