##VIDEO ID:uPbvk-l3vkU## good evening and welcome to the Tuesday October 8th um school committee meeting uh School committees and other public bodies may continue to hold remote meetings through March 31st 2025 under legislation enacted on March 29th 2023 the statute chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 extends Quorum reductions for remote meetings all votes while there is remote participation must be made by roll call vote this meeting is being recorded and aired live by lctv we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation under God municip with libery and justice for all correspondence the following correspondence will be recorded an email from Mr Kurt fedman dated September 27th 2024 regarding the visibility for crosswalks a memo from Mr Don Donald Jarvis director of Occupational education at the lower Pioneer Valley Career and Technical education center regarding the Walter E Quigley Junior student of the month award for September 2024 Long Meadow student honored this month is Joseph myolo integrated occupational prep all right thank you and also congratulations to Joseph Mayo that is not the first time we have seen that name as the student of the month so well done um approval of minutes we have our recommended motion I move that the school committee approve the minutes to the September 24th 2024 school committee meeting as presented we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a roll call vote Jamie yes Julie yes Michaela yes Zach yes Estelle yes and yes for me as well all right we are moving on to public speak um I don't think we have anyone at home so we have someone here in the room if you'd like to come on forward say your name and address right there is perfect feel free to swivel that a little bit it's kind of off-kilter GRA that microphone to oh there you go yeah there Perfect all right welcome um to the members of the school committee can I just have you start sorry just for the public um to say your name and where yep my name is Melissa sabulski um to the members of the school committee and Dr OA I sit before you tonight as a parent excited about the opportunity to vote in November on an issue that will have a real impact on my family's life more specifically my child's life it is supported by the Massachusetts Teachers Association the MTA in a year dominated by national election news it's easy to miss state level questions and I hope that in being here tonight people who may be watching live at home or later online may become aware of this ballot question who's passing in my opinion will have a positive impact on Long Meadow students it is the vote on ballot question two repeal competency assessment requirement for high school graduation passing question two with a yes vote would eliminate the need for a student to pass mcass in order to receive a high school diploma many families might not even know that this standard exists because their children pass the tests with little to no extra effort however for the many many families with students in special education the mcast experience is fraught with fear and frustration it does not matter if our children have passed their subject classes in 9th through 12th grade if they fail the state standardized test the mcast they do not get a high school diploma from Long Meadow or any other Massachusetts Public School three miles down the road in Connecticut they would right now regardless of their GPA or teacher evaluations or class AC activities a student can be denied their diploma if they do poorly on mcast day this stressful assessment doesn't accurately test students knowledge or aptitude for success in college and Beyond it only shows which students are better at taking standardized tests as the parents of a child in special education we are so hopeful that we might finally be able to put behind us the stress and fear the shadow of this test has cast Over Our Lives since our child entered preschool at Center School today that child is a 10th grader here at long meow High School mcast looms large over everything because 10th grade is the grade for mcast testing the one that counts high standards in and of themselves are not a bad thing the current system of high stake standing standardized testing however is a generation ago my child would have graduated high school effortlessly having passed all of his classes and even obtained A's and B's in some but that is no longer the standard for high school School diplomas in the state of Massachusetts I could talk about the profitable B profitable business that standardized tests and test prep has become I could talk about the 42 other states in the union our New England neighbors to the North and South for example who trust their teachers judgment on what is best for their individual Student Success but I don't want to take up too much of your time I've seen mcast from both sides before I was a parent I was a 10th grade English teacher the year that counts I began my career in the time when mcast test was a New Prospect mcast is one test given to all students special ed students among them regardless of what their legally binding IEPs or 504 say the restrictions to what accommodations the student can be offered on the test are stifling though a child's IEP might call for repeating or rephrasing questions on assignments in the regular classroom that doesn't matter on mcast days a proctor May reread a set of directions for a child but they cannot rephrase they can simply stand before your child and reread the direction as written no matter how many times or ways your child says I don't understand it is cruel it happens every year in every school in Massachusetts from third grade through 10th grade imagine that a child calls you over which is brave in and of itself and says I don't understand can you help me and you can't help this child with whom you have built a relationship over the past 8 months Beyond flatly rereading a prompt or general test directions from a script I've been told to relax over the years don't worry Mom they could take the test over in a few months and right up until 12th grade if necessary we haven't gotten last Spring's nth grade biology scores for mcast back yet and based on my child's experience in that class last year I am not feeling great about his prospects anyone who finds out in the next weeks or month or so that their child didn't pass pass the biology mcast will be contacted and their child has to Circle back to biology a class they've already passed not to retake the class but for more targeted support and have to retake the mcast again and again if necessary even if they pass the class don't worry Mom eventually most of them will pass the same process goes for English and math and after all of this there are kids who don't ever pass the language organization format and stress of the test is completely counterintuitive to what their child needs to show what they know have you seen the cartoon where there's a big tree behind a group of animals a bird a monkey a penguin an elephant a fish in a bowl and a dog they all sit before a man who says for fair selection everybody has to take the same exam please climb that tree I'm obsessed with it my eyes go first to the Penguin and the fish in the bowl who look startled it's impossible it's unfair their flippers and fins make it impossible to climb a tree are they flawed and the mighty elephant he's not getting up that tree ever no diploma for him don't worry Mom he could take it again spoiler that elephant is never going to climb that tree and all you are doing is making making that elephant feel terrible and less than and weak and too big and too different and clumsy and stupid he's an elephant who doesn't love an elephant they help maintain forest and Savannah ecosystems systems for other species the world is a better place for having elephants we need more of them they are strong and bright and empathetic don't worry Mom he can still get a certificate of completion please vote Yes on question two yes to high standards but not high stakes there are so many different ways to be smart there are so many different ways to show what you know filling in the bubbles on a test booklet or a computer screen today should not be so high stakes thank you for your time thank you for coming out today thank you thank you thank you we are moving on then to business with guests and that brings