good evening everyone it's uh 7:02 and I'd like to call together the uh May 2nd 2024 school committee meeting if you would please join in uh join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please words out of my mouth I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States America and the Republic for which it stands one nation jce thank you very much uh this evening we have a consent agenda posted which are the minutes from our April 11th 2024 meeting as well as the bills and payroll we have a motion to accept move to accept motion made by Jan second seconded by Elaine all those in favor indicate by saying I I I oppos motion carries so first opportunity for interested citizens we have quite a few folks in the room tonight but I think I know you're here um so we'll pause to see if anyone wishes to speak before the school committee if we have anybody at home hearing from no one seeing no one we will move on Jay's here great um we'll move on to the recognition portion of the evening uh we've got a a number of things to cover this evening but Jay you're first up with the student representative report oh sure okay so for the Russell Street School they finished their Elam pass at all grades and they're beginning to get to get ready for for the math mcast next week the staff at Russell Street had a wonderful lunch provided by the Russell Street PTA yesterday for teacher appreciation day and as always it was an amazing opportunity to sit and eat lunch with colleagues and the MOs Vita bar was delicious Russell Street School had their Alice safety drill this afternoon and special thanks to ESO Meg and members of the Littleton Police Department and Litton fire department who are on hand to help out the can do it stem challenge is underway and Russell Street students and staff are looking forward to see how they came out for Shak your lane they're excited to have their final Spirit day next Thursday with a spirit being a summer day and they would also like to thank the PTA for a delicious staff appreciation lunch yesterday uh not many announcements for the middle school they just uh had science mcast the other day and then for the high school on April 26th uh last week we had prom at mechanics Hall on April 30th a couple days ago we had a blood drive in the parking lot uh May 1st so yesterday we had CPR training for seniors and also it was NHS and ction ceremony for incoming members of NHS on May 6th through May 17th are the AP exams for high schoolers on May 8th is the Roman banquet on May 9th is the spring concert and art show and on May 16th there's a band and chorus banquet that's all awesome excellent thanks any questions for Jay or I'll set there thanks very much Jay uh superintendent clench is there any other recognition you wish to I have state before we move on to the next one let's just go on to the next one first perfect uh so at this point in time I'd like to pause and thank Jen gold for her three years of service on the school committee um you've made a valuable contribution we appreciate um from the student staff and Community all the work that you've done Jen's I I hope I'm not gonna say too much here but um Jen's involvement with the school committee was um sort of like singular issue related prior to joining the school committee so as a parent she was uh very involved in uh advocating her position as related to our um covid strategies and then wanted to do something about it wanted to see to the table which I think all of us can appreciate and would encourage uh really anyone out there that if you want to get involved the best way to do that is to actually get involved and um Co didn't last forever which was a great thing and Jen's but Jen's involvement did so after we sort of muddled through the covid situation um Jen and beol uh tackled the school start time uh project which was really something that had been kind of kicked down the the can had been kicked down the street um election cycle after election cycle everyone said they were going to do something about it and Jen said well we don't have anything to do with Co so much anymore so let me try to tackle that um and then Jen also served on the budget subcommittee as well and was a valuable member is there and we've had some challenging budget Cycles so I can't thank you enough you've been a wonderful member I appreciate you sticking it out all the way to the end and wanted to open it up to other school committees super clenchy or anybody else that would like to say something for Jen yeah I'd love to so we got to work really closely together the first year um the school start time project and you were the person like you actually had the idea of forming a committee the way we did with the two teachers and the two um parents or the two students no was our the Noah AR you called it exactly and mikin and bringing everybody to the table and thinking about sort of what were the parameters that we can work with and then I did you know some of the data because I love doing that kind of stuff like I just feel like we were such a good team in that and he really kept the communication going your emails that you draft every I have no feedback this is so wonderful like it was just such an amazing team and I think it really showed because that was a very what could have been sort of contentious situation I know some other districts feeling with that but I think because we sort of took the time to get feedback from the community and really you know make it a decision um that it went the way it did and that it's still successful now um and that's sort of our our claim to fame I think but really could not have done any of that without thanks l h Jen thank you so much for your commitment and dedication to our students staff and families and the district U you're one of the co survivors you never forget that it was a it was a pleasure has part of the team we maneuvered through something we've never seen before because of the team we have here we we did all right and our students uh two two and a half years later have have done well as as well so nice to nice to be part of something like that that took a lot of time and energy and steep learning curve for all of us and in terms of the uh busting component uh you know thank you so much for uh being part of such a huge change in our district it's one of the first changes that the skill committee has been heavily involved in a number of years and it went as V said it went so smoothly and we really didn't have a lot of conflict to that process and that's because the the process was well defined and it was in I'm going to miss you and thank you so much for every much you've done for for not only our team but our community as well thank you it's been my pleasure I think this is a highly functioning group of of five adults here on the school committee and I think that is a testament to you Dr clinchy and and to all of us I think we work very functionally and respectfully together even when we don't always agree and we've seen examples across the country over the years of school committees that are the farest thing from that so I I give you credit for that as in terms of leadership and to all of us as just a you know a good uh like I said well oiled machine and um it's been a pleasure and an honor to serve we have a token of appreciation so thank you much for a picture we're gonna I don't know where these pictures go oh my gosh we're gonna we're gonna do a quick picture it's good thing this is really an empty room today do this in front of usually there's no one here embarrassing all the the middle you're in the middle you want the TV or don't want the TV so let's spin this way right here we go one two three awesome thank you the front page of the pap right being the newsletter yes the news yes me thank you Jen thanks all right uh moving on to recognition item number three so US News and World reports take it away I don't have to read pleased to announce this evening that Littleton High School are in high National and metro area rankings in the 2024 best high schools uh ranked by US News and World Report uh by earning the national ranking we the top 40% of high school nation and mass uh lhfs sorry again LHS uh ranked 36 in nation uh 834 it's interesting last year we ranked 1221 in the nation 41 in Massachusetts considerable including ranking what's really intriguing to me is our our score as a percentile was uh 95.28% out of the 100 when you look at that spread to get to the Tau School in the nation not a lot of points so I've asked Dr Harrington to spent some time looking at what what separates us from the top School in Massachusetts and top school in the nation so we can really start digging down on the data I know it's only one data point but it's an important data point as well so congratulations to high school and that doesn't happen without the dedication of our families students and staff and administration congratulations you excellent all right next up it's great we're gonna get to hear from a couple students so um LHS student rec um recognized for excellence in Massachusetts science and engineering Fair LHS student sophomores anakah Jacob and Sedar Patti present their fair boards and science projects that were recognized for their excellence in the Massachusetts science and engineering Fair please join us at the podium they gonna go up under the TV or underneath the TV sure uh if you you you do it here and we can kind of relocate and that way we can yeah we can so I name Sedar and I'm part of the LHS and research Club this year and I attended uh MF this year and I earned the award for environmental signs at the fair and my project was on the effect of waxworms and their biodegradation of plastic using the enzyme polyethylene so my project uses the study of wax worms to solve the GL growing problem in plastic pollution so some background on this problem uh plastic is one of the biggest uh pollutants in our environment till today it is around 400 tons of plastic produced each year on average and around 60% of the ocean is covered in plastic currently and if we continue at this rate there will be around more plastic than fish in the ocean by the year 2030 and additionally the average person consumes around One credit card worth of microplastics per week and these microplastics can cause a impacts on the human body such as hormone differences and immune reactions that are uh Det Al so my project with that wax worms and how their enzyme polyethylene can biodegrade Plastics and specifically shopping bag Plastics as they have thinner layers of plastic and they have longer chains of carbon which allows a polyethylene to decompose the plastic at a greater rate so I created three value three groups of waxworms two of them were experimental groups to see how the plastic would f grade with extra food and without extra food and another one was a control group with just wax worms so I observed their change in plastic over the course of five weeks and I observed at the graph below you can see there was a decrease in plastic Mass over the five weeks and when I statistically compared each groups I found that there was a significant difference between the control group and the experimental groups determining that there was a significant decrease in plastic and the wax rooms did biodegrade the plastic and