##VIDEO ID:HkbkvwhuMYY## the meeting of the nooba Regional School District school committee to order at 6:32 PM um our chairperson is going to be a few minutes late to the meeting and so as the vice chair she has asked me to start the meeting just so we can stay on track because we have a heavy agenda tonight so our first order of visit will be to do the Pledge of Allegiance if you could mute yourself and I will say the Pledge stand if you choose I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um Leah is anybody in the waiting room that you're aware of I mean Nina no okay I'm not aware of any public comments so we will move on to the next item which is the consent agenda and um I will entertain a motion to move the consent agenda and then we can take discussion on this I usually make the Motions Joe would you be able motion for you okay so I motion to approve the the consent agenda can I get a second second okay thank you Scott okay guys so on the consent agenda we have one we have items a b c d e e contains Provisions to follow policies that were presented on October 9th and the superintendent's goals Amy you froze for me so I'm not sure if you were asking us a question yeah after you said superintendent goals I didn't hear anything else okay sorry I was just asking if anybody had any comments or if there's any discussion on the consent agenda and I'm getting a notice that my connection is unstable so I apologize I've closed as many programs as I can um I might have to rejoin from my phone if this continues to be a problem or I'll ask Joe to take over so I'm seeing none are we ready to take a vote okay um since this is zoom we'll do a roll call and and I will start with um Robin okay I'm new so do I just say that I approve you just say yes or no yes would be a vote to approve the consent agenda okay yes um Joe yes Scott yes shandor yes uh Amy vessel yes Jackie reinard yes we have another new member tonight who I should have introduced to everybody and said welcome to John McFarland hello yes okay and myself yes thank you guys um that was um I think in my haste to try to move things along I forgot to take a moment to pause and introduce John so John is the newest member of the school committee representing sto and um John would you like to take an opportunity this opportunity to introduce yourself and um just say a few words about why you um stepped up into this role hello sure my name is John McFarland uh thank you for having me um I've lived in St with my wife and two kids kids since around 2017 and we have a small little horse farm here in Stow and um uh we been looking forward to just serving the community somehow and uh I love the school here and when I heard the it was a seat vacancy I thought maybe it was my chance to step up and see if I could offer something to the town so excited I was able to step into the vacancy and hopefully I'll be able to add something to the to the team here it's a pleasure to meet you all we are so grateful that you have uh stepped up and are willing to put in you know your time to this important role I know Leah will have her own words of thanks to give to you um but welcome thank you and um we've already gotten through one of the heavy agenda items so uh let's move on the next thing is the chair school committee chairperson update I'm going to defer this until Leah joins the meeting and that brings us to our student representative report I see Ava Wyman is on the call and um so I'm hoping that she is has a report for us hi Ava hi um Ryan couldn't be here because he had soccer so but starting off with Athletics the home the homecoming football game is this Friday Friday and it's also Middle School band night field hockey has their Cass playoff game on Saturday um I was actually just at the semi-finals they lost to Algonquin two to one but that's okay and then the golf team is number two in the state they had their state championship in West is meeting on Friday to plan other community building events the Innovations pathway and DEA field trip from what I've heard from Mr a and oh can you guys hear me I'm having internet problems I don't know if it's my end or on aa's end but I have not been able to understand most of what AA said I does have connection yeah perhaps if you turn off your video and just audio it might work better uh okay wait can you guys hear me yes okay do you guys know where I left off maybe you could start over I the golf team second place hold on let me maybe I can move and see I think we can all hear you now pretty well yeah okay so the golf team is number two in the state they had their championship in out and then the student leadership group is meeting on Friday to plan community building events for this fall and generate ideas for the spring um The Innovation pathway in Deca field trip was to Bentley on Tuesday and Mr a and all the students that went said that it went really well and they had a really great time the EMT informational meeting for interested Cadets and families was on the 22nd and applications are due at the end of October so that's available for soft mores and juniors and then whole school events we had spirit week this week today was USA day it's the final week of the scheduled pilot so we're going to send out a survey oops sorry we're going to send out a survey at the end of the week to see how students felt about it so far all the students have said that they really like the pilot schedule personally I don't but I won't even be here for it so and then the homecoming dances on Saturday um senior class photo was on the turf today and Senior Sunrise is on Friday and that's all I have um hi guys I I don't hear anything on my end but I do con continue to get messages that my internet connection is unstable yeah I think she's done okay thank you so much AA it's from what I'm sorry guys I'm in the car so that's probably why that's okay it sounds like there is a lot going on at the high school right now and um it's an exciting time for sports and and spirit and I'm it's really exciting to hear that the middle school band is going to be joining the high school band at the homecoming game what a great opportunity for all of our students to come together and have some school spirit yeah so does anybody on the committee have questions for Eva do not see any hands so thank you so much for your time um sounds like you have a busy night too Ava car yeah I have practice but okay we'll let you get on with your night thank you so much for your have a great night everybody sorry no problem at all bye Eva all right chugging along here on to the superintendent report so I will pass this off to uh Kirk thank you madam V chair for your recognition and uh good evening to everyone on the committee it's great to see you all and John welcome to your first meeting so uh that all being said um I have a few things to update the committee on today uh last Friday I sent out a notice to our community uh regarding absenteeism uh and attendance at our schools and um as we look at absenteeism is as being really sort of the the most critical place to for for students to learn in our schools is to be in the seats and so we we're working hard to make sure we're bringing uh students into uh the schools every day I want the committee to know that our attendance rate right now and I checked it today is 96% for this time up to this point in the year which is good it meets all the metrics that we want to hit chronic absentee is m is the Mark um in which if you have missed 10% or greater of the days uh you would be um identified as chronically absent and at this point of the Year we're just under 40 days of school so if you have four absences you would be in that chronic absenteeism category but I put this notice out there because I did notice an uptick in our C uh chronic absenteeism over last year we did have some uh some viruses uh in September uh that did come through the school which I think had an impact along with uh some religious holidays that occurred in the month of September so this is the time year where that number begins to flatten out and actually even decrease if it follows the pattern of previous years as well but it is something we're monitoring and it's an important part of the school accountability Data Systems uh so um just wanted to update the committee on what we're doing there and you can see those rates uh approximate rates are in the schools they change of course daily because you have a new uh divisor each day of school relative to those absences uh combined with the report we'll move on to number two with enrollment and U Miss Masterson if you can bring up the enrollment document um that's on the other doc that I sent just before the meeting here this is where you're going to see the um School attendance uh sorry School enrollment for October 1st and again I'll share with the committee that um uh when I sent the doc I sent the June 1st doc to the committee in error and posted that so I'm sent I'm correcting that now and we'll get this document uploaded into the meeting materials but what you'll notice when you look at at this document these are the numbers that are reported the state of Massachusetts for enrollment and if you go to the bottom right hand corner uh you can see that the far right number of 3,46 is the number of students that were in session as of June 1st of last year 3031 was last year's October one number so you can see that we grew by 15 students during the school year and this year we're starting out with 2,987 students in grades prek through uh 13 plus age 22 so um you can see uh uh the class CL sizes throughout this document we're maintaining our class sizes of 24 students I will say if you go down to uh Mary rollinson Elementary uh we held a position in AB bance last year uh in the event that we got a runon enrollment and certainly we did experience some increase in enrollment and so we have hired a fourth fifth grade teacher I reviewed this with the committee last month um to support and that teacher has started at uh Mary rollinson so there is an additional teacher in the fourth and fifth grade that is supporting those students in literacy and Mathematics and is participating as a full member of those teams so that gives you a basic sense of where we are with relative attendance what I will say based on our forecasting tools that I have we look at to be that we're going to level off next year uh we anticipated that we would have a decline in enrollment this year year and indeed that was realized to the number that we were projecting uh we were projecting somewhere around a decrease of around approximately 30 students and we realized a little bit more than that decrease uh but next year it looks as if we will be leveling off due to the the population trends that we see and what our historical changes are uh those historical changes can be a little bit tricky because our fiveyear rolling average this is the last year that the return from covid will be in that data set um and so I I suspect that that projection is even going to become stronger as you know when students returned from hybrid and remote learning many who were on homeschool plans came back into the system but I digress a little bit um but that is the updated enrollment Miss Master syth you can go ahead and go to the school choice page of the superintendent report uh I was asked by the committee to give you an update on where we are with school choice enrollment relative to General enrollment at this time of year and there are two tables that are in the superintendent report the first table is overall enrollment of school choice and you can see we have H 40 students uh that are nooba uh students as much as every resident is in our school system and you can see the application of the strategy we've employed with school choice over the last couple years has put uh a fairly level distribution of students across the grade levels in the system you'll notice that Center School and Mary rollinson are not on this chart and that's because uh using the criteria that's been presented the last two years uh they did not have any school choice seats that were open or available and then the second table that you're going to see here I've added this is relative specifically to last year's enrollment and the table outlines the grade levels that we open the locations and how they actualized so the columns and white are the number of seats that were available The Columns and green are the seats that have been occupied uh that were made available so we made 40 seats available through school choice at various grade levels and locations last year 19 of those seats actualized in enrollments at the beginning of this year and so it's with that Madam chair that I'll wrap up and take uh any questions from the committee regarding the superintendent report okay Thank you Kirk um Alita Leah is in the waiting room just wanted to let you know that um do you see her there okay great so I will just Le fill Leah in hi Le hi guys I'm glad you're here because I'm having internet stability problems oh I'm sorry but we just wrapped up the superintendent report and I was just about to open the floor to questions um and so we can do that but I have questions but I want to allow other people to ask them first have them all right so you want me to take the re there Amy handing it over to you all right thanks thanks so much for standing in you're welcome um all right any questions on the superintendent report looks like you're up Amy all right um so I have a question two questions one is on the absenteeism um data that was presented and the other one is on uh data that was presented so the first one these these um absent chronic absentium rates um I think I heard you say that they include any kind of absence so like a an excused absence for a religious holiday would be counted in these numbers it it simply records days you're in not in the seat so it doesn't matter for what the reason is does not you're either in school or you're not in school so there is isn't a a metric for what is excused or not excused um in that um idea in that you know thing so these are those just the actual percentages okay all right I didn't understand that before yeah um the second question I had was regarding the school choice um data and it looks I was wondering if you have any insight as to the reason why there were no spots filled for the 11th grade um the five seats that were opened up into the for for 11th grade like does that mean that nobody applied that me that's exactly right nobody applied we were able to take we did have a a lottery scenario and it turns out that one of the folks uh at the grade