us to our mcast presentation all right so joining us tonight uh curriculum director Beth Nelson Dr Beth Nelson has um spent uh the last few weeks pouring over our accountability in achievement results and so when those um reports are released by the department of Elementary and secondary education we annually compile a report for the school committee uh to give you um uh a view of our achievement and how we did on the state's accountability system uh and sort of as one of the things that that Beth will emphasize at the outset of her presentation is that we do recognize that this is a single measurement of success and um thank Beth will spend some time uh talking with you about how we try to look at Student Success Through a a broad lens so Beth and I will I'll share the screen and we'll be underway said there's so many ways that we measure Student Success and as the parent shared just previous to me coming up here tonight it's so important that we recognize that students show their success in so many different ways and it's not just one measure um so up on this very detailed busy slide you have all these different ways that we are from the moment they enter our classrooms in preschool till they leave our our our stage senior year in high school um we have so many different ways to know who our students are and where they are and where they're going and where we can direct instruction and support to help them um and truly this what I'm about to present to you was just one one day to piece one day that they sit down um in school and sit for a test so so I think many of you have been on school committee for a few years you're understand what the mcast are um but if anybody watching from home or anybody that's new to the school committee the mcast is a test that Massachusetts um gives to all third through e8th graders and 10th graders annually in ela and math and then fifth 8th and 10th grade for science this past Academic Year for the first time in a very long time eighth graders sat for a Civics exam um and it is it's it's assessing students against the standards from the Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks when you look at this report and when you look at um any news reports on the mcast data they oftentimes talk about achievement and accountability so achievement is truly how a student performed against a standard so they're asked many questions that relate to a standard how does that student or that group of students perform on those set of T those set of questions as it relates to a standard accountability takes in achievement chronic absenteeism how we do um on AP exams how we do on um High School graduation rate so when you when we start talking about accountability it's taking in a lot of data beyond the mcast so I know that can get kind of confusing um because there is so much data to look at when you look at the mcast um reporting because they're looking at so many different figures and so many different um pieces of information Statewide Trends I did share this previously with the school committee but for anybody who's tuning in for the first time um overall across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts this year the scores were pretty flat so um there wasn't a real drop there wasn't any growth they're pretty flat compared to last school year um and then in as that related to Long Meadow we also saw that our Trends were very consistent with the state so um in grade 10 Ela we want to highlight that 77% of our students met or exceeded expectations to get that high school diploma as the previous speaker was talking about you have to have met exceeded or partially met expectations so that number um is higher the the students that have partially met met or exceeded is higher than 77% but the state often looks at met or exceeded as a as a benchmark um same with math 75% met or exceeded um and you can see the state average there so although the state was flat and Long Meadow was flat we still far exceed the state in the number of students who are coming into those categories um Elementary grades three and four math um were were very high uh um for us that we did very well um in those two areas but other than that Ela and kind of our Upper Middle math uh scores were really flat or a little bit down in some areas from the year previous all of our scores where they were down matched where the state was also down um it was a trend across the state and you know certainly um it's something that we have our eyes on so last year when I came to you um the areas that we were saying we really needed to grow in was our students with disabilities and our lowest performing students um and we're really pleased to be able to come to the school committee this year and I think you'll see in my report as we go on that these two areas really did grow in almost all of our testing and and um grade spans so we're really excited about that um Ela at LHS math at every grade level showed Improvement in both of our lows performing and our students with disability um science Technology and Engineering showed gains for students with disabilities they do not measure our lowest performing group for fifth 8th and 10th because it's a different group of students every year um so that's why you won't see that reported out in those two categories chronic absenteeism which is a very big um emphasis across the Commonwealth right now improved in all of our subgroups except for one in grades 3 through eight um um our student growth remains strong across all subgroups in all of our testing areas um and then students with disability in ela and all grades in math and grades through3 showed improved growth from 2023 um so overall there's a lot to celebrate um and a lot of things that we're pleased that we did we were able to show growth from last year so the ELA distribution by year um so in yellow you can see how long meadow Public Schools performed from 2022 23 24 and you can see where the state was um I think ultimately what we're most pleased with is that you know it is a k it's a prek-k to2 school district that we're in and by the time that the students are getting to grade 10 their scores significantly increased they're getting to where they need to be it's a building block um and it is a really it's a really rigorous test for a third a little 8-year-old to sit down and try to do um and so as they've built some of those skills we just talked about organizing and executive functioning those are all skills that go into sitting for an assessment like this um and so this building blocks continue to build as they progress through the Long Meadow public schools and we are able to get our numbers um where we want to see them by the time the students are in 10th Grade you'll see similar data for our math achievement again similar Trends in that by the time they get to 10th grade the majority of our students um are meeting or exceeding expectations but you can see that we are relatively flat um almost extremely flat in every area with the exception of one grade level for math from 23 to 24 so this was the accountability again it was where they take in all of those measures so it's not just our achievement on the mcast but they're looking at the um chronic absenteeism they're looking at our um AP exams our high school graduation rate um as well as the the achievement from this year um the Department of Education assigns each of our targets so those are assigned to us um and then it takes in all of these measures that I have mentioned previously um to determine where we land on the accountability percentile they then take this these figures and average it out between 2022 23 and 24 with a higher weight on 24 than on 2022 to come up with our accountability percentile we don't need to look click on that bottom link today but if anybody was interested um that it just gives public information about our targets for the next four years so it brings is up to 2027 and it shows that the department has assigned us um increments growing annually of where they would like to see us going so the um the accountability by subgroups this is where it's Ela um where I previously didn't comment that we improved in the areas of students with disabilities at lowest performing and that's why on this slide we don't see anything highlighted here um our scores were flat if not declining a little bit um in just about all of our subgroups