additionally when I compared the two groups one of them had extra food and one of them didn't and I observed that there wasn't a statistically great difference when I did my T Test value which looks at the standard deviations and the means throughout the weeks it shows that the value is less than it's greater than 05 which means that there's greater than a 5% chance it was due to random error which means that the plastic uh additional food with the plastic did not affect the results of their La storms therefore my conclusion was that waxworms can't sustain themselves with just plastic and without extra food and this shows that for future research wax worms they can be used to biodegrade plastic as they're able to sustain themselves organically without any extra food and by using these waxworms we can eventually maybe try to find ways to observe how polyethlene can be used in labs and produced in Labs so this biodegradation can be done on a larger scale the waxworms uh they have the scientific name Galleria melol and there's also many different types of wax rooms that have different property that allow them to produce different enzymes in the so that is my research on oxums and their bational plastic does anyone have any questions I I do um first off thank you so much for coming to school committee to present your project I um I've worked with MF with another district and I know it's a really big deal what you've done and to go to the state level is is a quite an honor so thank you for bringing this to us I was wondering if um so polyethylene is is the enzyme that was breaking down the plastic so um is it is the um outcome of your project that polyethylene produced in any number of ways would be used to break down plastic or that would it is it some role of the wax worms themselves that's never so the wax worms they produce the the enzyme in their saliva so it's a natural process that they used to break down the plastic my conclusion was mainly that they were able to sustain themselves on just the plastic without extra food because I compared two experimental groups and one of them had extra food and my research was to find how we can further the research on wax worms and biodegradation and then for future research my idea was that we could observe how they produce the enzyme and how it can be used in Laboratories to do this on a larger scale because it doesn't produce any byproducts that are harmful for the environment oh good that's what I was wondering thank you very cool thank you your presentation was also very complicated thing to explain to people that don't consider themselves science you just you explained it in a really simp way and it sounds so impactful agree so how did you come up with this idea so actually I did this with another partner and we went to M Stu together actually so we came up with the idea through just researching on different websites and then I also found out that these like statistics about plastic and I wanted to see how we can reduce this detrimental effects of plastic because when I read about it I felt that there was a lot that could there's a lot of plastic that needed to be cleaned up and how it affects us is very impactful so I thought we should find organic solutions to this problem exob well done okay hi my name Isa Jacob and I'm a sophomore at Litton high school and I've been competing in science since I was in seventh grade so this is my I think fifth year doing this um so this year I won the poan J of the marsh award that's awarded to one student for outstanding development and execution of the project so I was very honored to receive this award and I just want to talk to you about our project so my project is called um a study on the effect of caffeine on the growth and development of zebra fish embryos using quantitative assessment so the way the reason I started this project or the reason I even came up with is because it's something my mom used to tell me as a kid so when I was younger um my parents would drink coffee in the morning as I'm sure most adults do so I would drink cof so my parents would drink coffee in the morning and then I would always go up to them and I'd be like hey can I have a little sip of it and my mom would always she's adamant that you cannot have coffee in the morning and you cannot have it as kid she said it would be bad for my growth and development so I've been hearing this for so long and then once I started High School I saw all of these kids walking around with like Refreshers and all of these different drinks that had caffeine in it so I was like there is no way my mom is correct Dr it and I should definitely be able to drink it too so I was like I'm gonna prove my mom wrong so I started to research about caffeine and how it affects organisms and how it affects growth so as I started reading about it I started to learn about how not only does cathine affect neurological changes in um adolescent growth but it also is a pollutant in the environment which is something that has not heavily studied in um environmental Sciences so that's how it led to my question you know I wanted to know about okay if I see these kids around me drinking caffeine and drinking like significant amounts how is that going to affect them as they grow because the between the ages of um between the ages of elementary school till your mid 20s you're still growing and developing so if kids are drinking this and more caffeine then has have been consumed in the past couple of generations if how is that going affect their growth and development so that's why I chose a model organism so I use zebra fish embryos and they are like they come as like a little a little fish egg so what I did was I had four groups set up with about 20 embryos in each group and I had them in four different concentrations of caffeine and I was looking at how if they were exposed to this level of con this level of caffeine which was around 0.18 milligrams per 10 milliliters so that's actually the amount of caffeine that's found naturally in the environment so then in in the environment there's about 3.6 G per liter of caffeine in water and I divided that in half and I G distributed that on a tenfold basis to each of those four head of experimental groups and I I looked at them over a course of six days so I would image them every day and then I would have them under microscope i' image them every day and then once my six days of testing were over I actually put these images into a um AI model called fish inspector and so the cool thing about fish inspector is it's actually a u like it's a model that uses AI to uh identify the different body structures inside of the Debra fish embryo and it was actually developed by a professor in Germany and he developed this because he wanted to reduce the amount of like effort that goes in for a scientist in researching um model organisms and in seeing how they grow because usually what scientists have to do is they have to manually go in and measure out different body structures that are found inside of our model organisms and that process is extremely timec consuming especially es if you have such a large example that you're looking at so what he did was he created this n model that compared your input in with various other models and was able to give you a rough measurement of what the body structures were in the organism so I actually contacted him in Germany and I actually had a great session with him he explained to me how to use the AI and actually this this um tool has only been used in around seven projects in the United States so I was one of the first people to be using it at a state level and it was extremely helpful I was able to image over 256 images of zebra fish within like two to three days which was really great and I actually was able to um measure their body structures so I measured their eye size and their yolk sack size so the reason I picked those two structures was because as an organism grows like from um a from an egg to an embryo and then they become a larva well as they grow their Yol sack should be getting smaller because as an organism grows they're getting bigger and using up the nutrients in that Yol sack and then their eyes should be getting bigger as well because when you get bigger your eyes would get larger as well so that's what I was looking at and I was able to use the AI to measure their body structur and it actually came up showing that there was statistical differences between each of the experimental groups so it showed that caffeine was actually affecting these organisms so my mom was right so that that's a good job option over there yeah so um she was correct and I'm it was really interesting for me to learn about this because as I was reading more about how many how much like what's the level of consumption um there was a study that was conducted in 2023 last year in New Zealand and it was it was surveying children under the age of 15 and it was saying that of the kids in New Zealand under the age of 15 almost 97% of them percent of them reported drinking two or more caffeine sources a day which is a significant amount and it's actually like I think it's very important that we are aware of the conf consumption that children are having because their bodies and their growth is very important and if you are putting in an inhibitor a drug into their body at such a young age it can have detrimental effects in the future and it was even to a point where I was seeing death in these organisms as they were going as the days were passing so I think it's a very important like study that was conducted and I for next year what I want to do is I want to see where the accumulation of the caffeine results when as they're consuming caffeine where using biomarkers I want to know like where does that caffeine go in our body so yeah that was my project thank you for listening aming do anyone have any questions um I just want to say that was awesome Your Enthusiasm I mean the the the subject matter was incredible you explained it so clearly but also like your persona your enthusiasm for the science of it and the way you tied it to your personal story like don't ever lose this it's so great you really conveyed that excitement around the science and how it ties into real life and um I hope that you keep this hunger and excitement for Science and your the rest of your life it was great great job I hope you're gonna do a t or I'm gonna show this recording to my daughter because it was very very compelling and it's a very s of personal issue for you which you can really hear c yeah I I do I have a quick question about about your methods why did you choose zebra fish to study oh that's actually a very interesting question so the reason I chose them was initially I wanted to actually test on the fish adult organisms so I had actually contacted like around 10 Labs asking to see if I could get access to test using their resources but however they were like were not taking high school or in the middle of this college season so I actually had to find a solution for that problem so that's why Miss FY was doing some research and she found that we could actually purchase embryos and have them Shi to the school so I picked the embryos specifically because they have a very rapid growth So within 24 hours you can see a heartbeat you can