level where we did have a lottery scenario one of the people that were selected didn't leave so the person who was not selected actually was then offered that seat so uh we were able to bring in all those who applied okay and are are we able Leah to ask about the lottery process through this update you know um yeah so I think that the original intent of this was to not only get an En enrollment update but also to understand how the school choice process is going so not only to understand you know whether or not it's working but if there's anything that we need to know about the process as we move forward for the following year so go ahead and ask whatever process question you'd like well I guess my process question is related to um an experience of someone I know who tried to participate in this process and it seemed like it was different than um other lottery processes that I have personally experienced where a lottery is held kind of like in real time and um the I don't know if it's like live streaming is the right way but how does somebody who's who's applied for a lottery position know what the results are I guess is really what I'm trying to get at yeah we po we publish the lottery every every year uh we tell people the the the date the time and the location we do that in the conference room Town Hall uh excuse me town hall of the central office um and uh we did not have anybody arrive to participate with that so we had uh Miss Hanigan I Believe Miss Masters and Miss Hanan came up as our witness this year um for uh the lottery process but like I said once we did the lottery process the seat of of the person that didn't U wasn't accepted in that Lottery was ultimately brought in we only had one grade level where we had to do a lottery right any other questions Amy not not now thank you okay any other questions from the committee on the superintendent report I am not seeing any so I don't think anyway so we're gonna um yeah I'm so sorry I just realized that Kirk may not have been I don't know if you finished the report Kirk uh uh that that did conclude the report but what I will say thank you Miss Cohen you is that in the updates on strategic work we have two presentations tonight the mcast presentation and the youth risk behavior summary and so with those items in new business this uh uh today or excuse me um next up in the Strategic work U Madam chair I would just hand it to you uh at this point okay um sorry I'm just scrolling bear with me for one moment all right so yeah um so I'm seeing Kirk that the next item on the agenda is that the we are going to move now to the 2024 mcast presentation is that right great and so let me introduce uh assistant superintendent Laura French uh she is going to present to you uh an overview of the mcast results for the school district so miss friend take it away thank you superintendent Downing and thank you chair viito I'm gonna ask Alita to do her thing and share the slides so thank you um it's an honor and a privilege to share our mcast results with the committee and with the community um as as I have spoken before mcast is an important data point it provides us with information on the student level and the curriculum level to improve and for us at nishoba that's always something that we've prided ourselves on and it does give us an opportunity to reflect and grow uh so that we can do better for our students and so tonight I'm going to share with the committee a high level overview of our data um Please be aware that at the school base level our school-based teams with our principles are looking at this data with a curriculum lens and a student growth lens at particular grade levels and with subgroup so that is happening at the same time and and adjacent to the work at the macro level within the presentation in the packet you'll also find an appendix which provides more detailed data as a reference including data relative to our subgroups Alita next slide please in terms of structure of the uh overview the presentation has five parts um and I'm going to move through it pretty quickly and then answer any questions at the end um beginning with um just information about accountability superintendent Downing referenced that with chronic absenteeism uh as an example uh then provide highlights of our mcast performance alongside the state uh taking a look at some graphs with our cohort performance and Trends since 2017 um providing a summary analysis by content area again high level overviews here and then an outline of next steps in that appendex that I just referenced next slide Alita there are two slides here relative to accountability um the M the Massachusetts accountability system is designed to measure how a school or a district is doing and what kind of support is needed that's its purpose 2023 last year was the first year since 2019 where school districts received a full accountability rating as was the case last year and then again this year noobas classification as you see here is making substantial progress ress towards targets and not requiring assistance and I provided some more detailed information about accountability on the next slide so I'm going to work to just speak to this slide here um recognizing there's a lot here the accountability system considers both a normative component on the left of the slide and a Criterion reference component on the right of the slide the normative component um Compares schools to other schools in the state that serve similar grades and is reported as a percentile so you can see that for us over here on the left on the right is the Criterion reference component and this targets five components that you see outlined there in the number two achievement student growth English learner proficiency High School completion which I will note also includes completion of advanced coursework so our offerings relative to APS um and Project Lead the Way to come um and chronic absenteeism Improvement targets are set by the state for each of these categories for all subgroups and accountability is determined groups are all students group that's all of our students including all of our students sub groups and then our lowest performing quartile um so making sure that our students who fall in the bottom um 25% are also growing and achieve achieving based on all of this information school districts are categorized based on their progress towards targets and whether or not they're requiring intervention or assistance and as mentioned NOA is is within the substantial progress towards uh uh progress towards meeting their targets next slide this slide um outlines the Statewide performance versus the district performance in all areas as you'll see here the district performance outpace the state performance in grades three through eight are um at all levels the district outperform the state by a minimum of 177% and then grade 10 by a minimum of 20% um with that said um we have some major takeaways here in performance particularly relative to ELA performance last year the state performance and the district performance saw an in an increase that was last year this year both the state and the district saw a decline in math the state results stayed steady through grade eight and saw a decline at grade 10 and for us as a district results showed slight increases both through grade eight and at grade 10 and then in science the state saw a slight increase in proficiency while the district saw um a small decline of 1% through grade eight and grade 10 next slide Alita this chart shows the number of St students falling within each proficiency category for each assessed um category and and clusters together the combined performance of students meeting expectations and exceeding expectations for ELA science technology engineering and and math here and as you can see um and I provided similar slides and similar graphs last year for comparison sake grade 10 ranks the highest across all content areas um followed by grade eight um um and then some noted improvements in grade five of note here and I'll speak more to this in subse subsequent slides is in grades three through five we're seeing that our math proficiency is outpaced our Ela proficiency next slide in terms of cohort perform performance here the cohort graphs here show performance for the same group of students over the course of time with us at Nashoba um this particular slide shows our current 9th through 11th graders and really shows a macro level here at the Historical gap between the the district and the state performance so you can see that with the red line showing the state math and the blue line showing the district math and the green line showing the state Ela and the yellow line showing the district the chart on the top left shows our current 11th graders so those are our students who took the 10th grade mcast last year and our current 10th graders top right hand corner of the slides who did not take mcass as ninth graders but they will take the assessment this spring next slide here we have our grade five through grade8 cohorts um when we see that General downward Trend in ela performance ments in each cohort again mirroring the state in math we see cohort improvements in grades five and eight we are keeping our eyes on middle school math and as I have mentioned and more to come to the for the committee but middle school math is is in need of a curriculum review and we're in the process of that curriculum review as we speak and the purpose of that is to con carry on the work completed at the elementary level through grade grade five with our high quality instructional materials implementation um for math with our bridges uh and we're showing um some improvements we believe as a result of that implementation the growth in grade five um and in large Pockets grades three through five in math are reinforcing that our math adoption is having a positive impact and more on that to come next slide this quadrant graph we have here shows student achievement versus growth by grade level um with the state growth achievement marker marked as the star in the middle of the graph above the star um we have higher growth Higher Achievement that's far top right hand quadrant that's definitely where we want to be right we want to have all students high growth high achievement so that that is where we want to see all of our our bubbles growth percentage categories are identified identified by the key here at each grade level um and you can see that typical growth is identified between 40 and 60% and nooba is maintaining um at all grade levels within the typical growth category which is strong while our goal is above 50 over in that top right hand um quadrant we are at all grade levels falling within the typical growth range for ELA next slide this graph shows our Ela performance since 2022 um and while the decline um that I have mentioned reflected at the state level um mirrors the decline we've seen at the district level we really are looking closely at the decline um and we are working in teaching and learning to take a look at this with a curriculum lens and large part the declines that we see here are directly related to the domains of reading specifically uh text complexity and language and so while we um we definitely do not want to see declines in performance over time with our cohorts or or just spoton with our grade levels we have been aware of the needs here for building out foundations for reading for our youngest Learners we know that this is been an area of need and which is why we accelerated the curriculum review process last year uh and to really um bolster up our foundational reading practices and the instructional materials that our our teachers have uh to booster foundational literacy with um our new literacy curriculum our strengthening of Foundations and hegerty and the implementation of universal screeners for early identification so we are digging in here and we're pleased uh about the work that's happening here um and the data that we see here reinforces um that need um and we're very pleased that that work is underway right now next slide this um graph here shows performance over time 3 through eight for our different schools we are working with our principles with this data and they are working with their faculty and staff at specific grade levels that are necessitating further support and instruction through the implementation of our new curriculum principles will be sharing this data and more specific School based data with their school councils next slide so I've outlined here um um some notes of analysis that I've referenced so far through the slides well noobas performance is outpa outpacing the state averages at all grade levels um we see areas reflective of needs for improvement and specific areas of need are noted in the reading and language strands in particular at the elementary level most grade levels have shown a decline in Reading questions year over-year again reinforcing why we made the moves we did last year with our curriculum review and with our implementation underway currently uh concurrently the data analysis points to writing as an area of strength District ride with a percentage of correct responses on the essay improving in grades four five and seven and writing improving overall in grades 3 through 7 and I say that um with uh just to underscore that there's Improvement needed across the board um but we do see areas of strength in those domains as well as um some um in increasing proficiency levels for our students with disability subgroup um and continued work necessary um relative to subgroup Performance across the board and I've highlighted two subgroups there at the bottom of this slide um that saw particular declines um with performance last year next slide on to math um our math achievement versus growth here similar chart to ELA all again all grade levels falling in typical growth uh similar to ELA with the state um data marked with the star and looking um at grade six mentioned earlier um last year you may remember that I mentioned that we were looking at the grade five scores and watching that cohort growth this is that same um that same cohort they're now in grade they were in grade six um while growth and support is needed there has been some improvement not the Improvement that we want um but this particular cohorts um SGP or student GR grow percentile last year when they were fifth graders was 41 um and so now we see it as 48 so again not we want to see that red dot top right hand corner but there has been some movement there um which is promising and um we're going to continue to work to watch and support this particular cohort we see