##VIDEO ID:r5JDTkaxejc## hi good evening I'm Christy Buro chair of the Hatfield school committee we're calling to order our November business meeting it's Monday November the 18th and joining me on the school committee our Co Vice chair Kathy Englehart Rebecca bench Aman green and Adam Sullivan and our administrative team can introduce themselves I'm Conor Driscoll superintendent of schools and principal Acy Melissa Petra principal of H elementary school and John salivar's interim student services director thank you all and welcome to those of you who are joining us um for tonight is there anything that needs to come off of the consent agenda okay so those minutes are approved and as we get going into the fun stuff does anyone have a mission moment that they'd like to share this month I'll start right now actually as we speak up at Smith Academy there's a pot lock happening with our group of Spanish exchange students who have been um visiting for they they were here last week and they're here this week um and they are living with some of our families in town and coming to school with our students and taking excursions around the area um so we welcome them and that's it's nice to see awesome nice I'm sorry you miss it's all right smelled good um today I met with our student council representatives for the first time are newly elected so grades four five and six um students um ran for office if you will uh to be the representative for their um their class and they had to provide a speech put up posters and then we had an election so today was our first meeting I met with both the grade level representative and the alternate just to kind of explain what the whole process was going to be about and to share a list so far that some of the staff have mentioned about some things that they felt like the student council could engage in and then they also had some ideas of their own so we plan on trying to meet twice a meet twice a month to uh make Hatfield a better enjoyable experience for all I hear the cafeteria food was a yes platform abely yes that is that is we're gonna invite Mr Halen to one of our future meetings that's awesome and he would love to go so excellent any others actually I would just mention that um we've just uh applied for a ship with the mass pack and I'm hoping that we will be able to run through the Federation for children a rights and responsibility training for parents and hopefully generate some interest in maybe getting the CPAC up and running again awesome that's good to hear um when I when we first logged in I we didn't see anyone joining us for public comment but in the meantime has anyone joined um through our our Zoom meeting that would like to make a public comment okay so no public comments tonight we are going to jump straight in this evening to our presentation um so when we put our annual calendar together we wanted to make sure that we were always coming back to look at sort of annual data um and we may see if we can have a reprise of this in the spring um when or whenever the next batch of information comes out the state stuff is so it lags so far behind it's kind of tough um but tonight is a review of mcass and more and um in our continued Improvement we'll take a look and see how our scores looked great um just as a quick point of order before we continue are we going to continue with the zoom meeting or we do not need to continue with the zoom meeting so you want to if you shut that down I think it will shut that down okay and we'll be continuing to um stream live on television so ontube YouTube It's the Hatfield Town Youtube channel Hatfield Hatfield Community TV so Hatfield Community TV channel on YouTube it's linked on the agenda which is um on the town website as well great all right all right so we're going to be presenting um primarily mcast as well as I data but also looking at some dibles and Dr Data um to get kind of a um holistic view of the the the data that supports our instruction um we collect data throughout the year this is the more uh formal data that we collect in terms of of formalized assessments uh so we're going to start with mcast we're going to go um just kind of down uh down in grades as well as uh through the different subject areas so this was 2024's 10th grade ELA scores um on the left you have Smith Academy our 10th grade versus uh the state comparison on the right so these are students who are now Juniors these are students who are now Juniors that's correct yep um so as you can see we have a a large percentage of students uh in the green which is the category of uh meets expectations uh smaller subgroup in the blue which is exceeds expectations um and also notably smaller in the orange which is partially meets and red which is uh does not meet which is um good because 10th grade um has been historically the year that students have to pass in order to graduate high school 10th grade math uh same same sort of comparison here uh we have smaller uh smaller group in the blue and the red larger group in the green and the orange and I think that's a trend that we might see um throughout is kind of a trending toward the green and the orange um as compared to the state Conor can I just ask one quick question you sure can as I know the state requirement has kind of been has been stricken but did the orange says the partially meets did that satisfy the graduation requirements yeah so if a student partially met the that's a good question um something that I had to learn when I came into to Smith Academy if a student partially meets the expectations on their graduation mcast so that's uh ninth grade science 10th grade ELA and 10th grade math uh they would be required to do um a performance indicator which uh basically it's work for the school to say the student has participated in this uh this group of classes has passed this group of classes and that meets the the competency determination um I suspect it's a little early to tell but I suspect that now with that um with that graduation the compensated determination of mcast being removed that that's the metric that will be applied to all students I suspect um here's the ninth grade so um nth science mcast is a year separate uh because in students take it in nth grade to pass it for their high school high school requirement um so this is nth grade so this is the current 10th grade um as you can see again large group in the green smaller group in the orange um and smaller or no group in the red or the blue and here's how it looks compared with the state um as we get into third through e8th grade we we kind of group them together to paint a broader picture picture of how things are going uh districtwide so here's our Ela comparison uh you can see here that we have a much larger group in the orange here uh we have a smaller group in the green of of meeting uh much smaller in blue of exceeding and notably here um slightly larger group in the red of not meeting as well for this graph you Lo lumped them together but do you have it pulled out of the different grades and where the help needs to be yes we do and we we go through that well when I talk about how we use these data this data as as staff uh we'll be talking about how we pull that out individually to work with individual teachers and uh teams on on um supporting where we need to okay and here we have three through eight um grades three through eight math from 2024 again we see here larger green larger Orange um slightly smaller red and significantly smaller smaller blue here as well and here we have our science Technology and Engineering 3 through eight so students take this uh only in fifth and eth grade so this is really just even though it says 3 through eight broken out by the state um it's really just fifth grade and eighth grade and so we have a larger larger green smaller Orange and slightly lar larger red here again smaller much smaller blue so one thing that we we can use uh it shouldn't necessarily be the the way that it the test is used but when we take a look at um other area districts and we see how we compare we can use uh our our mcast is a um kind of a benchmark to comparison a way to compare so Hatfields on the left here um it's purple because we're purple uh and as you look to the right uh if scores are in green it means that Hatfields score in that category uh is higher than the than the um that spot in the in the comparison District so for example if we look at Hadley 338 Hadley and Hatfield compared uh Hadley is higher than field in that one and so it's in the red when you get to Frontier and you're comparing 3 through eight is that a merger of those Elementary School it is not no that's and that's a good point so Frontier that's really only the middle school grades and so that that's the case with Frontier with mohawk and Hampshire Regional as well okay um I did do weightly because they're close by and that's why we don't have a comparison for uh the middle and high school for them and so one of the things that you can also do with mcass is you can look at how over the course of years how your data how your data is looking so this is a graph of MCAS growth since 2021 so post-pandemic growth uh in Elam cast in grades 3 through eight uh so we have Hatfield in the blue here and then we have m Massachusetts the state average here in the red um so you can see we've we've sort of crossed there with this this current year so we're slightly below the state average where historically we've been slightly above this state average and when we look at math uh we see um sort of the opposite Trend occurring so uh historically we've been performing slightly below and now again post pandemic and we start to see over the course of a few years um reaching up towards that towards that state average and can you remind us when we changed the math curriculum can it was I believe it was 2022 so we're now uh when the the general thinking around any new initiative a big initiative or change like a curriculum change is that it takes three to five years to sort of see those benefits come through as teachers and students become more comfortable with the new curriculum and the new um methods uh and so if we're looking at at this data point here um we can start to see that we may be be seeing that the effect of those that change so I spoke earlier about um when Kathy asked about the you know can we can we break down and see individual uh individual grades uh in their results the answer is yes and we can go a step further and we can we can look into that test and see individual questions where we may have performed differently from the state uh either significantly above or significantly below uh and we can pull those data points and look at Trends so this is an example I actually shared this example last year but it's still a relevant example to to share so this isn't um this oopsy da this isn't the uh this isn't the current you know current score but this is an example of how we would use this so as we look at areas where where students performed significantly um that they significantly underperformed as compared to the state on this Ela on this Ela mcast we can sort of look at those questions those specific questions and what what the um what the point of those questions were so determining the impact of a character's feeling and their identity in a poem analyzing how the second stanza of a poem relates to Ideal ideas an analyzing details to determine the author's point of view in a poem and selecting evidence so as we're looking at those we can say okay this paints a picture of one one area where we might improve um we may need to look at incorporating more poetry earlier in the year um to prepare kids for these you know this this kind of uh question that will occur on the mcast as a former English teacher I can say poetry was always the last unit that we got to uh and it always didn't quite make it in so that's uh that that's pretty Universal um and so the questions we use when we meet as staff when we meet either as departments or as teams is we look at data points and we say what what commonalities you see when you look at these questions what commonalities do you