##VIDEO ID:47_hjNuiWAg## good evening everyone it's 7 o'clock and I'd like to call together the September 26 2024 school committee meeting if you would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America stands all right this evening we have our consent agenda posted uh the minutes from September 12 2024 meeting as well as the bill as and payroll is there a motion to accept AC motion made by Stacy second second in by elain this will be a roll call vote because we have en know uhing joining us virtually this evening Stacy stus v v yes great elain hi Jean W yes and Jus M votes yes as well we take care of that piece of business thank you so first opportunity for interested citizens so if we have anyone in the room or on Zoom that would like to speak before the school committee now your first chance it be a second chance at the end of the meeting we you okay we'll close that portion of the meeting we'll move on to recognition so this evening we have Rael Rodriguez joining us for our um we'll give a report of events for each of our four schools take it away thank you for having me so for Shaker Lane Shaker Lane's principal and assistant principal have begun their monthly diversity readings in their classrooms the first book they have selected is called it's okay to be different by faren ftil and classroom teachers can sign up to have Miss K and Deacon Le a different book each month on diversity Equity inclusion and belonging sherland fall book fair will also be taking place on October 7th and they hope that families will take advantage of this great event for Russell Street they had their back to school night last week where they where the teachers presented all the exciting learning opportunities the students will have this year many of the classes have been starting the take place in the think chank to work with M McGregor on using MakerBot to design 3d personalized keychains Russell Street students have started earning their stripes as well students who have shown safety taking responsibility respect Integrity perseverance empathy will be displayed on the Bing board in the main fory your seat for the Middle School the map testing occurred yester on Wednesday and makeups will be in the days soon to come and the first kids night out is on October 18th and there will be more details in that short then finally for the high school despite the rain the boys cross yard set on Razer on Saturday was a huge success on Tuesday the high school hosted their senior College Planning night for parents fall plan today is an all student written and performed show in one afternoon and that will take place this Saturday the National Honor Society will run a fundraiser at Anthony's Pizza to benefit the Alzheimer's association association on October 4th so make sure to support a great cause the unified basketball has begun and will have a home game against gron dunable on October 10th and finally College visits have officially begun and we'll be running all through November thank you very much great update any questions for R I think she covered everything yeah great good job thanks so much all right next up we have a Special Olympics update so unified uh Champion schools principal John Harrington will recognize LHS hi everyone um happy to once again come before you to um celebrate special recognition Special Olympics in Massachusetts witon high school is once again recognized by the Special Olympics Massachusetts as a 2023 2024 unified Champion School certificate and um it says thank you for your school commitment to fostering a socially inclusive School climate that emphasizes acceptance respect and human dignity for all students and then hashtag choose to include so it's a nice recognition I want to give a special thank you to Tracy Turner and our special education teacher Eric Arnold who have really been instrumental in keeping this program riding at Littleton high school and a special shout out to our student athletes uh typical students who are partners for our especially partip thank you very much it's nice to celebrate thank you awesome okay then we have other listed which I'm going to make the assumption that superintendent clenchy has some other recognition Okay I was right again just one though yeah just one so I'd like to acknowledge uh Mrs steel principal Kane principal McDonald the ELA implement implementation team and the K to5 ELA teachers for their commitment uh to implementing the new uh reading curriculum at sh Lane and Russell Street school it's a it's a heavy lift it's a huge change from what they've been doing before a lot of work has been put into this and we are we're seeing differences already it's not even the end of September and they're uh you know there they're taking the time and it's it's a tremendous amount of time to ship what you've been doing for many years if you're an experienced teacher and uh to see the results this quickly is is is really really powerful for me as superintend so congratulations uh to all of the teachers and administrators that are involved uh we're looking forward to to a smooth implementation process and it's not going to happen overnight but to see changes as quickly as is as really uh really promising very good really excited you hear that is it possible in a future meeting to hear more about the program and more about these good results that you've started to preview yeah I I I looked it up online I have to say and it was um it I have a lot of questions about um such interesting it's like a knowledge-based program instead of knowledge building knowledge building and um like what great opportunities to connect it with science and social studies and um but it does seem like a big mindset shift for teachers from previous program so I'd love to hear about how you're managing that but it do it does a tremendous job in Reading science and social studies into their units like yeah I mean great to find out like if there's if it aligns with the science and social studies standards like it would be great to elevate those opportunities some does some yeah some are repeated great the social might be taught in grade four but the topic is repeated in ela in grade five which is never never a bad thing so sometimes it's perfectly aligned and other times it's not exactly but it works no it looks like a great choice was yeah I'm excited to hear more yeah awesome great all right move into the meat and potatoes portion of the evening we've got two presentations scheduled uh the first step is uh a map update and before we get there I'll just read the um how tonight's agenda ties back to the Strategic plan I think this is an awesome change we made as a school committee Ela thank you very much um uh so tonight's presentation it's the alignment to the district strategic plan standard one curriculum instruction assessment align enhance excuse me enhance curriculum instruction and assessment to continually improve student achievement the essential question for this evening what the school committee is listening for is how does math data inform instructional practices for the 2020 24 2025 SCH year take it away still awesome thank you and I think we will answer that by the end of the presentation okay um for sure so math growth for this year um tonight's presentation has five major components to it and so we'll start kind of going back to the beginning of what is map growth um then we'll look at the scoring of how it is scored because it is unique um in that way we'll look at our actual data what the data says and then we will go into how we use the data which is really going to hit upon the question for this evening and then we'll share some takeaways from looking at the data um and conversations that we've had so that's our our road mapap for this evening's presentation so starting up with what is map growth so the map growth assessments measure what students know and informs what they're ready to learn next so it's Unique in that way that it's designed to try and have students know about 50% of the assessment so they're not going to know answers to 50% of the assessment and the reason for that is trying to figure out where the student is what they know already and where they're ready to learn next what they're ready to learn as the next component and so next SL please thank you so it is an interm assessment that we do three times a year we it in the fall in the winter and in the spring and as it was mentioned I think theel mentioned um during her report we are currently in macro testing season and so that window is open until October 4th so our students are doing the fall assessment at the moment it is an Adaptive assessment so what that means it's very different than a standardized assessment that it adapts to student responses right so a standardized assessment is every single person in the room gets the exact same assessment the same questions it doesn't matter how they answer it whereas the Adaptive assessment is going to respond to the student's response so if you look at the chart that's there on the screen on the bottom right you will see this is one person responding right so they start and they get the first question correct so it's a green check so the test is going to provide a slightly more challenging question to that individual we can see another green check so they got that second question correct so again it's going to push the student a little bit further to see what they already know that third question the student did not get correct so then it's going to try and level back okay where where are we right so provide a slightly easier question got that one wrong slightly easier got that one wrong so you see on the left side of the graph the chart it starts it's a bit steeper the ups and downs and eventually by the end of the assessment it's trying to level itself out to know exactly where the student is and so that the report that gets run at the end is pinpointing the specific skills that the student has achieved has proficient on proficiency on and the skills that the student is ready to learn and so that is the way that it is an adapted assessment um math grth is also unique because it is a grade level independent assessment so it does not matter what grade level you are in it's going to ask you standards progressively more difficult um to see where you are at so you could be a student in third grade that is really advancing um um within the standards and end up getting some third grade questions because you're finding out where you fall within your knowledge at that point in time the assessment is also linked to our state learning standards see the math grth assessments provide valid longitudinal data based on an equal interal scale which we'll talk about in the next slide and it demonstrates this growth over time so the chart that you see there on top of the screen it shows one student progress over a couple of years right so three of the circles are for one academic year and then the next starts the next year and so we can see students over their time with us in LPS over several years um and see their growth going Beyond just one or two years but all the way through if they've taken it all the way through with us it does provide real time data um on student mastery and achievement on like we said standards based content it identifies the instructional level for each student independent of whatever grade they are in currently enrolled and it does link to instruction to learning targets and to interventions and we will talk about that specifically when we talk about how we use the data and how it relates to interventions and the standards um a couple other items to know about map growth is that the test is untimed technically however it should take students about 45 to 55 an hour to take the assessment um it is a piece of information right is one data point it's nice because it is a live data point that we get quick feedback on as opposed to other standardized tests such as mcast that takes months for us to get the the reports back um it allows us to really me the student where they are so the student can take the assessment and then the very next day or week I'm getting support in what I've identified as need support in which is helpful and just um what you'll see as we progress through but we have our students in grades two through eight take reading and math um and students in grade nine strictly take umly so now moving on to how math growth is scored it is um an assessment