the strongest student growth percentile percentiles here reflected in grades Seven 8 and 10 so the upper grades next slide this graph shows our math performance since 2022 um we see steady performance in grades three and 10 um and then uh steady proficiency levels in grades three four and five above 60 um which we are hoping to see that this is um reflective our continued implementation of that highquality instructional materials at the elementary level and we'll be setting our students up for success in Middle school um and in Middle School improvements in grade seven cohort wise and grade level wise and again we're looking forward to that curriculum review and decisions there to support our middle school math program this year next slide again similar graph to ELA this is our performance over time 3 through eight with math again we're working with our principls um and their faculty and staff at specific grade levels particular particular where we're seeing some sh sharp increases um what is happening there in those grade levels in that school in those schools so we can translate and transfer those practices in other places this is particularly beneficial with our new aligned K to8 schedule where we've created opportunities for that horizontal conversations to happen districtwide next slide some areas of note here relative to our math mcast highlight analysis again similar to ELA NAS performance outpace to State averages we're beginning to see some science of recovery um and um proficiency increasing with Bridges and Mathematics that's our new math curriculum grade five showed a notable increase in all three schools surpassing the state performance overall by 22% overall with the curriculum lens um overlaid on top of the data analysis lens particularly with math we're seeing areas of improvement needed in numbers and operations and fractions in grades 3 through five in the number system and grades 6 through eight these have correlations um together 3 through five and 6 through eight and these Concepts affect most areas of math we know and especially algebra Readiness and so as we engage in noobas Middle School curriculum review we are specifically looking at these areas um i' I pointed out a note um a grade 10 performance reflected a decrease in number of students not meeting expectations decreasing from 5% to 2% um which is great and again our continued work um with our subgroups um and uh an opportunity for potentially another presentation with a superintendent's permission and the chair's permission but um levels of data and monitoring growth and progress through our PLC work is part of the work of our plc's in our mtss process so when I speak to at the school level or at the grade level um our teams are working with looking at all of this data overlaid on top of curriculum based measures classroom based meas measures in our Universal screening next slide in terms of science um our our grade five um and our grade eight are assessed we'll look to continue um gains in middle school with our open Sayad implementation we're in the second year of a phased in implementation for middle school science we um will have implemented four units by the end of this year with full implementation last year um of note this year's science mcast will take on a new format with a more heavy emphasis on the practice standards and performance task and our opsed curriculum directly aligns with this kind of question in this kind of assessment um so we'll be looking um ahead to see um what our students performance looks like on mcass next year after after moving through this new assessment format in our new curriculum next slide again similar talking points to our Ela and math we um uh principles are working with their staff um about school-based specific data and we'll be sharing school-based specific data with school councils and we're working to leverage what's working in one school and and digging in there to translate and transfer that knowledge to um colleagues and other cohorts next slide um again similar to ELA and math uh nisha's science um remained fairly consistent um outpacing State averages at all grade levels um of of no grade 8's 20% higher and grade 10's 21% higher um while our grade five performance took a dip uh last year it's risen back up um this past spring so we were pleased to see that with 63% proficiency we're going to keep a close eye on our our open Sayad implementation at the middle level particularly with the new framework for mcast um and the alignment there and again um continued narrative here with watching um our subgroup performance and making sure we're paying attention to subgroup Performance throughout the year um alongside our plc's okay next slide and next steps um much of it I've worked to reference in my talking points throughout um the presentation but these are some highlights that the committee is I believe already aware of but are working to uh directly um support student growth again mcast being one data point um in the context of a larger data picture but it really points to opportunities for us to dig in again at the student level and the curriculum level or where are there areas um that we really want to fine-tune hone and provide our teachers with um maybe some stronger instructional materials and so we see that um laid out here for you on this slide we have um the work happening right now um at the elementary level with math and literacy our continued support with Bridges and Mathematics and a particular emphasis on Intervention and enrichment this year um at the K 5 level for math continued work with leveraging our coaches continued facein approach um for open Sayed and really using um the feedback process with our principles our system principles and now our department heads um uh to provide feedback to um help improve um The Learning Experience in the classroom through feedback to the educator and in a supportive and a collaborative focused way next slide at the 6 through 12 level in particular um our curriculum work continues um We are continuing I think Super Downey mentioned it the last meeting we're continuing our partnership with des's kaleidoscope Network and working directly with them um and we engaged in a learning walk with them um last week at the high school and using des's deeper learning tools particularly the um look for tools in Partnership um with teachers and with the department heads at the high school and Dr Boon's team to um look at uh learning in the classroom to ensure that we're moving and improving to ensure instructionally strong and Equitable learning experiences for our students coupled with that um curriculum director Laura Padington and I met with the ELA um department chair just today and we are going to be creating um a vertical 6 through2 um working group um to support and strengthen the vertical alignment 6 through 12 for writing um and then for reading um and working to um create benchmark assessments to support the work there 6 through 12 as mentioned we are going to complete that 608 math curriculum review phases one and two this year and we'll be sure to keep the committee updated on that um as well as engaging in a 9 through 12 math curriculum review uh that I know um director MC Bry and uh department chair Melbourne have have been working steadily on on the beginnings of that and then we're continue to work with our 9 through 12 science curriculum review and and and we're in phase two now and when appropriate I would be pleased to provide the committee with an update of all of that work and then finally last slide in terms of assessment we are working to continue to leverage our tools or Renaissance Learning as a universal screener and this year focusing on using it as progress monitoring um and creating custom-based assessments to monitor progress throughout the school year Beyond the universal screening Windows that's work in progress and work for us to tackle this year to strengthen our teams with those tools working with our principles coaches and teams throughout our PLC model and strengthening and and sharing our data analysis practices throughout the school year at grade levels using a targeted approach to monitor student growth I reference monitoring the growth of student subgroups and now our teams are also monitoring those lowest performing students identified by desie um as well again throughout the school year and then as I mentioned and and spoke about during the last Committee Member just the continued implementation of now we have the systems and structures in place districtwide now we are working to use those systems and structures to leverage student learning and growth so now we're the expectation is we we're expecting these systems and structures to work and dig in and support our teams and our teachers faculty and staff and our administer administrators with um the tools they need to improve student learning and progress and then um the appendix is included at the end of the presentation thanks Laura that was really informative I wonder if anyone on the committee has any questions uh Amy vessels um I want to clarify something actually really quickly um when you talked about the work that they're doing with um that research for better teaching I think it is right they're working with and you were talking about the feedback right working with them on feedback is that feedback um I guess I'm is that improving feedback that department heads give through evaluations or is that improving feedback back that teachers give on assessment on you know on on um assignments and stuff thank you for the the opportunity to clarify I would say both are needed um but that particular bullet point speaks to um uh analyzing teaching for student results is a course offered um through RBT that we are utilizing for all of our principles assistant principles and department heads to to improve the quality of feedback to the that they're giving to teachers through the evaluation process through the mini observation and then through the formative and summative assessment process it is part of how we are supporting not only our entire team but how we're supporting our department heads with the tools they need in order to be able to supervise and evaluate the teachers within their department so that's what that bullet point is referencing in terms of feedback for student learning that um you know yes um and um that is work that is ongoing through our curriculum work and our work with deeper learning Kaleidoscope yes um I actually have a second question but if Amy wants to go no why don't you just go ahead Amy okay um my other question um had to do with the subgroups like at the high school um I guess I'm wondering I know at the K through 8 level you have different um you have like the Renaissance you have different tests that you can give throughout like formative assessments and you can check on that and you have like the that what I need now block at the elementary school so like what's happening at the high school for kids that are struggling how are you um what are you doing for them I guess is what I'm wondering yeah that's a great question and we're you know as I mentioned at the last committee meeting we're working to build out those systems and structures for the tier two um and I know that's what you're referencing here whether um you know as we conclude our schedule pilot and we look to you know hopefully be able to implement the PLC structure in the flex block at the high school the needs of our students exist now um we are having conversations about data and subgroup performance with the department heads um I uh would say these are um uh developing practices for um for our high school team um and so um I can um tell you that all of our department heads have engaged in conversations with teaching and learning um to increase our Collective awareness around subgroup performance and that's something that we're working on finding the time and space and the tools that our departments need to Target student learning in the interim continues to be an area of need and a focus for us and it's part of our work all right thank you yeah Amy Cohen thank you um let me put down my hand here ironically now I have a stable internet connection um just in time for mcast I know right um so I I think for me this mcast data is is is really useful only when you look at the trends and when this presentation has shown you know a few charts with downward trends that um are concerning to me and so I guess my question is that in the next steps when you talk about curriculum and and instruction um I know that we have a really wellth thought out curriculum review plan in place but I'm wondering like what kind of short-term actions can we take this year that impact the instructional piece of the next steps and I heard you say that you're going to be putting together a um it wasn't a focus group a work group um for six through 12 will will instructional practices like will that be part of what they're looking at like kind of shortterm more immediate changes that can be made I can see that superintendent Dow unmuted himself Miss friend I I would if you want if you have anything you wanted to respond no I we have talked about this at length so I I know that you're pleased to speak to this thank you Miss Cohen I I um certainly see the observation that you're making the data sets as well um one of the things we're trying to gain a sense of is what does the trend data mean here and where I'm I'm looking for some answers myself is relative dated to the state and other school systems of well there's a similar pattern I would like to remind the committee that 2019 was the last year we had where we could look at Trend data that was uninterrupted over the previous five years since then we didn't have mcass in 2020 in 2021 we had a truncated mcast in 2022 we returned to the First full version of the mcast with some additional assess Ms at that time in 2023 uh there was some piloting of AI scoring last year full AI scoring of the written components of the assessments and then next year the state is moving to a new vendor so we didn't receive any of the student writing samples we typically get 25% of the questions back along with writing samples we got zero this year because of the change in vendors they kept that information and didn't share share it with schools and so it you know as school leaders we're we're a little bit frust with that and and we we look at those numbers with caution thus telling us why we got to look internally and have our internal measures that can be delivered durably year-over-year that we know and can say with certainty because they're happening