see body growth like it's very quick changes so in such a short period of time they've made such a good model for growth this is awesome I wish I could go back in time and monitor my children's caffeine and and I I love that your mom recorded the whole thing and she'll probably clip out everything except the part mom was right so thank you so much that was amazing right that was really fun thank you both for joining us this evening um we're going to roll into our presentation portion of the evening we've got uh four presentations to hear uh sorry we're already there three presentations to go um so first up is presentation number two state of the curriculum reports it's part two three content areas um I'll read it as it's written but often times folks have an order of you have your own preference but um Elementary curriculum advisor Rach DTE and brazinski Susan Mitchell Nicole Patterson he McGregor we'll give an update on the elementary curriculum and then we're going to hear 6 through2 science curriculum coordinator Valerie finery will provide an update on the science curriculum and then kada 12 firear ccum coordinator H Bri for an update on the Fine Arts curriculum we'll take it in any order you like as as written or Elementary up first Elementary up first they were last last year okay welcome props we have some fun in store for you guys so we'll start with the slides but um we're not really going to stick to the slides so much we really just wanted um to share well we'll start with with social studies um curriculum is delivered in the K to 5 um in an interactive and Hands-On and collaborative way in social studies and there's a lot of Project based learning a lot of collaboration that goes on um one of the things that we build at Shaker lamb so forgive my voice it's a little raspy tonight um at shaker Lane we start building the foundation of all the same kind of curriculum pieces like citizenship geography Littleton history Massachusetts history um right up to the United States um history we sort of start out at sherlan and then they pick up at Russell Street where kind of where we've left off um so we do a lot of like I said Interactive Learning so tonight we thought we would show you an example of some of the Interactive Learning that we do so uh well one of the ways that we start talking about the United States is through National symbols and one of the symbols that we talk about is the Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island if you've ever been if you've ever been to New York Harbor and it's a pretty massive Grand statue you can see her if you're driving on the highway by New York Harbor you can see her standing if you're flying overhead you can see her standing um she stands there to welcome visitors immigrants returning Americans who are coming into New York Hara the statue has become a symbol of our freedom and democracy um students learned that Lady Liberty as she's also called was gifted to us from France in 1886 as a celebration to honor our um 100th year of our Declaration of Independence and the statue is made of copper which copper is usually brown but when exposed to the element turns that kind of patina green that you see she's dressed a woman dressed in a long robe holding a torch in one hand and a tablet and the other she stands 150 fet toe to torch so these are some of the facts and some of the things that we talk about we do a lot of non-fiction reading we have buckets of books on each of the symbols that we cover and students can for through the books um they're available all day long so before school when they come in they can they can read we share reading um during the lessons as well um and they have them you know throughout the whole time that we're there um so one of the fun things that we really do and interactive things we do to really sort of talk about the scale of the statue and what she represents is we bring two or three classes out at a time outside and we have all these pre-measured um pieces of yarn and we try to get the students to guess what part of the statue each length of yarn represents so tonight we're going to try that with you guys to see if you can take a guess knowing that this from toad torch she's 150 feet tall the base that she stands on is another 150 feet so there's a grand total of 300 feet overlooking New York Harbor right so we have all sorts of things that we have measured out but I'm going to give you a hint um what I'm going to show you is either a finger an arm her eye her nose her mouth or TOA torch which there's not enough room in here that's why we go outside but I'm going to show you this piece of yarn this length and I will tell you how long it is and you can take a guess as to what body part you think this represents on our this is four feet 6 in taller than a first grader the average first grader I should say there some called first graders but um what body part do you think this might represent on the staff what options the options are finger an arm an eye a nose a mouth or toe to torch finger finger finger trying to 150 I know scale's hard to my it is hard right and imagine if you're a six-year-old so this was really helpful when we when we showed them just this compared to your body three inch 12th of my height is that 120th of 150 I'm doing algebra yeah no it's it's too big kids just start shouting it out what do you guys think eye finger this is actually her nose she got a pict basically hanging off um that's how that's how long is so anyway this is an example of some of the interactive things that we do with the kids and they get to use their imagination they get to really see things kind of in you know a different perspective so um again it's a lot of Project based hand based um Collaborative Learning K to five that's just a first grade example that was a hard one yeah welcome your seat Bel all right I'm turn it over to oh I'm Ann binski by the way I'm a first grade teacher ad Shaker Lan and I'm gonna turn it over to next Rachel DTE thanks an thank you hi everyone I'm Rachel DTE a can t-shirt Sher have a nice thank you all right I'm here to talk about science we use the F curriculum SC um science curriculum um each grade level K to five studies the earth physical and Life Science Life Science um so you can see my kindergarteners are right there we're studying um fores pull push and motion um this year was a really cool year because because we were able to experience the solar eclipse in school hours right at disle which was a lovely time um to Michelle ke for purchasing each student with solar glasses um because I teach kindergarten I didn't want to be responsible for their blindness so um I looked up online about creating these cool extenders for glasses so I used thingsa of Night and the kids would decorate it and they had like a cool we had some reinforcements and they put this on and it extends it so that they're not gonna damage their eyesight um little extend I talk yeah um so hi I'm s Mitchell the math and preventionist at Russell Street and um science at wrestle Street involves a lot of Hands-On activities as you can imagine um in third grade they I happen to begin there taking these pictures um it was so fun to watch them experiment with the magnets and to just um how they could create the connection between them as they were trying all different things in the classroom and the pictures at the bottom I really L because one of them features omelette and the students are actually doing their science work on one of our therapy dogs and it's just he's just there like loving it as she's like completing her work and in the other picture the students are working working on mixtures and solutions but it's just a lot of Hands-On stuff students really seem to enjoy it and they um get really into trying to do their experiments and all the different things but again omelette in all areas in the school just just a really big hit we're really fortunate to have him there three times a week thank youcome you have some tools [Music] that thank very much so we thought it would be extra fun if you got to experience exactly what the students experience when they start their math class and I would say probably 99% of math classes start in this way some not most of the time it is called spark your learning which is what you get to do tonight but sometimes it's just a word problem but it's always some sort of problem that students work on and try to just U get their brains going so see would you be able to click on this spark here Learning Link at the toab where is it the right top right thank you so in this slide uh this is kind of what the students will see again some teachers project the student workbook but this is just one of the slides from our into math program and you know it's just called spark you're learning and it's really fun to just tell them we're getting ready to just start this lesson and it's easily accessible like really there's multiple entry points which is why I really love it because even if a student isn't really connected to what we're currently working on it's like they can do something to connect to this problem to kind of get them warmed up for the math lesson so I'm you guys have a little bit of an unfair kind of like situation because this is the fifth lesson in the unit so I will tell you this is a fraction unit just to give you a hint as you progress to do this but does anybody want to read the spark your learning because this is what we do with our students can volunteers all right Marcy and Lindsay are playing games at a local Carnival they play a game measure your strength and their results are shown by how much farther Marcy hits the puck up the board than Lindsay show your thinking awesome great job so in also in this particular problem which it's not showing on the slide students are encouraged to show some sort of visual model they can use a number line draw a picture or do something so what I'd love for you guys to do and you can partner up you can do it with your table groups you can do it on your own whatever you feel inspired to go ahead and take a minute to see how much farther Marcy hits the puck up the board how how much part of Mercy has to pck up the board and Lindsay and equations are really good things I mean it just didn't have to just missing the top more than four waying it's all good 6us four oh we did a little have multiple ways to show it four out of we did you told them awesome job so far does anybody want to share what did oh oh you're still so engaged I love it anybody want to share their work I think everybody should hold their up yeah hold it up Mar Frac this is awesome I mean the the ultimate goal was um so if this was in the classroom then we would have some time to share sometimes kids if they did it in paper would come up and share it under the document camera but this I feel this particular way to start the lessons in the classrooms is just a great it's such a huge huge learning experience because they share they learn from each other they explore different ways with like number lines over here straight equations I need fractions you know and then people could simplify some don't do that yet so it's all good because then you open up these conversations so yeah the real goal the like if you're going to say like the expected kind of answer would have