see um among student performance what might that say about curriculum and instruction and those are really that's that's really the point of these these big data points I mean you're you're really talking about an assessment that's given once a year over two days for each subject area um and so you're not going to learn as much about Connor as a student from mcass as you are going to learn um about bigger picture in in um more generalized Trends if you really want to know about Connor as a student you would ask the teacher and you you would get information from the teacher because that's you know that's the person who sees who sees Conor every single day on a daily basis who not only gives formal assessments um and standardized assessments like this but also gives quick check-ins and also gives uh unit tests that kind of thing but generally as we look at at data points across students and across time okay this paints a picture of areas where we may need to improve in curriculum um or ways you know areas where we might want to look at professional development instruction and that's really how how these um these assessments should be should be utilized um so one of the the uh things that we can do with mcast is we can also breakdown results by uh different subgroups so I'm going to turn this over to John to speak a little bit about uh big picture trends for students with uh disabilities and mcats so so there was some things I need to explain with this a little bit there is for each grade level sometimes limited information like a limited number of students that contribute to the state database so without going into a deeper dive which is sometimes necessary to get kind of like a complete picture if we're just going off the state data as they record it we wouldn't be able to give like a whole grades three through 10 uh analysis of of the scores so some of this is really kind of like breaking it down into like a scores on an individual basis so what I found overall is that when we look at performance and growth when compared to the state we're actually uh higher uh than the state averages are so this is kind of combining the the three slides together this slide and the next two slides so in the area of ela and man we definitely growth-wise higher than the state but I do want to explain that a bit the state divides growth into five different categories basically very low low moderate high and very high and so very low we're essentially at the same level as the state at around 26% uh but the areas in the middle of low moderate and high we're actually exceeding the state uh averages in those categories but very high we're actually about half the state average I believe is 15 ours is like seven for the very high category but overall our growth is higher than the state average so when we look at some of the grades um you relevant to to overall performance we can see that meeting expectations when compared to the State numbers were actually a bit higher in some of those areas and the the scores that are close they're close within probably like five points in some areas we are a little bit lower and right now you're you're talking specifically about our students with disabilities not the whole student population just to clarify next slide actually I just kind of covered all three of them okay so I'll go through those uh this gets into a little more detail here so um you can take a look here uh and then looking at the um percentage of meeting or exceeding expectations uh Hatfield compared to Massachusetts uh in partially meeting and not meeting again this is students identified as having disabilities and who's counted in that anyone with an IEP or the five four plans also IEPs just just IEPs and to John's earlier Point too um we being such a small District often times uh the state doesn't as you said break it down as much as it would for a larger district for us simply because of identifying the ability of being identified um because it's it's a confidential idea and it's also they realize that when you have such small um such small samples um you know anomalies can really skew data one way or the other so there's just not enough data points to make it make a generalized statement about it so so I I would clarify that too to say that anything that says says grades 3 3 through 8 uh that is taking everyone together because it's over 10 students but if you look at the individual grade data that the state breaks that down there's some grades that they would not include in that because it's under 10 students that are actually included in that number thank you so another data point that we collect internally excuse me um is what's called I uh and so I is a benchmark assessment that's excuse me it's given in U both EA and math and it's given three times a year it's given in the fall the spring um in the winter and that allows us to give in the fall get kind of a benchmark of where students are and sort of chart their growth throughout the throughout the year um so this first slide here looks at Smith Academy again this is all students in Smith Academy um and we we can see the fall of 2023 oh the fall of 2023 so that was uh last fall the spring of 2024 so that was last spring and then the fall of 2024 so this is the first Benchmark from this year so as you can see if you look at the fall of 2023 compared to the spring of 2024 you start to see a uh as you should a larger percentage of students um exceeding uh either mid or above grade level at the end of the year um and a larger percentage as a as a total here too and you start to see this shrinking down the the red shrinking um so from 133% to or 19% to 13% down here um some of these students moved up into yellow and some of the yellow moved into green uh we s we see kind of a similar starting point in the fall of 2024 as we did in the fall of 20 23 uh so we can expect more more movement um throughout the year there as well uh and as with uh mcast we do meet as data teams to look at these data as well to say okay what uh what strands or what what areas uh is the data coming back that uh a class or a grade level might be having difficulty with so it does break it down further than just math and Ela it goes into the specific standards and strands of both of those so this is uh Ela at Smith Academy and again we have math at Smith uh Smith Academy as well so you can see pretty significant growth last year from Fall to Spring in math um and then again we start uh we start down here at the fall in 2024 so we can expect to see a growth and movement there too are those two years really Apples to Apples in terms of same grades taking the test that kind of stuff almost they're more more similar than mcast is um because every grade up through 10th grade takes it so what what we we lose the students on either end so at Smith Academy we we don't have the um you know our current seventh grade is last grade last year's sixth grade so that would be um but it's still seven eight nine 10 it is okay year to year yep but again the 10th grade last year does not take it this year as 11th grade and that amount in the red in the fall of 24 do we consider that some regression from the summer or I think so yeah we um we do see regression over the summer and that's a pretty pretty common thing to see everywhere universally okay um is is some regression over the summer um it could also account for different slightly different populations of students as they're taking the test if you have um you know different different students again coming in into the school uh and and going out um so yeah there is there's some variability there too but but generally we do see some we call so common there's a name for it called the summer slip um let me see I guess the part I was looking at was fall toall where those were math not so much of a change was significant yeah cuz we went from 19 to 29% right yeah it's quite a jump so last year um sixth grade wanted to Pilot and used I ready exclusively for both Ela and for math so on this particular slide this is um at the top it's the fall um for ELA where again you can see the green not as big the red um a much wider birth of students and then comes Springtime we have more students significantly in the green that yellow band shrunk and we also have less students there in the red but remember this is also just 19 students um and the next slide here is this particular year our fourth grade through six also said they were very much interested in wanting to utilize the I ready um sixth grade really enjoyed and and was talking about how helpful it was for their planning because it really did break down specifically what students were ready for um our special education teachers could also be looking at that and supporting students as well so in this particular slide this is the first year that we've done both um all three grades so um I'm pretty pleased with the overall considering this is um 81 students who completed this that we already have 45 students who are at or um above grade level combined and that we only have 26 sorry sorry yeah 26 students or 11 students total that are um in the red or significantly below so I'm anxious to see what this data will look like in the spring um for math the overall placement of the entire school this again is K to six um last year the top one was the fall we started with only 177% in the green we had a huge birth of students in the yellow and then we had 177% in the red um again this is our I think going into our third year of utilizing the program when we first started we higher number of students in the red a huge kudos to the math intervention team because they have really been targeting those students in the red and we have definitely shrunk that number of students um who have been significantly below and then in the spring you can see the much hu uh the growth of students who were at or above grade level by spraying in the green and then we only had a total of four students that were significantly below grade level with a total of 8% um being below grade level in um the whole school which was a huge wow remind me the grades that take this K to K all the way K to six so in all of K to six we went from eight students above grade level to 63 these are the ears though right so the top is this fall and the bottom is last spring yes I'm confused okay so the top the top one is the fall and then the the bottom is spring so that's a Year's worth of growth so these are the kids that first started the school year and then the kids who ended the school year wait so was it fall 23 yes the date wrong sorry yes sorry that's a much better story though cuz I was like that's a better story that's what I thought what happens when you do this really late at night and start trying to so it's the fall of 23 and theing of same grade year with kids benar awesome clarify that because we did go from eight students to 63 students that's amazing amazing amaz yes um yes so the growth is huge when you look at it and understand that this actually is yes fall data to Spring not 24 to 24 it's 23 to 24 so my apologies for that error and and this includes Happ to know students with disabilities everybody everybody yeah we don't I mean we still expect in fact most of our students on IEPs are the ones who either make their typical or do their ambitious growth because they're the ones who are incredibly motivated and to do their I ready minutes and those gaps get filled in significantly I mean and that's in the fact that we can utilize this program all summer long so even in summer school our teachers are still utilizing and asking kids to get on and do their I ready minutes so it does pay off to make sure they're doing their 30 to 49 minutes a week and that's exactly what the program recommends um we definitely had kids who were exceeding that but the program itself still said that's not really necessary um it's that that sweet spot that research that they have done has really shown that 30 to 49 minutes is really truly all that the student needs to be practicing each week so not included in your presentation but do you have the F the fall 24 results on this this is last