um so again how do we respond to that well we're really optimistic that a new Ela program that you all helped us and supported us um with bringing to our classrooms this year will have a significant Improvement um in our lower elementary scores which in years to come are going to build upon in our our middle school and high school scores as well um but here in the LHS you see that our lows performing students and our students with disabilities did show growth um where in a lot of many of the other subgroups did not so they they in some aspects carried us um in these areas last year and our lowest performing is the lowest 20 lowest scoring 25 % of the population the year previous so for our high school students the 25% of the students that scored lowest the year previous are then grouped into that low is performing so they're taking those scores and comparing them to that group scores for this year and again grades 3 through eight math uh you can see that once again the low is performing in the students with dis disabilities improved we had some other subgroups that improved very marginally um but really against lowest performing students with disabilities we were pleased with their progress and LHS math again these two subgroups um improved and you'll see like the lowest performing um you'll see its path forward improve improved but below Target so that that number that was on several slides previous that link the state puts out these targets for us so 4928 was our Target for this year although we did not meet that Target because we did not grow by 3.3 points we still showed Improvement and then science Technology and Engineering again I said previously we don't they don't report out on the lowest performing group because that group changes annually year to year but students with disability in grades 2 through eight science improved um year over-year and our LHS science Technology and Engineering subgroup improved year-over-year for our students with disabilities several of our groups um did actually improve for LHS biology I know in years past this has been something of interest to the committee to see how those cohorts are progressing through the grades um so again 2019 was that last year before covid 2020 we did not take the mcast so if you follow along um you know our our kids that were in third grade in 2019 um are still it's showing that they're not quite back to where they were in 2019 however if you look at the kids who were in third grade in 2017 we do see that they got to where they needed to be and surpassed that um by the time they were in high school so that pink that mauve color that um they started at 67 in 2017 and then were able to get to 77 in 2024 the reason it shifts a column when you get to the end is because they take it in grade it's not correct goes from eighth grade to 10th grade yeah and then similar for the math the same explanation um but you'll see some of our subgroups kind of catch up a little bit sooner in math that they did in ela um seems to just be the trend of how the data came out as well that our Ela scores for Long Meadow as well as the state were were pretty flat stud can I just highlight just go back to this so one of the challenges with mcast is when you compare third grade results this year to third grade results last year it's a different cohort Beth's trying to show the same cohort of kids and and what their path is as they make their way through our grades even this is a little challenging though because it's a different test every year so same kids different test um and and so that that has to be taken into account as well and student growth I know we spoke about this um last year but for anybody that's new or anybody that's watching today student growth is really how we measure every student who scored the exact same score last year gets put into a group and then they are compared against all of their peers across the Commonwealth from anywhere from a 1 to a 99 based on how much they grew against that cohort of peers who scored the same score as them the year prior so we want to see a score between 40 to 60 for good student growth and we're pleased that in all of our subgroups our student growth was between 40 and 60 and that is reflected on the next two slides uh next four slides I think actually um so again there's not there's no nowhere here that I really want to like highlight because there's nowhere that it's off the charts like we exceeded 60 but there's also nowhere that we were below 40 so I think it's just it shows that you know this is again it goes back to this is one measure but student growth as they compare themselves to their peers across the Commonwealth on one test they sit down down for on a gloomy day in March um our kids are doing well and they are performing well against their peers across across the colon wall if students are experiencing that typical growth between the 40 to 60 range that means they're they're making progress the right progress towards towards AC towards the standards and completing and accomplishing the standards within the curriculum Frameworks and here again same thing here there's no group that's higher or lower than 40 to 60 um um you'll see it says typical growth low but um in terms of what points we were allocated towards our accountability but it's still was um solid growth for our students and then we don't report out student growth for science Technology and Engineering because that's subgroup of students does not take that test annually um that again mcast is one measure on so many really really important things that students do each and every day here that our staff is doing every single day um but I know it's an important measure it's something that we have we we sit and take every single year and we are pleased to share the information with the community but we do understand and recognize that it's one way to measure our students growth experience tells me that sometimes um this is an opportunity to gather some questions from the committee sometimes we're in a position to answer those questions based on the information that that um Beth has brought tonight or that we've kind of considered uh other times it might be that we'll just need to take the questions back and then report back to you at your next meeting because there really is hundreds of different lenses through which you can look at mcast and so um even if you assemble 10 administrators they might be looking at at the scores in 10 different ways so um happy to answer any questions that you have or gather those questions and bring back answers to you next time Julie you look like question go for question um I always have a question um what's the what's high needs what count is high needs High needs could be low income lows performing students with disabilities so they put a lot of so it's all of them lump together correct but the state does designates who that is and that's based on like how things are recorded in um our power school so if a student is receiving support through Title One at one of our two schools then we have to designate that in power school and that gets reported to the state three times a year okay I was just curious because I was kind of looking through at all the different subgroups and that's one where we either declined or didn't so because we it gets sent to the state three times a year some through the mtss process you could be in Reading intervention at one of the two schools that's title one in October and then not in it so that that group is it changing pretty regularly as well and I think that's why it's difficult to get a good grasp on like what that one means who that that population is other questions or thoughts Zach go ahead oh um I was just going to ask what the one subgroup that didn't improve in The Chronic absente Rell students so and that's such a small number that like one or two students who maybe had really poor attendance could have really skewed that that data um but that was the one subgroup that did not improve Z yeah a question that I had um in earlier conversations we had this evening around Mt PSS and Panorama was I was just kind of curious to know if there were within that data if there were different subgroups or cohorts that we were keeping an eye out eye on because the the data stood out as an outlier I think this might fall Marty under the category of maybe a question to come back to um