in front of us of what we can do with growth so that is not to say we debate it like do we bring those points up in the presentation and we did not want to influence that exact question that you had uh Miss Cohen um because we just want to be honest about the data we're presenting uh I think Miss friend and I would both say we would like to see uh the performance data come back at higher levels there's no question about that we're just trying to understand a little bit more about the data Miss fren did mention in her presentation one particular area and that was around text complexity and so yes to your question we are working with teachers in those PLC formats uh around the instructional practices specific to text complexity complexity because that is something we were able to tease out so we'll continue to do the necessary data mining that we need to to to take but I would ask anyone that's looking at Trend data over time to look at it with with a bit of a filter uh because of all the disruptions and interruptions that happened um in recent years due to covid I I would also add if I may thank you superintendent Downey um that we the state saw an increase in the data last year and we saw an increase in our Ela data last year as well um and so that W with a decline Statewide and then districtwide this year just questions arise why the increase last year why the decline this year across the board it it it just brings out questions again we don't we don't place blame you know the data is the data the data is our data our our goal is continual Improvement for each and every student but it it just begs the question why why the increases last year at both levels why the decreases this year at both levels yeah I agree and and I think trying to um put some of those numbers in context for community members who will looking at those charts sure drawing conclusions is is really important so thank you we're very we're grateful you asked that question because we wanted to speak specifically to it so thank you Miss Coen y I think I see Robin's hand yeah so just curious you know as you're building out um as you're building out you know next steps and how to um you know work with the students to improve these numbers obviously you know data is important and shows us the trends and tells a story of what's going on but I'm just curious is there anything going on within the school where we're working directly with the kids on feedback in terms of how the curriculum is that is current today and and you know is impacting their learning I mean Grant and I know probably in the in the lower years that's more difficult conversation to have but as the students get older you maybe it's middle school or fifth grade are we talking to them and and saying how is this all working for you what would be helpful for you um and you know I I guess tapping into the students responses to what they're being provided I think um you know it it it likely varies from teacher to to teacher um in terms of how they're including that in their lesson planning and and using student voice to um inform next steps um I I will tell you that it is definitely part of our lexicon with our building principles and our assistant principles uh superintendent Donnie have been um working on building out a survey strategy um that gets at all of our stakeholders including our students and our students are included uh as an important stakeholder um in that strategy and so we're working on building that we've done a lot of surveys and we're working to really fine-tune um um the types of feedback that are going to be meaningful for our students lived experience in the schools again I see superintendent downings unmuted and I share I don't want to overstep but yeah no thank you Miss friend I just miss blam I wanted to add just a an antidote personal anecdote as we've been doing these walks together we recently did some walks in the Middle School level and we actually had a chance to to walk in a couple of the science classrooms and engage with students as they were um executing the open side curriculum the feedback from them was um was strong feedback because they're doing science right they're not reading about science they're doing science and and so the feedback was um was positive feedback that they were sharing as we were having those conversations again that's an anecdotal account not as as technical as a feedback loop as as assistant superintendent was referring to but I thought it might add some color I have a quick question for you guys I wonder um I'm not a fan of teaching to the test or training students to take tests but as part of your curriculum design review process to investigate ways that test preparation can be kind of organically inserted into the day-to-day routine so that when the kids sit to take the tests I mean some of the exercises are actually really taxing where they have to for example take three different texts consume them all they might be about bats and you know then they have to take these three texts and they have to synthesize them and they have to identify similarities across them are you guys helping or rather encouraging the Educators to use some of those test taking strategies in the classroom thereby you know teaching them synthesis skill sets but also training them for the test Miss friend I'll I was gonna say please let me um because I um I think test taking is a genre in itself it it just it it we we never like a genre in terms of a unit of instruction in itself not a big unit but it it's it's a type of ond demand performance um that from my perspective is a genre itself and we want to make sure that students feel as confident so the answer to me is yes um we hope that um the highquality instructional materials that we're providing our teachers um provide students with all kinds of experiences throughout the year so they feel confident when they step into an assessment regardless and they can transfer their skills but I I I there is utility in um saying what it is right and it is a type of an assessment uh so we want our students to feel comfortable and not um um not step into the assessment um um with not appropriate expectations for what they're going to be asked to do if you will so so yes the only piece I was going to add to that uh Madam chair is that our our teams also look at some of it is when you when you get the item analysis pieces back you get to understand prior prioritization of units to advance earlier in the school year to ensure that they're receiving that instruction so they're doing that work as well great all right so I'm not seeing any other hands so it looks like we're going to move on from the mcast presentation and we are going to move over uh to our youth risk behavior survey 2024 results and I will let Kirk queue it up you bet thank you madam chair for that it's my pleasure to introduce to the committee once again on a return engagement here our director of Health wellness and safety uh Miss Mariah wicker and the youth Behavior Uh the youth risk behavior survey is a tool that we have used uh in in nanal for many years and if you remember nurse Gil Becky came and spoke to these elements as well and now it is our director's turn so miss wicker with that I turn it over to you thank you superintendent Downing and uh thank you chair and uh the school committee for letting me come and present because as much as we do education and it's super important in our schools it's also a good idea to have an idea about what our youth is um engaging in in terms of risky behaviors um so that we can guide our practices in order to support them uh psychosocially emotionally as well as educationally um if you want to queue up the slides uh Lita that would be so great okay perfect um so welcome to the youth risk behavior survey data I will be calling it The yrb yes moving forward just because sometimes it gets garbled in my mouth next slide please Alita um on this slide you'll see both um full reports they are pretty lengthy and pretty um in-depth the top one that says full noobo yrbs report is school specific data um however when you're reading that because our subpopulation sometimes do not have significant numbers the aggregate data is also pasted on the slides so you will see mentions throughout the data um to information that isn't necessarily pertinent to nooba specifically around um specific um populations of people um races and ethnicities the full aggregate report uh does reflect the 10 districts Statewide that Emerson Hospital works with um and seeks to take take the test to get an idea about what's happening more in a a central uh North uh region next slide please so um as superintendent Downing mentioned we have been participating in the yrbs um for quite a number of years I was able to trace back at least to 2018 um from previous slides uh looking through the data and really what the idea and the goal is is to survey uh grades six uh and eight and then our high schoolers uh about how they are doing from um mental healthwise resiliency and then they focus on a group of about eight topics um including substances and driving and body image and um cell phone use and and bullying and so forth and uh we use this data once we get the results to inform what is going on specifically within our community of students and um to to give us suggestions or guides uh to how we can address those specific behaviors um maybe in curriculum or you know health and wellness uh classes and also we've used it to uh write a grant one uh in particular has just been submitted uh with regards to behavioral health andal and then also we're able to look at Trends over time uh in ter terms of what um what our youth is is engaging in um outside of school and outside of the classroom next slide please um this is our demographic profile um of students who did participate we had um High 90s participation percentage in uh both Sixth and eth grade and then a a a high 75% in the high school which has been uh in line with what we've seen in previous years next slide please um these are the major highlights that I'm going to be talking about briefly in the in the following slides about what we saw in terms of increase of risk um risky behaviors and then uh some decreases of some risky behaviors so on the positive side um we've seen decreases uh about feelings of depression and considering suicide we've seen um decreases on people spending time on social media and uh substance use and body image with desires to be thinner um and weight ISS issues affecting how how students felt about themselves and then on um some increasing Trends on some negative experiences we have an increase of students um feeling bullied and um feeling like they spend too much time on social media as well as maybe not having a trusted adult at school to talk to and issues around uh some sleep and not getting at least seven hours and then also looking for um maybe some unwanted contact online and uh maybe not heading to class because they're not feeling safe at school next slide um this is an overview about what students are doing with regards to coping strategies and things that they are doing um overall you'll see that the sixth graders are um are watching TV and gaming and talking with people our eighth graders are also watching television and gaming and social media and then our high schoolers are again TV and social media and and some exercises are the ways uh and strategies that people are reaching out I was really pleased to see that substance uses uh such as drinking and drugs and cigarettes were really on the low low numbers for what uh students are doing for um to cope with with stress or um you know in times of need next slide please um you'll see here that we uh students are spending less time on homework at home um but they're also sleeping less um so there's some Trends there you'll notice that there um are some blocks with uh that are kind of highlighted in red and those are what the company uh that works with Emerson Market Street is um identifying as a 5% greater uh 5% or greater increase or decrease inre in the changes from 2022 to 2024 so it kind of highlights where um what they consider to be significant data with increases and decreases so throughout the presentation you'll see those blocks of red um when there was a great uh an increase of 5% or greater with with um what our data showed from 2022 or some in some cases 2020 um and so forth next slide please um as I mentioned before we have a decrease with um depression and self harm especially at the um six grade and high school um levels next slide please um specifically about body image that I spoke about before the desire to be thinner has decreased at the high school level and um it's kind of a mixed bag some six sixth graders are looking to increase uh sixth graders are looking to um you know just kind of looking at their perceptions it's it's interesting how you know at the high school level there's uh students who are really looking to gain some weight um but having an effect on their own perception of how they are as a human has uh decreased um or stayed stagnant uh from 2022 next slide please substance uses is down um this speaks to vaping marijuana uses alcohol consumption and binge drinking next slide please um operating cell phones while driving or uh driving or riding with someone under the influence of alcohol um has taken a decrease which I was really pleased to see um because that not only affects our youth and the people operating the vehicles as well as the other drivers on the uh on the street next slide please uh this is this I had spoken about uh before at the beginning is a trend that we're seeing an increase of um uh incidences of cyber bullying as well as coping with bullying and being bullied at school and not wanting to attend there is an increase there next slide screen time in social media um there has been a I thought it was interesting that um our sixth grade population reported that there's less involvement about monitoring of cell phone usage from their parents um there's a variety of whether kids follow the rules or not the rules but in terms of specific parameters that are set there's less engagement um from the parent involvement in cell phone usage um and then screen time in social media and perception of uh time spent there is a feeling that um students feel as though they themselves are um spending too much time on their cell phones and social media and um I I appreciate that um just in terms of them evaluating themselves I think is a really healthy behavior um overall and so um that reflection although it has increased that they're spending too much time