year's that we're looking at but do we know let here is like what was the summer slip like oh gotcha yeah I could have probably added that but I wouldn't know how to put it on did I add that no I didn't um yeah I can definitely show that the next meeting okay or share that with you all um when we look at this it's it's a far um Rosier story than when we look at the mcast scores yes can can you guys talk us through why the discrepancy between I ready which looks like our kids are performing at or above above grade level consistently relative to the incast scores where we're where we're performing under the state for math well even our ma even our math scores don't look as good as the I ready math scores is it that they are more familiar with I ready because they're doing minute like what's the thinking I know that oh go ahead so the first year at least I can say that the casing was quite off because when we first started our brand new math program our teachers were feeling like how do I start off and teach all of this knowing that kids were hearing things for the first time they weren't sure about had never heard before and they spent a lot of time trying to backfill information and Concepts to make sure the kids were ready for what they were beginning to teach even though the program was like stay the course it's going to come back and be you know come back around again teachers were like but I just can't do it they don't understand how do I teach them this when they're really not familiar with it so our pacing was quite off that first year which um is to be expected and we continued to have conversations and talk about how to try to make sure that they were utilizing the curriculum in such a way that they could combine lessons if they were feeling like kids were starting to kind of caught up so that second year they trusted the process they started when they were supposed to and they started doing through the program as they needed to and went through it that started to make a huge shift as far as the I mean I guess part of it might have to be like looking at the questions and the way the questions are written on mcast versus the questions that are written up for um you know the I ready I ready doesn't usually have like there are four parts to this one question where mcast will break things apart and there's multiple answers to a question that might be something that we could begin looking at um but I definitely know that one of the things that teachers are saying loud and clear is I really do like and appreciate the fact that we have a program and everybody's doing it and the language is the same the process is the same so when kids move on to the next grade they understand what the whole process is going to look like for math where they're not having that same experience in ela and I think that's why our scores are looking the way they are is we don't have an Ela program and our teachers are definitely saying we would benefit from one yeah the and two two things I'll I'll add to that too the first is um to what you said before familiarity um students we we have the I um math curriculum that's that's the curriculum that we use and this is the I Benchmark assessment so there is some familiarity with how the program works um with how the the questions may be worded that kind of thing um and and there's something to be said for that um that that there is you know a level of comfort with a program that's known um another thing that comes to mind this isn't meant in any way as as any kind of excuse or or anything is that um when students take the I Benchmark if they if I were to take it and I were just to kind of either get frustrated or not really care and just answer whatever Willy neilly and just kind of get through it and rush through it um a little little red flag would appear on the report when it went to teachers and would say hey Conor rushed on this he he went through fast it was clear um so this is not a valid um valid thing so we would have Conor take it again um the kids do if they didn't sleep the night before if they're feeling sick um doesn't doesn't matter they come in they take mcast and that's the data that goes into it um so there's no it's not you don't have you don't have the the luxury to to do that to say hey Connor I noticed you finished your mcast assessment in 15 minutes this morning you really think you worked as hard as you could on that it's actually um not not only can you can you not do that it's illegal to do that um the way it's set up so that and when we have a sample size as small as we do if you have one or two kids in a class that does that um that you know you're you're then talking about a a a measurable percentage of the class um so so data can get can and does get skewed that way um I think one of the reasons that we historically have seen such higher rates of proficiency on the 10th grade uh on on the 10th grade mcast has probably been that students really know that it counts then um it counts not not just for graduation but also for things like the John and Abigail Adams scholarship where students can qualify for for actual um money based on on how well they do um and and I I think you you have seen students take it a lot more seriously then yeah um and and to the to the familiar familiarity point that I made before um I have been in in um other districts and areas where where there's almost like a boot camp leadup to mcast where okay mcast is coming in two weeks we're going to spend the next two weeks just taking mcast questions and looking at them and just doing that um and and just kind of drill drilling it in um I I have a kind of a philosophical opposition to that um I I really truly believe that a performance at on any assessment whether it be IR whether it be um mcast whether it be the unit test should be a result of good teaching and student learning not of um just drilling test taking strategies um for the sake of doing well on one assessment um that's given once a year I think my I had just like one point to say just from seeing my kids using I ready and proring an mcast exam um the platform is very different also like the M MKS exam super dry super boring like very stressful too uh and when you go to I ready it's a very like a very more fun more relaxed setting so I like just from my kid like seeing my kids is using it I know that when my son was having to do to to do the MK he was super stressed he was worried he was like and he's a a worried kid in general so it didn't help and but in and when he is taking I ready or using I ready it's much less uh like this is a make or break situation it's engaging so it's more engaging it's more fun there's more color there's more um more to keep kids at least younger kids engage than mcast which is pretty basically gray with just like questions and like options and every so often there are technological issues that we experienced too last year for example we had um the the state prescribes on these two days you have to give M 10th grade mcast like these are the two days you have one of those two days um all of our students got to I think it was question 11 uh and they could not proceeded go forward or backwards pass that question because the test needed it needed M Internet Explorer a version that was like 13 years old to be installed on computers to run that particular question so it took a full day of Our IT department looking into why this was kicking everyone out um to be able to to solve that and so we were we got a uh a we we were able to give it on the next two days after that so we had to get special permission from the state to do so um so that kind of thing you know that happens on on a day when students are T taking mcast again that's that can go into the the data as well I have two followup questions um so with the mcast scores we're able to compare ourselves to the to the whole state and we're able to pull out and compare ourselves to our neighbors can we do that at all with I ready like it's saying what the ex what the grade level expectation is but if if every if most schools are meeting or beating that then it seems like it's not really a fair expectation like it's it's you know if if if all the schools in the area are are beating what's the expectation then maybe that's not really the expectation so I'm just wondering if there's a way it's not quite as rosy as it looks yeah so I think the the short answer is we'd have to reach out to ir and see if they would give us permission to access other schools or districts data um but I believe the way that they Norm their their expected growth is based on performance from all around so they you know they look at wanting to have you know wanting to have all students in in that kind of um that that typical growth and stretch growth and so they've normed it based off of based off of student performance I believe so if there was a covid pullback for All For You know the entire student population would it then kind of lower what the expectation is with I ready because because if it's going off like a bell curve basically and the B curve has shifted from Co will it have lowered the expectation whereas mcast would not have that's a great question and I don't know the answer to it um but it's certainly something we can find out okay um and then do I Ready's expectations for what is a grade level match mcast so like what I ready is expected in third grade does that match mcast third grade math and so they do the the strands and um and standards do align okay y so the the mcast standards the the mcast assessment is based off the Massachusetts state standards um I already has based theirs off of it as well there's there's a lot of carryover between Common Core and Massachusetts state standards I is more aligned to Common Core but for the Massachusetts schools they have they have Incorporated that any differences that are in there okay so one of the challenges before well we were just looking at all the i stuff um when families go looking to compare schools when they may think about school choice the only data that's available to them as incast unless of course we choose to publish something else on our website is there a pro conon sort of thought whether we would want to have some of these spring or fall to Spring shifts available to families who were thinking about Hatfield schools I I think so and we could reach out to the folks that iated to see if they um you know if they're if we are able to compare Beyond just our district we could we could certainly look at that um and what I really like about this is it shows the it shows the amount of growth in a you know from September to June of one year um so you're not comparing you know march to March where you have a little bit of growth summertime then more growth than winter um so I think that's a great idea and I think um you know I think this I mean this slide here speaks for itself when you have that you know that that amount of of of green and growing green and shrinking red all right um the Dr results um from remind what that stands for developmental reading assessment thank you I think I did that again yep no Spring to Fall no no actually no that's spring 2024 and then this fall of 2024 so I think that did that correctly um yes um so this is last year's so this is the summer the spring data and then you what you're seeing on the right is our fall data um because kindergarten doesn't complete the Dr in the um this in the fall this early because they're still working on learning so the Dr the developmental reading assessment is reading um text and we have benchmarks in um of when well first of all let me stop for say this is done three times a year it's done in the fall in the winter and in the spring this is a reading level and we have um benchmarks and expectations at the end of each grade where we want and expect students to be reading before they go on to the summer and into the next grade the following year so and as you can see 39% of our kindergarteners met the um the expectation of being at an level four by the end of kindergarten first grade had 41% meeting their Benchmark second was 36 third 84% um fourth was 59 