because I don't know that we could um jump into it tonight I'd just be curious to know from an ncast perspective if there's different subgroups or cohorts that as you look and I love these charts by the way yeah um as you watch watch tracking over time that stand out as cohorts that might need a little something extra or different um or subgroups um that might need a little something extra or different as you kind of look back over the course of a couple of years of [Applause] data um that's a great question to come back to and to talk to um our data specialist who's kind of getting all the backend data into Panorama um and I don't know if we'll have that information right away maybe we will um I think it's something that we're trying to figure out too and how the the capabilities and how far we can go with understanding this data um one of the subgroups um African American and black a lot of it has a path forward Decline and is there reason why is that not a lot of subgroup members in there right now so uh if there's dashes through the data if there's not a number represented that does mean that the subgroup is smaller than 10 so there wasn't enough of a cohort to measure that if they did not if if the path was forward and they didn't meet their target or they declined then that subg group did decline from the year prior okay JB yep um do we ever you know I know we compare ourselves to the state but that's obviously a pretty big group do we do we ever pick schools and compare ourselves to other schools similar demographic uh so I did send um some information I don't know if anybody saw that that where I compared us to amoris eong Meadow and Springfield here locally in Western Massachusetts and then duckberry Newton Welsley um one other uh Boston District and Boston um and we were in western Mass we were clear winners and then in eastern Mass we were neck and neck with duckberry and Newton um Belmont like was off the charts in their scores um but other than that everybody out in eastern maass we really were pretty comparable with even even with Ela versus math too there was no and Belmont was just well ahead of us is what you're saying Belmont was almost I mean their scores were up in above 530 for ELA and math which means the majority of their kids were exceeding expectations do we know I I mean you probably can draw a pretty strong correlation between per people spending and the affluence of a community and their mcast results frankly I mean that it's it's pretty hard correlation if you look across the state um so I think they probably have some resources that they can tap into um and you know the affluence of a community often correlates with mcast performance and so I mean we we try to draw some lessons from other communities there's actually um I I'll send the committee the link there's actually on the on the publicly facing information on the desie website uh there is a link that puts us in a demographic in a boat with demographically similar communities off the top of my head I don't know what communities those are but they look across the state and they say based on the demographics of your community the number of el students the number of high needs students your uh number of students with disabilities and other demographics um they'll they'll compare your scores so I can send that information to the committee you can take a look at it in that in that demographic in that in those among those communities I'd say we faed very well also but I'll send you and that information is still 2023 does not doesn't have updated 2024 data in that comparison which is why I just did a quick snapshot of what I was able to go in and grab okay um but that is a really useful tool when it updates can this one SL guys one more this one SL can you get 100 at the school level is that possible or is that you actually can so 93 student meeting or exceeding so every student would be have a score of 500 or higher okay and chronic abs ISM what percentage of our students are still in chronic at like this past year I think it was 9% I'd have to look though Jamie and get that for you um as a reminder that's for anybody watching at home that's 10% of the school year so that would be the equivalent of 18 school days yeah I'm seeing our score for a lot of different subgroups are that we hit a four for it because we improved but I'm not seeing I can I can email you with that information and does that drag down that school it just the schools were all quite different I mean it can correct like you could have like that could drag down your school just because that particular school just has a lot of things going on correct if you yeah so if you if you have a if you if you make made the best progress on reducing chronic absenteeism you're going to get four of those accountability points that Beth mentioned but um if you have if you're working with some school of voiders or you have some families that have just experienced ordinary absence then that that could pull down your your the number of points you get on the accountability index around chronic absenteeism it has um coming out of covid it was a problem across the Commonwealth across the country um it's getting better and we made some great progress last year over 2022 and we can bring that information back to you as well um yeah I think I would just love to see I mean just it's it's kind of if it's really 9% of our student I mean it just I don't know it just doesn't seem possible I know it is but like it'd be something to like come back and go you know you know at least talk about it digest it and go do we do anything about it or we just this is what it is you know it just it's kind of still shocks me 9% is not it's not acceptable right I mean that's right I it doesn't feel right if you're in a workplace environment 9% of you know or 9% of our staff didn't show up you know I think we might have some like it just doesn't feel right I I I don't know what's going on but the numbers are still pretty high across the state and there are a lot of interventions in place at school level but also at District levels um it it is definitely a growing concern coming out of and if there's anything we can do from Comm like hey you know maybe maybe there's something we're missing there so seems like a lot or like how they're being identified too because I mean like I can think of people who are outliers just by like they moved during Co and they're really from a different state so they travel back and forth so they miss maybe more school than my kids might because I only have to drive to the Boston area for Thanksgiving I don't know you know what I mean like just 18 day like it just sounds like I don't know something I mean 18 days is a lot of days for like my kids miss days but like 18 that's a that's a lot out of 180 I agree but like there's something it just feels n uptakes and mental health issues right they're keeping kids out and then I know in some other areas it's like um like kids who are not in living in one house always at the same time I don't know if that's the case in but there are a lot of different things that can other health issues um Family complications as you've mentioned how insecurity there are so many factors that play yeah yeah is that data that we're able to track or obtain like the reasons for absenc like do we track like out sick um family emergency I know a lot of families travel domestically and will take like a month off um and they're gone for just Family Travel and being abroad um is that data that we keep or or pars out to try and direct more in I I'd say not at that granular level I'd say we ween you know um and I think you know maybe that's something that as part of the our implementation of Panorama this data warehouse that might be something that will help us track student attendance better um I think we do know that arresting chronic absenteeism in the youngest grades makes a big difference in the oldest grades and so we're we're seeing students who had significant attendance challenges in the the early grades we're seeing those students now making their way to high school and it's you can see the lingering effects of that so it it's very very important and maybe we that's an area where we do have to do a better job of kind of granularly tracking the reasons that kids are out of school I think anecdotally I'd say our administrators would report that