that measures student achievement and growth we really focus on the growth to make sure students are learning at an average pace where we would typically like to see them growing um they it does use the RIT scale and so you'll see RIT score RIT is always what we what we call it um that's the rash unit and so it's an equal interval scale just like feet and inches on a ruler right and so it doesn't necessarily matter how old you are everyone grows at their own rate right and so you don't have to be five years old and be a certain spot spot on the you know the growth chart um there's typical there's Norms which is what we have with map growth um but everyone grows at their own pace and the same idea here and so the scale is that's where we really stress that the scale is not bra level defendent it based on how you perform and where you were at previously and where you go next the brid scores typically range from about 100 to 300 and so those are the numbers that you'll typically see and that we'll see this evening the NW EA which is the organization that facilitates the math growth exams put out Norms it was last normed in 2020 right before the pandemic so these are pre pandemic Norms um which is also then very interesting when you compare pandemic scores to pre pandemic Norms um and so we'll see the impact that that has had over over the years the nwaa Recently I just attended a webinar and they are hoping and their goal is to come out with 2025 norms they are slightly hesitant because at the their results at the national level are not catching up to prepandemic times and so they're afraid of reducing the scores of the norms and so they're doing a lot of thinking and consideration of whether to come out with the 2025 norms and how to come out with them in with proper consideration um of the educational world that we're in for tonight's intents and purposes we're using the 2020 Norms as they are listed Fe for you so let's let's dive into the actual data there are two major ways to look at the data and we're going to look at both of those ways tonight the first is that we're going to look at growth over one Academic Year and compare the growth of that grade level to the same grade level for the the previous two years so we're looking at a total of three years from the same grade level this um is really helpful to be able to see like typically where we fall within a grade level um but you do have to take it with a grain of salt because you're comparing two different or three different cohorts right so we're comparing apples to oranges and we know that every cohort has its own unique personality and skill set and growth at which they go um so our first set of data we're going to look at at this so we're looking strictly at grade levels going across um not different corts is what we're going to look at so the chart here that you see it's F Shaker Lane so it's grade two where we start assessing using map growth the left side of the chart has the grade and the subject matter and then we have a few columns that end up being repeated and so we have the fall 21 to Spring 22 me RIT scores for our students and they're observed growth within that one academic year and then that is repeated for the 2223 school year and then most recently the 23 24 school year the far right column I put in there the Norms so we don't have to constantly go back to that Norms chart it's listed there for us um so you can see here that we have um for all of them I'll say it once and I'll try not to repeat myself um but we're above the national Norm at every three level um which is really great and impressive and you're going to see that consistently moving across we do have strong growth overall um in grade two specifically in math and so what's nice to see if we look at grade two math 2122 they ended the year at 20.5 RIT score in 23 they ended the year at 203.27 point4 so we have a really nice growth um coming out of the pandemic with our regards to our math scores um something to notice as we continue on um is that the scores are some of the highest or with regards to math are the highest that we've had in math since the pandemic um in all of the grade levels so since the pandemic our math scores are at the highest they've been um some of the grade levels are even back to pre pandemic scores would be great amount and I will make those out for us when we get to them let ask a quick question before you move to another slide so when you're looking at at a grade level um that has different corts passing through it does this data tell you I mean it's not going to tell you about individual students because it's different students but does it do you use this to evaluate your curriculum instruction instead of the the students themselves right yeah yes so this is more a big picture for us of are we kind of typically staying within our Norm area and even pre pandemic to now we're within point A lot of times and so um that is for us like I look at this of like programming and we'll get to that where some of this data to me is indicating our new k to5 math program is showing success that's what I was yeah yeah and so we can see that here starting I me starting in grade two um our new math program started in the fall of 2022 in our classrooms and so we're going to see even just looking at the observed growth from last year and the 23 24 Academic Year is higher and you're going to see um significant growth within math which to us is an indicator that the new math program our students are seeing success in that program which is great um the next so Brussel Street school again you'll see that exact same thing um Elena what you were just asking is that the programmatically looking at this my eyes automatically because I was curious about our math and the into maath program if you look at the results of the observed growth they're really great um when it comes to the map and so programmatically that's good for us to know to see that data um again overall you see very strong growth in math in grades three through five um all three grade levels at Russell Street are not only the highest since the pandemic but also they surpassed prepandemic scores so in grade three um they surpassed by about four points from prepandemic when I'm saying pre-pandemic I'm referring to the two full school years before the pandemic HIIT so I'm talking about school years um 1718 and 1819 and so our students um in grade three were about four points above PR pandemic grade four they were four and a half points above pre pandemic and in grade five um a little bit closer about4 points above repic spores um which is an amazing um amount of work to our students and our staff to get um the math learning to accelerate the math learning to where it is which is great as we go up in grade levels typically what we end up seeing is that less significant grow and so on one hand this makes the math of observed growth quite impressive right so 17.5 in grade four 12.7 in grade five that's significant observed growth in one academic year um on the other hand we want to make sure that our students are still making strides right and so when we're looking um specifically at their reading right while our students are starting the Academic Year above the end of the national Norm so for example what I mean by that that is if we look at grade three reading the fall of 2023 our students on average their average rate was a 198 the national Norm is that students end grade three at 197.4 so our students are entering above the national Norm at the end of the year they're still making growth right which is great um it's an area when you start to realize the amazing significant growth in math but that's an area for us to focus on and to work on which is why we have looked at our reading programming and have adopted a new program to try and make sure that will supporting all students with their reading and having um have access to the reading um that they should have the next slide please swe going on to the Middle School um again you see some strong growth in math grade six is just like grades three four and five um so they did have two previous years their fourth and fifth grade year they had the in math program um and just like D4 and five they surpassed their prepandemic soures by 1.5 points um again which is very impressive and like in um other cases that we just demonstrated or that I just pointed out to you they're starting the year above the end of the year Norm in most cases and so our students are coming in with some pretty significant skill sets and so are that's why we talk about using this really B growth factor of seeing are our students growing um as opposed to just making sure they're hitting that National norm and then finally we have the high school and the high school um is an interesting because high school started reading um for map as a result of the pandemic actually so it was brought in during the pandemic as a way to see Power students doing are there major gaps that we need to be filling and so it was brought in for that reason so we have no pre-pandemic soures to compare to um but also it was a tool for us to make sure what what do we need to kind of Target and hit based on the past educational experiences with regards to ELA that our students have had um so again typically this is our oldest grade that does it we don't see a ton of significant growth within the grade n reading um how however what it is helpful for is identifying individual areas of growth for our students and individual areas of need and so a teacher can run the report and see that a student might have mastered a particular area but has a significant another and so that's not going to come up in this data here but it comes up at that granular student level data that our teachers can run um that is comparing apples to oranges right so one way to look at the data we look at a big picture to kind of see how we are how we've been um and where we're headed the next set of slides talks um completely flips it and it Compares Apples to Apples so now we start looking at cohorts of students over several years and their growth in on the maap assessment over their time with us in LPS and so um for this we're following class of 2027 so they're currently our um sophomores and you can see all the way back from second grade when they were in 2016 2017 in second grade their growth um up through their reading assessment last year that they took in ninth grade again you're not going to see nth grade math because we do not use the math assessment in grade n um really when we look at these charts over the next few slides what we're looking for is to see those lines the darker ones are the cohort's performance and the lighter of the same color is the trend line so we're really hoping that it follows the trend line meaning that it's going up into the right so that that's showing growth across the years and so you can see that we are showing that growth across the years it's that ninth grade um the reading right that sometimes it's a little bit closer so the SL may not be as significant but this is our current um 10th grade class and then if we go to the next Slide the class of 2028 is our current ninth graders and so we see their results all the way from second grade up through 8th grade again the steeper the line um in the darker color is our student results the steeper the line the more growth they made in that epidemic year and then the next one seems to be the class of 2029 um is our current eighth graders so you see their results from second grade through through seventh grade the class of 2030 is our current seventh graders so these are um students that were in second grade during the 1920 school year when we did not do our spring assessment so we can't give full growth um but we can so they are starting third grade moving up um the next one class of 2031 is our current sixth graders and what I like as we start to um go to our our lower grades and our Elementary grades is that you are starting to see that red line from the math um start to get a little bit steeper and that's because they're making those significant gains in the MTH which is really nice the next slide class of 32 is our fifth graders so they have three years worth of data for us to be looking at our fourth graders have two years um their second and third grade years for us to be looking at and then finally we have our current third graders that only have the one dot they know that