been like the 68s minus 48s um up to there and then equals the two8 because the focus of this lesson is repres representing the subtraction of fractions um and any guesses so it's either a third fourth or fifth grade lesson what do you think you already told oh I did tell you I won't say sorry of the room nice job yeah it's fourth grade yeah 14.5 like so the of that module so yeah so that um is pretty much we you go back to the reg and then and then the lesson continue sometimes a few more word problems and then students break off as you'll see in their pictures and and we'll talk about the Shaker Lane yeah I was just GNA mention that we we do a lot with math team so we do the spark your learning as well and build understanding and have have a a short lesson and then the kids go out and apply the skills using math games so we just have some manipulatives there that they're using um we also have these amazing interactive touchscreen TVs that are just fantastic and um the kids can show their thinking to the whole class like you know on their whiteboard but they we can also call them up and and work on the the TV um and I have a couple of hundred stay pictures because what is like the best math Day in the year the 100 day at school so kids are building with a stacking a 100 cups um sorting Fruit Loops into colors so they can make different pattern necklaces with 100 fro Loops um so lots and lots of fun um interactive math themes and then to bridge the connection between Russell Street and Sugar Lane the last couple years at Russell Street we've done the Spring Festival of math and literacy to kind of you know see just bring a cozy night at you know and kind of bring back all those math games that aren't digital and it started out a few years ago we had about 127 people we thought that was pretty amazing to be honest with you and then last year when we did it we had about 300 and we're like whoa we didn't plan for this and it was a little bit of a fire hazard maybe because everybody was like so crowded so we're like oh we need to really than this and then this year I want to say we had a little over 400 because we did have the second graders from Shaker Lane we expanded we got more therapy dogs but it was just so much fun to see all this enthusiasm around math and literacy and the families that come out together kids were like trying it was like a Disney um kind of scene trying to just pounce you know to get in didn't open the doors until 5 clock a massive amount of teachers helped out in so many different ways um we just so it was just such a fun night and it was fun to partner with Shaker Lan to do this andn was one of our guest readers um the kids love participating in all the different activities and then um just some other photos from Russell Street uh we we also love the TV so much the clear touches have been like life changing in so many ways just especially through math I mean I we don't have can't say enough about it we try to do a lot of math themes small group work and then something that Heidi and I tried out this year yet another thing that we were like oh I don't know will there be interest because March is so long so we're like What if we did multiplication Madness to kind of get people excited about math fact fluency so we kind of did this thing that you know we would focus on the six seven eights and nines the more tricky math facts and so we did a raffle once a week we're like oh if you do a raffle some kids will do it again this was right I mean unexpected the amount of um people that participated kids like the Box the first day we first time we did it full like you can see in the bottom right um just stuffing it with like they would have to practice the facts and put it in there then we would have Friday mornings five minutes of like everybody in the school drops everything and does multiplication facts and it was so popular and again so unexpected that we ended the month and did a survey to get feedback from kids on how to make it better they're like do it more often do division more prizes you know so um you know do a box in each grade level which I thought was a great idea so I feel like it's been a great year at Russell Street especially for Math and educ like you know it's been nice to see all the growth with the new math program and the kids getting more used to the wordiness of it so yeah it's been really good thank you have to say the fact that you're getting these kids to come back after school hours with the math and literacy B to go back to school after the school day is done it's pretty amazing so fun you're doing something had a great time I'm here to talk about Ela um we have three sections of ela phonics andic awareness writing Workshop unit and study and reading um currently at Shaker Lan we're going through oh Russell Street we're going through um a curriculum review and we're piloting both Whitten wisdom and um my view for lit programs um so all the teachers are or a lot of the teachers are participating in that currently um I have a fun game that I'd like to play with you um we in kindergarten use foundations and we're GNA play mystery word so give you that word and marker thank you before we get started does anyone know what a DI wh sh c h um so so I'm going to give you all words we're going to tap just two out together um we like to break up sounds so that we can hear each sound so we can phonetically spell the word so um you're going to write your words on your board keep them on your board um and then go play the gamees so your first word is chop I want everyone to get out your fingers and you're going to tap out each sound so it can go you can go ahead and write that word knowing that your um diagraphs B makes two two letters that okay your next word is 10 typically I would make Allin tap out every word um your next word is wax what is it sorry wax wax wax we talk about what fact that in link is the X sound but sometimes C KS can also be f um your next word is a nonsense word so you do your best to spell it your word is w your last word is a trick word it doesn't follow the rules um the word is the it's one of our unit words the sorry last word is we just did encoding together we were spelling now we're going to be doing decoding so colum one of you and you're going to tell everyone which words you want to erase we all have to erase that same word and then in the end a mystery word so elain what word would you like to sh choose chop chop chop um Jay what word would you like toas uh wax you know what what word would you like Jen what word would you like to ra 10 Stacey what word would you like to eras Justin what's our mystery word what did we all get it yes thank you for playing so that's part of our F interesting of use a DI for you doing everyone fourth grade um I'm here to talk to you today about social emotional learning as it flows through our school's K through five so some of the things that we do to focus on social emotional learning oral throughout the day um one of the big things we do is really being aware of like students levels of Regulation through throughout the day so you've been sitting for a while and you'll be sitting for a while afterwards so let's take a stretch break before we go into the rest of what we're doing you can stretch however you want if you're not comfortable stretching you don't have to stretch you can feel free to sit down and at this time like well almost all of us do things like this throughout the day we might um do uh organized like movement break using like a video on YouTube or on Go Noodle it might be a a teacher design movement break or it might be pre form like this just a stretch bre it's really interesting as the children get older now at the end of fourth grade um a lot of times they're like we're good we're just going to sit down and talk with each other so it's cool to see how they regulate themselves as as the day goes by and it really builds Community as well because you're taking a risk like you have to be a little bit vulnerable to be willing to do a silly dance or take a stretch break in front of your peers so um it's like a subtle way that we build we another thing that we do um to sort of weave throughout day is whenever we might sense the kids are disregulated revved up anxious nervous or a test even with like our safety drills today um we do a lot of different breathing each of us I'm sure has our own wave of breathing in class so I am a big fan of box breathing so I thought we could practice that together so what you do is like you breathe you draw a box in the air so you breathe in hold it breathe out hold it like that so and that motion also really helps to calm the kids great job um so one thing that um you will find if you come into any of our classrooms is thatal is really fully integrated throughout the day um both in terms of we have wonderful Standalone curricula that we use to help teach social emotional learning but we also integrate the things like you just did as well um at Shaker Lane there's the belog heart program right kids come up into Russell Street raving about it talking about it like um earning um things for their heart jar right um I know that Shaker Lane has really valued having um anal special this year as their fifth special right um I think that lots of positive feedback from teachers and students um and then sort of a Counterpoint to the heart program when students get up to Russell Street we do a program called stripe program so if you have a child in Russell Street they might have come home with a stripe award um and you can see on the slide there our wall of Stripes take responsibility is overflowing um but the stripes are safety take responsibility respect Integrity perseverance and empathy um so I have stripe Awards blank stripe awards for all of you um so I have a challenge for you which is sometime you know before do you have one more meeting after this two more yes so perhaps if you'd like if you're inspired you might want to give one of your co-school committee members a stripe if you recognize them showing safety taking responsibility respect for each other Integrity perseverance or empathy um and you would just have to add in that it's at the school committee not in the hallway classroom bathroom cafeteria or recess um the other thing that I wanted to highlight a couple more things one is that throughout all our schools we have a lot of calming areas for students um really building in emotional regulation and emotional management is a tremendous part of our school day especially as we're educating Young Learners so you'll see there some C Corners our chillville which any student can go to whenever they need to um and also the fact that our second step curriculum runs K through five and that's very explicit instruction around specific strategies problem solving emotion management um and how to be assertive lots of skills that make children to explicitly so it's just a joy to teach social mod learning um really for all of us because it's really the underpinning of everything else that we do yeah thank you great you I'm Heidi McGregor I'm the stem integration specialist um and uh uh this is year six of our stem integration program which I can't believe we started us six years ago um so all of the um projects and things that we do that integrate stem integrate into