committee meeting for April 11th 2024 if you would uh rise and with Allegiance please here I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all that was great Steve you saved us all all right this evening we have a consent agenda posted which are the minutes from our March 28 2024 meeting as well as the not bills and payroll uh is there a motion to accept Move Motion made by Jen second second by Stacy all those in favor to keep by saying I I I perfect uh this is our first opportunity for interested citizens so if there's anyone present that would like to speak before the school committee on any topic that you choose uh so long as it close toades to tonight's agenda that'd be great um or anybody at home no all right we will close this portion of interested citizens there's a second opportunity towards the end of the meeting and we have one piece of new business this evening and then three presentations we'll get to um first piece of new business is um I read it as the agenda list monthly Town newsletter starting June 1 discussion on contributing to the monthly uh sorry the newly published P of Littleton monthly newsletter so I I don't know if everyone's copied or not but I received communication from uh Town Administrator and this is a select board initiative I believe they're just asking all um all committees all departments within the town you're providing them an opportunity to submit something on a monthly basis I think there's um sort of a calling for it in town to try to keep everyone informed it's difficult to watch all the meetings we don't get any uh you know news paper coverage really in Little T or anything like that unless it's uh something um drastic so we've I think it's something we should do but certainly and just wanted to kind of put it out there to gaug our interest level talk about how we might be able to accomplish this I don't know if the school department has um like any I don't know if you want this to fall on the five school committee members or if we want to be a collaborative initiative sh shed responsibility sure is this um like a mailing or so it be posted to their website so it's not being sent out it's available on so this is I think it's a great idea there' be a monthly updating that would take place on the website so you could go as a citizen of Littleton click read what's going on within all the boards departments and kind of get get up to date on get up to speed on everything and if you of course you had B questions all the contact information there on the website so you know we would um we could talk about things like that have happened in our meetings or upcoming meetings or even off off meetings like what's happening within schools but somebody's got to do the work and I don't necessarily think it's the clerk of the school committee that needs to do it um so ideas thoughts couldn't be part of the student Representatives well I mean no I not I just just a thought just outside the box they're here every meeting and it's it's like writing a digest you're writing an entire newsletter no you're no it's like a little a blur a paragraph per month it would monthly right monthly school activities a little a little digest of what was discussed at the school committee meetings but not in depth I just a thought or if not I would say then you rotate cross all five I rot one month two is it first of the month Justin or you want 15 it's due the 15th for the following first so our our due date would be the 15th of the month and then the information would get uploaded on the 1 so when we we would just have to uh be aware of that when we put stuff in rotate it then every five months if someone's turn it's not that overwhelming maybe we could make like a template to for consistency sure sure yeah can I get a volunteer for the first month it's doing a couple of days it's no it's no sorry it's not do until not until it's not real Jen me out Jen's Jen's excuse stay I'll do it gonna be the first one I'll make a I'll make a template so that it'll it'll help with generating ideas each month thank you yeah yeah that's I have to write down if I committed okay so you're GNA make the template and you're also prepare to blur for due date of May 15th for the June 1st yeah awesome thank you're on board with rotating it yeah that's totally fine yeah and I can do I can do a little bar blur for anything for the um Sher Lane like building stuff too because that's gonna be sure it'll be probably bigger chocolates coming down next year sure yeah you know the school Committee Member that's in charge of it could even reach out to to all of us to submit an idea or something and then maybe funnel it through your office of course and then perhaps you guys want to submit it after you've taken a look at it we can do it yeah check it over we can Spruce it up a bit will this go through the summer or does it take a you know the town went well ours might Whittle down to nearly nothing yes it's twice a year per schol commity member so you think about it as 10 months yeah I won't be in there but it doesn't seem too bad alumni are allowed to I think it's fine for us to if we don't have much going on in the summertime we don't need to submit anything all right perfect thanks for the ideas and volunte continuous volunteerism all right so we'll get started with our presentation portion of the evening uh first stop at State oh skipped over recog I did so eager to get to I know Jay my apologies all right let's backtrack we'll go through recognition so Jay if you would give us the student representative report my apologies no worries I'll start with Russell Russell Street so the Russell Street students enjoyed the eclipse on Monday and all the students and staff were provided with eclipse glasses and all the classes went outside in the afternoon to view the many students and staff expressed their appreciation for the glasses and the opportunity to experience eclips now the Russell Street school started mcast testing this week third and fourth graders completed two days of ela testing and fifth graders will do their Ela testings after the vacation week for the Littleton Middle School they also started their mcast their Ela mcast on Wednesday and they worked extremely hard and spent the entire day on it and the sixth grade had a Nature's Classroom field experience on the 22nd and the 23rd or they have for Shaker Lane Shaker Lane would like to thank all the families who have donated items to their Mother's Day's gift bag for Women in Need they will be putting these bags together after spring break and delivering them to the make a wish project in chelsford in times for Mother's Day and Shaker Lane would also like to wish all the families a wonderful spring break next year there are a lot of announcements for the high school so on April 5th a junior class held a class auction and their Littleton went to the Massachusetts state science and engineering Fair represent with seven students representing Littleton and four projects participating on April 6th there was the polar plunge and on April 8th the Council on Aging lunching as well as the solar eclipse viewing from April 9th through 10th we had the uh Nas collaborative conference littleon hosted that and on April the GSA magician fundraiser was at 5:30 p.m. the gender and sexuality Alliance hosted the local magician Stephanie beach for a familyfriendly magic show at the high school and the club raised over $200 and hopes that we get an annual event from April 22nd to April 26th is National culture week and April 26th is also Littleton High School's prom at mechanics Hall on April 30th Littleton High School is holding a blood drive and on May 1st there's CPR training for seniors as well as the NHS induction ceremon that's all the announcements awesome thank you addition comments have sure uh on Monday we uh held the uh Council on Aging uh lunching at the high school it's been five years since we've been able to hold that lunch in so it's was nice to get the senior citizens of our community together about 85 of them come out and we served their favorite lunch uh and it was past to meatball so great great evening or great after afternoon I should say and uh thank you a special thanks to Hillary bridge for uh providing the music students to perform for us in the the chorus as well so uh one other recognition uh this week we also graduated one of our uh LHS students out of our transition program his name is Kyle and Kyle uh had a huge influence on many many people in this community and and including all of our stff they would come up and deliver bail every day and uh you know I knew Kyle was coming up when he's on the first floor because he's he's very uh very loud at times and and funloving and and so we're really going to truly miss Kyle we want to wish him the bestass as he continues his journey and that's it for so thank you for sharing okay now move on to presentation for anything so the first state of curriculum reports part one uh two content areas take them in order I think uh part one grade six 22 math curriculum coordinator Elizabeth rgo provide an update of the math curriculum then I'll announce welcome hello thank you um so first we'll start with some middle school math accomplishment um so in seventh grade math we have a new teacher her name is Caitlyn shaunessy um she's doing a great job making connections and incorporating udl strategies in her classes um in the math lab again we have Rachel Silva she works with small groups in each grade at the middle school in these small groups she's able to make strong connections provide extra one-on-one support for students retach Concepts and have students practice math skills that may be challenging for them she's able to engage students in math with Hands-On lessons and activities um for mcast teachers are continuing to review mcast results in the fall to ensure that all the necessary content is being taught in order for students to be successful on the mcast teachers are using mcast data to modify their teaching as necessary when we meet teachers go through each question and identify strengths challenges and next steps topics are reviewed and retaught as necessary they're using technology in their classroom to help students prepare to take it on the computer um Desi has released some online math um practice problems that are being used as well as practicing doing math with various programs such as Prodigy and assistments teachers are continuing to give students practice mcast problems along with exemplars to help students be prepared with various types of problems such as multiple choice problems and open response type of problems um they review scoring and have students practice and score random student samples um for professional development teachers have been participating in various PD throughout the year some of the PD that the Middle School teachers participated in include udl um one of the teachers went to the Nelms conference that looked at student engagement seal and wellness equity and diversity leadership and community communication um they're also looking at math curriculum development review vertical alignment Curriculum maps and also mcast discussion and strategies um teachers are engaging students using online games and activities such as Desmos gim kit class kit quizzes Google forms and docs and digital Escape runs they're incorporating projects and activities such as breakout edu boxes um Edy protocols to practice vocabulary a dance dance transversal um activity Pythagorean theorem Jelly Bean activity a p day challenge data displays looking at how many times students pick up their phone a slope city project human graphing and a dueling discount project um the eth grade also went on a stem challenge field trip to Gillette Stadium the online textbook and resources are also being used to engage students and enhance their understanding of the math concepts um udl is being used by giving students Choice boards in multiple ways to access the curriculum the a grade students are also participating again this year in the Scholastic hardest math contest students complete fun extra challenging problems and have the opportunity to win prizes such as a laptop tablet or money towards a college Savings Plan seven eth grade students attempted challenge number one and four of those students correctly solved it and were eligible to complete challenge number two um the winner will be announced by the end of April or beginning of May um next we have the the high school accomplishments so first um for advanced placement for AP stats 49 students took the exam last year and 89.8% of the students received a three or above um this year we have two sections of AP stats with a total of 43 students taking the course for AP Calculus last year 18 students took the exam 11 of the 18 students received a five and 100% of the students received a three or