one point of data but based on what we see from the other classes the trend that we would likely see is for the uh an upwards um progress movement for those students next year so we just seeing that so that's all of our data right and we're looking at it global view and I look at it specifically for how is our programming working right do we need changes what are the gaps that we're seeing um whereas our Educators look at it at a very granular level and at a student student level and that's kind of what's nice about math growth is that it has that capability to be able to be looked at and examined and really analyzed at many different levels so um typically I would never put this many words on a slide it goes against like a lot of what we know about slides however I wanted to give voice to our Educators so every year I tell you that we use math growth assessment data to inform our instruction and so this year knowing that we really want to dig into this I've sent out um and thought some feedback from our educators of how do you at your in your classroom use this data and I the replies were so good that I wanted to give them six so I'm not going to read them all to you however um I do I do want to point out there's some commonalities right um a lot of when you're reading this you'll see that a lot of our Educators use the data to create groups to Target specific skills they'll use it to create win um to create win groups they'll use it to create intervention groups they'll use it to determine actually what intervention is needed and potentially how frequently that intervention is needed based on where the students um level is on that specific skills they will also use it to rework their lessons so if they see that that if there is a target area of your entire class need support with they're going to relook at that lesson ensure it's accessible to the students to really help with um they ALS our Educators also use it to Simply identify strengths and areas of the need but then also to identify who's ready for more right so a lot of times we ensure that our students that are needing intervention needing to fill those gaps are going to be supported but we also want to challenge our students who are ready for more of a challenge and so making sure that um that is also looked at and examined and then um on the next slide I couldn't help myself they such good respond so um and you can see that the thoughtfulness that they put into using this data right um and I the the first one to me it's like true educator fashion not only is math growth and assessment to assess those actual skills but then it's used for more right it's used for let's have a conversation about your academic stamina let's have a conversation about you taking those academic risks if you don't know the answer we're going to try like go for it just try it out and see what you think applying different strategies talking about metacognition and so what's interesting about math growth that we see the educator runs the test session on the device and you can see how long a student is uh taking the assessment so we can see a student finish the assessment in 15 minutes 30 minutes 60 minutes right um and the platform will also notify you if a student just happens to be kind of clicking through because they're just don't feel like taking the assessment that day it pauses them it tells the teacher hey fast cooking is happening right and so then the teachers are able to then have conversations about what's going on right and so they're able to talk about is it a stamina issue or is it you don't know what you're answering and so you're just going for it right um and so being able to have these conversations academically not only about the content but about how they are learning and how they um tackle and assessment um also just to highlight a couple other things here um we think about as Educators and it feels like in the past right we've had early literacy screener that's been put on the plate there seems to be the end passing grade eight um Civics right is now on the plate and so the amount of assessments are on people's minds and I think it's important to bring that up and just to put that out there right that is something that we think about because when we're assessing a student can they learn through assessment absolutely is it the number one way that we want our students to be learning that's that's a question right that um is something to consider and so we know that that is on um our Educator's minds and the last thing to highlight is that the math growth um reports and the scores that we receive are a great tool to use as a conversation starter not only with this students but also with parents and Guardians when they come in for conferences when an email comes across with a concern we have a data point that we can go to and say oh no actually look we see this Gap here we should do this or we see this strength here um so it's just a good conversation starter um or continuation of conversation so um the next slide shows some of our takeaways and I think the number one takeaway um for me and certainly in preparing well there were several but one that I really want to emphasize is the thoughtful consideration and use of map birth data that our Educators have when it comes to this um it's not just a they do it and they move on they're really reflecting looking at that data and adjusting their lessons um in order to make the best educational experience for our students and so I appreciate their effort and their feedback there um we are consistently as I said we're consistently above uh the national Norms in both reading and math uh our students are seeing success as we said earlier with the new k math curriculum which is really great so that's a very big positive that we are seeing out of this data um with regard specifically to the map six out of seven of our grade levels saw higher observed growth in map in comparison to last school year year and five out of seven grade levels saw their highest observed growth in one year which is very very impressive um another takeaway and this um is in compar we can do a little comparison here to last year is that this year in math and this is all of our students that took math Al together 83% of our students were at or above grade level mean r and that's the national Norm is what we're talking about when I say the grve level me right so 83% of our students were at work about it last year we had 74% of our students so that's a good jump from 74 to 83% um with regards to reading we had 78% of our students at or above grade above RIT last year that mle was 75% so an increase there which is great with regards to the low average and above so you can see the colored bars here we had 94% of our students this year in the low average to above um in percentiles which is really wonderful um and in Reading again 94% in the low average to above and above um there last year we were at 93% for both those numbers so going up a percentage there um a big takeaway for um for me looking at this right thinking about programming and curriculum is that we are going to continue focusing on math because we have seen the gains and we don't want to we don't want to put that to the Wayside and forget about those gains and just not trying and continue making those gains so our focus is continuing on math and K to 5 and then in 6 to 12 our math curriculum um our math department is actually doing a curriculum review this year for grade 6 to 12 so it'll be interesting to see how that review ends up and then future M growth data based on that particularly middle school with that being said we are shifting our Focus to the reading and so we are we had last year completed that K5 reading curriculum review we did decide to make a change um which is a completely different change we've already highlighted a little bit I'm happy to come back and provide more information um with regards to the new curriculum which is turned it's a knowled building curricul we mind as to where we were with regards to teaching reading um but it does incorporate the whole idea behind a knowledge building curriculum is that you incorporate content into the lessons so that students have um knowledge more knowledge meaning that they're going to be able to read and comprehend more as you move on um as opposed to previously where we really focused on the skills built within right of able to identify who are the main characters um what's the top acceptance right what's the main idea now we're not only yes we still are we talking about those things yes but we're talking about them in connection to what the actual content of theal is and so when Kelly says we've seen changes already um going in and seeing you know today just seeing second graders talk about the impact of weather and finding evidence and they're using this language it's not right like the teacher driving they te they teach the vocabulary right um but then students are using it organically in the discussions um I a few sub it's it's Prett impressive um to to see it happening so it's really wonderful so we are making some some turns focusing on our reading at this point um but we're happy overall with the way the map growth results came out this year we look forward to seeing more adjustments with the changes that we're making thank you good good um we open it up for questions comments phrase feedback I think this is awesome I um I was looking at when you get the individual information back because I have a very Vivid um Imagination I can picture some of the kids I've known with really interesting results do we does that stress our our instructional capability do what kind of resources do we have and do we need more resources to answer to these skills and skill differences we're seeing um General answer no um we've had we have really wonderful resources and we have um our most amazing is our is our staff our Educators and their ability to take the data take the information and then provide lessons to support and Target the specific individuals is really huge and so so um a few of our responses come from um individuals that are within the special education department and so they in particular which is probably no shock too um Lynn really loved this data and being able to dig into it and find those gaps um to be able to support the students and then the materials that they use they might use the materials that the rest the class is using but they're using it in a different way right um in some cases they're using other materials um that the that the tier one instruction is not using that the class is not using because that's what that student means so at this point I think we we do have um our Educators certainly have the capacity and at this point the actual materials to provide the support um and sometimes if if uh students re um results are super abnormal that gets dug into because there might be other reasons for that too thank you I'm um I'm just so glad the district inv invested in this I just feel like it's such a game changer for getting data to inform instruction rather than impass which comes so late that you really can't help individual students with it but I remember when you presented on this last year and my first thought was all this data is great but how does it inform instruction and so I'm so glad that you um sent the survey out to teachers because that long list of different ways that they use the data is I mean it it speaks to the power of the data and also the skill level of your teachers and it looks like they're really integrating this into their udl strategies so that's fantastic I'm just um I just I feel like this is such an important piece of the whole program to be able to to track individual growth and growth of the cohort um and I'm really interested to see the impact of the new reading program um I did have a question for you like the um back when you were talking about the Norms do you have any thoughts about why even nationally the math Norm is higher than the reading Norm does nwaa opine on that or it's it's so interesting that it's so much higher yeah and they don't no they don't um so I think one if I my um the very varied difference in access to math learning versus reading learning um might be part of it but they have not gone into and it'll be interesting to see quite honestly from the 2025 if they choose to rorm what that looks like and if that actually comes a little bit closer together and and