on their cell phones or social media but it's a self-evaluation and so self-awareness is always really important next next slide please um and this is just kind of the last snippet that I have pulled out of the presentation as I said there's about 89 slides um specific to our district as well as the full aggregate depending on which uh survey um link that you engage in however um this is talking about the viewing of pornography which we're eighth graders and our high schoolers is increased as well as um we have an increase of sixth grade and eighth graders being um having some unwanted contact online as well as um an increase in the eighth grade level pretty significant um 6% from 2022 to 2024 which was 15% of um sexually explicit messages or photos being sent to them electronically next slide please and now um I'd like to open it up for questions comments clarifications thank you Alita for sharing the slides for me thanks so much for that that was really informative um I wonder if the committee has any questions all right I'm not seeing any Golden Hands oh I see one miss vessels is there um I just wondered if um I know vpings over the last few years in schools is what we're seeing at the high school like the principles made happy but yeah um Amy vessels I've jogged your memory or your your mind I believe she was speaking do you want to rephrase again you might have flipped in and out and I just want to make sure I got the whole question but I I believe you're speaking about the vaping and the decrease yeah I was wondering I know it's been a big issue in a lot of schools over the last few years and is what we're seeing in the data on this the self-re reported data is it matching what principles are seeing um at schools in terms of how much they're dealing with vaping um with you know catching students vaping or dealing with that as an issue um I I think I'll take on this question as I oh thank you superintendent D yep it is a conversation has come up in superintendent circles I haven't seen the data of those other school systems but what I'm hearing is it's not as prevalent it it's interesting to me I mean I have some theories and thoughts about it like the pandemic had lots of different types of impact and I'm wondering did it have an impact in terms of like sort of the social cycle of things like vaping use and because kids were in their homes for quite a period of time or not it's just a theory I don't know um but it is something that other superintendent have shared with me that uh uh vaping use is down in their in their respective school systems okay thank you anyone else all right hi sorry I don't know don't know how to put up my hand there oh that's okay John go ahead uh thank you for the presentation there I did two questions one was um thanks for reviewing it I guess were there any takeaway there's just there a lot going on there is there anything that you wanted to bring up or you had special observations on and number two was what and how does this get used or does it get used in the school for the teachers or the administrators where where where does this go thank you for those questions um in terms of I I'll take the second one miss wicker okay great um I'm sorry I didn't mean to step on your toes do you want to start superintendent Downing you take the first question I'll take the second one okay um in terms of what stood out to me I was really pleased to see um the decrease of substance use um I really have a a concern about that overall especially because the brain doesn't really stop developing until the age of 25 and we know that um when students choose to experiment or engage in substance use the earlier uh they may choose to do that that um can really lead to long-term health concerns as well as an increased risk of addiction and so the idea that our students are not um you know it is a self-reported test however um I I like to believe that the trends are you know that they're answering appropriate you know true to themselves and I I really appreciated the lack of substance use uh or the the decreases in substance use and engaging in uh vehicular um distracted driving um because I just think that overall they um maybe the education or the information has gotten out or you know there's been some really moving something has has connected with them where people are choosing to either delay their experimentation or not experiment at all and I just think that's the longer that kids can hold off and and be safe is is good for me so I was really pleased to see that right and then in terms of what we're we're doing as as a school and what we're using for this data I did mention a little bit in the beginning of the slide but superintendent Downing you want to take it away go ahead yeah uh Miss wicker shared this data with all of our principles uh at the end of last spring this we got this at the very end of last spring and so they they absorb that speak to it a little bit as part of their state of school reports that we do over the summer but also informs them and and their mental health teams on what are the types of topics and things that need to address in our advisory circles at the middle school level and with our counseling staff the high school level and how to support students so as we're working with that we're looking at those Trends to understand where to put our emphasis um I'll give you an example of the past as vaping use uh spiked in the past there was a development of a vaping education program for students who were identified vaping and we've kept that program over time so uh we do look at this data and we we respond to it um as we see those Trends happening so thank you great thank you so much um I have a quick question for you guys one thing that did stand out to me as I'm trying to absorb all of it is um there was a slide that talked about parental oversight and I was actually really dismayed by how little parental oversight is being reported and I wonder Kirk if this is some if this is like a moment to educate our parents through Family University or whatever it may be to say you know the middle schoolers especially need a lot of parent oversight with their social media stuff that then trickles into the school and has all kinds of reverberating effects on teaching and learning and so I know that probably most people my age don't use Snapchat for example right and yet that's what all of our kids are using and so I wonder if there's an opportunity here to do like a workshopping exercise to teach parents how to use Snapchat so that they can help monitor Behavior things like that so I wonder if that's something that you could get behind or if that's just too wild well Madam chair I appreciate the recommendation this is one of those things that sometimes feel like chasing smoke and what I mean by that is I remember uh back in the day when this this thing came along that kids were chatting on called Facebook and and so all of us as adults said we got to find out what that's about and got on Facebook and we all started joining Facebook and you know what the kids did they left Facebook they went to these other places and these other channels and so I remember a presentation I wish I can remember the presenter's name it it is around monitoring less about the apps and more about sort of the cultural values and expectations in the household around that um so I'm take your suggestion uh back to the cabinet team for discussion and uh I think we need to look for some opportunities of how we can educate families around that uh you might also understand that uh when we do those things we often get the people that are engaged in those topics to come and listen to them oftentimes for validation of what their own uh household values are and we're not getting to the people who really need it um so we got look at how to have that reach so your point is well taken we will um take it back to the cabinet team as you know we're trying to reduce that at the high school um with the recent cell phone policy in the classroom um but I agree with you what can we do more of great all right I think maybe all the golden hands are down so again thank you very much for that update on that piece of strategic work we appreciate you being here is wicker and helping us understand this more um so guys if there's nothing else we're going to move the agenda thank you Miss wicker thank you for your time we're gonna move the agenda to um this what looks like a very large item but um it is just one technically one thing that I'm going to turn over to miss vessels we're going to be looking at the next round of policy shift and you have here listed not only in the agenda but also in your meeting materials the spreadsheet that includes all of the different policies that PO our policy subcommittee is asking us to shift and Amy vessels if you could step up here and maybe help us understand where there are substantive things that we really do need to dig in on potentially uh yeah the only one that I Mark there in yellow is um CCB um about staff ations and we just added in um the phrase so the opening paragraph was originally then the show Regional school committee expects the superintendent to establish clear understandings on the part of all Personnel of the working relationships in the school district and then we added adhering to the appropriate contracts because this policy is really about like what administrator you go to you know like what the chain of command is kind of if you have a matter that you need to refer to administrative action or whatever and so we added that small phrase in there and that was really only the the only um thing we wanted to bring to your attention and see if how people felt about that all right so starting with CCB everyone um are there any questions or concerns about anything especially that one piece that we added all right so thank you for that now I wonder if anybody noticed anything in the other very in the long list of other policies that Amy you're telling me that the changes are relatively minor um things so Scott I think I see a hand which policy are you looking at so first of all EBC is in charl D and David um emergency closings yeah okay go I just you know I noticed that we changed children to students I thought maybe we should also add staff as people we care about um Amy is that is that change that you made from children to students um from recommended from masc yeah the only things we call your attention to pretty much are ones where we've added something in that's why I mentioned CCB so yes this was a change from um masc I guess masc doesn't care about staff well because it does say driving traffic parking conditions these are things that might we might want to identify that Kirk did you want to weigh in on this potentially or I just think in this case it's just a a policy that's written to the students um but um I I'm working to get to that particular policy on my computer right now to pull up that language it was um can you give me the letters again yep EB c d there it is I got it I got it okay um so I I think you know in the case of that you know I would support any recommendation if staff was added to that statement okay because Amy maybe you can make note of that on on my November 1 um common message I will be sending out the annual reminder to our community of how the snow day process and you might remember from my message in the past I include um our staff in there as people that we think about and are concerned about when we make decisions about closing school so it frankly matches his matches our practice great and I see Shan D's here hand um being a staff at a school I care about staff but uh and I see making some sense but I generally feel unless there's a very compelling reason we shouldn't vary from the masc reference versions of these policies because it makes it much harder in the future to manage changes to the policy once uh We've diverted from the sample policy so unless it's a substantive change that U actually matters uh in terms of the implementation the policy I'm I oppose changing language um from the reference uh policies I think this is something that we discussed in the last meeting as well yeah I don't feel strong enough about it to make a fuss about it so understood Scott thanks Jackie my zoom updated and I have no idea how to use the new raise hand feature so sorry um yeah I do think oh I'm freezing up okay I know that we had this conversation during our last meeting and I so I guess I just want to say as a point of um clarification for any of these policies and the conversations that we're having is that I think to Scott's Point like we do care about all staff and all students and to reiterate what shandor is saying is that when we make these changes to be able to continuously track and monitor and make it easier for future policy subcommittee and school committee members to make sure that we're staying on top of these um is to maybe voice these types of comments in this space and then if we choose to not to reflect a lot of changes to the policies as we're going forward that we're still recognizing that these are things that people care about and that we want to mention but we may not necessarily deviate or change from masc recommendations okay understood all right and Scott said that it's perhaps not not so significant that he would make a fuss over it so maybe Amy we just make note of it and now we can move on um any other policies that anybody wanted to bring up I think I see Robin's hand just a quick quick question so we've changed a policy um EAA um transportation to Walkers and Riders just out of curiosity just because what is outlined here I me the one thing that jumped off the page to me is grades 7 through 12 if you live more than 2 miles from the school you can receive bus transportation I just wasn't sure are we really making 7th through 12th grade walk to school two miles because that's that seems a lot I just wasn't sure if that's do we adhere to that policy or do we pick students up like I I wasn't sure if do you have or maybe even you could defer to Ross I'm not sure ask M Mr mcaren if he might be able to address this question uh no so we do not require grades 7 through 12 to walk nor do we have a TW mile policy um we have to be I think cautious with anything we put in place with regards to Transportation or Regional School Districts as it as it could impact our um transportation reimburse as a regional from the state this policy being in place or any language in in there does not prevent us from going above and beyond the policy um we have very few Walkers I mean the locations of all of our schools are on busy roads