above um this is the second year in a row this is happened which is really amazing um both AP math courses have finished the curriculum and we'll use the rest of the time to review the curriculum and become efficient test takers for the exam in May um Julie Elmore was chosen for the seventh time this year to grade AP Calculus exams in June um We are continuing to prepare students for mcast testing by practicing various types of mcast questions in class and using examplars um teachers are using the desie online practice question have been released to help prepare students to continue taking the mcast on the computer um some of our courses also use an online program called Alex on a weekly basis this allows students to become comfortable with using the tools and doing Mac on the computer it is an Adaptive learning program so it also helps fill in gaps for student who need it um or allows students to progress if they are ready for it students may also be able to review topics they haven't seen in a while that could show up on the mcast um as a department we sit down together in the fall to review the mcast results and review the results of the individual Quest we identify strengths challenges and next steps and from this we are able to see what adjustments and changes need to be made we also work together to identify strategies to help our students we continue to be aligned to the Common Core um some professional development that teachers are participating in include udl seci Mass Q mindsets in math thinking classrooms in math and mcast review and strategies College Prep statistics continues to offer dual enrollment with middle sex Community College where students can receive three college credits um teachers are using the touch viw interactive TVs they're able to engage students and Visually communicate better with students um as mentioned earlier some of our classes are using the Adaptive program called Alex with this program we also able to see what students know and what they are ready to learn um Desmos is used to explore different Topics in math with VAR various activities in graphing edulastic for online math practice um Google classroom for notes assignments reminders and resources we also have the online textbook and resources in courses where it is available and AP Calculus and AP Statistics classes are using AP classroom for additional resources including videos question Banks and assessments um teachers are incorporating projects some of these include map projects a can cantastic challenge project to to find the cost to manufacture a can of soup with three-dimensional formulas sketching pictures with Transformations a detective project using trigonometry probability and statistics carnival games project sequence sequences and series nature and art project and a zombies and vampires exponential function project um the Barbie bunge activity was also done again this year in AP Statistics as an intro to linear regression um the financial algebra course this is the second year this course is running as a FYE course it reinforces algebra and statistics skills relating to real world applications um we also are having the financial literacy fair again ran by pamama bate in the financial algebra class the purpose of this fair is to teach students about real life finances credit scores and other budgeting skills approximating their income and expenses in their early 20s um the first year at Rand was last year and it was extremely successful um we also have the co-taught algebra 1 course this year it's being taught by Julie elore and Jen fudo um this is the fourth year we have had a co-taught math class in the math department um teachers are able to share a variety of teaching techniques and provide extra support to help students succeed in math um we also are still running the New England Math League or Nemo um it's six questions held six times a year from October through March it's held after school in the cafeteria um this year 156 students participated in Nemo at least once and students from all grades and all six Math teachers participated this year um we also have Archie the registered therapy dog who's been working with Julie Elmore again this year um he adds a Comming presence wherever he is and the students and faculty really enjoy when he's around um so then this next slide looks at grade 10 um math mcast so 73% of students are meeting or exceeding expectations this year all students pass um the math mcast which hasn't happened the past few years um little tended better than the state on every single question um also the mean student growth percentile was 65 which indicates high growth which is the highest it has been the past few years this indicates that students growth was higher than that of their academic peers Statewide um as mentioned earlier teachers from grade six six through 12 meet to review data identify challenges straints and to discuss next steps teaters identified where students could use more practice and reinforcement and this has been an ongoing conversations for teachers throughout the year and then lastly just some current Focus areas so we continue to make adjustments due to the pandemic um we are able to identify where students have gaps with self- Diagnostics or programs such as Alex and map some students are still struggling with math fluency so teachers are incorporating warm-ups Skill Drills spiral reviews to help students with this students are completing activities and assignments in groups and independently and are given a variety of Assessments all teachers are encouraging students to take risks ask questions and just overall provide a safe learning environment for students um teachers have participated in districtwide PD for udl and have focused on developing and applying udl Concepts to their math classes we continue to explore these ideas and how to incorporate them into our classes um as mentioned earlier we continue to review mcast dat as a department Implement strategies look at doing math on the computer implementing various types of mcast problems in exemplars um discuss showing and explaining their work strategies for multiple choice problems and ensuring all students have access to the math mcast materials prior to taking the exam um we continue to implement real world applications to help engage students and see how they can use math in their own lives we have students talking more about math in real world world context and what makes sense um Danielle Bearden attended the mass Q this year and discovered Lego kits that incorporate both technology and math she received a few kits through an LEF Grant is in and is in the process of setting these up to use in her classes um over the past year the 6 through 12 Math teachers have been meeting to review our courses discuss content and mcast and ensure vertical alignment this has also been essential to discuss what students know and what they need to know to be successful in their math class um we've also checked in with other math departments and other districts to discuss strategies and curriculum and I look forward to Contin to continuing to do this um to develop a strong math program for our students um and that's about it so thank you so much for your time tonight you any questions or comments from Miss R sounds like you guys have been busy sorry it seems like you're making math really accessible for all the kids so I I really appreciate all the different Dynamic pieces that you're put together with the kids that's great you got something oh me yeah us usually have um no I'm really grateful that you spend so much time analyzing Mast data I just feel like that's that's one of the best uses of that data because it and as you know going standard by standard it can tell you so much about your curriculum and your instruction and your students and and I I'm really um grateful that you make that such a high priority 6 through 12 and I I had a question about the financial literacy fair is that um like a a an option for students or is that something that that everyone does or senior Z okay so that that's great so that because I we' talked before about financial literacy yeah it's a huge life scale yeah it's really great and I feel like the kids really enjoyed it last year and it was very successful a lot of voler members of our community that's awesome thank you for all you're doing it's a lot question for you about the um the endast results in the trend so it's nothing personal like I always ask I always ask the negative question um because the presentation is so full of positive things so I was just curious if we look at um partially meeting and not meeting and we kind of lump those together the trend is you know in the wrong direction and it could be explained by a number of the variables I can think of a few myself but is does the team kind of have an idea of why that might be the case and like you talked about a number of strategies to try to move that in the other direction but what what are some of the top reasons why you believe we have more students uh partially meeting or not meeting year over year two years in a row sure sure no that's a good question um and you know that's something that we've discussed as well um you know a lot of the districts aren't back to their pre-pandemic results um and you know kind of going back and thinking you know well where were these students like what has their education looked like there had been disruptions you know there was the shutdown we had the hybrid year where some students were living at home the whole time so maybe they weren't getting everything that they possibly could have so I think we are still seeing some disruptions from those things um and you know like I said earlier we kind of go through those questions and we try to figure out it's really really nice how much data there is out there because you know we can see even their answers and try to figure out you know um like why did so many kids pick this and you know it really gives us a lot of information so we can kind of adjust and discuss strategies with students um we've also talked about you know sometimes we haven't gotten to the curriculum we've also had a few different schedules throughout the year so this year you know we started earlier which I think will help we have a new schedule at the high school which I feel like is also helping um because when the mcast is in May sometimes we still have over a month left in school right and students are taking the mcast where maybe there are a couple of topics they haven't gotten to yet so I'm hopeful you know with kind of rearranging things and being able to get through more curriculum this year and just incorporating the strategies that we've discussed that you know we can try to help you know pull up what's been going on and hopefully we'll start to see you know now that we're getting further and further further from the pandemic then you know we'll start to see those gaps kind of get smaller makes sense to me um what I was expecting to hear so that's that's good and I think time itself will just kind of flush some of that out um the discussions with some other districts that was going to be one of my questions but it seems like you guys are already doing that which is terrific uh were there any like light bulbs that went off like some of the surrounding towns these top performing districts like gez they're doing that um we hadn't thought of that yet or how are they possibly funding that um we wish we were able to do this type thing yeah I mean I feel like a lot of the districts I mean it's super helpful when we have that full day PD you know we've been given Department time where that's huge to be able to sit down with two other districts because we don't always get the opportunity to do that so I feel like that's been really helpful I feel like they've seen similar patterns to what we've seen um we also discussed strategy next year the math department will be going through a curriculum review as well um so we've kind of been in touch with them to just to discuss you know is there a curriculum that they have that they are really enjoying that works well um so I hope to keep those you know Communications going and it's good to have to have made those connections great awesome thank you very much thank you very much thank for your time I know all right so part two um K 12 health and physical education curriculum coordinator merth perryo friends okay so let's something different okay everyone see it up we're gonna do something that I call elevators okay it's just three down but it's slow and then one up okay so get elevator you go down to go one two three and then up one two three up one two three and now stretch all the way to the guy SC all right how's everyone feel every ready great I think it's better if I do go a second just for that right kind of go first and get it