if they rorm do we have to rorm too or could we I'm just thinking like if you change the Norms then you lose all this nice longitudal data because you're changing so I think it's something um we would compare to the new Norms just to because those are the most up toate right um we could on the back end do a little bit of if we were to still be under the 2020 Norms this is what our results would look like in comparison which not to um go too far ahead of ourselves is a little bit what we'll see with mcast actually because they have changed the CD for mcast and so we will have that conversation when we talk about our mcast data of we're forc because the state is moving in a certain direction with the CD but if we were to compare ourselves against what the students last year had to achieve this is what it would look like right so it'll be a similar kind of situation that yes if they change we will compare ourselves to new Norms but I certainly for the sake of longitudinal would do a little bit of looking at in comparison to previous and it's also you know to hold ourselves to high standards you know if they bring the Norms down right right that doesn't seem to be serving our purposes but they might I mean to use the program at all they might force you to use the current Norms but right but anyway this is so impressive thank you again for and and for making such an engaging presentation love you oh thank you bright and colorful as that walk into my office as I was working on it com mention um but one thing El that you you mentioned the reading program and I too look forward to seeing the results of it um it's always interesting that particularly um with regards to a knowledge building curriculum most will say that it takes a little bit longer to see results and so with math I think we saw really fast it even surprised us and our Educators how quickly the results turned around um for us and so it'll be interesting to see when um reading results kind of Hit the big picture for to it I just want to say you always do such a beautiful job presenting this kind of complex D data so thank you I very much appreciate you kind of like simplifying for us and giving us the comparison from last year so it's really really helpful and Echo what elain said it's it was wonderful for you to like kind of dig deep into the details of how the educators are using it I think that was really helpful to like kind of really get up and meet of why we're doing this so this is great thank you you know anything I don't want to put you on the spot but don't want to want to give you an opportunity no I'm here Beth thank you so much um that was a lot of information but totally digestible the way you sort of explained it and laid it out so really appre appreciate that and I to sort of echo Elaine in your comments of I'm really interested about the ELA curriculum and how that continues to evolve and I know and I don't know if you have any thoughts on you know I know that the state really has this focus and priority right now on literacy and Ela and so I don't know if that sort of intersects with how you're thinking about it but I think it's just something that will evolve over time so really appreciate your thoughts on that yeah yeah thank I think it is um the state a lot of districts are having a change in a with regards to literacy and literacy education um and the state is doing it at the same time and so it kind of feels like it's coming from every angle which just kind of confirms the fact of we're headed in in the right direction of making these updates not only based on our own data right but the state is seeing this as a way to move forward um and the state does is promoting high quality construction materials um HQ on is how they constantly refer to it and there is a network um that is offered through desie that supports districts to go through a curriculum of Youth process and last year we had a committee um of individuals come together to do the curriculum review but then we had a a a leadership group within that committee that attended those Network meetings and so learning from desie um with regards to what is a highquality instructional material in literacy look life what does that mean and so it has been helpful and um convenient you know that there is the push from desie with Excuse me with regards to literacy right now and is the wh wisdom program um does that qualify as hqm to desie yes yes I just had one question but um before I ask one question I just want to say I think it's wise that the district invest I think it's a great tool um gotten comfortable seeing this this presentation over the years I'm happy to like post excuse me post pandemic we had everyone had concerns right and thank you for sharing with us the data on so the catchup that's been made I think we're we're there thresold which is a terrific achievement um my question was all these wonderful takeaways from the staff um do does the district align a professional development day on the tale of receiving the math data or does do the depart do the grade levels have a after you know before after school um grade level planning sessions so that they can share best practices is there uh perhaps like a report that needs to be turned in to say hey these are the results for my students and these are the things that I'm doing for my classroom or is every teacher just left to receive the data and kind of make their own adjustments or changes now the what what's what's happening is wonderful but I'm just wondering if there's some consistency across the staff in terms of what the strategies are so when map was first brought in many years ago there the PD was provided at that point right so there was this consistency of how you look at it um that is an area that we need to revisit um it is teacher by teer somewhat organic as to how they look at their ads what's unique Middle School right is a lot of Singletons and because we have one teacher teaching all of seventh grade now right um so they can have they can converse with the grade six and the grade eight right so it's departmental sure um there is not a PD that lines up with once it ends if I mean that would be amazing right honestly we if we could create a PD after we do an assessment like this to really dive into the data there's not enough time in a school year to make that happen right so we have um created other opportunities for that to happen so for example there are data meetings once a month and at the appropriate time after a map is done the data meeting can be used to look at this um and to look at it not only by classroom but by grade level and so for example um uh we have two interventionists at Russell Street who dive into to this data and we'll support the grade level teachers to say hey look you know grade three this is where this is what we're looking at um and can get down to this the classroom level with teachers right and so there is a somewhat common practice um but long answer to say yes there is a somewhat common practice I think it needs to be Revisited sure um like anything right we need to revisit how we do things right um when it's been so long so I didn't know answer to the question and I think um I think that'd be great because I I do think the staff is obviously so busy running their regular classroom and they're trying to think days ahead and then they get this dumped on their lap and they're like what do I do now right there's only so much time in a day so if we as a district if we could carve out a dedicated time um for them to zero in on this and not have to worry about what the lessons plans are for the next day and the tests coming up and the homework that needs to be returned and all that stuffff um that would be great I agree and we'll consider what options awesome good good thank you very much great job no Jason's not here'll sooud next up we'll hear about uh advanced placement testing so you're not listed but thanks principal John Harrington will share some information with us I also appreciate the impressive presentation I was taking down some notes and what you said but also what that said in terms of how we can follow up our own assessment data at high school um that's not NE not that Testament with just a lot of great ideas and suggestions and know was very debly detailed thorough a lot of us we can learn a lot from what our elementary and middle school colleagues are doing so with that said um we kick off another presentation about assessment data um and really uh great results to report this year and you've had a chance to look at it in the packet we start off as we traditionally do with our list of 18 courses Curr at the high school or that we're offered um the past year um and you can see that some of them are no longer running get some staff changes so some and we also take generally we run APR history every other year that teacher does teach in a different course and that's sort of a nice cycle for us that's been a tradition I thought to do that so students do get multiple opportunities to take with that said we'll go next slide so subjects where students took the [Music] 202 um so this was in May of 2023 um here you can just take a look at that and you'll see that some of these courses where stent course exams were in areas where we don't um te have an AP course we don't no longer teach AP Latin uh French our language department has gone to a proficiency model based on sale by literacy and they've even changed the descriptions of the courses and the names of the courses and that seems to work quite well for us our students do often take Advanced exams and some of them go out of their way they're they're thoroughly prepared um by our teachers to you know study for this ex prepare for this exam and lot of them do set for it but we don't necess offer those courses anymore in language area um and a lot of students are very um self-directed motivated and they'll take they'll study on their own or they'll enroll in automi courses and and Fa in uh it's always impressive to hear about that when students continue to push themselves so students are really stretching themselves in variety next SL pleas and you can see on the next slide where our participation is growing the number of exams taken the number of students um taking the exams select pleas and you'll see this in a couple of different formats this this table will show you that a lot of fours and fives really stand out this year um just take a minute to open mind pause and look at that see if com any questions to but really strong performance this year next SL things so if you don't mind just because we're we're digging in the data and slicing and dicing stuff so many different ways I just thought of this like yeah the results are phenomenal but you need a three or above to earn the credit that's generally consider the standard yeah College some colleges don't even if you get a three or four they don't get granted credit they want to take their physics class talk about that in past years but generally yeah that's the that's the Milestone that's considered the that is the tar rate score for students and our students trying to get four because they want to increase their potential to have a college honor the credit um it does stare though these results published after the college admissions process for our seniors but it does a lot of our Juniors and sophomores now are taking AP exams and putting their results in their college application or noting it in the college application pets so do we have the data on the 19 and the Seven exam that scored a two and a one like did we look at that to say yeah a chunk of this came from X test and it's not AER break that all down and we don't because the numbers be smaller we don't present that publicly but the uh each teacher gets an instructional um planning report from the College Board where it breaks everything down in detail there's a lot of different ways that you can formulate you know specific reports are very insightful and generally a lot of our teachers are not surprised that the twos and the ones because they felt like the student are you know really wanted to take the course wanted the experience we've said this stretch reaching yeah you know wanted to be challenged by the rigor of of course see what it's like even though they weren't the strongest student perhaps they hadn't taken honors courses they were in college preparatory courses but they stretched themselves and took that one AP and