there's as Nicole pointed out a variety of reasons you know everything from travel to kind of how you know I think maybe families are um a little bit more judicious about sending children to school who are not well you know maybe there was a time when we sent children uh to school if they you know um if they weren't up to speed but now maybe we're more likely to keep them home maybe that's a lesson of Co there's there's a variety of factors at play for sure but maybe that's something that we need to do a better job of is really understanding on a I think our our administrators know their families and they they probably on a student by student basis would be able to explain it but are we able to aggregate that information I'd say that's something that we could do a better job at yeah I just I wonder if we'd come up with different targeted interventions if we knew what some of the the bigger lovers were yeah here you know like if we even know I mean I'm assume we know which schools it's it is yes I mean it comes down to in many cases like one or two families at a school so there are targeted but that's not getting the 300 students you're talking 300 students you said 10% of the students there's 3,000 students I mean you're talking 300 kids but when it when it's there's often times as the superintendent said like we know the families we know the reasons there's might be other things going on yes there's people that are still you know maybe you used to send your kid to school with the sniffles but now you're keeping them home but there's also um there's other circumstances that that we are aware of but I think to back to Zach's original question um it'd be really interesting if if there is a way for us to put some of this into Panorama um I know you know the if you're calling your child out sick from school the nurse gets a voicemail it gets noted um but often times it's the teacher getting an email about you know we're we're on a trip or we're you know we have an appointment today we're going to miss class so how are we collecting that when so many different people are getting that data and information I think it certainly feeds into the mtss process so when there is sort of a child's study a child that's being discussed at um a study team meeting that they will explore on a kid byid byid basis the reasons a kid is experiencing the the absenteeism challenges so I think we we we know students individual stories our our teachers or administrators know that that but um I don't know that I could give you a report right now that said you know x% of our chronic absenteeism students are absent for this particular reason and I would imagine that it's not necessarily always one reason to be honest it's often a combination of reasons um so that might be a factor as well Julie M were you waiting I did I feel like my question got answered um trying to think oh I wanted to know about when Jamie said comparing our scores to other districts like ours I wanted to look at the subgroups of the other districts but I think you kind of said that but that was 2023 data correct so it's not out for 2024 to do that you can just look at the global um not yet but the once they update that website okay it has really great information um I I just wanted to ask about back to Estelle's question about the um African-American black category subgroup this I think the decreases are like pretty substantially more than some of the changes that we see for the other subgroups I was just wondering if you could kind of walk us through what what you all do to investigate that kind of change so now you talking about achievement scores as opposed to growth scores yeah achievement okay um so I think for the um we see them on Ela subgroup there's yeah grade 33 LHS math yeah almost every um category they're on a decline p [Applause] [Applause] yeah I think that's a that's a fair observation um actually is this is one of these charts wrong let's see these are the same these are the same chart but different I think it was updated on the one up here there was one that was like math the same math for high school and Elementary yes but it's updated here okay okay but either way either way the trend is the same right yeah so it's not reported out in the high school most cases because there's not enough of the group but because it's reporting out three through eight so all six grades there are enough of that group so we would have to then go in at a granular level and look per grade level um and try to better understand that and that's not something we've done okay this year um I'm not sure that it's come up in in recent years but it's something I certainly think we can we can take back and look at there think a big enough change that yeah I I think it it's certainly evidence to reinforce our commitment to culturally responsive practice to having a curriculum that's reflected of the reflective of the diversity of The Wider World um being sure that we're creating welcoming inclusing inclusive classrooms for students of color so I think it's a good observation and I think it's it's evidence that we've got some work to do in that area and are you all able to break out the subgroups I know those are three through eight but can you break them out by grade level or I'm just curious if you can look if you can look at them this they do provide that for some of the achievement um as you get further into um so there's there is a report that's the District results by subgroup um so then it breaks down the number of students in each subgroup that are by grade that are well if you're breaking it up by grade you're probably under under the under the co size for reportable results science technology in 48 students in total in that in that subgroup in grades 3 through eight right now what's the the smallest is 20 is it 10 if it's under 10 it's not 10 is the 10 or 20 it depends on the category yeah so um but yeah so they do have it by grade um so for example in fifth grade there's not they're not reporting out African-American students um CU there's not enough of a subgroup so when we look at that data 3 through eight we're able to see it all together but fifth but we don't have any cohorts I don't have a cohort um to be able to look at for fourth grade I don't have a cohort to look at so we can yeah I mean I was I was asking the question specifically about the African-American student student subgroup but like I was just curious about any of the subgroups are you able to look at them by grade level cohort to to Zach's point about kind of like identifying intervention yeah they Y and so it looks like um just looking at third fourth and fifth at a really quick glance um Asian Hispanic Latino is reported out and white the other subgroups are not reported out um by race or ethnicity okay because the group isn't large enough per grade level okay um so I could certainly get that information okay um well we and we could look at like low income or something like that by or is that two correct low income is reported at a quick glance for third fourth and fifth that'll be helpful to see if you can and I think remembering that when we get results like this we're looking at them at a district level a school level classroom level and then individual student level so if we have an individual student who's not making progress you know um whether it's a student who is part of a particular subgroup or not um were able to you know again with having quick access to data were able to kind of take a look at where they were struggling what skills contributed to the achievement score that they received and can we attack those skills with some specific instruction at the classroom level last year I was looking at a report from last year and um we provided an example of all the questions from particular subject at a particular grade and you're able to see how a student did on um the various skills that were were demanded by that question and so teachers are able to look at that at a real granular level and say all right this student's having difficult time with topic development or the students having a difficult time with sequencing and math and so you're able to address those deficiencies in in real discreet ways so but we can I'm sort of keeping a running list of some of the things to bring back to you um and we could do it via um some information in your packet or we could do another um smaller