fifth was 48 and then the sixth grade did I ready and 37% of students were either at or above Benchmark um those that were I want to say that we were do we testing this fall um kindergarten like I said did not do the um Dr yet they take that in the winter but first grade 58% were were um meeting their fall Benchmark 9% for second grade 52 for third grade um and fourth fifth and sixth started I ready so they were doing uh 52 46 and 39 were at or above Benchmark for ELA so can I ask a question so the spring of 24 the first grade was 41% those first graders are now the second graders in the fall of 24 yes and they're at 9% yes is that summer slip or do we know what it is that's a com yes a combination of Summer slip as well as um again when you have new students that come in or Choice students that may or may not be where you want them to be that's a piece of it or but a lot of it it was the summer slip what about second to third grade yeah that's what I was looking went way up right that's again so that's an anomaly as far as trying to understand why only 36% of our students again I didn't look to see how many of those students were the same ones that came in um but yeah that is an jump because you would think if nothing else it would be more of a drop not significant that that 9% is a huge drop yeah from 41% down to but again that that's an understanding that students were reading at a 16 and then they needed come in Reading at an 18 so if they were not reading over the summer weren't engaged in any reading of any books and or doing any of their um Lexia over the summer because again we have both I ready and Lexia available to students until August and then by the second week in August or the first week in August we pretty much shut those down because then we're doing our rollover so we're we we're moving kids into the next grade and then we need to have them take assessments or kind of like a but yeah that's so the can I ask a quick The Benchmark for the fall is that a benchmark for expectation for a fall student or is that a benchmark to say this is the great second grade level is X and if you're you're reading at second so it's 9% of them come in Reading at second grade level at the beginning of the year at or above yes so the expectation day one of second grade is not that you're going to have everybody reading what is expected to be at the end of the year so that Benchmark is set for the destination it's not a benchmark for where we expect them to come in in the fall well actually no it is it's a fall Benchmark yeah it's a fall Benchmark that's what I wanted to clarify you said the Dr is given three times a year yes and so is there a different Benchmark for each of those like beginning of second grade middle second grade and second grade yes there is got it so what we're seeing in this class is that at the end of first grade A or the yeah the end of first grade 41% of students were where a first grader should be correct in the spring yes but then only 9% were where a second grader should be in the fall correct okay is there any age or grade area that the regression and the summer slip is more prominent that you see it more than other grades or like with the younger students is it less less likely to stick over the summer as a kid that's in fifth grade generally it's kindergarten to First that tends to be a bigger drop because again those students typically aren't really parents aren't as engaged and wanting to make sure they're continuing to read with their student or listening to them being to being read with um it's also harder for them too I mean the the skills when you're when you're learning the phonics and the and the rules of reading you're really talking about decoding a and it's much harder to do that than you know if you're in fourth fifth or sixth grade and you pick up a book and read it you're like oh hey this looks interesting and you you know that's practice that's you know just by kind of existing um and in those in those ages when you are reading things you're you're practicing so it's it's harder for students to access the the practice on those foundational skills too in those earlier grades I mean actually that data actually does show this because in the upper grades that dip is not as significant as it is typically in the younger grades how comparable are Dr and I ready benchmarks well it's a reading assessment and it's one in which the teacher is the students aren't on a computer this really is a teacher listening to a student read um and answering asking them questions so in that regard it's um a bit more reliable in that it's a one one-on-one assessment between a teacher and a student um versus a computer where the teacher isn't necessarily sitting right there watching the student complet it um is this so like in the early grades is it is it just phonetics and ability to read or is it comprehension or is it it's a little bit of all of it okay yeah I was just going to ask maybe I'm getting a little bit ahead because I know we have touched on this in previous meetings but feel like in this presentation and we're getting uh test results in ela from the mcast the I ready the Dr and next Slide the Dibbles so I'm just like wondering like how yeah like basically how they compare to each other and if we're trying to assess substantially different things in each of these like can we even compare well the Dr historically is more about understanding and comprehension where this is one you're saying sitting down one onone with a teacher correct right and both all of these both the dibles and the Dr are and again this is another question that we can continue to look at if we pull our Ela committee together it's really trying to look at what assessment you know what do we need to know what do we need to find out about children's understanding about how to read and what is going to get us those the results that we need so we can better understand how to support them um so we may find that we're over testing and we might need to look at only doing one or two things or other people might be like no we might need to incorporate a couple of more because having this many more data points will provide us more details so just like big picture the Dr you said is a little bit more about like comprehension like you read something in front of the teacher and then answer questions yes the dibles as I understand is timed yes it right and so that's more about like how quickly and easily you can read correct and then I already I'm just sorry guys I'm so concrete I ready is a little of everything that's done on a computer yes and then mcast is we know what the mes on a computer and boring it is so boring also Bor the trickier part about the IR you know some there does there is a phonics component and a phological component but again because you're not right there listening and watching the student you really don't know so if they say they've tested out of it or they've failed it or they they're flagged because they're not doing well you don't know what specifically the problem is they can try to look at and tell you a little bit this is what we think they're ready for next but the dibles in the Dr because they are teacher to student and it's oneon-one you can get a little bit more information so you can kind of be like oh yes this fluency is impacting their comprehension or the fluency is not impacting the comprehension this student is really struggling with vocabulary all of these things that there are talked about in the story they're they don't have any background knowledge or scheme to this is what's impacting their comprehension so we need to be focusing on making sure they really have a lot more vocabulary skills so I'm finding this explanation is helpful one more thing we're talking about Ela in general and we're basically talking about reading um writing so we use the srsd that's but that's assessed separately that's not on doesn't the mcass have writing they do so so the writing is in the mcast correct and not I ready it's not in the ready not in I only mcast out of the test that we're looking at correct got it we do um we are using the srsd in grades um K to six and they do have pre- and post assessments and there is a grade thing I mean they we've we don't need to talk about it more I'm just making sure like yeah that we okay we are making sure that we're teaching that too totally but the things that we're looking at today are more about reading yes okay sorry for the inro no no no that's fine so the Dibbles as you said is done is a benchmark it's three times a year um we do all students so it is a tiered one um so all students are dibbled it is a fluency so it is timed students are reading three cold passages and there's an average taken um and again this is an indicator so if students are not reading fluently they typically will say that that could potentially be impacting their understanding of what they're reading um so in kindergarten the spring I did that right yeah spring of 2024 um 52% of our kids met that Target Benchmark for the end of the school year 77 in first 36 in 2nd 62 in 3rd 30 and fourth and 65 and 5ifth we didn't give the Dibbles in um sixth grade because they were using the I ready um this fall um again kindergarten I'm just shocked that there's just no correlation from one group to the next well again you're going to notice that kindergarten the dip and K right so kindergarten is not assessed in the Dibbles right now because again they're still learning their letters they have six more to go and then they'll know them all um but fourth grade ended the year 30% and came back and was at 65 yes but thir grade was 62 and then came back at 44 like it's just there's no tracking no correlation and if it really begs any questions so yeah it's but I mean again is a data point so as we're trying to get a bigger picture of a student so when we're sitting at data meetings we can actually look at individual students and then we could we all of this is colorcoded so it's much easier for us to be like how is their fluency in relation to where they're at in their reading you know their uh their Dr how is that correlating to any other assessments that we have and that's how we then start figuring out you know does the teacher need to do two reading groups for that that student or this group of students does the math interventionist the reading interventionist need to see them so those kinds of things come out of those meetings where I know this is kind of group and doesn't do as much however when we are sitting at data meetings it is easier for us to look at and to look at this disag disaggregated data to be able to then form better ideas on how to set forth goals and who's doing what with those students it certainly supports new curriculum for ELA yeah it doeses because that is something that they are feeling they definitely need and want and these these assessments too they they do inform different different things as well so the Dibbles um really is a the is a foundational reading assessment so when you're at those early early ages kindergarten first grade there there are things like letter naming fluency or not word fluency there's like five components to the the Dibbles where it's not that that way for grades 3 through six it literally is oral reading fluency but letter naming fluency nonsense word fluency phon I mean it's just there's so many different small subsets also of those that might also be part of what is making some of these numbers be different and so this is really about the process of learning to read and reading the Dr then gets into comprehension can inform reading groups um so so there's there are slightly different facets to each of these as well that again round out a a bigger picture of assessment um so so this is our last slide I believe um in generally speaking um here are some some big picture takeaways we can take from all of what we're seeing so uh results on mcast which is what we are using to compare um you see some some areas where we're above somewhere areas were we're below but generally speaking we they they they appear to be comparable to surrounding districts um