or there some kids that took too many right um and they weren't able manage it all most of the students who tend to really push themselves to take lots APS tend to do really well but we are I say this every year we caution them around that uh you can go back and run previous presentations this time of year and I've said it's like to say that you know we talk about student stress and know trying to we haven't imposed a limit necessarily but we do counil and guide students when we think they're overreaching and taking too many courses that are just you just we're starting to see a you real Coach the students trying to take courses outside of what we offer like I mentioned sing on their own you know they're you know it's not you know it's beyond you say we have we have seven teaching blocks right over the course of the week it's would be an eighth or ninth block and that's we don't consider that well balanced yeah next slide please so you can see this s bigger for 202 four you can see the comparisons across years here we have tables of this going all the way back since I arrived 2009 tracking this data and uh you know it's been very impressive for me as a principal but also for the staff the school Community to see uh the progress over time there's always going to be dips here and there for different reasons um well this this 2024 um this may for was really you know really spectacular results slly and then you just see that in a different graph for visual one you just take a look at shows the high performance shown in the previous table next slide please actually just go back for a second I think you can see just take a look at the the 2020 PS in Darker blue there and you can really see the fours and the fives really stand out visually compared just previous years next slide number and percentage of students with one more school it's really high percentage depends on the report I was looking at from the College Board whether it said 91% or 90% for this particular statistic it was calculated was 91% next slide please AP Scholars and we have you can take a look at the definitions there next slide will show you a table with um the number schs see considerable slide there you go and see wow and that's a lot of kids thinking coures and individual students taking lots of AP cour that's that's but not only taking them performing really well we 12 students take five or more exams are very hard yeah do do you think there's a culture at the high school where kids um expect that they should take AP courses I think it's yeah I mean it's F by all kinds of things you know sometimes it's rental um pressure or expectations uh and WE peer to peer you can comment on this for K actually I know you might have something to say about this but you know the students talk it up they want they want to have they know that having a rigorous course load show up in your College transfer is a major factor for um College admissions and if be coming from a high achieving high school and need performed really well it really helps you in the admissions process to yeah there's really supportive classrooms and there's good a good competitive nature around the classrooms I've taken the I took the few the exams last year myself and and we all push each other in a healthy way to try and do our best in these exams and take more classes and we there to support so really is a great environment and in my opinion a very healthy one to be in so it's nice to be surrounded by those CH great to hear you there you go what a commercial go so summary of the notes and I have a couple of anecdotes that actually I think will resonate with rael's comments from Individual teachers I wanted to give you the quantitative data but then I ask some teachers just to share some Pro and observations that I'll share with you my video but you can see the summary here 90% of students going be the three on one exam so proud of that's that's great for a small high school and 61% of us graduating class school PR High learning standards months so that's a high participation rate for a class of6 three kids um last year 183 exams were school to four or five that was a real standup this past this past seas and we this coming year we have AP RP psychology teacher is back leave rental leave and know she teach two sections this year AP macroeconomics has returned this year as a a really um you know growing and popular Decor Club business Club that's taken off school and like I mentioned earlier pro langage has shifted away from AP and 50 students this is worth commen you might not know about this 50 students take take work to B courses through VHS so that's they have access to lots of courses we don't have to St for and 44 of those students took it through uh something called the AP uh stem access expansion Opportunity Grant that's stem access expansion Opportunity Grant and all these AP stem courses with these students took they're all offered online free of charge and so if they do that do you give them High School Credit so it's not an add-on to their schedule like yeah as long as it's with it's not exceeding what you know allowance of you know 30 or seven seven courses but put it like um say if some if a students is macroeconomics in the social studies Department yeah yeah so would that count as a social studies course or would that be an add-on to the social studies course in the regular yeah they could it could it could take the place off oh good yeah they can actually suppl and they some of them you know will take will supplement though they'll add it onto they take Facing History our s but then they also take AP mro online we see a lot of kids go register for online courses to VHS because the scheduling conf close and it's really helpful you know get around that they that AP course they really want there's only one section of it that conflicts with there even Cal know it's in Humanities in science and it's conflicts with the math course they going into engineering they need that course and they want Elmore as their teacher so if I could just share just to wrap it up a couple of comments from teachers that I uh I'll read to you from AP APR had amazing year so I wanted to share some comments from Emily hospital so this is directly from her as well a little excert from her last year is I'll prend I had a very impressive group of dedicated Scholars and artists who worked well together to tackle both AP classes students did very well on AP art history and AP art design exams with all students passing and the majority receiving a score five AP art history students also got to apply their knowledge during LEF sponsored field trip to the MFA Museum of Fine Arts one of the EP 2D design students Nadia Pablo received the national Scholastic Art Award for one of her works and had a solo exhibit of her portfolio at the vibr so you know that apus teacher Bill mkin who been one right it's one of my first first teachers I hired here every student who completed the AP US History course at LHS four or five wanted you to know that um and there a reason why he's so popular he's also Dr sense human kids just seem to Res respond him really well AP Lit we have a new teacher there in the last couple years Mrs Kate mcook she was also last year's senior class advisor along Mrs Curr and she wanted you to know that she believes most LHS students who were interested in literature and apply themselves in arms classes and sometimes the college prep courses proceeding an AP Class A set up for success in most students enter the class with the skills to earn at least a three or a four my goal is to move the needle she says for all students but especially for those in the three range getting a student who would likely earn at two or three at the beginning of the year to score EXT or four at the end of the year demonstrates a lot of effort and grow Mrs mcook I want to add just my own compliment to her offered lots of support for students who are willing to push themselves and put in the work her caring and encouraging approach has really bolstered enrolment big time in AP English l so just wanted to share that AP stats last shout out this just came in just Kate from Laura cerr the other Co advisor for last year's class she she's a very popular teacher statistics and Mathematics at the high school 42 students took AP AP stats 42 students at high school it's a lot 93% of them school or back so it's nice to report this scrolling news you know it's really excited to go high school and for I want to you know compliment our teaching staff as well as all the students who put so much work into thank you for coming with those anecdotes it's been great tonight to he for the teachers and both presentations questions concerns comments all good thanks so much all right uh next up we have one order of new business which is to review the financial policies working group uh discussion uh we touched on this uh at our summer Retreat um over guess it was over the summer uh there was a financial policies working group that was assembled um I sat on that committee what this really was was a uh document by which the town is uh looking to reform uh financial planning for its municipal government um so there's you know any the event that uh well boards do change over not in the event so boards as boards change over new folks show up this is a piece of literature that uh can be passed along and it gives you a road map as to how the town as a whole is going to put the budget together uh pay for capital projects handle uh debt schedule all that good stuff and of course there's a section that relates directly to us this is not our financial policy um we have our own uh as a school committee policy but um the select board on the finance committee did ask us to review this make sure that we were good with the language and then get back to them with uh an you know a ratification an agreement that we covered it and we're we accept it and we don't have any issues so I'll just kind of touch upon um the highlighted information here and we'll have it we'll open it up for discussion and see um what if any changes um we would like to make so uh the first section here just essentially says that um uh School the school department is the largest budget of the town it's an extremely important component in the budgeting process uh we should maintain a close working relationship uh with the select board and finance committee so that as they prepare the annual budget they're well informed of what we believe our needs might be for that budget of gear um they want to uh the budget data so they're just essentially asking that uh when we make our presentation uh the budget data is shown by Desi code we'll show the actual spending for the two preceding fiscal years um we'll show the budget data for the proceeding and current year requested budget data we'll slice and dice that information of the dollars and percentage variances and uh details uh we detail some explanation for any major variances such as new Personnel salary increases new programs um we'll just footnote anything that uh that seems to be an outlier and I kind of love talking about the budget on the tail of uh the investment that we make into the district with math testing and those wonderful AP AP scores so it's nice um let's see in addition uh the T in addition to detailing the town spending for the appropriation um the school department should provide a detailed boort on its reserves and revolving funds we do this is stuff that we've been doing um but there wasn't necessarily a document or the document that was dated um so we'll we'll present as part of our budgetary process um balances on our Reserves andol revolving funds for the uh preceding year a budget addition withdrawals for the current year as well as the the additionals and withdrawals for the following budget year um this was this next piece here was interesting school choice the town recognizes that the school department has a revenue Source uh outside of uh taxpayer dollars and other ancillary things which is some students choose to opt into Littleton School District largely because of some of the information we just shared this evening and how wonderful we are everyone can Pat themselves on the back um they're asking us to maintain a minimum balance of 5% of our appropriation uh as an emergency reserves uh with a normal balance of about 10% currently I would say we have about 10% Slightly North of 10% y um so we're in good shape there uh in