more targeted report at your next meeting if that would be helpful so I can talk to Nicole about that or yeah Jamie no I think that sounds great um the only thing I would say just kind of listening to all I like comparing ourself to local schools ammer and whatnot that's great but I think we want my opinion on this is we should be comparing ourselves and our goal should be Belmont so why can't we get to that point why are they over five we're not over 5:30 on any single one as you go if they're really that high go after where like if we're getting that high it's good for everybody it's good for the students it's good for us as taxpayers CU our house values are going to go up because everybody's going to want to live in this town we want to achieve we don't want just compare ourselves to ammer cuz we're just competing with ammer like let's beat the pants off the ammer and look at that and go what are they doing my number one question would be do you have chronic absenteeism you can't educate people if they're not showing up here you know if 9% or 300 students are not showing up guess what our scores are going to be down there's no it's like if you don't show up for practice I mean you're not going to be as good as you know teams that are all there all competing all focused all learning this stuff so I that I would want to look at balmont and not go oh we can't achieve that because they have you know more you know a bigger Asian population a bigger white popul I don't know you make up whatever it is I would look at it as more of uh hey let's figure out how to raise the water for everybody and go okay and don't just blame it on demographics so I think blaming it on demographics is it's just a it's a cop out so so would be my recommendation to look at B other thoughts Zach yeah one last question on this one and uh Marty you just kind of mentioned it are we able to dig into um at like an item level analysis we are yes okay yeah and that's what you'll see a lot at Team meetings grade level team meetings okay is that they're digging into like so if there's a question that they did really forly on what were the standards what was the question actually asking of course they don't always always they don't release the test you only get a portion um so you hope that that's one of the questions that they publish that you can actually look at it and you know was it the way that they worded it what what tricked the kids what stumped them great thank you can I ask um when will families get their individual reports reports are being mailed out of school offices on Friday October 11th so two days three days from now and it's up for all grades for all grades 3 through 8 3 through 10 sorry and so they should be Saturday or Monday or it's a holiday Saturday or Tuesday depending on mail delivery service and will that include the um eth grade civics as well that does not include eth grade Civic the state is not reporting out on those on an individual on an individual basis this year it was just a field test pilot um so they haven't even released the scores to the districts for so each school was assigned there's seven performance tasks on the civics um and each school was assigned one of the seven performance tasks at random um so they wanted to they were really more or less seeing do these performance tasks work and measure what we're expecting students to learn um and then they will give us how we did on those two performance TX so one for Williams one for Glen Brook um but they haven't yet okay and it'll just be an overall yep and they were given two different performance tasks they were given two different performance tasks last year any other questions moment jie I don't know if it's a question but just one one thing that was interesting to talk about last year was like the places where we thought there were changes that were like idiosyncratic to Long Meadow that we could I know we can't like scientifically prove this from just looking at these charts but things like the effect of a new curriculum um or even you know places where they've had challenges with um you're not having enough teachers to the classroom so any places like that where you all are sort of like we suspect this is kind of what we're seeing for a grade or something like that would be helpful to know yeah okay I think that the bridges investment is paying dividends I think we're seeing that absolutely and I hope you know next year we're able to come back to you and say that the CK investment is paying dividends but it' be wonderful if we see in one year might be more realistic two or three I'd be delighted if they came back and the elementary scores are off the charts well set well thank you for coming out appreciate the note at the beginning also that this is one piece of the puzzle it is not the whole story um it doesn't tell us everything we need to know about our students but it gives us a data point to look at um and see kind of what we might want to focus on what things we're doing better on and what things we maybe need to continue working on thank you thank you appreciate you coming here thank you thank [Applause] you all right we are headed into um school committee announcements and recognitions um I don't have a lot for the chair report today other than to say um this afternoon we um had a ribbon cutting at the center School playground which was lovely um nice to return there as a former Center School parent myself um it was very well attended there were lots of folks um somewhat helped along I'm sure by the batch ice cream truck that came out for the event um and the kids had a blast they got to help with cutting the ribbon um um and it was just lovely to see so many people come out for such a joyous occasion again and looking forward to um one at Wolf Swamp in the weeks to come I'm glad to hear that all of our playgrounds are up and running and inclusive and being enjoyed by our families around town um and then lastly just a thanks a note of appreciation to our um administrators for coming out this evening and having an extra long day um tonight we started out with a um annual school committee and administrator um Retreat to talk about some of the um progress for this next year um and appreciate everybody taking the time to attend and be um forthcoming about the things they are um seeing as progress at their schools and the areas of concern that they have moving forward that's all on my end any other announcements or recognitions from other school committee members seeing none we're headed into superintendent's report Dr o sure I'll be brief um we had a safety meeting District safety meeting uh last Friday and uh that's something that Mr Maza coordinates for us our sort of three goals with regard to school safety this year one is um educating staff on avoid deny defend um practicing fall lockdown safety drill and then a spring multihazard drill that's in addition to other safety drills that go on including fire drills bus evacuation drills that kind of thing so um we were happy to pull together that District safety meeting and includes police fire DPW our Tech staff and um our members of our administrative team so um the uh there's a uh w w a walk bike roll event uh tomorrow at our elementary schools so uh it's part of our commitment to Safe roots to schools and so we appreciate uh the long metal Police Department organizing that event and it's a fun way to encourage a walking biking and rolling to school um I've seen lots of evidence of classroom and schoolwide Charters being developed in association with the ruler uh implementation and these school or classwide classwide Charters they uh sort of articulate how we want students to feel uh in various classrooms so uh really thankful that our Educators have embraced those Charters and also the mood meters uh Leaf is having its annual Awards event on October 24th in the afternoon it's at 3:30 I believe or 3:15 so we'll get that information out to the school committee if you can join us that'd be great uh we have an Internet safety presentation coming up on October 24th uh as well uh part of our emphasis on creating uh digitally smart students uh and promoting Internet safety for kids so um that's all I have all right other administrator reports you any questions on any of the reports all right uh no student representative report tonight uh moving on to other reports lpvc Zach no report