over right my name is mar per this is I don't even know my 15th state of curriculum so I've been here longer than all of you um I am super excited to say that we have a brand new member of our department this year we have a full-time being teacher um in all the schools so Mark Bentley um is um at Shaker Lane um Shane Tower is um in for um Sydney not wood Hensley was Sydney wood for um Sydney hendley she's on maternity leave so Shane has is filling in this year Trisha bonor and Greg jelet at the middle school Mike ly Zach smithlin and I are at the high school so um that's just you an idea of who we are um something major that we have done this year I am proud to announce that we have our new Frameworks which for the past five years I have been hoping for it but now we have them um they are definitely um as I will mention um a huge part of our PD this year um but I I'm getting a little bit myself um so something else we always have those great connections with um our SRO um with especially at the middle school Meg goes in and makes those connections with those kids which is so fantastic so then when they come up to the high school they know where her office is and they ask to go down and they ask to talk to her when necessary so it's very important that we have that uh we did participate in the youth risk behavior survey this year um eth graders and then all high schoolers took it um just last month we also do the universal mental health screening and grades 9 through 12 which focuses on um screening for depression anxiety um and any any signs of suicide um we also do the signs of suicide program um at the middle school the sixth and eighth graders do it the sixth graders have that screening and then the eighth graders have a refresher um and as I had mentioned we do have a fulltime PE teacher um that was added so now we have at least one full-time um PE teacher at every school which is so amazing um we also upgraded some equipment at the Russell Street um where we got some scars and um basketball hoops um and I have a couple things when I get to the pictures so I can show you so the current Focus that we have this year as I mentioned we are updating our new Frameworks it is um skills-based now so it is definitely a large undertaking we were expecting it to be skills-based um so Trisha and I specifically have been kind of Shifting in that direction over the past few years so although the writing piece of it is going to be big the practice piece has actually already been in place for a few years so there really isn't going to be much changes in the classroom it's just going to be kind of more of that back the back back work that we need to do so we are working on the curriculum mapping um which we are using our faculty live PD days um we are using three of them we've already had two it's been great that all of us can be together um because of the school start times and I am K to 12 so we can't always have everyone together um so for the past um couple of U PD PD days we've been together and it's just nice to kind of see where everyone is what they need um and I can be a resource for them and we're all in the same room so it's really nice um We are continuing to look at the whole students to help kind of figure out where they are um and where we want them to be as just a human um I think that that's great with health and PE that we can kind of take that step back and and although we are an academic subject it can also be kind of that um time where we can kind of make better connections since we're talking a lot personally you know personal fitness personal health um that we can like kind of get those connections to see where they where they are and what they need um which is also great because then we can talk to the rest of the faculty and the rest of the staff to say hey I have this student this is happening in our classroom um this is really working for me they shared with me this you know and obviously asking the student and talking with the student to say hey can I share this information so that we can better serve you um and most of the time students are like yeah I don't care as long as I can pass your class right um not necessarily um but the social and emotional piece like I said is super important for us and we are incorporating all those practices into our classroom not only is it a part of our curriculum but just um the staff and and the my department is just really keen on that and just wanting to know that the students feel safe in their classrooms because as we all know students that don't feel safe will not learn so that's a really big um piece in our department um so for our next slide we have our professional development we have been focusing on being culturally responsive teachers um udl as we know is a huge um focus that we're having right now in the district um we've also been taking some online courses understanding moods um the SE endorsement course um some of you might know the PE and health doesn't need to take the FBI endorsement it's only the core classes that need to be endorsed um but some of us are taking that just to have that um information what is SEI um I'm sorry the um shelter englisher So like um English language Learners um and then we're also focusing on mindfulness taking um courses in it to understand how we can be mindful ourselves but then how also we can teach our students to be mindful um improving Wellness for all staff and students that's is something that we um want to do in general um but then also um taking those courses again for ourselves and then U one of our staff members is actually um taking some courses in athletic Administration um which is always awesome um Trisha went to mayfer this year um as our representative that is the Massachusetts Association for health phys education Recreation and dance um and when she came back with some really great strategies to help with health and and visit teaching um strategies it's really awesome because there's there really is so few kind of focused on health and PE and so when you can have an entire conference it's just health and PE it's just really awesome to be able to get those strategies um was able to go and bring them back um so she shared them with us and then a whole bunch of us by accident signed up for um a teacher Le um PD it was actually with Holly Ballard it was so amazing um tools for the toolkit working with rcky and combative students more effectively so t d and I um actually signed up for that and we were like w this is really fun why did we all think this fun um but we again like to make those connections with all students we wanted to make sure that we had all the tools that we could so that's why we all ended up signing up for that Lune um so just to kind of show you what is going on um here at Shaker Lane we actually have those the the Hoops that I had mentioned um but we do have a wonderful video um that Mark has shared with us [Music] I do your best appreciation and thanful El appr I apprciate iate I apprciate when I get a smile I appreciate when I get a smile I appreciate the sun shining down I appreciate the sun shining down I appreciate my friends all around I appreciate my around appreciation and thanful and thanful all try to do your appreciation thankfulness thankfulness is a simp to do you show thatness in you I'm thankful for the school where I go thank for I'm thankful for the flowers that GR oh thankful for the food that I eat thankful I'm thankful for my family I'm thankful appreciation and thankful appreciation and thankfulness always try to do your best appreciate [Music] and so you right clearly they saw the camera um but as you can tell that they are not only learning the you know social and emotional with the being thankful and being appreciative with their personal space and their skills as well um so Mark is doing a really great job um at Jer Lane so then at Russell Street um [Music] um at Russell Street um Shane does a seal check-in every time every time that the kids come into um the gym um and so they can tell him where where they are at at that moment so we can kind of see what he's working with um they also have the adapted PE class um and then they also um as I had mentioned they had new scarves and so they were teaching how to juggle with the scarves um and then they also were practicing yoga um as well and then he also has the wall of Records um which um they made like a thresh like if you can hold the plank for 60 seconds then you can put your name on it um if you can do 20 push-ups then you can put your name on it so um they all kind of had that um you know gold to have and then as you can see so many names are now on it they can do all of the activities um and then also so um the Litton Youth Lacrosse um Association donated lacrosse sticks so now there is enough for an entire class they were a few short so they donated some um so now they have the whole whole class there to be able to participate Justin is zooming in on the plank records and comparing our kids Record Times my he's not a plank a competition here no competition right um so at the middle school we just um have activities happening in PE classes um just they have individual um as well as team sports they like to um participate in um something that they also do at the middle school um next slide that they have instant activities um that they do together with the health classes so the health classes and the PE classes combine at the beginning of their classes and they do some instant activities as you can see the grand joined them um in December to do some yoga um but sometimes it's a puzzle sometimes it's a physical activities and so they get to kind of choose um so they spend the first few minutes um working together with the both classes and then they separate and they work on their um individual lessons the fire department um not only works with um the high school as we know that the seniors are getting a c certified um May 1 but they also go down and they work with um the middle schoolers as well um to do the CPR and AED for schools so they're um exposed to it before they come to the high school um I also wanted to mention that the um middle school and the high school have an archery club um Trisha does run it we want to mention it because it is the largest Club that's at the middle school right now and that the high schoolers go down and kind of Mentor the students so it's a great connection that we like to make um and it is such a fun and they do it throughout the school year they go inside the winter as you can see they have that screen in the background and then they go outside when the weather is nicer um and they also have the PALS program um which is like best buddies um we just call it Pals for Legal Services it is copyrighted name um and then at the high school we have um several of our classes um in health class we are um doing an escape room which we actually did today um we have pit for life which makes up their games like it's actually kind of a new thing that they're doing is that they kind of come up with this game you know being super creative they write down rules and then they have to play it um and so they came up with another one just recently where someone is shooting a basketball but also dodging um Dodge balls at the same time and if they score baskets um more baskets than they hit the person who's trying to score then they win so it's like that's the competition like how many times you are hit and how many times you score a basket and um it's they had so much fun there was so much sweat happening I was witnessing it and I was like this is amazing um and they were like laughing and having such a great time um and as you know that's just what we want that's our goal that we have for the students is we want them to enjoy the activities that they're doing because we do want them to be active for their life um and then also we have the cing conditioning classes where they create their um their own their own fitness plan um and they have to use it follow through it so that's that's happening in the health and PE Department amazing awesome this is um kind of a basic question that I should know already but are there guidance counselors in all schools blind so I mean it's kind of a different role at the high school with you know college applications and so forth but so I I was wondering with all of the work that you do on mental health and social emotional I mean do you interface much with the guidance counselors oh I'm always talking with all of them yeah yeah it would seem like a natural connection that you can help each other out yeah yeah I I feel that even I mean I can talk to the high school because that's where I am at but I am constantly talking to teachers just saying I'm having a student I've noticed this have can you help me um I have access to all of their schedules so I can look to see