some instances those un unanticipated expenditures uh may be of recurring nature such as unbudgeted special education cost it's a it's a wise idea for us to have an emergency Reserve account in the event that we get it with some extraordinary expenses the town would like us to be in a position to absorb those expenses which is the whole reason why we've done this put a plan together so that we can uh evaluate the need from those expenses and try to either go back to the town over a multi- period time frame and say hey look we we've got a situation here they don't have it's not a huge bite at the Apple all at once or perhaps those expenses roll off as um the situation changes so we're we're in good shape there um prepayment of expenses thought this was kind of interesting but um school department does have the ability to prepay uh some expenses for the following year um they're asking us that if we have committed to any prepaid expenses to try to continue with that uh tradition to the best of our ability so that we don't get H with a year where we end up with um they think it's double expensive but I don't really think it is it actually gives us one year buffer in the event that we had that corre correct to be clear these the expenses are um special ated out of District tuition expenses right by law that's what we can pay and and there's rules about how much we can pay to what kind of AO District placement there is so and we follow all that so does this language sit right with you with with the way we currently do it yeah okay so do you I mean do you feel that once these prepayments are made it then becomes necessary for these PR payments to continue each year in order to provide spikes in the school appropriation year to year I'm not sure that's entirely true that's that's yeah that's not the experience that we're having what what we're experiencing is the fact that we're able to prepaid special ed expenses into the next year help level out the spikes that we might get if a student moves in correct or something like that so it actually helps level out our expenses and help us plan for the future year I think in in uh in the spirit of this it's fine reasonable effort should be made by the school department to avoid these budget spikes and that's exactly what we're doing is this something that we're going to be voting on we're gonna acknowledge that we've received it and that we either can go back to them with an edit as it relates to something that we believe is material well maybe maybe we should at that paragraph to make it reflect the current reality because we really haven't had any budget spikes yeah I'm just not sure that the word necessary uh I get what they're trying to say here in the spirit of it if you continue to prepay an expense make that your practice going forward at the best of your ability but what we're what we're really doing is if we run into a situation where expenses are extraordinary we could not prepay correct and therefore just handle with those expenses in the current fiscal year now we'd be obligated to make that payment every year so we don't we would you know lose that buffer we could try to ship away at and earn it back over time yeah we're not in a situation where because we're prepaying tuition expenses in one year that it's forcing us to prepay in the subsequent years we're not in that situation I mean should we propose some alternative language then so that this confusion doesn't go forward we we certainly can I think we should I would just exercise caution yeah I I feel like the language is just kind of an accounting we'd like to see the same we'd like to see the the the same kind expenses year after year you know as opposed to um if you're prepaying and then you stop prepaying for two years then you start prepaying again that's that's going to give us some numbers that that don't make as much sense when they're side by side and so you really dig in yeah I mean I think it's kind of inserting a misconception though the way right I mean could we clear that up so that I think we need to to word SMI it because it's it's indicative of this is a fear that they have that's never happened and it's really actually helping helping the town out because we're if we didn't do these things we would have spikes and in in decrease so your your bill rate would inste going like this would be up and down and we've we've successfully prevented that during the last 14 years so I I don't think they understand the complexity of all working parts and so I think I I think rewarding B Spike we could just alter that second sentence just read that um repayments will be made when when it when give me a a a better way of saying sense yeah when practical be made when practical in order to inv uh in order to avoid spikes in the school appropriation from year to year and and sentence one and sentence three are fine I agree one I we could stke sentence to entirely but that's that's kind of the action sentence also comfortable with that but you know I don't like the spikes and I think that the prepayment comes down to taking into account projections and Trends and take counting all of that there there are so many things that can cause spikes and they're focusing on this one small Point that's that's never been actualized so I don't know just how you feel about taking the word spikes out it's kind of certainly negative connotations yeah we're looking we can soften spikes and we're looking to remove the term necessary we an agreement there yeah payments will be made when it when when it's yeah I mean if this is a document with all three boards we certainly have to um the right to change the wording we we do yeah we do and again this is not uh our uh Financial policy but this is something that the select board and the and the finance committee could come to us and say you know hey we we did this together this is a way in which we'd like you to carry your business forward you don't seem to be doing this what's the issue can we talk about I'd like to memorialize that at a meeting and Justin Justin and I have had had conversations about this and and in the spirit of of standardizing our practices which we already done I don't mind reducing them to writing in a document like this but I want to make sure and Jus as of say wait link I am sure that don't determine the fate of future School committees with this document so in other words in a simplistic way of saying it that anybody sitting around this table with a school committee member has a right to question this document and change it because it's not it's not our policy right and I I just want to say that on camera so so that that understanding is is sure something care I'll jump back this the intented this is a working document right so this is something that's going to get Revisited annually as the town sees change Financial policy should change with that um so this doesn't lock Us in anything it's just it's more of a best practices guide for all for all boards in which you should run your business so why don't we uh make note of that particular section we can come back and edit the following meeting um the next section here is Chapter 70 funds uh the recommendation that I'll video okay yeah we can we can actually vote ratify next meeting this is the discussion um Chapter 70 funds the town will notify the school department of any Chapter 70 funds that received in excess of the amount placed in the fiscal year budget document school committee and superintendent will create a recommendation for dispersement of these funds to the select board um this is a topic that we touched upon at our summer Retreat so so during the budgetary process couple different way a couple different ways that the uh Town receives money uh Chapter 70 funds is one of them has to do with enrollment figures has to do with historical data what the state believes uh funding can be and we have to estimate what we think the funding is going to be um we then receive the actual information and then I've just recently been told that the actual deposit or check that's cut can be a little bit different than the information we receive later so it's like are you kidding uh well I believe the wording is subject to appropriation yeah right in the language and that's true with both circuit breaker and and everything else so so the the uh the idea behind the town here across all departments is that um budgets are set and budgets are final and um the town as I believe all informed residents are aware um the town's in good shape because there's been some terrific Financial Planning and practices taking place over the years we weren't asked for an override at uh last town meeting as some other of our neighboring towns were um but we need to continue those practices so that we uh avoid overrides the idea behind setting a budget and staying with that budget what if that does allow to happen is that in the event that the town receives any extra cash through any Revenue Source it'll allow it to follow at the bottom line is free cash it sits there it gets certified at the following town meeting and then the town has the ability to put those funds to use so it was the financial policies uh working group's recommendation that in the event extra Revenue was received Chapter 70 funds that that's exactly what would happen the uh the money wouldn't be turned back over to the school committee to spend in that current year we would allow it to fall the free cash it would be certified and then it would become sort of General use funds here for the town it's the language here is that the school department the school committee would have an opportunity to present to the select board and the finance committee in the rare event that extra revenue is received for Chapter 70 funds we would have uh a recommendation for how those funds get spent I think the idea behind that is like the capital project it's a one-time Revenue that happened above and beyond expectation therefore we don't want to fold it into operational expenditures because those would continue year after year that could get us into trouble but um as all departments do everyone's got a laundry list of capital needs us being close to half the budget have some extraordinary Capital needs um I think we would just want to align a a burning desire Capital need with any money that might fall to the to the bottom line are these when they're talking about excess Chapter 70 funds is this the S SOA money or it does include s SOA so is that the part that they're saying we don't we don't know how much it is and it could come in after the budget's approved true I mean typically when you when you budget um even without SOA you you always underestimate your Revenue that you would receive from the state because you can't once you vote your budget you can't go back and ask for for more money so it's a conservative so for years we've been putting in 25,000 with 30,000 as an increase knowing that that uh we would uh receive those funds but with the SOA coming into play all of a sudden we have hundreds of thousands of dollars com into our budget and uh the trouble with s SOA is it's like circuit breaker you don't know how much you're going to get from year to year and in 2027 it could unless they they leave on continuing on with SOA so it's not not something you would want to gamble on in terms of increasing our estimate estimate from 30,000 to to 200,000 because if if we ended up with 40,000 then we'd have a deficit before we even started the actual budget so it's kind of tricky and I mean there's there's two schools of thought here we ask for a certain amount of money we we agree on an amount of money and and that's our budget and typically we we cut last year we cut 250,000 and but if you look at it from from a different point of view in terms of we are able to do what we need to do I mean our our our data shows that we're get successful our staffing levels are adequate so they may change in time and that's when we will advocate for for more Staffing so I feel comfortable you know not being that that prescriptive on that I I I think my my uh change in thought process was was linked to the fact that it would be used for capital projects and and when I say that I I I really want to emphasize school projects as well because we have $5 million roof that that we need to have done and uh we really don't have a savings account on Town sign for that and so we you know probably have to do it in sections