no report energy and sustainability we don't have a person yet and seal Michaela um same report as last time there's a meeting next week on o October 16th next Wednesday um and you can go on Zoom or in person and um Dr is coming to present about Middle School building and the district Improvement plan all right wonderful uh subcommittee reports policy sub that's oh yeah that's me too um policies J iie and acab are posted to the district's website um to solicit public input they will come back to the committee for approval during our October 22nd meeting both policies will be posted to the district's website for 30 days as required by the school committee policy bgb policy adoption to solicit public input all right so folks haven't had a chance to look those over yet the next two weeks uh no other subcommittee reports and we are on to ongoing business Middle School building project sure um I want to just pull up a document that was part of of a presentation to the msba uh our Middle School a couple of weeks ago um to the front so this was we had an opportunity to present to the uh to the msba uh what we see as our preferred solution for the Middle School uh joining me on that Zoom call with the msba was Arman Ray the chair of our building committee the town manager and members of our design team from cers in jwa and uh it was a good opportunity to orient them to the community and and talk to them about the location of the uh our preferred location for the Middle School uh which is represented on on this slide um we talked to them about all the visioning activities that have been uh have been LED since March and really have helped us shape that educational plan that we talked about uh earlier today and um it's been it's been a a great process to help us imagine what middle school education could be in a combined setting uh during our earlier retreat with the uh with the administrators we we talked about uh reimagining that middle school program of studies and um I had mentioned that I'm imagining a meeting in in January of 2028 where we will present to the school committee and to The Wider Community uh a program of studies for a Consolidated middle school and there's that's an exciting uh job in front of us as we think about the programming that uh can exist in a new school in a combined setting um as part of the presentation we we talked about uh some of the aspects of Gladbrook and Williams that we uh value currently and would want to see carried over into a new Middle School uh at Glenbrook one of the things that jumped out of the visioning process was the uh area of the building that incorporates stem art music kind of an exploratory Zone that we think can be recreated in a new Middle School at at Williams uh the space that we are using creatively is to support students social emotional learning needs uh so there's sort of a a guidance Suite that is uh uh a very inviting suite for kids at Williams it's it's not um in the best location it's in it's in the uh the temporary module classroom in the back of the school but uh the counselor is in that space have made great use of it uh and so there are you know we talked a lot about those things that we we want to carry over and then also some of the things that we we don't want to see carried over um the the challenging um accessibility of Glenbrook the uh the safety challenges that are that uh are found in both schools uh the lack of um uh collaborative space at Glenbrook and um the Challen challenges that we Face serving adequately serving appropriately serving special education students um also um we had an opportunity to articulate our vision to the uh msba we talked a lot about creating uh spaces that promote the values that are important to us here in Long Meadow around uh learner autonomy uh embedding the vision of The Graduate ensuring that learning environments are dynamic can exploratory and promotee collaboration and so uh as we get further down the design Road it will be an opportunity to uh further advance that Vision um the msba is fully aware of some sort of what the internal opportunities are but what some of the external challenges are and uh we talked to them about how we can safely uh create a Consolidated Middle School on a site that is um is narrow generally um but also talked about how we could create um design the campus in a way that um allows for safe queuing and loading and unloading of students uh but also uh creates opportunities for sustainable features in in the school um we had an opportunity to review existing conditions with the msba and uh talk to them about the fact that we have athletic fields at the current site that are uh that get a lot of use and that we you want to make sure that we can recreate um Sports field on the at the new Middle School um and I think the msba has a full understanding of uh the work that we're doing to mitigate the uh traffic and congestion uh that folks have expressed concern about and so uh we have been diligently planning with police and fire to uh make sure that we have a campus that can can uh safely move traffic and this is an iteration of that the proposed sight site plan this is becoming a a familiar visual to many people um we have some large uh display boards that we have uh I've been making my way around to pack meetings and PTO meetings and school councils just to show parents the proposed site plan and get some feedback on on what it could look like but uh at the risk of I know that this committee has heard uh all of this information previously but having a a campus that has a dedicated bus lane that that has long queuing spaces that has uh wide load in unload zones that has separate parking for staff and for visitors will really help create a safe uh campus for for everyone uh we would go uh this the proposed site plan has uh 200 parking spots which is um you know far exceeds what we have at either of the middle schools currently um this is a uh a visual representing the the massing of the building um these are not the colors that we would choose for the final uh for the final design it won't be purple and and turquoise uh but gives you an idea of how the uh Community spaces are separated uh from the core academic areas in the towards the south of the building um we're imagining a media center that will allow for um a high degree of display of student work and it will be connected to uh steam classrooms and art classrooms and also easily accessible to the auditorium so we're imagining a part of the building that that will uh be very Dynamic and create Lots of opportunities for uh performance and display of student learning I think the Architects uh to the right you'll see uh some existing uh historic buildings in town I think the Architects are are are fully aware of that of the importance of creating a building that blends in with the surrounding community and so none of this has been decided but uh there's sort of takeen inventory of of surrounding architecture just to make sure that we create something that's suitable for for the community um the uh the sustainability features we've talked about this exploring uh geothermal opportunities uh exploring electric heat plump pumps uh exploring uh solar orientation of the building making sure that this is solar ready all of this will help us take advantage of msba incentive points and will help us pursue Federal incentives as well um the preferred schematic floor plan again um just sort of echoing what I mentioned earlier you'll see uh sort of towards the this would be a twostory structure uh where the sixth grade would be largely self-contained there would be a lot a little bit more movement for our seventh and eighth graders um again uh one of the things The Architects were struck by was how much this community embraced the open design of the high school I I don't think the middle school would be as open as the high school but it would allow for uh more uh free flowing academic neighborhoods um and so I think that's a I think our students use spaces like that responsibly I think our teachers are interested in making sure kids have spaces where they can work collaboratively so hopefully uh the design will pursue that objective as well um a different view of the of the floor plan where you'll see the administration at the south of the building connected to the uh academic Wing you you'll see the exploratory Zone that I mentioned