who else has them as teachers and I can just go ask um but I'm always my first stop is usually the guidance counselor um for our adust my counselors that's awesome Qui question you mentioned the youth risk behavior survey yes that was uh eighth graders and high schoolers in previous years it's been the younger kids right six or 12 six s and that changed this year I believe so yeah yes we uh the clinical team took a look at the questions on the survey and so we just felt that um they weren't in line with our our own Philosophy for that grade level so we signed off and that's sort of this year yeah I I appreciate that and I know a lot of people did because for those that don't know the questions are very adult in nature which is okay at a certain age but six and seventh I we we had expressed our our concerns to them and I mean they they tweaked a bit but just not enough yes okay thank you what do we do with the this isn't necessarily like a curriculum question but what do we do with the with the youth risk behavior survey results those are shared so all staff or It's usually the clinical staff and then I ask for the results as well and so then I try to take what we need to work on and I focus my curriculum more on that okay do we get individual results or is it kind of this is what's happening in Littleton type thing it's more of just like a Littleton yeah it's more but we do get the surrounding towns as well okay I believe we also get a percentage of like how everyone how they answered each question but not like it's it's an anonymous survey it's not a screener right for individual students corre it's so if we get like question number one we can see who answered yes who answered no kind of like we can see the percentages yeah whereas the mental health screening is individual that's to weed up specific kids that might be and we tell them that it's not it's confidential but it's not Anonymous right and then when they do pull students out or contact the students they also pull out like they it's still confidential because they take students that are not at risk and they kind of ask them what they thought of the they think it was good so they get feedback that way too so if they're pulled out a fast it's not like oh they didn't answer correctly on the on left screen yeah so we take a lot of students out so yeah right just so it makes it that yeah so do you have a a protocol for responding when a red flag the clinical staff does yeah okay let's is there any any sub any sub is there a trend with this youth risk behavior survey um happening within Littleton do we look like other districts that that sort of match our academic performance and demographics yep and the all the years that I've been here they have been very much so um there was a couple of years where um the suicide rate in Lon was really high that was when I first started here about 20 years ago and that's when we started implementing the screening and started um talking more about suicide and giving more um education about um depression and anxiety and since then those numbers have gone down like improved the signs of suicide rate was high or the actual actual suicide actual suicide rate when I first started here 20 years ago yeah should we more exercises thanks for teeing them up for me thank you so much Right Moving on here uh presentation number two superintendent midcycle Forma of evaluation superintendent clench provided brief overview of progress of the superintendent goals 2023 through 2025 take it away probably less than 30 minutes put putting pressure on me you can respond do I promise I won't uh ask you to do planks so I should really want to but I'm pretty sure you don't right we'll pass are you sure okay so a few months ago I has gone by so fast I came before you to talk about my initial goals for the year and I have 14 goals uh two uh goals that are are required through the evaluation process and 12 other auxiliary gos uh during the discussion we uh decided that it would be everybody's best interest including mine to to cut them down so I decreased them to six typic you superintendent evaluation have from three to five but even though I cut those goals down doesn't mean that I'm not actualizing all those others we talked about the superintendent position multi-layered and there was many different responsibilities so we used a different format this year and uh at the end of my presentation I'm going to ask you what you thought of it it's kind of interesting is it's concise I think better better than reading 35 pages of my narrative so uh we're going to start now our the first goal which is a mandated goal professional practice goal it's a two-year goal and in my case of it's U preparing myself for recertification every five years Educators superintendents administrators need to be certified in the state of Massachusetts and uh it it allows us to to venture out into areas that that we're interested in in continue learning I mean we we need to be examples of lifelong learning and and uh right from the top down that we demonstrate that to to not only our our staff but our kids in our community so the chart is arranged uh second column standards and indicators so that's aligned with the uh superintendent desie rubric also with our strategic plan I've talked many times about the fact that all evaluations are aligned to our strategic plan so when our teachers and administrators uh create goals they align them to the to their Desi document as well as our strategic plan so if I look at at the alignment here with the desie rubric standard four professional development professional culture D continuous learning indicator and a continuous uh learning of administrator so that will be the alignment to the actual Desi document District strategic plan do would be standard two professional development then in the third column we have all of the action steps that that I have taken and I hope you had a chance I'm sure you did a chance to take a look at this so in the state of Massachusetts they they mandated uh 30 PTP pdps in uh courses that uh really focus around special education students and other accommodations that may be required you know for example so I completed two courses the first one strategic instruction for English Lang langage Learners or English language learner population is increasing within our community so it's certainly a good uh idea for me to have further training in that area and the second one is supporting special education students in the classroom you've heard me Echo many times during periods where I speak speak at school commity meetings the importance of inclusion and in fact when we were doing our budget and I was looking at the successes I spoke about the need to take some time to review how services are are being currently offered to some of our special education students they should uh be with the most qualified teacher possible and do that by including them as much as possible there are times when pull out as necessary but uh we have to make sure that that it it suits the student we should always have have an eye on trying to move them more into the classroom setting with their appears MS massach Massachusetts Association of school superintendents puts on an annual uh Summer Conference they've done this for many years they do a fantastic job of doing it they have a professional development committee that looks at a number of things a number of areas trends that are happening in the nation and Massachusetts uh uh areas that that the uh Department of Education would like to to move forward and also challenges that that districts are seeing and and challenges beyond the state of massachus what I like about this conference that it just doesn't focus on Massachusetts I mean We're a nation and a lot of a lot of things are happening out there and we're not examp from many those things happen in State uh Paul Andrews uh I knew Paul very well he uh was a very active member with mass he was in charge of the professional development committee for many many years he uh was responsible for not only creating the the summer PD for superintendents but also PD throughout the year unfortunately Paul passed away a couple years ago but uh I remember that three years ago he uh communicated to us and greeted us all the conference from a hospital B very dedicated individual and and uh was a very had a very powerful impact on not only superintendents but education State the uh conference theme students are are why leading diversity belonging equity and inclusion or to help healthy and successful School Community fitting topic for for anybody in education 3day conference sample workshops differentiated PD a vehicle for Equity elevating student voice from central office and uh on that note uh that's certainly something that's been important to me for years we' created focus groups where I've been able to take part of them Middle School and High School Dr Harrington just scheduled a time with me to uh meet with the students that are administering the de deiv survey in the high school so I'm excited about that it's nice to get out and and talk with our students and on that note there there are more ways that we we can Elevate student voice at the at the school committee level superintendent level we just need to to to spend more time making sure that we we fit those important activities I would like to see more students come to the school community meeting or perhaps even think about having a superintendent call a meeting and invite the school committee where we don't have to worry about coings or motions or or publicizing Etc and sit around with a group of students and and just have an open discussion about those in high school for example how what are the what are the strengths of Lo High School what has helped you get to the point where you are now and what are some of the challenges that you face two simple questions that create quite a quite a awh dialogue solution oriented mindsets my administrators are probably so sick of that phrase because I've been using that phrase since the first day I walked in the door we we all have problems and conflicts but unless we commit to sitting down collaboratively working together to find Solutions we're really not getting in we're spinning in wheels so that's something I worked on my entire career and it was nice to to sit back and have somebody else talk about this something that that's really important to me as a leader and uh if it works very well I there's very few times uh when people come to see me now especially staff members where I don't have you know I don't never have to say well what's your solution what are you thinking about them how are you going to move this forward because they know exactly what I me to say anyway but uh that kind of mindset is really important in terms of improvement within schools school districts and classrooms uh the dangers of neutrality using data to reveal Equity opportunities School and District planning and implementation something that that's really important never goes away and is is essential par in moving districts forward and making sure that we always look at ways that to the pr of student the updated Massachusetts iup and forment process we've talked about that at this table we've had a number of ins services with our staff which I'm intended uh it's going to be implemented next fall and uh it was nice to to hear the rationale from from the people from the state that were're we're pushing for changes and personally I think it's a it's it's a movement in the right direction it's really focusing U not more but focusing in a way that accentuates uh goal attainment and also neurodiversity which we're don't hear enough we need to we need to look at their strengths focus on their strengths because that's how we we help people become the best that they can be and that is embedded in the uip for and I'm really really excited about legal updates uh well superintendent should have legal training when I first became a superintendent was mandatory and Massachusetts it isn't but uh they do provide updates every year now there are laws that are Rewritten in education that one needs to know about but there are also uh settlements uh in terms of case law what that means is you have a law that's written and then when it goes to court you have case law and and law really determines how the laws are interpreted and and interpretations change throughout time so as a superintendent support updated on on those changes and U it really helps when we are dealing with lawyers because I do have that knowledge based tease out with the lawyer what we need to do culturally responsive practices in a district of demographic change I think that fits our community very well a great uh seminar is to take in and uh we're not the only one facing changes and it's really exciting LEL to because we're not only