we are seeing results year to year with the new math curriculum we saw the the trend upwards in our math scores um we have 100% competency for graduation there's a little star there because um because that is no longer a thing um but uh you know we we historically have had and continue to have stronger performance there in that 10th grade um we I I think one of the things that this shows us when we when we look especially when we look at that red that red category on the mcast and the shrinking red categories on I is that we are we are doing a good job addressing crack slippers or you know kids that could fall through the cracks making sure we have back stops for them um one thing that we we haven't really focused on in our conversation tonight but I think um was apparent to me and to some others looking at is that those blue categories on mcast um and the you know the the higher green categories on I ready is um our higher our higher level Learners how are we pushing those students from green to blue or from um green to dark green on I already um because I you know I think one of the areas where we are um lower than many of our com um surrounding districts in the state is on those those higher um higher achievements those those higher performing students um our internal proficiency scores you know across the board I already Dibbles Dr they show that students are moving we can see growth scores throughout the year for individual students as well as for um for whole groups um from Fall to Spring um and then I think the thing that we've seen that's come up in conversations with teachers as well as U that we saw here tonight is the questions that uh around Ela you know we've seen the results of a new map curriculum a few years ago that have have has been phased in over time um and I think I think we do need to ask the question about our our Ela curriculum and if if they're is a um if there is a a product or a a curriculum that exists that could better serve our needs um and I think maybe with the timing with the move of the sixth grade to the Middle School the timing could be right for that as well to look at that question other questions from the committee as we wrap this up can I hit up a couple questions um how many days per year do we like is are the students just focused on standardized testing that's a good question um sorry four for uh grades four and three four and six six days for grade five because they have to do two days of science so it's two days of ela two days of math two days of science forast Testing y we do the entire School the same two days and what about like I ready and Dibbles assessments are how much of a of a school day or of days do those take up um I would say about the same two days for each because they are also not timed they historically say it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to administer but teachers have been finding that it takes longer than that so they typically give kids two days to complete um of diagnostic so if we're doing that three times a year that's generally about six time six days out of the year for both Ela and then for grades four five and six this year that'll be six days also for um for the math as well is it worth it to give up that much school time to get the assessments I'm asking as a completely naive person this actually it's not uh it's just an it would be basically the the teacher giving up their math block that day it it's not like we just stop all teaching whatsoever and nothing else is happening it's except for that assessment um mcast even when well that's a bit of a different story but um yeah I mean I think the data that they get the teachers are are are getting from that is definitely helpful so it's not six days it's six hours hours six hours at least for the I ready implementation or that the trying to get the information there mcast they say that average is two hours um for each session roughly it is an untimed assessment so we do have some students that will take upwards of four hours to complete um and we just move them into a separate location with a proctor to to finish but most students do complete it within that two-hour time frame and generally most schools at least to whom we compare would use the same kind of testing soup right most schools are using Dr and dibles and mcass and we're not doing more than others are yeah or something like that um we're actually required now to have something similar to the dibles as a um as a screener for dyslexia as well um so that's a requirement from the state um in in Mo most of districts all other districts that I've been part of have some kind of internal um they there was a time where they called them District determined measures but they have an internal assessment protocol as well um I'll say at Smith Academy we um we really only lose time for mcast um based on on the schedule when we do IR ready um in the past we' done it during our X block which has did not go over great um as you might imagine um so what we do now is we have we run a we run a two-hour delay schedule when we give I ready uh and we have students log in and take it for that that first chunk of time um and then classes are shortened by um to about 40 minutes on those days which is it's not a significantly less it's about 10 minutes less per class um on the days when we take I ready so I still have their it's it's not you know they're not losing two blocks of geometry to take their math I ready they're losing you know 10 five 10 15 minutes from multiple classes throughout the day um but they still have those classes in the afternoon okay quick follow up to that and then I have one more question and then I'll stop um so you're saying that they do like the I ready like first thing in the morning when they get there so knowing that like in like high school students perform better later would it make more sense to have it be like a 10 to 10 to 12 9 to 11 instead of a seven to n thing yeah it could okay um and then how the fall assessments where we kind of reassess where how much we've lost over the summer where they are how quickly in the school year does that happen I'm just wondering like are the kids in school mode yet mentally or is it like you know the the first week or second week of school and they're they're still on summerrain we we try to do it pretty quickly um we I think we did it the third week of school this um this fall uh we we try to do it pretty quickly to get a to real to really get a um a snapshot of where students are begin beginning of the year because you know even if it's it's early in the year and they may not be back into the swing of things fully with school um that's where they are as that's where they're coming into the school year as Learners so they may you know they they may recover from the summer slip relatively quickly but they that that's where they are coming into the into the school year so we give them a little bit of time but we we don't you know we uh we also realize there's a lot going on at the beginning of the year and um it seems like a good time to to just to do that as part of what everything else that's going on as well we do the same we give them about two weeks and then by that third week we're starting assessments okay I think that's important too because it will give their teachers an idea of where they need to that's the other data shouldn't form instruction and um the quicker you can have workable data the quicker you can design instruction around it yeah I always find these really beneficial and the conversation's helpful thank you for pulling all the data together because I know that's a and thank you for explaining every single one to me again every time the more we hear it the more we'll retain you know we don't deal with it yeah yeah that's like the summer slip have a conversation in the spring we will know the so um I just want to recognize that there are um administrative reports School Finance subcommittee report policy subcommittee reports does anyone have anything you've had the committee's had a chance to review them is there anything anybody want to bring up and discuss or you have questions that you want to ask Administration is there anything you want to make sure you bring up off of those reports because otherwise I I'm going to move us forward can I have just one thing I promise to be quick um we did receive the grant for the Innovation um Pathways planning so we got we have a grant from the state to plan those courses so um we have requested uh staff had sent me a list of courses from Vermont State University that they'd be interested in pursuing and um to just get the description to see if they would like to develop those courses here we have a list of 24 that staff are interested in awesome that we' requested so we're waiting to hear back uh from Vermont State University on whether or not we can offer their entire course catalog but yeah so we're we're excited about that and there's there seems to be a lot of Buzz and excitement among staff about it that's wonderful great that's wonderful best updates um can you again the timeline yeah so both of these Innovation Pathways and the and they're they're linked together so part of the part of the Innovation pathway Grant is developing these course these courses to align with the adventure leadership program um wait so the Vermont State courses will align with some of them yep got it and then the partnership with Vermont State University that extends Beyond this we're looking at developing courses this year uh for to offer those courses next year okay so fall of 25 so for Vermont and and for the adventure leadership yes both correct College course credits from Vermont starting next year and transition seamlessly to greenfields So Greenfield and Vermont State University so they they both will have coursework that's um available perfect so some of the internal courses that we offer uh will will be part of it and also um some of the more Hands-On courses will be through Greenfield Community College um Partnerships with Berkshire East um and other other um companies so as we head into the spring we'll start seeing more from the districts ready to go to families to trumpet the opportunity it's awesome very exciting glad you glad for the update 24 and 24 courses is the whole catalog all things I was thinking what four yeah right well to be fair we will not be able to offer all of those next year but want to from the staff is that's awesome it it's really exciting and the goal is to just get into a a rotation so you know every every year we have two or three courses that we offer that are unique to that year so that by the time students graduate they have you know four or five courses that they've they've taken for credit it's amazing um there's one thing I would like Mr Sullivan to pull off the finance report and give an update because he um did a little did a little uh homework with the Town Clerk and I think it's news worth making sure that we all know but we we put it on to the public record could you talk about upcoming numbers for potential classes once we we know how many kindergarteners we have but what's coming sure so knowing that we had a small kindergarten class this year a small a small eligible resident population this year um uh and I have a daughter who just turned three and School this year and um you know we have a small preschool this year we had two classes last year we only have one this year so I had reached out to um Elena Wilcox our CL actually I reached out to the town manager and then got sent to Elena um and I asked if we could get a list of you know not names but just you know how many students are eligible to be coming into our school system in and from the resident population over the next few years um so towards the bottom of my report there's that chart there showing our current kindergarten class has only 12 eligible students and then in both of the years currently in preschool there's only 12 eligible students So currently in school we have 24 posses from town that we're pulling from um but then coming to a preschool near us next year we have 26 Rising three-year-olds um who