everything that everyone else talked about um so my curriculum area is a little different um than everybody else's um but before I start talking about some projects I did want to acknowledge that our stem program we received two pretty awesome grants this year so this is an opportunity for me to say thank you um the Littleton education fund purchased new robots for our shaker Lane um shaking IM magorium um and there's a little video there of one of the robots that was actually that's actually one of um in in thatal special that we talked about um that's happening at Shaker Lane it's a real quick [Music] video um the the goal that we were working on was teamwork um so so the students had to work in groups to design a tunnel and then uh code the robot it was pretty great with our new robots um so thank you to laf for that um and I also want to um thank Littleton Electric Light and Water Department because they purchased um three new 3D printers for our Russell Street um maker space the thick tank um so actually we can go to the the next [Music] slide I do like that very much um so all of the projects that we do from K to five are integrated into our curriculum and they've been designed over the past six years in collaboration with the classroom teachers and myself um so we and we're constantly fine-tuning them to make sure that they're they're relevant and they connect to the standards um that we we are targeting um our big idea is that stem is not a silo um it's it's evident in every single area so we have snuck it into everything so it's in our English language arts programs it's in our social studies part of our science program it's part of math it's part of our social emotional learning it's part of Music we have an element that's happening in art um and fiz Ed I'm working on that working on that um so that's happening too um our five U main themes for kindergarten through grade five are the engineering design process so starting in kindergarten students are learning to train their brains to use a system for soling problems um we do coding starting on grade one all the way through grade five every single year there's a there's a at least one coding computer science project um we do digital 3D modeling and Fabrication starting in uh grade two 3 4 and five there's projects that build from year to year um digital storytelling starting at um grade um and then digital citizenship which is learning how to navigate an online World um is integrated in every single thing that we do um but what I really want to highlight is that right now we are in the middle of our districtwide stem challenge called can do golf uh it kicked off on April 22nd and it goes through May 24th and we have a plan for every student in kindergarten through grade eight to participate in the same challenge during the same window of time um and then we also have high school students who are participating as mentors creating sample projects and um giving encouraging feedback to our students through um we're using a um a video um sharing tool called flip um used to be called flip grid um so actually can you show the little video at the bottom that's our um yeah that one y these are our care [Music] watching this video so much so so much um um so anyway so um that the idea is that um this whole project is based in the engineering design process so in that video you saw each step of the engineering design process that our students learn um and then um we're building into some empathy um because good Engineers understand who they're creating for and who they're designing for so there's a comic that goes with these characters their names are TOA Ruben babna and Martin and I have some copies I will pass them out to you I'm want to take a look there you go y so what we do um to launch each project with the students we read the story we talk about what is the problem that these students are having and their terrible problem is that they want to learn how to play golf and there is no golf course in their Town um so the students the these characters walk through their town and they get inspiration and um so the four main elements um that we're asking the students to think about while they're working in collaborative groups um to create their own mini golf courses um is um to think about making them accessible so people of all ages and abilities can enjoy it um and the conversations we've had about that has been a really inspiring um and um making them safe making it fun um and making it challenging but not so not so challenging that it's impossible um and that's another um like them design element that the students have really really embraced um so our big why why are we doing this why do why do we do this so that the whole district is um doing the same stem challenge um is that we want to help our students see themselves in stem in a way that connects them to a larger Community um so when I introduced this to I had um a third grade class today and I showed them a couple of videos that some fifth graders had made and you know they recognized kids that they ride on the bus with or somebody's older brother or um they started to see that oh this is how stem works we can all be working on this um and they could see themselves in a bigger in a bigger view um we want to promote student agency and feelings of confidence with being creative problem solvers and solution finders um we want to unite our Littleton students with a common goal across schools um but this particular all of these challenges that we've done this is our third one um is purposely um built in with with built-in variability based on interest skills and abilities um it's very wide open so students can apply whatever their skills are and whatever they're interested in to to solve the problem um and it's a great time for us to provide some leadership opportunities for our Littleton high school students um who are acting as mentors all right very good yeah questions comments job well done amazing work thank you very much can I just say I'm I'm just um I love the way you presented all of your entry points like those books to student engagement because you really have to to hook the kids because before you can get them engaged in deeper learning so thank you for um presenting it in such an a engaging way for us and I also wanted to just point out for the community how lucky we are to have you know these positions in place this is not something that every district has you know to have Elementary coordinators to have a like a full like an seal special as a fifth special that's unusual um to have a stem coordinator that's unusual and the way everybody's working together as a team for the betterment of the students is is a really special part of Littleton Public Schools so I just um I want to recognize you all but also you know Dr clenchy thank you for um putting all of these positions in place so that this whole system works the way it does so thank you everybody and thank you for bringing your classrooms to us this evening when when we look at our journey during the past 13 years uh we've done a lot of things I want to thank you for for being creative and committed to looking out teaching practices looking at new resources really focusing on engaging our students in the brain process so much chemesthetic learning critical thinking that takes a lot of work on your to design as a sec soeci dedication the back was was the reading curriculum writing curriculum math science I we've hav g a lot of changes in the past 15 years thank you in Heidi I don't know how long it's been it's been a while but we had a position that we didn't fill had had something in mind for it and I had somebody in mind for that position took me two years to R this individual to to uh you know leave the the grade four classroom and and again it was no surprise because Heidi love teaching grade four and uh I used every strategy I could think of and and IDI jumped on the on the train with me and and I look back now and I think man you have you have transform yeah absolutely I know we have standing Valerie that is not no that's not the first on I just wanted to say I have a lot of transition so maybe I got it on sign what I have a lot of really this will be a test the test so I'm Valerie thy yes that's um thank you for having me so I'm the 6 to 12 science curriculum coordinator um and I wanted to just start with um grade six to grade 12 on my H first slide so the first image shows a sixth grade student testing the phenomenon of a falling slinking and they had designed and carried out their own investigations to test why it falls the way it does and then on the right shows some of my 11th and 12th grade students that um an environmental science class measuring the energies of different appliances next SL um last year we completed our curriculum review and selected new curriculum materials for nearly all the classes and um when I spoke with you last year we had not quite um chosen the U Middle School curriculum so if you click the Middle School curriculum is next yep so um this year we've been making adjustments as we've updated and expanded our units and lessons and aligned our practices with our new curriculum next slide so I wanted to focus this year on the integration of the science and engineering practices as defined by the ngss and Massachusetts state standards um and so the eight science and Engineering practices are um the skills that practicing scientists use to explore the universe to develop understanding of Concepts to make discoveries and to design solutions by learning and applying these practices our students construct a deeper understanding of science linked to their experiences and discoveries so the eight practices are asking questions and defining problems developing and using models planning and carrying out investigations analyzing and interpreting data using math and computational thinking constructing explanations and designing Solutions engaging an argument from evidence and obtaining evaluating and communicating information so um the examples I'm going to be sharing with you I'll touch on one or more of those practices so um at the middle school um we practice we focus on practices of Science and Engineering um for example um Littleton Middle School sixth grade students gather data and analyze data through graphing to draw conclusions such as the relationship between a star temperature and its color they use Hands-On models or samples such as creating s sedimentary rock layers out of jelly ranches they're using scientific instruments such as triple be balances and microscopes and engage in engineering design challenges um to meet specific Criterion constraints and improving on their signs so if you clicked the first picture shows um sixth graders that designed a king pong transporter as part of an engineering challenge and then the next picture um shows um sedimentary rock layer models with um Jolly Ranchers and they look very excited to any those um next slide please in seventh grade um students made model homes and tested their homes in Hurricane force winds on the spring um they use games and simulations such as the tragedy of the Comm fishing lab to learn about science Concepts and they engaged in debate about renewable and non-renewable energy uh sources and then uh picture is um they made um