facing demographic changes we're growing and not many communities in Massachusetts can actually say that they're they're truly growing I'm out about Superintendent at meetings they they uh often ask me about our enrollment decline have a smile and say we're stabilized but we're stabilized because we have people waiting to get to our school district by a school choice it's really nice to have that stabilization Factor uh in our school districts which which benefits all students we've can make sure we have enough students in every grade to ensure that we offer the program that they need to be successful even though we try really hard to uh stabilize those great enrollments it's impossible to do we still have our highs and lows in our so we do the best we can portrait of a graduate not just for high school something you could we talk about uh Dr Harington was here a few months ago talking about uh the creation of a portrait of graduate of high school it's really going to be called the portrait of Lear of a Learner in our military schools we're excited to begin that work this summer and putting some pressure on John as he's already had a conversation with me that I really uh would like this this whole portrait completed without any addition so that we can start looking at the summer and our Retreat and start the busy work of of working with the other administrators to start creating those those profiles and Learners we've already done some background work our schools have already identified skill sets that our students need to be successful as they transition from one school to another and uh so it's just a matter of of compartmentalizing that information creating something that's to be not only useful but U or something that somebody follows and looks at every day comes part of the culture also uh every year masc and mass uh team together which is really unique this is the first state I've been in where that actually happens and what's powerful about this conference is it gives us superintendent and school committee members opportunity to learn together and and when I look at these two conferences there's the the formal part of it but for me there's also the informal part of same with I'm Lane the school Comm members I mean I I can touch base with over 200 superintendents ten Summer Conference so it's a good opportunity to sit down and talk about things that are working well in their respective districts and the challenges that they have and we just develop a nice collaborative partnership which I think is really important in the positions uh the Mas masc Mass conference is held in November and Sample workshops wraparound services that strengthen alliances between families and schools that's something that's really important to me as well um a number of years ago I was actually heavily involved in that I was uh appointed to something called a regional intersectoral committee and the task of those committee that committee are four of them in the province that I was in and we were charged with bringing Social [Music] Services Medicare Justice and education under one umbrella and providing wraparound services to our families and students the area that I had was bigger than the state of Massachusetts believe not was an honor so I was the only educator out of the four regions and was appointed as chair but looking back at that time we have a lot of work to do in Massachusetts to provide rapid real servic and what does that mean it means that the services that we provide inh house in our schools need to be aligned and intertwined with services that some of our students are receiving outside of our schools and as I said I'm not going to expand on it too much but we really need to work on in in the state of Massachusetts so I would like nothing more than than to see social workers assigned to our district rather than having a different social workers every time so we have to deal with a social worker that consistency I would also like to to have them spend some time in our district so they could actually get to know some of their students rather than coming in not having having you know the background that would be beneficial to helping families crisis so you know something that uh hopefully the state will you know continue to to not only recognize the importance of doing something different but put some money and some structures and place to to help us to a better job in cultivating culturally responsive leaders in our schools more important than ever during our the current climate that is out there kind of try to steer away from using the word political but it is a political climate that we're dealing with and unfortunately uh value structures are are sometimes changing very rapidly some communities knock on wood we're very fortunate in our community we have a a community that Embraces diversity Equity but it doesn't mean that we we don't have to be cognizant of how fast we move if we move too fast we fall backwards if we move at the right pace we bring people with us and you can't get better at at offering uh more Equitable and and inclusive environments without bringing your community alone if you just do it at the school level and the district level it'll make some difference but in order to make a huge difference the community has to come along with this that's something I always remind our Administration and uh whenever I get a chance to talk about this it's about Community it's not just about schools implementing a high quality literacy curriculum seems to be the buzz not only in the United States but through North America and knowing the signs for school violence and prevention if I could use a word tonight that that I you know want you to always remember would be the word proactive the more proactive we are in dealing with any situation whether it be learning needs of students behavioral challenges of students or uh budget they just anything we do as leaders in in any District should always have the word proactive everything want if you're proactive the chance of su success is much greater uh as I move along here and and I have a timeline I I I really I'm sure you looked at the Timeline as I'm talking I don't want to point everything out of the document and youve obviously clicked on the links that put provideed well safety care training I don't know if you'll find many superintendent that are safety care training what does that mean it means that uh I get trained with uh certain staff that are that are earmarked for that and administrators uh on how to deescalate situations and if necessary how to restrain individuals way certification only lasts a year and so we need to keep it up from year to year was it J 12 hours or something can't remember 12 around 12 hours TR I'm happy to report not would that we have had no restraints in next action step comprehensive uh School threat assessment training intervention and support to the r violence I downloaded a picture of the book that we used in that training eight hours of training you may ask yourself why do you you need to be well versed in them because we deal with them and what we needed to do in our district is have a a more consistent approach to doing a risk assessment to determine whether an IND individual may may consider harming themselves or others and and that's kind of the first thing that we do when we end in end up in those situations and then make decisions as to what the next steps will be so our clinical team is trained as well all of our administrators are trained I'm trained as super and uh for me it it's it's an opportunity to keep a breast of of new and best practices and from a legal standpoint personally I think it's pretty a pretty good idea for the superintendent to have knowledge and training in this area in case we end up in litigation so those are some of the reasons why I keep up with these STS another action step continued workshops on the implementation of Universal Design uh for learning everybody knows what udl is now we always talk about it we're uding everything this day and age in our district excited about that for the first three years of implementing udl the central office team worked with principles and and Educators and help build a foundation of what udl was this year we we T over to school-based administrators of STA and our kickoff for that was on our first day back and and what we did to to actually facilitate that administrators including myself teamed with teachers and we broke the uh staff up into groups and we we talked them about udl and how they implemented in classrooms so I had the pleasure of of paing off with Heidi McGregor and we had a great time in our group and uh it really it really sent a nice message you have the foundation you can do it and we're here to support you but now the conversations need to be more school-based than than having us and guiding those conversations also attended uh two trainings this year one in October one in December are using uh Novak educational Consulting and uh they are are a great company that U are tried and true the no Noak was the assistant superintendent of got dunal for a few years Katie and uh she decid to decided to venture out on her own open up a consulting company with a specialty in udl her dissertation was also with udl implementation so it's been a real treat to have Katie in her district and some of the other uh people that she's trained you know you you can't do changes of this magnitude without bringing in professionals and bringing in people that are experts we can build Our Own Foundation but somebody that does this every day for a living and has worked with a number of districts allows us to implement at a much uh faster speed and when we're done we don't have cracks in our foundation it's a solid foundation which is really I've also uh purchased for the district various webinars from character strong or high school program that I'm really excited about and we talk about linkage of of uh professional development goals to uh student uh learning goals and I just finished a uh webinar on five strategies to effectively support student Behavior it's kind of a interesting opportunity for me to to bring out some of that knowledge I've had for many years and haven't had to use but now that we're we're we're taking a look at uh how our Learners are doing postco uh we need to really really sit down and and and spend some time looking at some of these these strategies that uh were presented and uh obviously working with our students at the high school I believe I I I see a difference already but proof will be in a pudding when we administer the second survey and in May and when we do our focus groups and we'll have better information to that so this webinar uh they back here for a second here it is so this webinar talked about something called the whole child success month what does that mean if you focus on young GSS solutions for TI one two and three you equip Educators with the skills that they need to work with students and you have effective School leadership you're setting yourself up for success with dealing with students that are struggling in your classrooms or May need extra help academically this also applies to Chronic absenteeism I mean we we've had this discussion we talk about strategies about chronic absenteeism how do we get kids back in school no bottom line is if students have a purpose and if they have a connection and they feel that s a belonging that's most of what you need to do sometimes we have to reach out to them and go the extra M to do that but if you really want to turn chronic absente ISM around they have to be excited about coming to school and you can't you're not going to be excited about coming to school you've been away two weeks you go back into your classroom and you don't know it's being taught you don't understand it so we need to provide opportunities for them to get caught up so that they don't uh decide that they they want to stay away from school for a longer period of time this we webinar also talked about five strategies is in the title trusting relationships most important thing that you can do with with Educators and students is all trusted relationships temperature checks culture checks climate checks you know experienced administrators can walk into a school within five minutes know what the climate is without talking to very many people it's that evence but what this this uh point also emphasiz is you need to know your students and and know what you need to to do a climate check with them so that you're proactive rather than reactive makes a huge difference proactive practices I've already talked about Progressive strategies effective discipline catching positive student Behavior moments proximity redirection working with the parents and actually phoning them and and talking to them about something that their child did that was