which is fine I mean my my dream I've actualized it in other districts when was Regional superintendent uh is to pre-plan for these expenditures I me we have a 10-year plan in the town uh what I'd like to see as we move forward with something like this is let's take a look at our expenditures through a 10year period even a 15-year period we have the the the document that gives us life expectancy of of various components of our schools and let's try to start pre-planning so that that we're not uh trying to figure out where we're going to get the money it's just good fiscal planning and I'm hoping that this or going on board or coming on board with this is going to help with that process because it is a little daunting that we have a $5 million project coming into the high school and we really don't have anything saved at this point in time and when Jess and I were talking about this it's like anything else if if you don't take care of your roof and you start having leaks you're have mold and then that price and another damage and that price is going to continue to go up so it's just it's just a prudent way to make sure that you're maintaining your buildings and doing it this way allows you to spend the SOA money if it goes into free cash then you can spend it in a different fiscal year well no we our SOA we've incorporated into our budget already with with the current current budget that we have I mean what what I'm trying to say is we're we're doing what we need to do with SOA and if we really needed something we would have asked for it despite having s SOA funding so we've been fortunate to to plan and and vision and determine what we needed to meet our students needs so we've been successful at doing that and and you know as well as I do that's our needs change our demographics change we just need to to advocate for those funds uh it doesn't have to be SOA funds just more funding for the school when when need it so I really feel and you know strongly about the fact that that not just as a school department but the town as a whole uh if they can use this money to start planning ahead and and not you know having to to to take out as much uh money in terms of a loan to to do these projects we'd be far better off so I that's why I've jumped on board with this whole concept yeah because we've been trying to do that for 14 years and we were so muchat successful but then other things come up in in new buildings for example and that that squeezes the capital budget in terms of preventive maintenance you met with the fincom and the select board were amendable to the idea that the extra Chapter 70 funds would be set aside for the school district or were they still talking about having it be part of a general fund so that conversation um didn't happen at the uh select board finance committee level okay all right so that it was I thought that's what was being referenced with the recommendations for dispersement is that a different thing where um well that's that's our recommendations so you haven't had a chance to talk well and I don't think it's an issue I have had some conversations but um those were individual cup of coffee conversations there's a common theme on this page which is the school department is able to receive school choice funds uh maintain a balance um have Savings in the event that you run into uh extraordinary expenses and in the event that you're um balances or in excess of what you believe your needs are feel free to spend that money down for minor reservations uh Renovations Capital items or if you don't have a place for it stick it in school building stabilization fund for future school projects what we're basically say asking the finance committee and the select board is to do the same thing with Chapter 70 thoughts so in the event that the town receives Chapter 70 funds in excess budgeted those should then be turned over to the school building staff stabilization fund as well because we're going to need them for capital projects and then if I would discontinue down um this is an Ask of them or an Ask Of Us I was part of the group Surplus appropriation amounts so changes to anticipated expenditures M care during the school year as with all departments The increased expenditures must be covered from the appropriated amount so in the event that your expenses are greater than thought that is your problem to solve um in the event that a budget surplus may exist at the end of your fiscal year the end end spent money by the school department will be deposited into a school building stabilization box so this allows us to get ahead of future projects not substantially because it's a brand new process but if the town were to always borrow for every need that it had we'd never get ahead the Project's going to cost X plus interest and it would be better to like you were just referencing create a road map of what's coming down uh the Pike and try to get ahead of it and try to pay for some of this out of savings it's not unlike what everyone does in their household right every time you need something if you were to finance it doesn't get pretty um and then the last piece here was just open communication among the school department in the town is essential um and then they were as they should be uh select board and finance committee um well it is understood that the spending of the town's appropriation is at the sole discre the school committee this open communication will enable the town to continue to provide an outstanding school system for our students without impacting other services for our residents so both the select board and finance committee realize that by Statute school committee is in charge of how the money gets spent they're the ones that will make a recommendation or go through um the total dollars um but they're just saying let's let's stay in touch so we understand what your needs are and where the money all goes so that they can feel good about the amount of and that's easy to do all you have to do is watch our meetings so uh takeaways just to try to summarize this we're just going to address the prepayment of expenses situation and then we're just going to look my two takeaways we're going to look to offer some language as it relates to Jaffer 70 funds so that in the event of the Town received anything in addition to budgeted that money would then also um be deposited into a school building stabilization fund perfect yeah just just to backtrack a little bit just a little bit more information about Chapter 70 and why there might be a difference in budgeted versus actuals when you look at the way the state budgets right the governor comes out with a budget then the Senate comes out and then the House Appropriations the state hasn't typically passed a budget until June sometimes into July when they pass the to passes a budget in May so the town has to make right so there's a timing difference so the town uses the best information usually based on the governor's budget about what Chapter 70 is and then all the other state legislative bodies get involved and and adjust that up down so by law any excess funds by law go to the town general fund so these are Town policies there's no legal requirement for them to follow these policies if it's going to if it's going to um be in contradiction to what that state law just I would just want to be clear about that sure they would also need to vote or the public would need to vote to establish a school building fund stabilization fund all right that has to go to a town meeting has to go to a town meeting sure oh we don't already have one they have a a capital stabilization Capital stabilization fund but not they would need to create a school capitalization right which the document references so yeah yes it's in the works so with those um with that discussion and those two proposed uh renov Renovations revisions um we'll make those include those in our packet next meeting and ratify so we can go back to them I will bring those changes to the chairs of both so that they know what's coming so that if we don't want to ratify something and then have them disagree with it and we don't run around in circles so let's just try to take care this next meeting yeah y I noticed there was something else Kelly that you would added under the budget data says KC Edition is there any explanation needed for that that or was that just wors in the thing what I was looking for was an acknowledgement that that we are receiving funds in excess of what we budget for chapter 7 and in an ideal world and I know world's ideal it would have been nice for the school committee to have some input as to how those those funds be used but I don't think that's going to going to fly but and and and the reason for doing that is to not not simply make sure that that you exercise The Authority you you have to a school C but does does the money always have to go into a stabilization fund or is there a point in time where we might recommend as a school committee that maybe we're gon to we're going to recommend that money be used to reduce taxation LS for re but there's no there's no choice but again that's not something I'm overly concerned about I just don't I just don't like that that one roll in and and without there's been coming point in time where yeah so so CH okay all right thanks for that notification um okay putting money into a school for future projects you potentially eliminate the town having to go out and do ride ride for project or things like that so it in in a way it can help offset some taxes at a future time as well I mean as a town we should be really proud of the fact that we haven't had to go through we're a rarity this point in time and and we position we positioned ourselves fairly well and we just want to make sure that we all contribute to to doing whatever we can to to not end up in that that position I appreciate this effort to get on the same page with all three boards because I think that's that's going to head off those problems where you have departments fighting against each other for for funding I mean we've seen it happen in surrounding towns where things can get pretty ugly so this is such a great step to for transparency and not making assumptions so I'm glad that's happening good and you came back before they anything with the agenda all right so we will move on from new business unless anyone else has any unscheduled new business they wish to share No hearing none we'll move on to our second opport for interested citizens there anybody with us this evening that would like to speak before the school committee now is your opportunity oh boy I mean you don't have your timing was such that I thought maybe you were here to talk to us okay so I thought I'd be here about earlier but I had some business could you just state your name and your address 25 Juniper Rose I've been a resident for three years my daughter's lived here for about seven with her husband and now my two granddaughters so school and education is a great interest I will also start by saying the volunteers as well as Professionals in the room employed by to of lion I greatly appreciate everything that you do because I since my three years here starting to come of the opinion that uh the public welcoming and acceptance of recommendations from volunteer committees often takes more work than is expected Anda naok Orchard being two recent examples of controversial challenges that I'm not happy with the original outcome and think that great work and effort had to be done to get the town to understand the complexities the nuances and the challenges associated with those votes and ultimately I think they will get to the right Solutions although there's still work to be done having said that I attend lots of meetings and um this is not one that I've attended before um so I'll just share that in some recent U meetings I've attended I've started to become out of my MBA MBTA NE Orchard experience quite concerned with regard to the upcoming Shaker Lane School uh decision so I implore you to uh consider uh embracing perhaps the the concepts that might be brought and I don't know your respective positions on things but somewhat of a devil's advocate perspective because I think that if you don't Embrace a devil's advocate prepare yourself for a very very challenging environment then I fear outcome and I fear the complexity is placed on this town and all of you being the volunteers and the professionals that you are