predictions and observations to learn about potential kinetic energy um when a tennis ball was dropped on top of a basketball and then um the next picture shows that students learned about different impacts humans have on earth and its resources and then they um used an online ecological footprint calculator and use graphing to analyze the data for different countries next slide in eth grade they use the engineering Pro process to design and construct homes of the future to address climate change concerns the um Christine Finn the eth grade teacher attended the Desi Innovative science pilot Ambassador training um so our eighth graders are were part of the new Innovative eth grade science mcast um pilot this year and this new mcast incorporates performance tests where students are presented with a problem such as will the number of concussions be greatly reduced by Banning headers in use soccer so instead of a traditional test they would have to run simulations and collect and analyze data draw conclusions defend a claim or design a solution um the first picture um shows students learning about potential kinetic energy this is a a desie um I lost um there if this is one of the Desy Innovative tasks that's an example for the um the new mcast and so they had to design and investigate and gather gather and analyze data and drop conclusions and then the last picture is um some of the eth grade models of the future right and sixth grade technology class is um students gather data and use spreadsheets to generate graphs and then they analyze them and then C um in eth grade technology classes they use CAD to create 3D models next slide um this is an example of a seventh grade technology class where they work with scratch to program an original game of mood music so you can push play [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right next slide um [Music] so at the high school level so in honors biology um I had um adopted a story lines approach this year I piloted that it's been very successful a storylines approach organizes units around phenomenon phenomena um students ask questions and new scientific um practices to investigate and the concepts are spiraled and be visited throughout the year um in CP biology an example of something they did is they investigated use of crisper technology and presented the findings to their peers in all of the classes students design lab experiments identify variables gather and analyze data using tables graphs and flowcharts and use evidence to make claims backed up by reasoning we do a lot of that um we also use games and simulations as models and then this first picture um is a student using um a simulation in the form of a game to learn and apply Concepts so these students are playing a population ecology game and then in the next picture this is the gel electroforesis that we used in honors biology um where we had a a problem trying to find out which orphan Cub went with which lines so we're able to do that using the DNA and then the next slide um in AP biology and honors Anatomy classes this year we had um quite a few guest speakers um a lot of whom were um LHS alumni um and they came in to talk about their work in fields of genetic counseling Physical Therapy nursing photomy and the Physicians assistance those are all LHS Alum Alum um and then um in honors organic chemistry which is a new course offered this year um students used Advanced Equipment including melting point apparatus and separating funnels and so that really helps them to prepare uh for advanced chemistry levels in college um in physics they use verer uh video analysis sofware to analyze motion which I'll show you in a minute and AP Physics students conducted a flying pig lab to measure centri ofal for so all of these are using models to gather data to analyze and to understand Concepts so this picture shows um organic chemistry students separate molecules based on their polarity and solu ability and then the next picture is verier software so shows motion and then they're able to create a model with it which they can then change to a graph which is a mi picture and then determine curve fitting statistics um next slide please um this is a video from AP Physics um with students investigating centripetal force with a flying p next slide um in other um High School science electives um in engineering design too um they began a semester studying Material Science and um they completed three different labs and then they um designed and created their own material um I'll show you the testing in just a minute um in astronomy students turn the first floor into a scale model of the solar system um in environmental science students studied the sources and uses of energy and explore sustainable development they research design and constructed an Ecco house that met guidelines for sustainability and then this picture um shows students creating their material are start testing the material that they've made from concrete a piece of metal on a g string here and then the next picture are the model is a model Ecco house that um utilized principles learned in multiple units during environment um next slide I wanted to um focus again on my the students who were in the stem research Club this year so last year I had two kids and two projects this year I had about 15 students and um yeah we had 11 students who presented at the regional science fair this is the region four science fair at tus University um next picture um Finn canning and finy Pletcher received the award for outstanding environmental science project at the Regional Fair for a study of water quality in Litton Mass Cho it and then um on April 5th we took um another SE uh seven students um rohan's not pictured and they presented four projects at the state science and engineering ful at stadium so um Finley and Finn and Ana both came from the Regional Fair and then we had project into the state fair and um ana Jacob received honorable mention at the state bubble and was also awarded the Pauline J Lamar Memorial award which is given to a project that displays excellent excellence in design and implementation as you heard and explor the effects of different levels of caffine on the development of zra fish in and then sidar kamati and cathic were awarded the RICO sustainable development award for their exploration of the use of Greater wax from larvae to biodegrade plas fats and then the next slide I just wanted to enture the all the students who participated into the record here so we had laia muala and Caitlyn Stimson who are H nth graders and n Jacob 10th grader Finn canning and V futcher who are 11th graders Isabelle mcer and Kira R 11th graders Michelle madasu 11th grade aren Panda Patel and Kon futcher 11th graders arohan pic and sidar Patti which who are 10th graders and Harris Khan a 10th grader and Samuel Leo an 11th grader so these are their projects that state there and then we also had um sixth through e8th grade student projects so their um science fair the Reg was just last Saturday so I don't have the results yet um but I do have photos from Christine F so um this is um one of students Abigail masasu and she with Ruby Willis and Tula Reynolds studied did a study on the effective temperature on water quality and then the next picture is uh Ryan Simpson and Bennett kahill a study of the effect of temperature on the hatching of timia Franc Francis which are frch um the next picture is goak ALG beon and then we have Devan Petty and Steven Hernandez hybrid air and then Prav Sharma and vant veru how 3D printing can be used to get core waves at home and then we have shibani pakati and San GA GAA how does music affect your heart rate and then we have Nyla Jacob who I believe is a sister testing the conductivity of various fruits and vegetables and then finally Hannah Lee and Sam S cion um turning milk into plastic and so then the next slide again these These are their names just to put into the record so um I did want to also say that the um High School stem research Club um had grants from the from LEF and from the PT the Littleton PTA so I do appreciate their support does anybody have any questions this is just incredible presentation but I think you know when you sort of talk through the curriculum and how you sort of go through the process of the data collection and it really shows I think in these presentations I I swear I do not remember science being this fun or I would have enjoyed it a lot more it's amazing just how engaged and how you're sort of bringing that excitement out in I enjoy working with the students well I just want to thank you for your leadership in science in the district I just to see how it's grown under your leadership over the years it it's incredible the offerings that that you have and that I I love how you're focusing on the science and engineering practices because that's really a a through line between all of the courses and it's really you can see the impact on student engagement um so it's it I think you can really feel proud about the impact that you've had on the district and and I wanted to personally thank you too for the um all that you are putting into these projects for MF and you know at the middle and high school level because it's it's a heavy lift supporting kids with all of these different projects it's different from teaching a class where everybody's kind of working on the same thing but when you're supporting students with a science fair project it's all these different ideas that needs support and your your full attention and then you have to Pivot to somebody else's great idea and it it's a it's a heavy cognitive lift for the for the U Mentor yourself so I I do I love it so I really enjoy it um it's been a step down coming from managing so many projects at the middle school only a few at the high school so it's been it's been fun but the kids interests um run a bit more complicated and um I think that I've really enjoyed mentoring kids at at a higher level but I have to say too that listening to the elementary presentations this love for Science and the um application of the science and engineering practices is beginning early on in little s so I think it's it's moving on through really great the benefits thank you Valerie yeah I'm trary Bridge um before you begin I just wanted to say because obviously your your topic here is obviously Hands-On its music um that was like the big theme that I noticed so far even you know from brussell Street or sorry Shaker through rust Street all way through the middle school and high school it's like the amount of I mean we like a number of pictures with students standing on tables or chairs um just the amount of Hands-On learning and like the active participation like no no one like that's what differentiates I think us from sort of that traditional district and often times we think like okay well we've got to get through this curriculum and it's like a lecture or there's quizzes coming up and all that stuff but I'm really impressed with the um the engage like the student engagement I think that's I can't underestimate the um impactfulness of that so I appreciate everyone's efforts thank you and then you've got music so it has to be Hands-On it is I was just going to say if you want authentic Hands-On learning to a music class or an art class or drama class