positive and we've worked on that in our district but uh it makes uh everybody's life a lot easier when I was a principal when when I made those phone calls home I was suspending students or expelling students in high school or just just breaking the news to a parent that you know your son or daughter done something wrong you know in class or in school suspension more correctly or not of school suspension correct number of days if you've established that relationship with a parent and you've taken the time to talk about the good things that their child has done they're not going to jump to the conclusion that you're picking up child and and it goes a long way and I always use that of the school administrator you know 99% of my conversations with parents were were positive I when you talk about expulsion it's pretty hard to have a a positive conversation but at least there was some understanding and the last one was coordinated processes other words we need to be on the same page you can't have a teacher in one class doing something that's different than a teacher in another class something as simple as can you wear a hat or can't you wear a hat that's a simple simple analogy but really why why should we have that differentiation you can wear a hat or you can't wear a hat why should it change or differ from class to class other pet PE with M some teachers used to T allow kids to CH G other teachers didn't allow kids to to Che up I mean we need to be consistent in our schools and workart as well and do you want me to just keep going would you like to ask questions at the end of each goal or so I um I would just like to comment on how Val I think this is that you're linking this all to well we we've done the um professional practice school so far but this is really the fact that all of this is linked to a goal really helps me understand what's important to you out of all the gajillion things that are on a superintendent's plate but I've just been like kind of writing down the the themes that seem to come through with all of these different workshops and seminars and webinars so forth and it's you know you're you're very focused on multilingual Learners and and uh students with disability and equity and deib and um cultural responsive practices and you know and connecting with students um being proactive rather than reactive it's it's there there's certain themes that come through with with these things that you've been talking about so I um I really like this system of of linking it to a goal um I I hope that's worked out well for you too it has I I actually enjoy it I like the the conciseness and and it's an easy linkage to understand I write you a narrative I'm enjoying it and I bring things out that I've done all year but then you have to read it and try to create those links so I I think this is a is a good change and uh you looking forward to to moving forward with it next year as well it's going to be longer I have to tell you can't can't not add a lot more there a lot happens during the year so thank you for those comments student learning goal it's a two-year goal as well conducting research and writing a research paper with colleagues that focuses on the benefits and challenges of the character strong program at the high school what's what's really powerful for me here is the title in the job I have carries positional Authority where you want to know I mean I can I can go in schools I can wear Littleton swag I can dress down but I'm the superintendent of schools and with that not only carries a lot of responsibility but all the staff report to me on so my job as a superintendent my belief anyway is to break down those barriers as much as I can they know they know who who the superintendent is but at the same time in order for me to be effective I need to develop relationships with all staff and they need to feel comfortable with me as comfortable as they can so when I look at what happened here I didn't go out seeking this goal I had teachers seek me out and and to me that's really powerful teachers that that understand that I don't directly evaluate them but I do have a certain influence on on how they grow with in District so I I'm I'm I'm I'm really blessed to to to have this kind of relationship in a district and it doesn't happen easily because we deal with a lot of conflict with superintendent so by the time people sit at my table unless it's an administrative meeting it's because they're unhappy something isn't going right for so be able to continue to establish that before I think is is special and and really important to me as a leader so the alignment is there I don't think I need to read it to you you can see it's it's aligned with the Desy superintendent rubric and our strategic plan and when we started this Venture uh we met with uh the clinical team back in June of 23 talked about the need to to take a look at it develop a researched based sdl program formed a group committee and and their task was to look at this information throughout the summer and come up with a recommendation for the superintendent they made a decision to uh go with the evidence based Seal program character strong which was the first program that I presented to them back in in June I was thrilled with that the implementation was quick you know I thought was November December but they were often running uh the end of September and when you look at at what we've done here they began implementation in September we administered the beginning of the year's survey which was pretty positive there's one area that really needs uh needs to to provide needed to provide some some more support to to and we're doing that through the lessons that are created to make sure that that you know that the satisfaction rate in that area with students increases it was emotional regulation that's the one do instead of so we've uh you know developed the various things you have to do when you do a research paper uh we developed focus group uh interview questions etc for staff and students that has to be part of the RB application process research you have to have all that done before we approve it uh I had to complete a s research course interesting universities don't use the same research courses figured uh my doctorate degree at North Eastern that uh I would be able to go to any University and not have to take it out research course that wasn't the case so it was a good refresher uh development of research questions which are really important and they have to be they contained in the IRB which you can see when you take that L cup student set forms compuls as well development of recruitment forms for surveys and focus groups and all that is accessible to you and administration of M student assessment Happ in May which is around a quarter and our student and staff focus group surveys are going to happen in May and June I'm going to bow out of the uh staff focus groups to just make sure that there's no unintended bias by anybody who reads the research paper and uh then we've already started to accumulate uh journals of of uh literature that that take a look at U evidence-based research based SE program there's not that much out there I'll be honest with you when kids get to high school you know for years and years years and years it was it was interesting to me because all of a sudden they're fixed or they don't have these issues anymore that they had in grade eight and that's not true as we know and and they do mature from grade eight to grade nine there's no doubt there but it doesn't mean some of the struggles that they have in Middle School aren't going to come down through High School our counselors Ela as you mentioned before for years and years they they were just academic counselors and now we have adjustment counselors we have a psychologist and uh it's made a world of difference bridge program as well that brings me to the end of uh the second uh compulsory goal in the evaluation process any questions very can can you just um tell us what your research question is I'm going have to pull it up is it one of those super long ones or is it maybe you can just tell me that the gist of it that's one of those ones that's well you know I guess I guess to to summarize it without using the rhetor what what we're we're looking for is does a structured character education program instill the skills that students need to develop uh you know appropriate social and emotions skills to be successful in mind and uh you know by investing This Time by trading all the staff is that really going to make a difference in the end and if the answer isn't yes then we're spinning our wheels and we need to do something I think that's we believe as as a a group of researchers that this is making a difference but until you actually do the research there's no guarantees so that's that's really what we're looking for I think it's such a great choice for a student learning goal because it's actually measurable like that's the measurable part that's always so hard but this one has has the measurement built right into it so um thank you yeah good good luck as you excited ex okay goal three uh by leadership and oversight uh for the continued implication implementation of uh our new math resource in two math you can see where the linkage is in column two I'm going to speed up a little bit for you if I'm going too fast slow me down please um interesting assessments I included in my links for you if you you look at the growth during the first year of implementation program in 20223 it was significant in terms of numbers students that were above grade level and if you look at our midyear assessment in 202 2023 and 2024 you compare it to last year's data the mid year is is pretty close to what the end of the year was in the previous year so our kids are are learning math skills at a rapid pace so I'm really I'm really proud of that it's a it's an affirmation that we chose the right resource and I don't want you to think it's easy implementing the K to5 curriculum with teachers have accumulated room full of materials over the years and we've asked them to lock them up and not use them because we need Fidelity in impation of this program and as we we can finish the implementation uh year three next year won't be finished but we'll be closer we will start taking a look at where the voids are in this new resource because every C every curriculum resource has voids and in order to to to address them we need to bring in other resources but we don't want 15 other resources to address them we want to be consistent and how we address those those Pooles that we see with the resource are using uh again attended the interm workshops with staff uh they were uh facilitated by University uh this one is quite interesting it's nice for me to to go into classrooms uh and not just do a walk through but go into a classroom with a purpose and and there is a purpose of going to the classroom this is a real purpose that that uh is specific so I've been going into classrooms for a full class period we use the same template so the principal uses the observation template that and sold that it's been a while same one consistency is there and we take a look at the progress implementing implementing to ma indor classrooms I'm happy report so far I'm really impressed with what I see you know transitions uh into various activities and a 70 minute period uh are seamless even in kindergarten and it's not an easy gig in kindergarten to have four or five trans itions during the class so very proud of what our teachers doing and I intend to have Beth and I meet with the facilitator math coach to see what our next steps are next year and you know in my in my travels more correctly I have an opportunity to talk with teachers about how how their implementation process is going it's so important to hear their voice it's so important to know that it's they are comfortable to say what they want I don't back and and say oh it's going great they do but then I say and and what else and they usually have something that is struggling with which is important for for me to here as a superintendent so the end you know we're have the end of the year that assess I'll be looking forward to reviewing and excited to see how many students are above grade level at that time because plenty of our students are already above grade level VI your assessment go four I just think I'll just finish it I then you can ask me question so okay provide leadership support and guidance throughout phase two of the Shaker Lan building project feasibility design study everything's there you have access to the whole file this is a lot of work folks like it it's uh a lot of heavy lifting and it's about to get a lot heavier uh we were able to uh decide with msba on Tuesday uh who our design architect will be now we have to negotiate a contract with them and then the the