uh connecting steam in the auditorium in the science labs and the art rooms um that's an exciting area of the building uh and guidance um sort of vertically oriented to the Administration up on the second floor um this is uh these are some information fairly granular fairly fairly detailed one thing I would highlight that that might be a you know just again I know this committee is aware of it but at every opportunity I'd like to mention it we'd be going from 170 almost 173,000 Square ft of Middle School space down to 135 534 Square fet gross square foot of of uh to educate our middle school students in so uh a much more manageable uh Middle School on a single site I think it will be a relief to our our maintenance in grounds Crews um we are working with the msba the msba has um uh space allocations in some cases we will exceed the space allocations of the msba so for example the auditorium is one area that that is completely completely not part of the allowance uh that the msba makes uh our proposal would include an auditorium um additionally we would be above the variance above the msba allotment for uh special education space we think that's important to create really inclusive spaces for kids uh we would also you know we would also seek to have a full-size gymnasium that would um you know help help us adjust to the fact that we'd be going from two gymnasiums at Glenbrook and Williams down to a single gymnasium at a new Middle School uh so that work is ongoing um again familiar to this committee but you'll see that that option 8A is the preferred option that's the 135,000 SQ foot Middle School to serve 665 students the projected cost is 151 mil uh 823 ,500 that's projected at this point that number will get refined as we move through schematic design um and this is a more detailed look at the options that uh have been explored by the building committee um this is available to the school committee you can review that if you have any questions uh let us know but I think the story that this tells is that uh it's small print but if you look in the upper right uh the Glenbrook code upgrade repair uh is projected to uh be $85 million so just to get one school up to code a baseline repair would be uh over 80 million and so that's one school were you to uh pursue it at Williams you would have another uh $70 million of costs but that's years down the road right now the only you know the msba would only fund one project uh they wouldn't fund two uh base repair options simultaneously so that I think that's a really important consideration is that we're seeing that the the cost of building a single Consolidated Middle School is far more cost effective than pursuing two base repairs that would only bring the buildings up to code and really wouldn't match with our education goals and plans especially when considering reimbursement as well from the msba and opportunities for reimbursement um are significantly higher um with newer builds than with base upgrades absolutely um and so our timeline again we're we're sort of in the middle of a long journey uh we're hitting you know credit to the building committee credit to the design team credit to the administ rators who've been involved with this project we're hitting all the milestones and I anticipate that we would be on schedule for a November 25 uh town meeting vote to fund the uh the project so uh we're chugging along uh it's a lot of exciting work but at every opportunity I like to present some critical information and and get it out to the community so appreciate that I know that the committee is very aware of all this and they've seen uh this slide deck maybe a couple of times so I appreciate your patience and allowing me to show it one more time yeah questions thoughts feedback it was nice to hear such positive feedback at the meeting last week with the msba as well all right seeing none we are moving on to new business school committee goals um so we had an opportunity to meet earlier today with our administrators um for a joint meeting to begin to look at the um developing District Improvement plan and to hear from them about some of the concerns and priorities that they have moving into this new year um and new goal season um I'd like us to have an opportunity to discuss this maybe a little bit more thoroughly at our next meeting but I would like to hear any preliminary thoughts discussion um things people have I took some notes today and would be happy to add on to them if others had any anything they would like to see as a reminder when we look at our goals and you do have a copy of our goals from last year um as well um we try to kind of bucket our goals into three categories um that mirror the three sort of um well some of the responsibilities of the school committee um so looking at curriculum looking at policy looking at communication and community relations and looking at our fiscal responsibilities um I said three but I meant four um different buckets for those so as we look ahead at this next goals session um one thing that would be really important is to kind of go back and revisit the goals that we had in the last school year um what things worked what things maybe need some tweaking are there things that just kind of have dropped off the radar anything that has been entirely accomplished um and what do we want to carry with us into the next year from those four different categories so I'll open that up for discussion if anyone has any thoughts question questions feedback [Applause] Etc okay anything else all right so things to think about then as we go into our next meeting um on the 22nd hopefully we can draft some um specific goals so look over the ones from last year make notes on changes and or scratching out that you would like to see um and then if you have any notes from today jot down some of your thoughts what are some of the things we might want to focus on for this next year all right would you like us to gather some information in the interim in between at this meeting in the past we've done it with a Google form it comes separately to to Diane and then she can kind of compile it and bring it back so you can kind of yeah hit the ground okay okay perfect um and then we're headed into our uh last order of business on school committee um assignments we have a new member um joined us and welcome to Estelle um and so we have some subcommittee assignments for the year we had a couple of spots where there were um some spaces left um and hope wondering which ones might work out and or if we have any adjustments that need to be made for others as well um right now there are a few different sort of Open Spaces here um evaluation has two folks on it currently Michaela and Jamie um curriculum has two on it Michaela and myself um and our negotiation subcommittee has two myself and Zach um so we'll start with is there anything that you might like to tackle still um I'll do negotiations all right oh and also we have I'm sorry I lost track of it um our um energy sustainability representative is also not in place for this year I was sitting in until okay that's right I'm like I see your name but I could have sworn you weren't really doing it I'm not doing it well all right um would you be willing to take that one out okay so we'll move energy and sustainability from Julie over to Estelle appreciate that um all right is there any sort of would anyone like to jump into either value tion or curriculum that is not currently in those they riveting guys so exciting best committee there is so good I'm happy to help out with evaluations again it turned out to be a reasonably out it was we did a great job couple of hours I I'll jump back into that again for this year it was a couple of couple of meetings and we were good all right and would anyone else like to um tackle curriculum with Michaela and I nobody anything here now just okay curcular words all right yeah that's try all right so um that brings us to our Lessing we have no executive session tonight and no other um orders of business so I will entertain a motion to adjourn from anyone who would like to vote to make that okay we have a motion do we have a second second thank you any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote Jamie yes Julie yes Michaela yes Zach yes Estelle yes and yes for me as well thank you very much have a lovely evening everyone and we will see you in a few weeks