because that's exactly what we do um so I'm Hillary bridge I am the curriculum coordinator for k312 f arts in Middleton and um thank you for having me giving me the opportunity to share what myself and my colleagues have been working on um the addition I'm working on the presentation okay okay you see the presentation I don't need to um but there is some videos that I would like to see or that you would yeah yeah that is the first slide so I think that's okay um I just was going to start by saying the um addition of new specialist staff at the lower level actually had a great ripple effect in all of the buildings and so um we were able to allow um some shifting of staff so I no longer am shared at the elementary school and because I was full-time at the high school we were able to um offer two new music electives this year so we were um piloting the uh beginning piano program which we were able to get through a very generous Grant from LEF and the um interesting kmit of of obtaining the old Indian Hill building and having the old pianos that were in it and that were gifted to us so um we now have an 11 Station piano Lab at the high school and we were able to run a beginning piano class this year which is also great as there is a beginning piano elective at the middle school so we were able to kind of continue that as students who have had interest in the Middle School would had the opportunity to try it now at the high school um the other elective we offered is called applied music and uh the best way to explain it is like a guided independent study I have 12 students this year um we spent the first couple of weeks talking about goals and like how do you set a smart goal what is a smart goal what kinds of barriers could you get in your way and really the only prerequisite that students had was they need to have a musical goal so I have 12 students anywhere from students who are learning how to compose um I have a student who's teaching herself how to play the drum set I have students who were auditioning for college and we're preparing College pieces so I was helping with them I have some students who wanted to learn a secondary instrument some students working with uh sound technology and Reporting so we've had a really interesting semester and as was mentioned before I'm bouncing around between all 12 of these students and trying to help them in the best way that I can but it's been really great to um be able to Foster some more deeper interests that students have in M um we've also piloted a trim chapter at the high school this year trim is the National Honor Society for student musicians um this is the first year that we've had it so we're just sort of getting off the ground uh they did a display board for music at our schools month which is March um it's still up so it's still there um they're hoping to get a little bit more visibility in the future and they want to Pilot a h buddy program with the middle school music program so we're kind of working on getting that going um sort of a a Big Brother Big Sister sort of situation there um we've also implemented a flex block forus Flex block at the high school is that 35 minutes in a day when stud students have more Choice over their um what they're doing and um one of the barriers that I found to chorus is that many students really have a desire to sing but don't have room in their schedule for it so I started a flex block borus um on Fridays and they're learning the same more mostly the same music as the chorus class but um we have about 30 students participating in it which you'll see a short video of in a moment so that's been a really wonderful addition to allow more students to have an opportunity to perform with us um we continue to offer some drama electives the students really are enjoying that and of course in addition to our regular performances uh in the music department we also performances of mcbath and susal at the high school which I hope you were able to come and see um and as part of the drama program they also have miscast which is a fun opportunity for students to perform things that they would never have been cast for and play in a day where they write and perform an entire play over the course of a day so those have also been some great opportunities that students have had um and in the fine and Digital Arts courses um the LEF recently sponsored a field trip to the MFA which was a combined field trip between um the US a US history class and the APR history class um we often have students contributing artwork to the Scholastic art competition this year we had a handful of winners Cole Horton received an honorable mention in digital art this is all on the next slide I believe as well um Nadia pava received a gold key in drawing in illustration and in portfolio and excitingly we had Ally Porter who received a gold key um in film and animation but she also received the American Visions nomination only five students per state are nominated for the American Visions award and Ali is the first student from Littleton who ever received the honor um so that's wonderful news the photography class received some new DSLR cameras this year and have been focusing on how to uh incorporate real world application into what they're doing and a great example of that was students had some of their designs and their photos used for a flyer for the Littleton Historical Society um and students also submitted some art for Lori tr's call for art uh to be displayed at the state house so that was another good opportunity we had some students photographing the album of triathlon um so there's been a lot of focus on real world application in those classes this year um and then I believe we have two short 30 second Clips one of the concert band and then the next one will be of the forest there's no sound [Music] slide we have one of the chorus which features both the class and the club [Music] secr and [Music] [Applause] [Music] hopefully it didn't have the echo at home I would encourage you to come see us live anyway live music is meant to be seen live um and I don't know if you noticed but Ana was in the chorus um so at the middle school the students in the art room have been creating art that focuses on their technical abilities but still allows them to express themselves creatively um and so some examples of what students have been working on some sixth grade students recently worked on a curricular project with some other unified arts classes and have been focusing on drawing painting origami and pottery in the seventh grade they were they've recently worked on silk screening t-shirts and um print making and taking a deeper dive into the elements of art which create uh resulted in a large still life drawing project and eighth graders are currently working on the observational drawing skills and self-portraits um they've also spent a lot of time this year researching The Art of other cultures some examples of some Middle School artwork there there's masks from cultures people expressing who they are as a person um the at the middle school at the music level um our teacher Ashley Sheldon is currently on leave and congratulations to her and her baby and we welcome Miss s Sandy Chang to take over for her while Ashley is out um she's been working with these sixth grade General music students on how to read music faster Rhythm reading as well as getting an introduction to keyboard which prepares them for 7th grade where they have the opportunity to play both keyboard and guitar um it also really helps with hand eye coordination the uh seventh grade is on the next slide seventh grade music is also continuing their work on the technical aspects of music and Rhythm training through games um using boom whackers and drums they've also spent some time learning about the music industry and connecting sound and emotion and they did a a large project on creating your own record label and on the next slide is eth grade General music um in addition to the same technical skills that are being focused on the students learned a brief history of popular music and its culture for Baby Boomers Gen X Millennials and gen Z and compared multiple musical genres um at the middle school level in band all of the students have been focusing on their site reading skills and warm-up techniques getting basic tuning learning their concert flat scale and preparing the music for the performance on May 22nd um the chorus Club at the middle school is also working on vocal technique and preparing for their performance at Russell Street um because of the hiring of new staff Russell Street students each had one extra music class a week for trimester so the third grade had an extra music for a trimester than the fourth and fifth um and during that time Mr gansen Berg had an idea where he was going to allow students to have a little bit of a deeper dive into our melodic instruments so so they had an opportunity to play our dionic Mallet instruments which are things like blockage fieldon and telephones um everyone learned an arrangement of the piece from Pirates of the Caribbean and it was a great opportunity for students not just to expand on their knowledge that they get from a regular music class um but also had them learn something in compound meter which is not usually a topic that you get to cover in middle or in elementary school so it's great that they had that extra opportunity to learn those things um and some of the other highlights from this year are rhythmic literacy using tademy which is a a system in which you learn how to count Rhythm um the Rhythm building blocks and classroom instruments students have had an opportunity to used to compose their own music and uh Mr gansberg also created a new unit which was inspired from a session that he attended at the mmea All State conference called learning to jam um and he had students contribute ideas for songs that they wanted to learn they voted on their favorites chose one um Mr gansberg then created an arrangement of that song using the classroom instruments like uleles bucket drums mallets um and unpitched percussion and all of the classes had the opportunity to learn the same instruments and the same tune so they all learned how to jam together um Mr gansen BG has also taken over doing the beginning band at Russell Street and we continue to have um a robust program there we're happy to see the growth and um he's doing a wonderful job um and then at the arch classes the elementary level at both kland and Russell Street students have been spending a lot of time focusing on um expressing their ideas and their emotions through ART they've also spent some time looking at art from other cultures and developing their skills by using that art as inspiration there's a bunch of slides next that have examples of the Elementary art stuff um additionally they've been focused on creating collaboratively the Russell Street students have collected over 7,000 bottle caps um that will create a mosaic which there's a photo but it's not of their Mosaic because they said will not be revealed until the art show which is on Wednesday June 5th from 6:00 to 8 at Russell Street so keep that in your calendar to that's yeah can we advance the slides yes so these are some examples of those y um and then some another example of some collaboration that students