will be eligible for preschool which means next year we will have 48 possible uh 38 possible students uh and then the following year we will have another 19 coming in so possibly 45 kids eligible for preschool um and you know this was kind of like a experiment you know like seeing the 12 wondering what was coming and is that Trend or just a blip and it seems like it's a three-year blip it kind of aligns with Co which makes me just wonder someone wants to go down that rabbit hole um uh and then a big postco boom um so anyway that was exciting and good news and um hopeful for the future and uh hopeful that we can get possibly back up to two preschool classes this year see what happens so as we go into budget planning we're mind full of the resident numbers and I believe the school's already getting ready to reach out and find all those potential preschoolers yes I just met with the cfce which is the organization that meets and does the summer like this may planning of this fun activity and let's get parents to come in and I said no no no no we need to do this in like January open house prek open house kindergarten and they're going to come in and and participate and join in that too so love to hear just refresh applications now are due uh February yes but we are going to be reaching out to families with the openhouse Flyers um what preschool is like how much it's going to be all of that in in the preschool after care that's also available all of that's going to be going out to families the beginning of January so that we can then send them applications for or let them know about um I think it's February 2 o' on February 14th there go what applications that's the for preschool applications everything everything's on the same day all the things school choice and preschool we tried to make that simple and easier to have one right that's a good opportunity to move on to policy because policy team was looking out for everything being smooth there that's awesome trying crushing it as usual and clearly crushing it based on a through F on the agenda this even we're going to bundle of these we can bule I think we should I I would recommend a bundle so um I'm going to actually start with a bottom of my report briefly which is just you know you have it written but basically we have been working on a couple of things in policy as a subcommittee um we are working on some of our longer Term Policy goals for the school year um notably um our code of conduct policies which cross over into a ton of different uh it's like not just one policy it's many policies so we are working on Gathering data uh making a timeline for that um we also reviewed the policy manual to consider policies that may need to be updated um with the sixth grade moving to Smith Academy so two for example that we pulled out and pulled forward for a targeted review are the Middle School sports and the School Musical policies so we'll be looking at those and um I also am the representative to the wellness committee I had a meeting with nurse Jean and the wellness committee is going to start looking at the wellness related policies um before then bringing it over to the committee so that's just like our general update um in terms of the policies we're presenting for vote today um I'd like to take them in I would suggest taking them in two chunks so the first one is policy ikf the graduation requirements this is the second reading of that policy um to be honest we do not make changes changed the date at the bottom I don't think we've had conversation on a few not make changes since our last meeting yeah right so at our last meeting there was not feedback from the committee that would indicate changes right um has anyone heard from I have only heard positive things from the community about the community service aspect lots of positive things about that including people asking me if they can start yet um I don't know anyone else we're happy to take any discussion it looked good last time we looked through it is there a motion to approve ikf so moved I'll second any further discussion all in favor of approving ikf graduation requirements as presented say I I I any opposed great 5 thank you committee for updating that yeah and I think that's a testament to our school to get all that I think it's G to be great um just as a quick point of order for anyone who's joining us um those will take effect starting next year yes thank you um the next group of policies um are ones that we are reviewing just on the basis of time frame um nothing else really brought them forward but you know every so many years the policy subcommittee tries to review all policies um so we have policy AA the school district legal status um which we reviewed and cross checked so when I mean we cross check these policies we look at the masc template policies we look at the references and make sure that they're all updated um we cross check against any of our other internal policy as needed um so out of these five other policies that we are recommending to read and vote on we made essentially no edits to any of them with the exception of add which is background checks um it is a very long legal policy um it is consistent with the template policy that we have we again double checked the um the references and we did make some style updates to that one um to change pronouns just to make it more inclusive um I am happy to discuss any of these but I don't really have much else to say about them on ADD yes there's a spot where I agree with Google's suggested auto correct oh wait let me pull it I don't know what page what page this one is so long I know uh I'm on page four kind of in the Middle where it says they solicits yeah I'm trying to see one thing in there where oh yeah uh yeah thank you uh hold on I shall change right now good catch there was one place I didn't change the pronouns because it was a quote from like legal document fix that one any other thoughts or comments they threw that in just to see if we've read I mean actually yes no I'm just kidding definitely I not the writers for the bands who want the M&M's picked out right totally in policy AE did you just delete a bunch of blank bullets oh yeah yeah it all the formatting was so bad it didn't change a lot of formatting [Music] these would anyone like to make a motion to approve these as they are currently amended since that just got updated so AA AB a d c a d da a and AE I'll make the motion I'll second is there any further conversation okay all in favor hi any opposed thank you policy team thank you all that's a really short vote for I know it is a lot of like double-checking work and we appreciate it was a little tedious we are here for you the code of conduct at all or I mean I I don't have much more of an update about the code of conduct except we've like gone through made a list of policies that need review we started looking at the masc template policies we requested a bunch of data from Dr Driscoll um and just started sort of formulating our approach this is going to be several months the goal the goal for this is to finish it this school year yeah yeah um if I can just add something because it really to policy um the collaborative is hosting um learning sessions for administrators about Ai and they're offering these courses for 3 hours at a time and when the administrator leaves they should have a draft policy regarding AI great so being proactive and thinking about that I will be there coming in the future awesome well thank you so we're gonna move on now to conversation in two parts on school choice um the first is uh the every year the committee is required to determine whether they will continue to participate the following school year um in the school choice program and so tonight we have a vote scheduled for whether we're going to participate next year um I believe the requirement is that it will be at least one seat in every grade that we open we do not need to choose tonight how many seats per grade we're just deciding whether we're going to open it or or not open it and if there was any grade that we would not open we would we would want to designate that um if the committee feels like they are ready to make the decision on how many seats we certainly can do that um but we might have new news later in in the school year on that um it's just a matter of let's we're going to we sort of have these votes timed out over the calendar year and I want to make sure we're staying on track um so that is the first piece of our school choice conversation and Administration has provided us some information on the current class size the their current recommendation the total class size and we have a little look of like how many school choice kids that group currently has how many locals so and there aren't any grades that you do not recommend no so would the committee like to have further conversation about this tonight are we ready to just make a binary we're going to open or not open vote I would make a motion to participate in school choice if the committee is ready for that I'll second oh good G get credy for that you want to specify more yeah oh of a motion to participate in the school choice program for the 2526 school year with uh at least one spot in each grade level okay so Kathy's made a motion Becca has seconded is there any additional conversation all in favor I I any opposed okay so we will have school choice opening up next year um and Dr Driscoll are we on Part B now Part B so this is um something that I was asked to bring to the committee by a uh by a parent um and it's a kind of a a unique uh school choice application that we currently have um so we recently changed the policy voted through the change policy to have um a pause in accepting midyear enrollment um between December 15th [Music] and January 1 I believe I may have those dates wrong my octob we stopped taking in October October October right yeah okay uh anyway until January 1 after the um after the uh the the holiday break so we have uh we we currently have actually we have two applicants one applicant is a student who was a prior student uh in the current 7eventh grade so so this uh student was with the group for a number of years um left after sixth grade and um her and her family would like to to come back to Hatfield schools um and is interested in in starting back again uh they they've asked if if there's any chance that the committee would wave the um the start date after January 1st uh based on the fact that she this student was a uh previous student with the community um already I think an additional piece there is um they're hoping that uh when she enrolls uh she she'll be able to play uh winter sports too right now Mr Duncan is looking up the MIAA policy on if a student comes in kind of midseason uh which would be in January uh if they would still be eligible or not SCH choice is a student you said left in sixth grade like of year where they left at the end of six and and then had seventh grade somewhere else but like once to come back yeah so it's only been gone from the class A couple months couple months yeah okay that's what I was trying to lean okay and the second application we do have a second application to um Riley has spoken with that family and they're interested in starting after January after the start and that one is within our that's within that's that's no comment I think that's appealing to a lot of families but I can see why this is sort of a different situation one of the reasons though that we put in that second entrance time was feedback from teachers right um and allowing that time to come in right I mean I I understand that this student is familiar with the classmates but they're not necessarily familiar with Smith Academy and how Smith Academy schedule operates and so there is that learning curve there it's not like they left at the end of fifth grade and now are coming back into sixth grade and it's it's all the same in the elementary school there's no new routines or no new things that they have to learn I don't know I'm torn what is the um are they still in school and yep like they don't there there will be no Gap in their