they're not residentially set so no the the that policy is not necessarily enacted upon um I would caution also against changing policy to match practice because to the Point earlier it becomes harder to unpack future iterations of policy um but I think we're in a fine position with our what our practi is relative to what policy may be okay great thank you yeah that's helpful and also it does say that exceptions to these guidelines can be made at the discretion of the superintendent correct great any other policies anybody wants to bring forward Madam chair please I just want to comment that that's also the standard practice across the Commonwealth and I think it because it reflects the guidance in Mass General law great oh right yep okay go ahead Scott so so M I have two more policies and the concern is similar for both of them um it's specifically E C is in Charlie a f is in Frank that's the first one yep and I'll just and I'll I'll tell you the next one is gbj GB isn't boy J isn't Jack um so on ecaf you know we there's a Redline change regarding access to videos it says as the situation arises um I I believe that that's too liberal I don't know if we have more stringent requirements but you know if you look if I I asked B said you know what is a corporate policy for video um requirements and you know it's response said something along the lines of you should only provide this material to law enforcement um upon written request and when a valid legal basis is provided so a warrant subpoena or court order and so I wonder you know should we be having more liberal access to our videos than what a you know corporate stringent policy might look like so Kirk please feel free I um hear Mr Pal's concern perhaps uh this is one of those policies that we pull out of the bunch um so that we can get some legal guidance on that I would appreciate that [Music] um all right so Amy why don't you make note of that and then uh the next go around this will not be in the consent agenda point of clarification yeah so is that e c AF F and gbj because Scott you were slightly different on gbj okay so gbj number six talks about providing names and home addresses only to government agencies as required for official reports or by law I I wonder what it means to provide for official reports rather than just by law can you um just for my purposes Scott so we're in gbj and what number are you talking about number six got it and so this um Amy is this an ad because I do see that it's underlined but it's not R is this brand new language inserted it is okay do so Scott can you ask your question one more time yeah I'm concerned that rather than just providing information as required by law we're also doing it for official reports and I'm wondering what it means to provide them for official reports and you know what kind of privacy concerns might be involved there uh Kirk do you have any idea what this might be referencing these official reports yeah we we are obligated to provide um certain documents to as required by law but again I will get a legal legal reference on that for you thank you so Amy vessels maybe you can again mark this one to come out of the bunch for the second reading so we're probably going to have to do another we're going to have to add it to later first reading and um I I'm gonna kindly ask Miss Masterson if she can add this to our cabinet agenda for Monday both of those Kirk yeah both of those okay great thanks Scott anything else anyone all right so it doesn't seem like there's any other concerns with any of the other items so Amy thank you for that first reading on this handful these will appear in the consent agenda for a second reading at the next meeting and Amy did you want to tell the committee what they can expect from policy at the next inperson meeting yes so at the next inperson meeting we're not adding new ones because we're meeting the day after that on the 7th for our next uh policy subcommittee meeting and so we'll need to go through a whole round of you know other policies and chat about stuff before we so the the second meeting in November we'll have another round of stuff um for the committee all right so everybody has a little bit of a respit there except for policy subcommittee thank you guys for doing that enormous amount of work we continue to appreciate everything you all are doing so we're going to move the agenda now to the next item which is the finance and operations report and I know that this is Ross's domain but maybe Kirk you want to queue it up a little bit Oh I thought you were just gonna run with it Madam chair I'll be happy uh as now we are getting into some expenditures and things we're going to be uh putting into play one of our monthly um events here for those of us that are new to the committee so Mr mareen our our Director of Finance and operations will you please lead the way yes thank you superintendent Downey and thanks to the school committee uh for the opportunity to present the two important reports are that are within the meeting materials uh both of the these reports were reviewed with the budget warrant subcommittee at their previous meetings so first the FY 24 end of year operating budget report uh this is the time of year that we share with the school committee how our operating budget um landed in the previous fiscal year which ends on June 30th um this report highlights how each of our cost centers closed and is part of a bigger fiscal picture that we will continue to present next month when we review the fy2 24 revenue and the excess efficiency balance sheet that will be submitted to the Department of Revenue um the FY 23 End ofe closing information is provided at the bottom of this report highlighted in blue for your year-to-year reference uh beginning with the end in mind our closing balance for FY 24 was positive at 1,162 24 the majority of the Surplus came in the form of salary differentials as evidenced in school cost centers and as we discussed throughout the FY 24 monthly operation reports at school committee I want to call your attention to some highlights of the other cost centers uh technology Health Services uh curriculum professional development which is our teaching and learning budget uh and the Athletics budget ended uh near budget with minimal Surplus the surpluses within insurance and benefits systemwide and facilities are due to a number of factors in brief we saw lower expenditures on unemployment insurance our operational Insurance lower assessments on on school choice and charter school as well as a milder win winter impacting utilities uh as the deficit in substitute teachers presents we are expecting to do a deeper deeper analysis of the substitute cost center during this budget season as the complexities of substitute challenges during the pandemic may have impacted forecasting for FY 24 and as a reminder this line also covers the cost of long-term substitutes lastly I want to provide a brief overview of the status of the special education cost center at the end of FY 24 as the committee is aware uh from the discussion during the fy2 budget development and our discussions in general special education services have faced significant increases in cost as we also recognize that students uh are presenting with higher levels of need in their programming we support the special education cost through three major sources the operational budget grants and the circuit breaker program which is provided by the state to reimburse districts for a portion of higher uh cost educational programs as a footnote details in order to close the special education cost center without a deficit we had to offset with an additional I can take questions now uh Madam chair on the fy2 24 end of year report great are there any um [Music] questions I guess I have one really quickly um my initial thought Ross was that it looked like I know you haven't certified the end which is basically like the money we had left over at the end so anybody who's new here um basically at the end of the fiscal year we it looks like we did not spend all of the money that was given to us by the three towns and so what we do with that money is it get put it gets pushed over into our excess inefficiency fund and that almost acts as like nobody likes to call it this but it's basically a rainy day fund where we have this little bit of a cushion in this bank account that we inevitably always need for various reasons but we try to keep it at a healthy level for the just in case days so I know that you haven't gotten that certified yet Ross as you just said but it looks like we are looking to put about 1.1 million back in yeah that's correct and if I could just add um to your your while while complex that was a I think sufficient brief on excess and deficiency um and I would associate it closer to a municipality or a Town's uh free cash rather than necessarily a rainy day fund any expenditure or or appropriation of the excess and deficiency fund would have to come to this committee and as practice this Administration only does that one time a year through the budget and we had a great discussion last year in preparation for fy2 about excess and deficiency so yes the Surplus from the operating budget any excess in Revenue that we would have um from fy2 24 which I'll present next month would be coupled together to be added to the balance of our our excess and deficiency fund um to make essentially a new submission to the Department of Revenue for certification in in partnership with our Auditors who just as a footnote on that process our new auditing firm is is been excellent and has made some great suggestions um already and working with us and and unpacking practices and things like that so they're they're they're really helpful but we're we're expecting that all to be done on time and I'll have an update at the end of next month fantastic any other questions from the Comm Ross is this something that budget and warrant went over correct very good thank you budget and warrant for that and so I'm not seeing any other questions we're going to move on great so the fy2 um we're we're living in in actually three uh budgets right now we we're we're finalizing our FY 24 pieces we are living our FY 25 and we're beginning our thinking and planning of our FY 26 uh so relative to the current budget um as we open our fiscal year in July 1 uh the September operating report details budget levels expended encumbered as well as uh projected while it is very early in the school year uh I've provided a basic level of forecasting um which for newcomers within the yellow portion uh of the sheet um the more predictable area to forecast is with salaries as vacancies from one year to the next have been filled the majority of surplus that we see as of today are due to those salary differentials um as I've provided uh with the footnotes facilities substitutes special education and athletic budgets are just too early in uh this phase of the year to make predictions please expect uh projected expenditures and balances when we present the October operating uh report next month and Beyond um as we have more data to draw upon and again while it is October 23rd please note that this report is September so it's as of 9:30 not necessarily as of this evening all right thanks for that Ross are um there any questions from the committee on that second report all right not seeing any I'm going to thank uh Ross for his very succinct and informative presentations thank you Ross you're very welcome thank you as always we appreciate it um so we're going to move the agenda everyone to the next item which is a matter of Unfinished Business kind of bringing Full Circle something that started last year with the presentation of the equity audit which happened in June um we are welcoming today our dear J group and I think that we might have a few friends here Kelly ER and Cathy did I say that right Cathy Cathy beckles is here um to present to us tonight and I also like to welcome our dear J liaison on the school committee Jackie Reiner to perhaps say just a couple of words to introduce these presenters as they give us uh their insights on the equity audit so Jackie over to you thank you I have really poor internet I'm getting um uh Amy Cohen poor quality um so if I glitch out please step in for me um Leah but I am very pleased to introduce two members of drj and our advisory committee um who also along with many other members of the committee um got together really digging into the work last year um and we wanted to give space and an opportunity for our Equity audit working group group to give us kind of a deeper dive into the equity audit recommendations that were provided by Dr Meg mayo Brown and then also to really like I think speak to us directly about what are the priorities that we want to really highlight um as we move into this upcoming year so we have two Representatives um from Deer J and from that specific uh working group so Kelly Lawler and Kathy beckles so I'm going to press pause and turn turn off my camera so I can still hear you all hi uh thank you very much Jackie um and thank you to everyone for having us uh I am Kelly Lawler and I've been serving on deer J for a few years now um I've been an educator in another district for 15 years and I've been living in Stow with my husband and my two kids for about 10 years so two kids enrolled um at Center school thank you madam chair uh superintendent Downey um a leader for organizing everything um and sending us the zoom link um and all of the school committee Representatives here tonight um we are so pleased that the school committee um took on this as a budget item in June of 2024 um and that Dr um ma Meg mayo Brown was able to present uh her final findings um and so that's really what we're referencing so um everyone should have access to all of those materials and I'm just going to kind of go over a brief introduction of dear J and what we do but we're happy to be here so again thank you uh so the diversity Equity awareness and racial Justice advisory um we're an advisory to the school committee so we met with our liaison um we meet monthly and um we heard what the school committee needs needs from us and that's why we're here tonight um but we just want to continue to just tell you our mission um we're continually here to support and educate the nooba regional school committee and the nooba Regional School District to ensure that diversity Equity inclusion and belonging are embedded in practices within our district for all stakeholders that's our priority um and you know we envision a district where students of all Races ethnicities sexual orientations gender identities