uh expectations are going to pick up rapidly because we're going to have to hold Community meanss uh The Architects are going to have to decide whether U you know it's a renovation or a new build and we're uh you know very clear in our expectations that this is a community project not just a school department project so this uh company uh we're we're excited uh about having on board there was a good feel and maybe you could add to that as well if you would like at this time or wait yeah I I think they made us really excited for the project so they had a lot of great positive energy and I think it'll be they're really they'll be really great in kind of spearheading um the community involved in the whole project so pretty confident that they're going to help guide us be able get everybody's needs met um and help us make those decisions and we had a TI vote first round between the two companies and uh took a while to to break the tie but yeah we had to advocate for that one oh man we ever we the the uh advocation passed off paid off passed off paid off l so uh we're thrilled that we we ended up getting the the architect that we wanted because there's no guarantee there were 11 of them and three of us so we were outnumbered but they were Victorious uh go five provide leadership support and oversight for implementing our updated District strategic plan I've provided you with all of the presentations that we did this year here with the links uh quite a bit uh of information that we give you as a school committee it's imperative that we do that so that you are connected to what's happening in our school district and and hopefully uh not only you are connected but we're connected some of our public that comes in to our meetings or maybe watches our meetings at some later date so essential part of of what I need to do as a superintendent is keep you informed about the initiatives that we inct and I'm just going to go right through that one you can ask some questions at the end of the sure goal six uh negotiate successor contracts for uh educational support professionals and administrative assistance association this has been tough times for negotiations and uh the Committees in the past have always uh you know given me permission to negotiate these two contracts and hopefully it saves you a lot of time because uh they do take time and this one out of all the years that I've been here was probably the toughest because you know they're coming in with demands as a result of inflation wanting increases at times that are not sustainable but what I like about how we handle negotiations in in our district is we we put each other in in in each other's shoes and and sometimes it's hard it's emotional but we want to do what we can to support our staff but we don't want to end up in a position where we have to terminate staff because we can't afford to keep them all because it's counterproductive and that's what happens and you're seeing that happening around our state now where the negotiations were uh rough that's the word I can think of and as a result of the settlements um they lay laying Personnel right now it's getting pretty ugly out there in some communities we were spared of that because we were methodical and we we came in with an approach where we really care about about you but we're not going to do anything to jeopardize our welfare as a district we're not going to jeopardize your students so I'm happy to report for the first time in many many years we have all three contracts settled for three years so there should be no more negotiations period goodness that brings me to the end of uh my presentation of the goals and certainly here answer any questions that you may have I just Echo elain's comments earlier just I like the the organization of it I know when you um own your drive to work you probably have uh the things that you need to do today and then you walk in and you get you know Blind seted by emails and phone calls and it it takes you away from what you're hoping to accomplish having a document like this and a you know a two or threee plan with charting your progress um is been impactful for the district because so many times I think a leader within an organization can become really the operations manager manager and what we really need you to be is the Strategic thinker and then have operational people underneath you and I think you do a great job of that so that's so important yeah thank you for saying yeah I I like these um updates with every meeting that what's happening um with different aspects of the Strategic plan because it's um I think it's it's kind of unique approach I haven't seen it in other districts it's often with school committees they're just you know their meetings are caught up with dealing with crises and problems of the moment but this this helps us take a broader view of in a very organized way so that it's not just one area that gets gets all of the attention and and the other thing I wanted to call out I'm I'm just so impressed that you're you're so involved with the roll out of the new math program because I I think just op the Optics of that for teachers to see the superintendent do a walkth through and be well informed of the math curriculum I think it's it it helps them understand that how invested you are in their success um and and again I think that's unusual um it is yeah I mean I am a a curriculum person as well I'm lucky fortunate I've I've taught math and grades 256 789 and 10 and how did I ever do that when I was a principal I always talk so I understand that maybe have a minor in that it's really nice to come and see and come in and see first town how things have Chang since I was a teacher and they have changed so I really appreciate you see well and how great for the the teachers to be able to speak to you and I I I think that you know there's two benefits to that like one they can talk to you because you're not there about but at the same time you have a position of influence so it's um it's wonderful to give teachers that opportunity to be be able to speak their mind honestly directly to the top yeah thank you yeah yeah part of is your own experiences when I was a superintendent in Canada I could I was the only one that could offer pts status so I had to evaluate 30y your teachers and uh you have to develop those skill sets to to you know as a CE of the organization you're you're determining their fate you have to spend time developing relationships comfortable comfortable could thank you great nice job right on to thank you right on to school choice yep uh you want to present from the podium so you can see it back of your seat doesn't matter to me but um presentation three recommended school choice slots superintendent Kelly Clen present the recommended fiscal year 25 school choice seats and request to motion to approve the recommended schools as presented we've got 20 minutes for this I think this is typically done in less than 20 minutes but um it is get you out of your early so the uh the fourth call is the recommended school choice seats in Red so if you take a minute of looking take a minute to look at those you find there it is so you'll notice uh at Shaker Lane School we uh have five openings in kindergarten and four openings in grade two and that's it and that's you know because of our class sizes know we don't want to we don't want to tip the balance in terms of what an acceptable class size is now you I'm sure you already have looked at this because I know you you like to to look at numbers and in classroom sizes and center but we have a 11 grade 12s graduated this year so it's imperative that we we keep the flow of school choice students for the inter District the numbers that I recommended today not doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get them there's greater chance of filling the seats in elementary school than there is in middle school or High School sometimes we get surprised we had more enrollments in high school this year than we've seen in a long time so so you know my intent here is to stabilize our grades as much as possible without having class sizes that are not what we believe in in terms of uh optimal class sizes and also you know provide opportunities for our students with the program that we currently have and continue that program and if we don't have school choice it puts a greater strain on on our ability to to offer some of the program District without school choice our district very different and not for the better I'll I'll be honest with you uh it has allowed us to expand Staffing and and programs in the high school allowed us to bring in more specialty staff in all of the schools clinical staff for example so the money has been used wising it's made a tremendous difference in our district so and it it really has helped us through these these top budget times so when you when you go down there uh grades three four and five grade four can I ask L question sure it fits all right just take a one school course of course do you have any idea how many what um how many kindergarten students are expected to move to transitional for next year because that that that's yeah that impacts how large that class is going to be yeah there I mean I I don't have an exact number of that conversation Michelle I Michelle and I had many conversations about transition and there may be 14 but but my wish and desire is that we we take a real close look at transition and determine whether or not it's meeting the needs that it was 10 years ago the uh diversity in students academic social emotional diversity in students that were getting into our schools now like every District uh certainly is is has a a wider spread and when we look at transition there was a there was a time there's still may be a time we need to evaluate that um that classroom provided the support for social and emotional development for a group of students they were cognitively fine but the the social and emotional needs at Shaker about grade level has changed significantly and Michelle and I are both questioning whether or not that program uh will continue to meet the needs in terms of what it was intended to do so we're going to do a do a deep dive into it next year well that was kind of my survey parents Etc that was the reason why I asked the question was because we're we're advertising five seats for kindergarten and you know with that come school choice Revenue which we know get spent wisely but if we don't offer any school choice seats for that program it probably puts like one less child in every classroom which makes it slightly more manageable for that teacher because the feedback that we've been hearing especially if shap the lane is the kids are showing up to school less prepared um than they have in years past and I think it's all pandemic related right like those that were in daycare weren't in daycare those that were in preschool weren't in preschool some of those social skills didn't develop and now all of a sudden they're in kindergarten and just like the mcast 10th grade math problem I think over time that's going to weed itself out and hopeful um but I just wanted to raise that among the school communities like we could strategically go without those five seats and I mean I don't know don't I don't personally have an opinion on we put relative opportunity for the revenue and have one less child you know load for classg GR well let me let me help you out here because there's a context just and you would know the context uh we have an assistance in in all of those classrooms we're not required to have an ed assistant until we reach 25 students so we we we've had a firm belief that those that assistants are valuable irregardless of that's some Kindergarten just okay not one no no not one two no we can't transitional do they have a they don't they don't but that's something that that we're we're taking a look at because the the uh student population in transition has changing but you also need to know that we we opened up a therapeutic program in year for those students therapeutic program for for those students so we're we're we're offering more services than we ever have in kindergarten uh we have full-time SP teacher down down there now she was 7% 7% so we've added the resources to be successful my concern and and and Michelle and I are working on this to to try to set the scene where if if for some reason we decided transition wasn't meeting the needs anymore we could move that transition toering kindergarten rather than grade one but if you look at at the uh enrollment sum uh for our next year grade 12 so we have 19 school choice kids that are graduate we're not going to replenish very many of those so no I know we're we're trying to to balance everything make sure that we're not going to lose too much revenue and if and I'm not saying we are I want to make it clear