education like they didn't stop going to that school correct okay I believe so right I'm not 100% sure but I believe so okay and what's the recommendation from your end this this is one where I'm torn too I mean the the um the community did make a policy for a reason they heard from teachers they heard from staff that this should be um beneficial to have that um but but I think the the intent there was primarily around um students who were kind of unknown entities coming back and in this case we have someone who is has been part of the community um for for her whole school career up until now um and and is a known um is a known entity within within the within the the current group um so I could I could see you know I could see being willing to give a kind of a one-time um waiver for this um it it may be precedent setting if we if we do it um which is my only only hesitation um you know especially when another applicant is right right there as well one of the things we did talk about was the idea of if kids started at the same to have like a cohort that started together I I'm kind of bummed that the other new student might not start the say like to have that sort of I mean it's only a month the other new student is also Smith Academy the other choice application is also Smith Academy same well yeah I'm I hate to say this but I'm wondering if [Music] the request for the waiver has to do around joining the team joining Athletics if that is an issue or not that's a really interesting right wrinkle to me too because if if the if by not having the waiver we exclude the students participation in something right like that's yeah that that's where I'm and we don't know and I I don't I don't know that it would be an exclusion if somebody moved into town wouldn't they be able to just join the team right I think I think so within a certain within a certain time frame of the moving in but is School of Choice different in that I'm not saying that this is the case here but if in one District they have so many students they don't make the team and so they apply in another District where they know they need players or they will make a team or they get recruited from one District to another yes on on under the table under the table right yeah so so maybe Mia has a clause about that do that so so that's that's the Clause is that you can't do that when when a when a student moves from school to school they have to get they you know they their previous uh athletic director has to sign off on it saying that the the move was not made for a sports reason right we're not recruiting EX for a seventh grader it's probably unlikely that would ever be the case but the Mia may have rules because of well I do think that's that's important here the the rules that the Mia has really are around Varsity athletes yeah which would not be the case with a seventh grader um but yeah the the rule the the Mia does have pretty strict policy on um on students when they move if you know they have to they have to be signed off by the the sending in the receiving athletic director that is not for um you know that Sports isn't the primary uh or really a motivating factor behind the move Connor you they want to come regardless right if it's if it's now or if it's January 2nd they do okay I'm not inclined to start making exceptions it's like when we just made this policy like I I I I get it and I get that they were here last spring and they went somewhere else and they want to come back and I I get that and I don't want to seem unsympathetic but I if we start making exceptions within a month or two of changing our rules yeah yeah then people are going to question why we changed it yeah right I think the fact that two of them would start together that is actually a bonus for both but it's I'm sympathetic but yeah you know we did work hard on that policy and take into account a lot of feedback right um and finding a happy medium and a compromise about having two entrance dates right um to keep things simplified yeah for our Educators yeah and I think that may make people consider and make not make hasty decisions also in the future yeah about leaving and then coming back and leaving I mean and even think twice before making no considered that they want to come back yes that's great I'm truly delighted they want to come but I'm thinking of you know the seventh grade teachers who would get one student now and in just over a month get another student and that doesn't seem very fair considering the feedback that we got right from they have a month and a half to prepared you know both have applied we know who they are we'll have a month have to prepare if anyone comes with any IEPs we have time to prep for that everyone is set up for Success yeah is there a motion I suppose if we're we would only need a motion if the committee wanted to override and make an exception yes is there anyone who would like to put a motion on the table no okay so um I do think I hear us all really pleased to have people coming back um and coming a new and coming in and new and excited that they get to start Smith Academy together in January yeah so and and we appreciate the fact that it's probably a little heartbreaking right now right because they're looking forward to coming back and ready to make that change so the good news is they can come back and it's not such a long period of plus we have holidays coming exactly not it's even less time yeah speaking of holidays I am interested in hearing for sure about the Mia thing though eventually because if this comes up you know what I mean we would want to re something that we I don't think was on my radar when we were doing this should have been on my radar but no that would be good to know and if that had if that had some particular impact on this group of students the committee can right entertain that when you learn that something that changes um so speaking of holidays uh you have a printout version of the direct CED 25 26 school calendar and this is one of those things that we're trying to get to earlier and earlier every year because we know Camp season is just weeks away when everybody's favorite um pastime of signing your kids up for some is about to hit and we're going to have a calendar ready when it does so um you may have seen I left I left this digitally and I didn't print out electronically how this Compares but it is still from memory so Connor may have to check me a little bit it's obviously still 180 school days which is what we're required to do it has the same number of um uh professional development days work days and curriculum half days for staff as we have this year it has one fewer half day it has an addition add day and a half in vacation time so we cut out a half day but we added a regular half day not a we added in what is essentially two whole days so we lost a half day and we added in and the reason for that is that when we when you look to see where the holiday days fell New Year's Day fell on a Thursday and I think the concern was no one would want to be there on Friday so true so true suspect we would had like low attendance forend and um and then the possibility if we mirrored it up more closely to this year we might have had a a week in December that would have been like one day or one and a half days of school time so this version has a chunk of time I think this is going to be the I'm just going to Dive Right lean into the conversation that December because the way the holidays fell and adding that little bit of extra time would be a big chunk of time off in December 16 days yep it's two full weeks plus the weekends beautiful so for for families that like to travel in the winter it gives them an opportunity to do so um for people who are are obviously still working during that time particularly those who work through the holidays it can be um challenging to find kid care so the rest of this schedule is very much similar to what we have done this year so curriculum days that happen are like half day Fridays we tried to line up with holiday Mondays so again if you had those kind of breaks they matched up we don't have to vote on this tonight we can take a look at it you can have some time to think you can have some time to get feedback I think it has gone to the faculty already correct and what's the it's G to the um HT era so what's been the feedback um theyve they've been receptive um they were they thought they they really like the idea of having those two weeks um they agreed that coming back on the second would have got that made a lot of sense well I suspect other districts will be in the same boat because this is just how calendar is just how the calendar is so um yeah I definitely agree with the second I'm not sure how I feel about the 22nd and 23rd neither am I um I I personally feel it so much and I would I would be comfortable seeing Monday a whole day and Tuesday a half day I note that it still says on the side December 23rd early release PRK through 12 yes I looked at that too s so that's the typo not the one below it sorry in the past asked I don't know if Dr Disco If you were here the last time something like this came up when we had a Christmas Eve or something on a Wednesday creating this you know day and a half blip what was the practice that would have been like five years ago or six years ago I can't I can't recall I can tell you we had Christmas Eve off but the day before was a half a day I that's how it was I think it's dealt with different ways though because I also know of other public schools and going back in Hatfield's history too where we have done two full weeks around the end of the year I'm not I'm not saying we have to I'm just saying I think a lot of districts are gonna you know what I mean it's like every once in a while this comes up and it's always and now we ran into this in the recent past with some families saying but the day before Christ or holiday break is always a half a day and are they going to complain that the 19th is now not a half a day we would hope because nothing gets done on the last day before vacation which was part of when I look like the idea that anything was going to happen on the 2 Monday and a half day Tuesday like I couldn't really see that there was going to be much happening those days right but it wouldn't happen either on the 19th I don't think because it's the Friday before a vacation and everybody's going to be wooo we're gone for two weeks I think so but that's gonna it's gonna happen either way happen anywhere but yeah so why lose a day and a half on our count if it's going to happen whether it happens on Friday or on Tuesday because faculty and families who travel like have a block off I think it's I'm looking at it as an employer and feels like a really good thing to do yeah and even just thinking about it in terms of like I mean I don't I don't know I just don't feel like that day and a half are going to be that useful yeah just like the second of January like coming back for a single Friday just does not feel like learning is just like C yeah that one I don't have a problem with I don't see a difference between a day and a half week and a one day week personally but I mean they're still having the same amount of days in school anyway right they're still we're still fulfilling the amount of days they're going to school correct so it's not like we're taking away from that right the difference would be to be fair is that we would get out of school earlier on the 12th would be a half day right yeah and then if we have the last day would still be the 22nd half day if we had five snow days when's the last time we had five snow days I mean you never know Mr I don't call us snow really I'm not worried about that keep it up that is one thing I would love for our reputation we're the no we go to school when there is no blizzard right perfect yeah I mean I see the perspective of both because I work all these holidays um and I sometimes like it depends on the time of the year I don't have child care it's hard to find something for my kids right to to do or finding Child Care U but also I understand the perspective of the teachers which it's nice to have