religious affiliations neurot types physical abilities nationalities incomes languages and bodies belong and can realize their unique potential as active contributors of their community um so that's what dear J does and we were asked to kind of come up with some priorities for the school committee uh for this school year um that came out of that that huge 70 page document of the final Equity audit um and so really I want to um just reference Pages 63 to 70 um that's where the final recommendations were from Dr Meg mayo Brown and so priority number one was for the school committee um for your policies and planning and I I I did just hear you guys working on that your policies uh and so what the the final audit said is that we should consider adopting a definition of equity to provide Clarity to All N RSD stakeholders an example what is pulled right there there's resources that you can click on um and one is from the national Equity project and it says that educational Equity means that each child child re receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential working towards equity in schools involves a lot and and one of those things is ensuring equally High outcomes for all participants in our educational system removing the predictability of success or failure that currently correlates with social or cultural factors um interpreting inequitable practices finding them um and addressing them you know as quickly as possible examining biases um which I know this the school has been working on with their professional development and learning opportunities and creating inclusive Multicultural School environments for adults and children uh so that was the first priority uh that we really think is an easy ask um that the school committee could quickly kind of come up with that definition um that they that they would use for the rest of the year okay and I'll if there's any questions I can stop or I can move on to the next priority I think we can keep rolling thanks Kelly okay all right so um priority number two um was to riew the M's policy uh on educational Equity to consider an explicit focus on educational Equity including the inclusion and Equity practices within the district's strategic plan uh so that that's that's something that I think the school district is doing and has has probably done on the school committee um seeing all of the policies that you were referencing from the masc and the third one um is something that dear J actually worked worked on and we presented in in June um in our final report so you can see that uh in our on our meeting minutes and in our final report that was published in June uh is to utilize a policy Equity analysis tool and so dear J had been talking uh with the school committee and with the administration about possibly implementing we were calling it a decision-making tool that we've seen other towns and um other community groups using uh to better ensure Equitable practices and that's exactly what Dr Meg Mayor Brown was referencing is and she called it an equity analysis tool there are lots of examples um a few that she provided in her final report from Pages 63 to 70 uh but you know some of it is really just it could be considered a checklist where you measure um the extent to which a policy is responding to a certain topic or issue um you know so does it is it responding well to a great extent is it not responding not at all and so that that really I think connects what you what we were talking about on the school committee is that policy to practice right and that and that is is often a gap where we can struggle so an analysis tool is one way to help us um ensure that we are um staying true to those Equitable practices and the school committee uh can refer to that in in our final report uh so those were the three things those were the three asks that Dr mag Mayo Brown had in her report um and and we'd like to support the school committee in any way to to see those three things I think those are are goals that um are pretty easy to kind of accomplish this year and we're here dear j u meeting every month to to help you guys out okay so please let us know if you'd like us to do more work on our decision-making tool do you want us to kind of merge um with some of the reference tools that we also saw from Dr Meg mayo Brown um you let us know so that was just kind of our intro um and cathie is going to take it away um but we will be here um to answer any questions or um have review anything that that you might want to review all right thank you Kelly um so good evening everyone uh my name is Cathy like you as you all know and I live in Bolton and I have two kids at Florence Sawyer and I'm also a teacher I work at UH Parker Charter in devans um so I'm in a very Progressive uh District um and um this work is really important to me and to us the DJ committee um I want to continue with what Kelly started with and besides those three points that she has U mentioned those three priorities um I'd like to speak to uh Pages 25 to 29 that's on the report and it recognizes dis personal disparities and growing diverse populations within student groups so Bolton is changing right our towns are changing and um I think this needs some attention from the school committee and so the district publishes a comprehensive positive climate plan outlining outlining leadership training and professional development resources and services bullying prevention approaches policies and procedures for reporting bullying and family education resources the plan clearly articulates a vision and expectations for safe and supportive learning environments however it doesn't state that funds will be used for Dei efforts like hiring a director or uh an organization to help train faculty and staff so that they continue to do this work in school all right so this is a concern um it also doesn't have a clear plan to hire then retain a a diverse population of leaders and teachers so our follow-up question is how can the school committee prioritize these Personnel decisions and policies okay cuz what we're seeing and what we've noticed from the report is that we have some work to do in this area and it will require some funding to uh make progress okay um another priority included in the report is to create identity safe classrooms and we were also wondering if the school committee could start with making identity identity safe spaces right so instead just right off the bat just making an area for kids to go where they feel comfortable and welcomed in the school Um this can be done I'm not I'm hopeful it can done de also appreciated the recommendations to provide a positive School climate by using a PB or cultural culturally responsive practice to systematically enhance equity in school discipline but DJ had questions about policies to respond to overt incidents of hate and racism or policies to respond to the use of racial expletives used within schools we recommend that the school committee work with the administ Administration to create and improve policies regarding incidents of hate and how to respond to reports of racial expletives being used within our schools okay um this is heavy work but it is it is must do work and drj would like to support in any way we can to make this to change this culture okay um in addition drj would like the school committee to commit to a timeline for when they can complete the first three priorities listed on page 65 and we sincerely do thank you for the work you have done in the past right thank you for that um but we'd like to continue to do good work and so we're asking that we you make these things a priority and let us know how we can assist in these efforts um on page 65 of the report um the national school B School Board Association recognizes the critical role School committees have in accomplishing equitable outcomes for all students School committees establish systemwide goals adopt policies and budgets as well as review and provide feedback on school Improvement plans School handbooks and curriculum through each of these areas School committees are uniquely positioned to affirm their commitment to Equitable outcomes and to take specific actions to ensure each child thrives in the district's schools and we are confident that that nrsd will continue committing to this very important work we are um and we are happy to answer any questions that you may have about what was just presented to you thanks so much for that um I'm gonna turn it over to Kirk first perhaps his hand up yeah I want to thank our team or dear J team for coming tonight you guys are are doing some awesome work so thank you very much just uh to bring a round out some of the things that are going on based on those recommendations and uh to remind the committee uh the work that we've done to hire Dr khis warham Who is the professional that's been training the district leadership team and our districtwide Equity team Dr Kurt sorry for interrupting you Mr Downey did you hear that she is pres she's GNA be the keynote speaker at the Met co-directors conference that's happening in in just a month really um so I just wanted to say that she's amazing thank you for working with her I'm excited to hear her at the Meco um conference coming up yeah Dr waram is tremendous and uh Miss Lawler you're gonna be excited to hear that we have contracted with her once again to do another round of professional development we're expanding that professional development but beyond our committee she came and delivered the uh commencement address to our Educators this year and the feedback that we received from that was outstanding so as we have $50,000 in our professional development budget dedicated to equity professional development trainings um those types of things in our budget these this are the way that we're using those funds and so that connects to frankly the first recommendation because we have two more sessions left with Dr warham I believe and uh the outcome of that is our team is going to have our definition of equity rounded out to take to our building based teams and we'll be bringing forward um uh that language to this committee uh after the first of the year our last session I believe is in December so we should have that we're going to be bringing that forward so that is going to be happening this year um and so as we look at those things we also are participating um in some Human Resources work our new um Director of Human Resources and I will be going to Regis College uh on November 1st I believe it is uh which is around uh how to uh diversify your Workforce and so we'll be attending that uh uh to try to come back with some some uh strategies on how we can move that work forward um and then I know that our principles are also as I'm sitting down with them one-on-one and doing their goals uh I have required them to uh base their their professional practice goals in the bucket of diversity Equity inclusion and belonging and as such I know they have school Improvement goals towards that and you'll be learning more about that when they present School Improvement plans next week so the recommendations that I'm hearing I think are in line with the practices we have planned and we look forward to um uh doing the work with our folks thanks for that Kirk I do see a couple of hands up before we go forward um Cathy and Kelly did you guys have um all of this collected and maybe a Google doc or a place where we can kind of keep it memorialized in the meeting materials yes yes I will email that to Alita we just wanted all of our me this was we did this in a working group discussion uh last night so we just wanted to bring it to our big group um so that we can make a motion to vote on it and then Alita will be able to share that out and post that okay great so when so Kelly When does the bigger group meet no in November November oh okay thank you so um yeah it's November 12th I believe on a Tuesday it's the first inperson meeting in just for the for the committee's um benefit I think that one of the things that we all wrestle with is timelines and so dear J was kind of working really hard to get this information to us at the deadline that we kind of established which is this meeting and so Kelly you're saying that you want to bring all of what you just presented to us to that bigger committee so that you can kind of formalize it with all of dear J and then it will kind of become part of the record yes got it I really appreciate you guys doing this tonight thank you so much and we're very happy to be here um we're happy to meet the deadline and to continue to do this work thank you great yeah because you've given us a lot to think about that is kind of Beyond perhaps what the committee talked about at the workshop but it's really good stuff and I don't want to lose it um so whenever you guys can just let us know and when you send it to Alita can you also alert me that it's it's been yeah so that I can kind of talk with Jackie about it and make sure that I'm I'm interfacing with Kirk about it as well yes Madam chair I will thank you Leah I would I have a few um I was kind of listening and taking in a lot of this information like I know that there are existing documents that I want to maybe bundle and share back with dear J at that meeting I know that we talked pretty extensively last year um assistant superintendent friend had talked about the teacher recruitment plan so like giving them um and like referencing previously developed materials I think that outline those steps that the district is taking and with support from the school committee so on the back end I'll send those two to um to you and to Dear J okay great thanks Jackie um so I see Shan door's hand next perhaps uh I want to Echo the thanks obviously there's a lot of work and it's really important um I'm wondering if we could add this back to a future agenda without the written report I'm sort of struggling there was so much information to to respond to it yeah for sure um I know I'm trying to think what the best way is to shandor so let me think on that a little bit and I can also just chat with Jackie to um kind of consider how we can kind of parse this all out I think that's what you want to do right yes okay fantastic um so we'll we'll chat about that and definitely um this is an ongoing conversation so um yes we'll put on a future agenda thank you uh Amy Cohen uh thank you um and thanks for the depth of the kind of um thought that went into the presentation that you just gave us um and the the Food For Thought um I have kind of following up on what shandor just said um and what Leah is going to ponder I'm wondering if what would be most