so I come from that perspective just wanted to share that because I fear continuation of problema votes that lead to another year of problematic votes in turmoil I hope for the best and that's the spirit which I those comments so thank you thank you very much thank you hopefully we don't have to roll that P back here now and say um but we do have listening meetings scheduled correct right let's let's uh roll through the subcommittee reports and when we get to the Shaker Lane building committee update we can talk about some of the things that are going on and I so let's go through pmbc first and we'll leave shakeer Lane out of that report of there anything yeah sh is is part of that yeah so does pmdc have anything to discuss other than sh car no okay that's okay budget subcommittee we reviewed the financial policies working document this evening going to revisit some of that language I'll uh check in with chair of the select board and chair of the finance committee and let them know how our discussion went we'll look to resolve that and I will schedule some meetings coming up and get with some dates with you okay I just and and we when we do that I want to just I'll have the previous year's presentation we should all look at the previous year's presentation just to make sure that that information sort of matches the suggested format um that was asked of us for the budget presentation okay uh policy subcommittee um nothing to report nothing to report okay um all right Shaker Lane building committee update sherane all right so I think some of the probably the most important things to share is so we have Community meetings on October 16th and the 23rd I believe at 7M of the police department for Community input cards um so those are open to the public people to come in and discuss and be updated as to where we are in the project um we had a school committee building building committee uh meeting on what was it uh September 19th um the big takeaway from that is is actually thank you for the transition is uh we were able to um kind of nominate a sub Community subcommittee for community outreach which is their sole purpose will be for Community Education and input on the project throughout the length of the project um so that's going to be um what do we have I think Janine you were might potentially had some interest in joining joining it and helping with that yes um Kelly I believe is going to be on it shelle Kane's going to be on it and ran Ferrera are going to be on that so they'll be working with um Studio G and Turner toon Thomson Healey on um getting the best community outreach that we can to make sure that everyone is involved and educated as as the best we can um through the committee um so I think that our next meeting we have coming up can I jump on the community outreach can I jump in on the community TR so um my brother lives in situ situ is like one year ahead of us with a brand new elementary school so they went to town meeting in May and fortunate for them um it passed with resounding uh confidence um so I chatted with another I chatted with a situate School Committee Member about you know hey what what was the last year your life what you do and um I don't certainly I don't want to duplicate any efforts that are taking place in this Outreach committee but I just wanted to share these um with you so the the first thing I'd like the school committee to do or the Outreach thing is I we got to get on everybody's agenda all departments all boards not departments all boards like all citizen boards um and just make a presentation and again we don't know what we're doing yet because it's an msba program and there's a process and all that stuff but I don't think there's such thing as sort of checking in too early with everybody just so simply want to if you don't know if you happen to be living under a rock this is what's going on um we'll be back to share more information as it becomes available let's get all the questions up front and we'll get better at answering the questions as we go and we'll learn what the good questions are um so that that's something that's going to take like we can divide and conquer that we could all go to a couple um the other thing that they did that they recommended that Kelly's in the process of trying to do was a tour of Shaker Lane for the finance committee and the select board so we were thinking of offering a tour and you know and all interested citizens but certainly make sure that those folks get invited probably offer something during the daytime so that those folks can see the school at its capacity can watch the students transition between hallways can see working spaces in theall can just see the what's really happening and then recognizing that not everyone has flexibility during the daytime we should probably also offer an evening look at the school and it's not just the classrooms let's go look at boilers let's go look at some of the other um other aspects of the schol school that aren't necessarily uh student student Centric and then the other thing was uh offering information sessions at the other schools as well so well this is a Shaker Lane building doesn't hurt to have an information session at russing Street of the middle school and the high school and quite honestly the attendance might be low um but you specifically Target target market those folks emails are going out um you have you know how the best to get in touch with your families we'd like your assistance in making presentations at some point in the future to that uh those members of the community um and probably also um specific Outreach for senior citizens as well so got a building under construction they've got a a lively Department there I'm sure we can um can bring some information to that and like I said it's not it's not a one of done it's let's we've got about 13 months 12 months to um bring this October 2025 meeting um so we we should probably get going at some point as the near future and and feel free to offer ideas uh as we think of them and let's try to get out in front of us the best we possibly can and there's no like Personal Agenda here it's simply just sharing information Gathering feedback and get making sure that the process improves as we March towards that timeline for October as I think the speak I think our interested citizen was correct this evening that no matter how much information you try to put out there's always GNA be folks in Jo up a town meeting and say I've never heard of this I've never heard of this I cannot believe we're considering this idea yeah um so some of those folks maybe aren't engaged over the course of the year and they go to time meeting and they are surprised about what's going on so we've we got to try to read some of those folks the early we can reach them to better the part of that I really like J uh is is um going to where they are like going to a COA event meeting something working with a COA and can we can we present where your people are already going to be that kind of thing and and you know anything where people are already going to be that we could fit into right would be wonderful one of the things that the um the library did is I mean third Thursdays well there was there were a couple of Summers where third Thursdays were pretty well attended and they had a table and they had a couple different ideas of of um design and they they were talking it up so and so one of the things that happened is when we did come around to oh why are we hearing this for the first time there were those of us who had seen that table and had been to another meeting could stand up and say excuse me but you know we we we've witnessed the opposite of what you're claiming so so we've done the work you know um but I really like the idea meeting people where they are right and you know any any board or committee is full of interested citizens who are volunteering we all we have to do is Hop on their agenda you know they're they're probably nice people who have friends can help us get the word out as well um so we can start maybe you can bring those back to the Outreach committee or that can be a school committee initiative not too sure I just I I don't I don't feel super urgent about the concept of us getting out there but I do feel like we need to start soon I think we can work together I think it's important that the the school committee as a whole be involved in this process as well mean that's you know one of one of the areas of responsibility that that that you have and and and it does show the fact that you're you're you know what's going on and and you have the information it's important that people know you have that information and share that information out I don't see this as a as a separate communication committee and then a school committee I think we're all together on this trying to inform the public as best we can so when we do get to to that vote that most of our citizens will will understand our needs and also understand the potential costs and as I said at our last meeting uh this is really a community project it's not just a school project it's a community project I think that's an important phrase to use right and um like I said it's it's an evolving process because it's um msba it would be even worthwhile from us just to get the questions we're going to get questions that we don't have the answers to just because that information's not available because we got to go through the process but if we can start accumulating the questions that's what people want to know so when that information becomes available then we can get that information out um so anyways and the postcard that's being said home to every residents gives gives an Avenue for the J was being sent to students or they just being sent sent to households all the households that's my so St you touched on October 16th 23rd those are hybrid meetings but on the agenda there's also a October 2nd virtual only meeting as well for Shan building today yes uh yes we have a meeting coming up is it next Wednesday um agenda on that we're gonna be actually voting a new chair chair um and then we are getting some updates new new news as of one o'clock today yes we will not be voting on chair work things up okay so we're good all right so sound like you're missing still having the meeting on October 2nd yes yes it will be it will be a planning meeting for the October 16th October 2nd virtual only October 16 and 23rd hybrid options commun Littleton Police Station right here or in the comfort of your home yes all right is there any other subcommittee reports um if there's no other subcommittee reports and no other new business before this new or World business before the school committee I'll announce that our next school committee meeting is October 10th 7M radio Litton police station there also a hybrid offering so you can enjoy the presentations from the comfort of your home um but I'll ask for a motion to adjourn oh quick update have a meeting coming up on the um that's what I was getting at yeah oh I didn't check my email I'm sorry you want to just yeah I mean I've got it right here Glen you know no one's gonna do it better than you come come to the podium please why am I gonna read your words when you can just well actually cp's work all right and they did a job um so they are planning for um their first meeting of the 2024 2025 school year on Tuesday October 1st at 7: p.m. at the Littleton fire station at 20 Foster Street um I will be there to provide sped updates and uh to introduce Margaret desit the new student services liaison and out of district coordinator John kazanin will also be there from Parks and Rec he's going to be joining us to discuss Parks and Rec plans to add an Adaptive sports program and wants to hear from families that would be interested in participating uh see will also go over Draft plans for the year and um welcome input and comments and they ask everyone to bring ideas for programs and other suggestions and if you can't attend the October 1 general meeting they will be planning a parent social night in the fall so keep an eye out for the date great thanks thanks so much all right glad we had the extended pause there so you can slip that all right uh we're all good I'll ask for a motion to a chair motion made by Stacy seconded by Janine this be a roll call Vote benol Yes Yes Stacey Stacey yeah Janine Janine yes elain yes Justin McCarthy votes yes as well we have a job thank you very