tonight that we're going to evaluate the transition program for for its Effectiveness and who knows we may come up with another program that that will still require contain classroom but we're not sure yet and that's going to take time and and thoughtful conversations well I'm I'm glad you're looking at that because I I think back in the day when transition first I mean it goes way back I you know two two of my sons were um recommended for so I'm I'm a little case study like one went and one didn't even though they were both recommended so I could see you know the long-term outcomes of that of that decision um but I think there's so much more focused now on social emotional learning which is a big focus of the transitioning program and if all students now are being um supported in that way I don't know if it's if it's necessarily important to Target certain students that need more social emotional support if systems are in place to support all students because it really in some ways is like a retention it is academically right so it has academic um impact um so I'm it's very complicated and it's highly charged um thank you for saying that I mean we we're having the same conversations and and there's another there's another academic portion it's worked in our community for years I don't want to say it has been a good program but it has but our our demographics are changing but we're we are putting students together that have SEO needs but they're academically on grade level so at the end of the year they're they're they're missing some of that academic stimulation and what effect does that have on some of our students as they become older and because they are academically ready and and the whole philosophy of transitions were we're going to beep up the academics as well but they still go into grade one so there there is a bit of a lag along the way and as we Implement udl more into our classroom ter that should have an added benefit in terms of not having to if we're fully implementing so I I think it's a different world now from when and I know other districts are re-evaluating their their programs you know some some districts call it prir but you know it's it's a conversation that's going on sure in multipal districts so I'm I'm glad we're having the conversation at least but I wanted to ask you too if it is there like a certain formula that you use like a target class size and there and if you have a certain grade level that has a smaller class size that's that's how you determine number spots that you get well yeah it all depends on I look at class sizes for for each grade and in K2 I like to keep class sizes under 22 if possible times you can't because we have more students are mov in community but uh there is no ideal class size but being in education as long as I have you you you have a good feel for what works and what doesn't work and and you have to look at the Dynamics of grade as well all grades aren't the same as we all know so all of those things are taken into consideration and then and then in grades three to five I'd like to stay under 24 25 and then Middle School know 25 to 20 I like the 25 seem to be a nice number high school there are so many choices for kids that uh you know gives us an opportunity to uh build a void and our high school and and I some of you know this I'm going to say it again we not two repetitions but one of the tricks we have in our district is we start out with a an enrollment of students in in data five they go to grade six and there's there's an opportunity for students in grade six going to park a charter we lose eight to 10 12 kids depends on the year so there's a draw off the number of kids we have in our grade then when they hit grade8 there's a second draw because some kids will choose to go to ini show attack so we could we could go down 16 kids and as a result of that some of our grades that that have gone through our high school have been you know I have a one3 here even3 students and you need sufficient students to offer the program mean that all students need to be successful so it's a challenge for me as a superintendent to make sure that whatever I do along the way isn't going to resolve in us having the downsizes of the high school as well so it's not a it's not an easier linear easy linear process and I mean 103 in a class that's a pretty small class from the uh number of classes or subjects that we are in school so those two draws don't help I think don't get me wrong I think choice is good I've always been a supporter of choice but in this case it it it puts a greater strain on us for high school to remain as as robust as in terms of course off uh the fourth grade class where we only have 108 residents currently two school choice and you're recommending five is is five the placeholder for the cap it looks like we could offer more to your point earlier I don't know if we would get them but I'm GL we could advertise 10 to try to bring that but I up yeah I'm cautious because we have pockets of students moving in in our district and I could have I could have six more students move into our community so I want to be cautious there's always room to up the numbers as they progress through our our schools so being cautious at the beginning pays off because we we've had a couple of years Beth correct me if I'm wrong but I can't remember exactly what grade it was in was it was Russell Street we had eight students move in in August into that one grade and so you have to understand that that there are variables you can't control you want to make sure that you don't push it too far because you can't subtract in those situations when you're in for school choice you're in till you graduate well I get that um a Shaker Lane class had 16 movements last minute at the end of summer which makes it 15 o' yeah um but I like the way you're using school choice to even out the size of the classes so that there's not like a giant bump class that's just you know going through the grade levels and um this really helps it doesn't nothing nothing's worse than having been an elementary grp going to your staff in in May or June and saying well we have a small grade here so I'm gonna I'm G to move you from grade two to three you know for a year and I'm going to put you back in grade two I mean I have a firm belief that having that knowledge base is beneficial but it's not as beneficial is having the teacher develop those skill sets for a particular gr over a period of time so you sure the teachers are grateful that you have that mindset I um can I just can I just ask I think I think we asked this last year too it would be helpful to see how many kids are in each class because we don't know specific I can just tell you how many classes we should pretty easy calculation so yeah so K to K to 2 we have six classes in each grade 3 to five we have six classes in each grade 5 to eight we have five classes each grade and 9 to 12 your guess is as good as mine because they share courses with with students in different grades good it's just a whole different G in school and our class size I mean John and Keith do a incredible job of scheduling the high school classes but even even people that are the best of scheduling in any high school they going to have pockets where you have six kids in a class and 20 on a class because there there are so many things that kids can choose from they um I don't have any those were just my ideas I don't have any you know you're the expert you've uh you've got the Strategic plan behind this so I'm fine with it as presented I think I would be interested to learn in what years we picked these school choice kids up students she use that term um like you know like in the high school class senior class that's graduating 16 last next year I'd be curious you know when those students came in did they come in in the elementary school did we get them in the Middle School um well we would we would never take a Night Jam to some Kindergarten so it's been Progressive yeah I was just curious if it like Prive you know is it at the beginning of each school as they move from school to school that's often times when folks that make a transition um I would also be curious if we were looking for or if we had five seats open last year for third grade for example how many of them did we fail I I guess I could go back and look at the we have that last year but I have it but it's still all projected just for next year it might be helpful when we look at this I would just be you know I like the math and the data behind all stuff yeah and and you know with the understanding that our enrollments change every few weeks I mean we do have some transits in our district not a lot yeah we have people moving out and moving in all the time and sometimes I'll look at enrollment for month to month and and I'll have five kids five five fewer students in a Grade so but we you have that information that's something you like I would just be curious does anyone have any other question comments as ear the school choice seats what's that questions or comments as it relates to school choice seats Kelly you you'd like as presented yes and just so you know this is something uh you know according to policy law U my job is to present this information to you but this is an important discussion and I've always as a superintendent no matter where I've been asked for a vote because this is something we're together and you know you you need to to have Buy in to to what I'm trying to do it's important to me that we do vot on these things no like to make a motion yeah I move that we accept the projected school choice enrollment figures for 20242 as presented motion made 25 I'll second the motion seconded by Jen all those in favor and keep by saying I I oppos hearing none we Mark that unanimous thank you very much thank you clenchy good discussion yeah always a fun one all right see we will closes out our presentation portion of the evening and we'll pause for our second opportunity for interested citizens there's anybody with us this evening that would like to speak before the school committee or anybody at home all times you're coming in just volunteer for something we always have something for you to do all right um hearing none we will close uh the second portion for interested citizens and we will progress through our subcommittee reports uh first up is pmbc no report uh budget subcommittee also doesn't have a report this week uh policy subcommittee no report great secretly building committee I'm glad we don't have a report yeah um Shan Kelly had already mentioned we had an msba um meeting on Tuesday um to vote for The Architects and as you said we were able to get um was it Studio G Studio G yes Studio G um it's architect that we're going to be working with going forward so as you said the uh we're be negotiating contracts next and then we like really hit the ground running hopefully I mean summer things are going to get start moving fast so we're trying to coordinate making sure that we're getting teachers input and administrative input um as fast as we can um before they all kind of scatter for the summer for sure so that's what I have when does the community input cycle start well we we have to figure out that calendar but we have to first of all negotiate a contract with the company but we have a deadline I believe I remember correctly Steve uh July 15 we have to have a an educational plan state okay so I would anticipate personally I would like to see one or two community members or meetings before the J okay and they will help facilitate those [Music] meetings and then at the same time they also have to get in Shake on school and and do a forensic audit of of whether or not the school is savable in K comedy First Century Learning so all that's going to happen PR PA so it's a it's an ambitious timeline I have to say Stacy heard me speak about it like really pick the rest time the worst time of the year to do this because most of our staff are gone and yet we have a July 15th deadline like to see September 30th October 15 we don't get to St those seems like that's the nature of the process that there's a lot of waiting and then all of a sudden you have to go fast exactly then you wait again hurry up and wait um okay good there any other um reports from any other subcommittees no any other new business or old business before the committee no hearing none um we do have a purpose for executive session this evening so stick around um I will move that uh we uh move to Executive session for the purposes of contract negotiation for non uh non-union personnel with no intention to return to open session second motion made seconded um that's a roll call vote um Stacy uh yes Blane hi Jen Jen yes Justin votes yes as well we have journ from school committee and we will reconvene an executive session once we clear the room thank you