have had in the art room we had some Shaker Lane students that worked together to create pies there you go that were delivered with um veterans meals on Thanksgiving and uh finally music at Shaker lanane we welcome Miss Lisa Jung to our department um she spent some time this year getting to know the community and getting to know the school and helping students develop their musical skills um she's been focusing on things like fundamentals of Music Pitch Rhythm keeping a beat using classroom instruments and other percussion instruments students are also learning about sound um high and low loud and soft um beginning to learn about instruments and their families and exploring early music ideas like that and next year she has goals to implement more technology to help students create their own together and that is a nutshell for all of that awesome job it's a lot it is a lot yes well thank you for all of these opportunities like I I appreciate how you're you're trying to make space for everyone to lean into their passion you know having that Flex blog for course for example you know it's it show shows your level of dedication so very much appreciated thank you back leadership we've seen a lot of changes that you been yes prob sitting back you thinking wow you know we've all created together and our students are well served ourr pointed outed Out Pass School proud Finance program thank you I also just mention this year we have three students who are pursuing music in college so um I of course always want to support my students in whatever they choose but it's it's an extra big part when I three of them are off to study music so you know yes yeah I was just gonna say I really appreciate you also bringing back the Imp of the extra positions because I remember that conversation but forgot it and so you s really bringing back the impact that that has had on students and adding additional music class and things like that um is really helpful to see and then I was GNA ask you mentioned um students having piano or guitar in middle school that's something they do during school or this is like an after school that's a course that students can take in seventh grade they can choose between a piano and guitar class or taking General music or taking band oh so they have the option to focus I believe it's half the year they spend learning the piano half the year they spend learning guitar okay and we offer both of those classes at the high school so students really found a passion there they can pursue that further with the high school oh very good thanks so much yeah all right I'm optimistic that we're gonna be out of here by nine o'clock so um it's time it's a 10- minute show at that yeah we're good we're um so next up the year in review uh LPS annual slid show showcasing our students in school special thanks to 2027 students mlu sumaar varsa as well as Julie Lord um creating the year review video K been a prepos it with sure we every year we cre a a year in review we just showcase our schools and student so a nice way to do uh look at we've done as we're getting closer to June and special edition year because uh Julie worked with those students and and they actually created video for is enjoy got it hopefully [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right that was uh excellent lots of smiling faces even get the dogs to stay still no no teeth from the dogs but uh that was really cool that was very cool all right um we will move on to our fourth presentation which Steve usually is able to keep pretty short which is the financial update so business man Steve Mark will take it away here that up got it Jen an Applause on the way out see started it's my legacy long from now guy that started all right um financial report is uh in the packet and on the screen um again it's been the Mantra all year we're on Target on track um not anticipating a shortfall we have we have uh sufficient funds to cover the budget through the rest of the year um this is a report through April uh you notice the bottom line we have seven little over 7even million available yet to spend um remind everybody Watcher school committee um we have uh of this report we have still five normal payrolls to go uh that's a little over 5.6 million and then we have uh summer payrolls uh for summer um PID for the teachers that we would that pay about 26 pays that's usually around 1.7 million so um you know between between those two that's close to a little over five million um almost 5 a half million that we still have to pay for our salaries and payroll and then we still have some tuition um bills that we're expecting in um some other project bills that were coming in so again we're right on track we don't anticipate any issues uh with the budget through the rest of this year so glad to answer questions I I have a quick question about the teacher payout over the summer is that encumbered in the FY 24 yes money but then it even though it's paid in fy2 yeah we act we actually issue all the we actually issue we actually physically issue all the checks uh June 30th so it's actually expended we don't we're not covering it carrying it forward it's kind of the same thing but we're actually issuing checks uh June 30th and then um the treasures Department holds those checks for those direct deposits and does those um um on schedule over the summer for the teacher yeah since the work here ends at the end of June we have to take right a lot of sense we're we're in good shape again and you know we uh we've been fortunate um um on some of the budget line items uh we've got we had a relatively mild winter so we didn't really have um concerns with u natural gas and heating prices and things like that so yeah remind me possibly covered this previously but what's the 94590 adjust transfer from regular Ed other inspection uh I think that was just about transfer to move some funds around to balance things I don't remember that was I back okay yeah it's staff charging people into the right account numbers okay uh we do a review every year and make sure everybody's charging to the right spot so and then the 102% on the transportation and busing was still a couple months to go um yeah we've got most of it but again so if you recall um part of the increase in the bus and cross is going to come out of the school choice funds okay and so we'll we'll pick up the last couple months of the uh student transportation out of school chice okay and then that also includes that line also includes special Lo Transportation takes um and things like that all right so that the revised budget of 24, 433 that's not just the appropriate that's the total budget right no that's the appropriate that was the okay so that makes sense that then the OES come out of school choice yeah okay yeah any other questions no all right thank you thanks always good news good to hear that we're on um boring not you make it so exciting that's what we want we want low excit all right we'll take a brief pause here for our second opportunity for interested citizens to see if anyone's joined the meeting that wishes to voice questions concerns comments Dorothy's giving me the move ahead sign so that's fine um we'll roll through our subcommittee reports and then we'll look to adjourn so bnbc uh no pleas a for last week so okay uh budget subcommittee is next we don't have any updates either H sorry I'm like looking for someone else to say something policy subcomittee all right great and the Shaker Lane building committee update um last update I I have is that what was that last week um our Architects hosted a meet at CH Lane they to meet some school committee KY was there St I think you're there um so met with our OPM um I didn't State the whole thing um other than that I don't have much other updates I don't know if anything has gone through with us negotiating our contract contract hasn't hasn't been signed but having said that they were at shaping Studio G was at Shing afternoon starting to look at the build see spent some time with them was there start to was a welcome information obviously for sure to Studio G lot of lot of positive feedback I think Studio was really open to a lot of different ideas and Concepts so very knowledge so our next up is negotiating contract getting that signed and then we have to start getting input from staff yeah Studio G is g to help organize those those events for us that contract that does have have to go back oh right yeah yeah how did that meeting uh work with the cartoon guy went really well okay so he should have a script for us on Monday and we're hoping to have a video Hope by the end next week day yeah you want to share what that was cartoon guy yeah we uh you want pull up sure I I get a lot of emails every day as you can imagine and this this one captured my interest he's a former news Anor and he helped a number of schools with various uh projects in the district one of them so I reached out to them had a good conversation sent me some sample videos and what a great way to project so we brought them on board and he'll probably be making a project yeah Applause for Jason he's enough Applause do okay you may have heard North adbor has been accepted by the Massachusetts school building authority or M the msba is a state agency that helps local school districts pay for the design and construction of schools high to be accepted the msba process is like a marathon it takes persistence endurance and a dedicated the work is tough but the payoff is significant by completing the msba process North adoro will unlock millions of dollars that come out of our local property tax assessments this short video is the first leg of our MS ba Marathon will explain the need for renovated Northboro High School why the high school was selected show a timeline of the process our marathon route and invite you to join us in the next step imagining what a new or renovated Northboro High School could provide not just to our young people but our entire Community Northboro applied for msba funding for the high school because it is outdated not fully ADA Compliant deter rating and at risk of a critical system failure opened in 1972 there are many ways North Attleboro High School is outdated I apologize it sounds that's all right and about a year from now maybe a little less than a year from now we'll be in a position to present all three um opportunities back to the um msbc msbc or whatever it is um about renovate renovate and build yeah renovate and add and then knock down and build new or it would be build new and then knock down right um so that's that's about 9 to 12 months out that's what we're hoping so we had some commitment from the staff that they were going to see the project all the way through certain members of the staff so that was was good I hope be Miss Degan right Miss Dean um all right so that that wraps that up correct all right uh before we adjourn I'll just state that town meeting is the 7th so encourage everyone to make that um and then elections are on the 11th so get everyone out there to vote for local elections and we will reconvene uh May 16 2024 7 PM same location if there's no other business before the school committee I'll ask for a motion to adjourn motion made by Stacy seconded by Bol all those in favor to Case by saying I hi hi we have it here thank you very much