helpful for us is For Whatever Gets um shared out with the school committee if you could kind of frame them in terms of recommendations I mean I heard that I heard kind of that throughout the presentation you gave tonight but it was hard to there was a lot to unpack within there um so if you could just kind of summarize it in that way I think it would help us kind of understand what action items we could take or or how to move forward from your recommendations um one of the things that you kept pointing back to was page 65 of the equity audit and I was able to find it and I put it in the chat for others um the report that you were referring to and I I it occurred it occurred to me that after superintendent gave his answer that I want to make sure that we are capturing the work that is underway and the goals that we've set for ourselves so um what am I trying to say here like uh superintendent Downing I heard that a lot of what they are recommending that we consider is already underway but when I look at the goals that we just that were put forward I don't know that it's explicitly captured and so I think maybe that's part of what we could do when we get more information from dear J is see how we can capture it in a way that's someone outside this organization would understand what we're doing um like the definition of equity sounds like it's happening and it will be presented to us but it's not listed as a goal anywhere for the school committee or the superintendent I don't think yeah I have to respond to that Miss cor that we don't lay out everything in terms of goals those are the activities we get to to what the overarching goals are so yes that that is an element that we'll be reaching to as one of the priorities that are listed within that plan back to the superintendent goals which were voted on tonight in the consent agenda that the goal I wrote around um disproportionality in terms of access to high quality education is deeply embedded in equity for our students so the action steps and activities around that are toward Equity I would also um connect us back to the adoption of the high quality instructional materials also are produced with an examination through an equity lens and they're aligned to the district Equity uh guidance desie Equity guidance um as as well as the equity uh look for walkthrough tools that we use on our building walks with our principles that we participated in in a couple of locations this week so these are all activities that happen within the goals of the Strategic plan okay thank thank you I I just have one more question Leah if that's okay yep okay so um one of like for me one of the lwh hanging fruit items that's on page 65 that I think you guys were pointing to was um reviewing policy jbb and I feel like it's really bad timing to bring up another policy given all the policies that are on the plate for our policy subcommittee but um it's on the list okay I was yeah okay it is oh okay that's good to know um thank you that What's the title of jbb can you remind me I don't have the equity audit open educational educational Equity oh um and that seems like something that is definitely related to our purview and and would just be like I said like a loow hanging fruit item for the school committee yeah so that's that's a great reminder Amy and I think the one thing that I would like to point out for the public but also for our newest school committee members um they are going to be engaging in orientation over the next week or so and in that orientation of um what is Chief among the things you will learn is understanding what school committees are empowered to do and what becomes operational and it is within the realm of the superintendent so at one point I heard one of the recommendations to create a room or a space in the schools where students can feel safe they can feel like they belong and it's a place where they can kind of go if they need to so whereas the school committee doesn't have the power to create such a thing what I did hear Cathy said say at one point is that we will fund or approve the funding for such resources and so the budget is within our purview so what I would like to do once I get the report from dear J is not only talk with Jackie about it but also interface with Kirk so that we can make sure that all the operational things that are being done are kind of addressing the recommendations that dear J is making we might not have any control over how that shakes out or how it moves down the pipeline but to kind of report back in a very organized way these are the things that the school committee can kind of take on take head on like policy jbb or these are the things that Kirk has inside the Strategic plan or even outside of the Strategic plan because you know some of these things are new from the report so we can report back like Shan door said at a later meeting to kind of parse those things out and make sure that nothing is falling through the cracks so to speak go ahead Kirk yeah Madam chair I'll just um pull out two examples of where the committee has done that already is in the last two budget Seasons uh uh two budgets ago two Cycles ago I should say um approved our recommendation of $50,000 to conduct an equity audit and we looked for additional Grant fundings to do that and then this past year you also approved the professional development budget where we had earmarked an additional $5,000 uh for professional development of our faculty and staff moving forward so those are two examples that support uh what you're talking about excellent thanks Kirk all right right is there any other Committee Member who would like to weigh in or ask a question make a comment I would if I could please Jackie I think that what is exciting hearing what the priorities are and the and the recommendations from dear J is and then seeing it like knowing everything that we know in this journey is what is very clear to me is how we need to be more clear and transparent about what's happening because I think a lot of the priorities and the recommendations are happening it's how how are they happening and then being able to communicate that to our communities to our Educators to our staff and to our students a good case and point is that dear J has um across many years done a deep dive into what would be an equity decision-making tool they have two recommendation that they gave to you know in conversation in 2023 we have some new ones but part of the ask and part of the goals that we set for ourselves is really like how are we actively using and implementing those tools and looking for feedback and guidance from dear J advisory members around how we're implementing that into our work that's a goal that we set for this year so I just want to point out like I do feel like it's really important that we are as clear as possible that how this work is being done whether it be at the school commit level at the operational level at the building level because it is happening yeah thanks for that Jackie all right well I'm not seeing any other hands could I ask a question oh please do John Y and uh I'm I'm totally new here so I apologize for my ignorance um I don't want put words in anybody's mouth but I heard if I heard correctly superintendent had said that Equity was already deeply embedded in in the way we did things so it sounds like it's it might already be present and so I was just curious if we're needing to define equity where is it getting defined is there um I guess just where is it getting defined and is is this going to be replacing expanding or or a new policy good question I'll leave it to Kirk I'll be happy to answer that yes the definition from the national Equity PL project is the place that we're going to uh begin from uh as we do this and that's the work that we're doing at our districtwide committee that I'll be bringing forth to this team to say that Equity is something that's embedded and we've done that uh We've Just Begun this journey uh we're on a long way to understanding those practices and as we look at and I and I recognize Mr McFarland you are brand new to today so you didn't uh uh have the benefit of seeing my presentation on my goals previously but issues like disproportionality of access to to high level classes is an example of one so we know we have work to do over time to ensure that any student that comes in our school system has every opportunity uh to be able to experience the rigor and the sense of belonging that we want each and every individual to have in the school system so this is something that we will always be working on um I don't think it's a we've reached the moment or we've completed it uh we just continue to be self-reflective um and look at our work as we come along take feedback from our community and our constituents and make appropriate adjustments along the way great thanks Kirk John I hope that gives you some more insight on this this whole thing thank you um I guess thank you yeah we'll keep going that's the way to do it just keep going um all right everybody so I think that that might be the last question around our dear J presentation I would like to one more time thank Kelly and Cathy for coming here I am so appreciative of all your hard work um like Jackie said there's a ton of behind the-scenes stuff that you guys are doing constantly and um your work needs to be completely celebr and appreciated and we thank you for everything you're doing thank you again thank you thanks for having us really yeah and you know just before you guys jump off I pulled up the planning calendar and I'm wondering um if I were to um put it on the November 6th agenda it looks um it doesn't stay this way but that agenda seems to me to go be a have some space would you guys be okay with us kind of you don't necessarily need to reappear at the meeting but do you think that we would be ready to kind of bring the documentation to the four um on the 6th of November yes awesome okay great so for the committee I put that in the plan and calendar so that we can kind of revisit this at a later date um that will also give Kirk and me um a Wednesday to discuss Kirk yes Madam charl also remind you November 6th is the date that myself Mr mcaren and attorney gleon will be at the MS masc Mas SS joint conference so the three of us will be uh attending remotely via use of the owl uh which is why we intentionally kept that date somewhat light so I just wanted to throw that reminder out there okay that's great but you'll still be present so at in some way so that'll that'll be great all right everybody thank thank you so much guys for being here we really appreciate your time and your energy thanks all right guys so we're going to move the agenda to the next item here and that is subcommittee or advisory reports I wonder if there are any chair people who feel there's something we have not yet discussed that they would like to bring forward yeah Amy yeah um I just think we need to add the school committee final final revised revised version of the manual the meeting materials for the next this is a a communication subcommittee request yeah we uh Sharon and I spent more time um formatting and editing to add a table of contents to the document and we feel that it is now ready and in the last time that we discussed this we moved to approve it um pending those short edits that you made right that's my recollection and so there's no need for the committee to act you just want to perhaps put the edited version somewhere in the meeting materials perhaps for this for which meeting for the next meeting I I don't know do we need to I just felt like they were needed to we needed to close the loop with it but yeah um anybody want so we have a couple of choices uh options here we can put it in the meeting materials from the previous meeting where we uh moved and approved it um or we can bring it back to the floor just for a final final lookie without any need to vote upon it it could be in a consent agenda item just to yeah although we already approved it so I don't think we actually need maybe all we need to do is post it yes to the website is that all we're okay so our work is done that is ready to be posted that's all we need all right so I will um I think you forwarded that to Alita I think I you but I I can just me um so could you send that to Alita and Alita could you replace the manual that currently sits on our web page with the new version that Amy sends to you thank you and then we can direct the school committee to uh view it and the public for that matter at their Leisure great thank you awesome thank you communication subcommittee uh any other subcommittee or advisory reports of note seeing none guys uh we're going to move on to items for next agenda so I'm looking at the planning calendar here I am going to try to share my screen so that's today our next meeting is the one that Kirk just referenced where he is going to be at the Joint conference with Joe and who else did you say is going Kirk is it Laura it's myself attorney Gleason and M Mor Caren oh okay very good um so guys you can see what's on the agenda for the next meeting anybody want to add anything right now Amy I think you're muted am I just have a clarifying question about the school Improvement plans yeah Will those be presented on the 6th and then voted on the 20th is that how that's Kirk is that the plan yes he said oh yeah approve allps on the 20th I see that thank you oh there we go yep um so normally Kirk do we do all three levels of school Improvement plans I'm sorry I'm blanking uh yes we do because we know that we're required to do that by mat law for the high school but we developed the practice of bringing all the plans to the committee three years ago so we will bring all the plans okay very good all right guys so that is what is on the agenda for next time I'm going to stop sharing and just remind everybody that if there if anything pops into your head that you would like added to the agenda please shoot me an email and I can discuss with Kirk and most likely just put it on the agenda for you if not the next one then one soon thereafter all right so if there nothing else fair warning I'm going to move to adjourn do I have a second second very good Jackie thank you we're gonna take a vote so I will go around the room I will vote first I say yes John you just have to unmute we're voting on ending is that what it yes I'm sorry yes y this is our favorite part of the night come on uh ay vessels yes and Robin yes Scott yes Amy Cohen yes although you're four minutes over sorry uh Jackie yes Lindsay yes shondor yes Joe yes very good everybody we are adjourned thanks for a great meeting