two weeks and families who travel or who just don't want to deal with well I I also feel like again as someone who's worked many many holidays in my life that while that day and a half will be a thing for some families so is that last week of August and so is the beginning of June because Camp has not started or has already finished for those times as well so this one day and a half for me like I just don't see it as effective learning time and it could be a win in other ways no I yeah I'm no I mean I get it I just think it's it's not the I can tell you it's not the only one as a teach what I would have done and this is regardless of whether or not it would have been the 19th or the 23rd is I would have given my last unit assessment on the 19th so if it if if that was our last day before vacation that's when I would have given it and if we had a day and a half after that weekend I still would have given it on the 19th yeah probably not had as much meaning full work that next day and a half yeah honest yeah I'm okay with it honestly what's bothering me is the fourth being a pday day and a Veterans Day in November no and uh Thanksgiving week that is like the week two weeks in a row where there's a gap of one day it is hard to find child care no I agree like could we not have that PD today at different month a Regal PD it's a regional PD day all the schools take it off so it's annoying no um it is a it historically has been the regional PD day and that what that's meant is that um because it's voting day a lot of a lot of districts they vote at the schools so they can't have school you know in insecurity when when voting's happening um so the collaborative has in the past um offered Regional PD so at different schools will offer different PD it'll be open to all area districts so teachers can find meaningful professional that they'd like to go to that didn't occur this year um they didn't have enough buyin they didn't have enough people that were interested in doing it so this year we ran our own professional development during that day um I have not heard yet but I can reach out to the collaborative to see what that professional development day is if it if they are not planning to do that um if they are planning to do it I would recommend that we we we do have it because it's it people get a lot of really good training and de professional development from it if they're not then we could look at other other months or dates we could move it to the 10th and have those two days off together that's fine like just two weeks in a row when you're having a gap in the middle of your week in China Tuesdays a Tuesday yeah and a Tuesday like it's fine if it's two days in a row at least you can plan that I can plan that week that would be amazing Conor thank you I'm glad you brought that up because the only good reason to have it on that day is if there is like re Regional PD that our staff can take advantage of because that field FKS the town hall exactly so I have another thing here uh if we're worried about these short times and such and we've certainly heard feedback over the years about people not liking us starting before Labor Day do they come back in August for two days the kids or do we Slide the three teacher days over start them after Labor Day and go two more days into June I always heard that the teachers that there was some coming back for two days as opposed to a whole week and then a the it would be four days because it would be Labor day but you get like this little two-day intro and then you come back and do four days and then you come back and have a regular week I feel like that's a switch that has happened at some point in like the mid 90s that we started doing that I can remember it not being that way and then switching so but a lot of a lot of other schools do start after Labor Day and we get families why do we have to start before Labor Day I feel I feel like it's a vocal minority who the same one each the same they don't have to like it's two days you could take them off with your kids I was just throwing it out there since we're talking about adjusting days here and there I don't really personally care either way I mean that's my definitely I think a that's my birthday so it's always nice to sh shoe them off and it's a good transitional day because the kids themselves don't particularly for little kids yeah don't have to go from like nothing thing to a full week of school um going two days and then like having a little bit of a break and going for four days it's like usually they do that anyways in a lot of schools no one wants to bring up like really controversial stuff like why don't we go to a 4day week and work through the summer I mean we could go let's go to a March break instead we could do it just for funsies no it's getting late find out about the regional one is watching this meeting you can give us feedback about the day and a half in December and for fun the the two days in August yes no I'm not really I just threw it out there because we were if there's if there's more than two people who have feedback about the two days in August they'd be nice to hear it yes absolutely I opposed to this hearing from the same three people every year yeah yeah like if it's actually more of a concern than Facebook would have us believe then um by all means let us know for sure like legit feedback yeah and I can I can put this out to the community as well in my newsletter um to get feedback as well make sure they all know it's proposed it's not voted on might be think would be confusing they're hardcore enough that they watch the meeting and they have questions that's one thing okay and if you write your recap you can have them all you can write a recap and they can yes there seek it out they can look it up but yeah I I agree let's just do it in a soft a soft check only for those who are truly invested in our calendar I would love to get more feedback to vote on this I don't so that we can get it out I think agreed we really need to vote on this in December yes I I would be ready to vote on it then I think we just need to know about the the it be to be for yeaha okay so moving on um Dr Driscoll and I wanted to talk about um some potential correspondents uh you may have seen in the news um the pioner valley immersion Charter Pioneer Valley Chinese immersion charter school has requested of the state that they could increase their enrollment by 100 students and you might have seen in the news where other school districts have come out and shared their views and um made resolutions about it they they have done a host of things and so we wanted to see what the committee's sense was um Dr Driscoll has drafted a letter that shares his views very eloquently and you have a draft version of that um but certainly the committee could entertain a resolution as well that would that would correspond um but we didn't want to go through all of that without hearing your thoughts first there um given when the state will take this up we still have time to do that if we want to so this is something that if the committee is um has feelings that are aligned we could bring it back to the next meeting with something to in writing that the committee could like we do with policies take a look at adjust and and vote from there letters to whomever this would go the legislature the governor whomever do they are they actually impactful or is it more of like us just making they have been they have been um in 2017 I believe um the Pioneer Valley Chinese imersion school had applied for um I think they were they were looking to almost uh double their size I think it was dou that was denied um largely as a result of of input from um area area collaborative had um organized amongst their board to draft a letter that each member district sent um at masc just lost the guy's name um he's a rep from out east but he is heavily involved in the legislation and he did a session on this and that yes it really makes a difference when they actually hear from school districts from administrators they want to hear that and they appreciate actually getting something I believe it goes to the State Board of Education which are Representatives much like us just at the state level right so and I would presume that our representatives in general know that public schools would be opposed to such an A Change well actually Dr dll and I met with our State Rep who is also writing a letter okay um on behalf of the her perspective for the districts for the school districts within her District um and so she will copy us on that as well to be fair I am not opposed in general to Charter Schools I am opposed to the funding formula regarding charter schools and public schools you know I think there are some charter schools that are really terrific and they do a good job um but for them to continue expanding and growing in ways is a detriment to us because the funding is not equal and what they're and what they actually end up providing to their students is not equal correct and so when we look at students with needs and what our district provides versus what this particular chart I'm only really looking at this particular Charter where there is data to show it it's not equal um and that they're not providing the same services or that they don't have the same population percentiles is that clear they have few gets the other sure right okay um and whether you know and and how they get such a different percentile than the state averages is I think a question folks may have um but certainly as every one of the area districts is like really working so hard to keep all of our students because the financials only work when we keep our we can keep our kids it's really tough to see that grow particularly when they don't have to play by the same set of rules in a way right yeah I'm unclear of if one is better than another a letter or a resolution um if it's I don't know that it really matters it's not going to matter I think they just they need to see what the sentiment is and I think having it come from something come from the superintendent and something come from the committee which we could also share with the select board and our finance committee yes to say the financials of this are so challenging to our small District like we want to be mindful and even if like they were to you know change the funding formula now there's no reason that they couldn't unchange it in the future you know like just like when they with regionalization they promis we'll pay for all your your transportation and then never did right 40 years later um right yeah so should the financials change we could come we would have a different yeah yeah I mean I like the letter the more they hear from us the better um would you just copy the letter or would you amend it in some way that it reflects that it's from us I think they're if more is more just having something that hits the similar talking points but from the committee and so it might be a letter from the superintendent and a resolution from the like we can work that out um I know amers has sent out their opposition has anyone else made it public Northampton well the city council in Northampton did a resolution and I believe their school committee is working on one I have a collaborative meeting in early December and I can ask I mean there's 37 districts I can ask who else has done a letter or resolution how many students do we send to PCC did I get that right not close but we we had send 11 to Charter Schools the breakout that we get does not break it down by which charter school right yeah okay that um vocational education is separate from this cor I'm just yep because I know we have more than that is there anyone who doesn't want to pursue this okay so with the ringing endorsement of Silence I will put something together for next month um thank you Dr Driscoll for pulling all that together because I think the more they see the more helpful that will be um that is it for our agenda this evening does anyone U Want to make I'll make a motion to adjourn is there a second second all in favor I ijed thank you all thank you the goal the goal is two hours this