Review: Superintendent Priorities - Progress Update

Transcript (~15 min @ 1:31:35)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 1:31:27 Speaker 1: Great. So I have a motion to postpone made by Ms. McAndrew, seconded by Ms. Driscoll. All in favor? And that passes unanimously. Thank you everyone. Um, next up we have the superintendent priority update. And so before I turn it over to Superintendent Berman, I just wanna acknowledge that at the beginning of the year, we had the opportunity to hear from the superintendent with regards to her overall priorities for the year. And given that we're at about the 45 day mark, almost, um, thought it would be a helpful moment to allow for her to just share any updates on progress thus far. So I'll give the floor to you to hear a little bit more. Sure.

▶ 1:32:09 Speaker 4: Um, so, well, first of all, thank you. Um, there is a memo in your packet, um, that I'm sure you have all perused, but I also am gonna highlight some of the key points with slides because I think I've shared with you that I am a visual learner, um, and it, and it does keep me on track as well. And I will not read them to you, but I will just highlight some of the key points from the memo that I have on the slides as well. So, um, just give one minute and

▶ 1:32:39 Speaker 4: All right. So just my cover slide. So, um, I just wanna start by, you know, thanking the educators, the students, the families, the community members, the school committee, um, for the opportunity to serve as the interim superintendent of Melrose Public Schools. Um, it has been an honor to lead the district during such an important transitional period. Um, and I'm grateful for this privilege, um, and the support that I've been provided, um, throughout my time serving in the Melrose Public Schools, and especially over the last few months, I've worked hard to highlight who I am as an educator and share my core values. You've actually seen this slide before. It was in my first presentation. I just thought I would bring it to light again. Um, and I would not be honestly demonstrating one of my core values if I stated that the last few months have been easy. Um, they have not been easy. The last few months have been challenging, and there have been many difficult decisions that have had to be made. Um, despite any of the hurdles that have been presented, the work has been done with the help of many members of our Melrose community. The work has been rewarding, challenging, and unpredictable at times. What stands out most is the incredible dedication showed by our, our entire community. NPS employees are excellent educators and leaders, and I am beyond grateful for the experience to work for with them each and every day. Um, I would continue, or like to continue to recognize that there was a lot of good work done last year, um, a lot of which I was part of, um, but wasn't leading. Um, and I, along with the leadership and educators, strive to be the best we can be and do right by our students each and every day. As mentioned in previous meetings, Melrose Public Schools is focused on the first two objectives outlined in the strategic plan for this school year. Um, I do have a flu few, a few slides that I would like to share with you to demonstrate the progress and next steps, uh, towards these two priority areas. I would like to highlight, um, and add that a crucial priority will be coming up very, very, very quickly. Um, I'd like to just talk about the groundwork and collaboration and development on the budget for the 26 27 school year, which is very quickly approaching, um, moving forward. My commitment remains unwavering. Um, my goal is to foster an environment where every student in Melrose can thrive, and they're supported by clear leadership and dedicated staff. So, um, thank you all again for your support as well, and I look forward to sharing the work that, um, we have all done as a team, um, over the, uh, last few months, um, which seems crazy. So, um, just again, a reminder slide you saw before, but back to basics. Um, and so to me that means, um, accountability, belonging, um, inconsistency. And if I were gonna give you like three sentences on that, just to summarize, I would say that we need to meet the needs of all students and provide just in time scaffolds in order to access curriculum as needed. Um, I wanna ensure, and, and I think everyone, um, across all buildings, across all levels, um, wants to ensure that we're building effective lessons, um, and that we are demonstrating knowledge of grade level standards and that we're using high quality instructional materials. Um, and then we really need students to know and understand what they're learning. Um, if, if they can't make connections, then our, our work is useless, frankly. So, um, that's what I mean when I say, when I say back to basics. Um, I have to put it this way. So you all know our, our big five strategic goals and, and our focus is on the first two. Um, and these are just reminder slides as, as to what they mean, the objectives and what it looks like. So some of the highlights, I just want to give some, um, evidence of the progress that has been made. Uh, everyone, and I know I've mentioned it before, and, and principal Patty mentioned it tonight, and I think she said she had 14 educators just at the Lincoln School. Um, but I be, you know, we're offering over 30 educators an opportunity to engage in Orton-Gillingham training, um, which is huge, um, that is really going to help us, um, set the standard for, for a lot of our children. And it's, you know, a research based, um, methodology that we can give to all students. We do not have to qualify for students for special education or, or put them in, in different groups at that moment in time. So, um, one of the other focus was really on that, that planning alignment. So ensuring that our school improvement plans are aligned with our, um, district plans. And, and we've worked hard with the principals and our principals meetings and our leadership meetings to ensure that there's that through line. Um, that then goes also down to the educators goals, um, and, and what they're looking at, um, which is really summarizes in that. Um, and then I think we have had all buildings, which is really exciting. Um, even, you know, our, our secondary, um, staff, the high school specifically, has engaged in like a full data meeting. Um, and that's exciting. And there were a lot of aha moments that came out of that. We're able to look at some of the additional, you know, um, initial scores. Um, some of the teachers or all of the teachers and educators were look able to look at the disproportionality that exists. Um, and I think, you know, we'll continue to look at our DIBELS in our IXL and, and have those data meetings and really target so that we can put in those instructional practices. Um, again, coming back to that critical lens for the lesson planning, and then just some next steps. So, um, similar again, I feel like to what, uh, I feel like Jess, uh, principal Patty teed me up a little bit here tonight. Um, some of the things is putting in some of these systems and knowing that we're really gonna start to gather the baseline and the data to be able to move forward. Uh, again, we've had some inconsistencies with some pieces, and we also have a very, very lean team, I would say from, from paraprofessionals to classroom teachers to our specialists, to our leadership team, to our central office team, right? It, it is lean, um, but everyone is working so hard to, um, really do what's best for everyone. Um, and so I really just commend everyone. We hope to do kind of like a lesson plan checklist from leadership to make sure that, um, staff can reflect on the lesson planning that they're doing. Um, we help to use our collaborative times, so our staff meetings, our curriculum, meeting times, early release times if it's chosen, different things like that. We're unpacking the standards, looking at our goals, looking at the data, um, and then having that walkthrough focus. That is something that we did a lot, uh, prior to COVID and then tried to bring back a little bit over the years with pieces. We need to get more consistent in that, um, non evaluative walkthroughs where teams are going in and looking to collect data in 12 to 15 classrooms to come up with some really good, uh, takeaways of about what we saw for very specific pieces. And then what my favorite is the quick wins. So what can we, what two or three ideas can we give to educators or to leadership, um, that you could do tomorrow with like, no planning. It's just a, it's a quick win. Um, so that, that's for goal number one. So I will jump to goal number two. And again, just a reminder of what it is, um, and some evidence of progress. So this is all around our, um, our professional learning and our UDL reset that we are, um, have worked on again a little bit last year. A lot. Many, many of us are very familiar with a lot of this language. And I think just being, bringing it to the forefront, um, the expectations for what we're looking for, um, as teachers plan and as students engage in the classroom. So, uh, we kicked off our first couple days, you know, we had Kelly Merton's come in and talk about our UDL training, ensuring, again, our, our goals from our, our district goals to our school improvement goals, to our educators goals are aligning and putting in some of those UDL practices and then gathering data, having that baseline for, um, the instructional practices and the student engagement practices that we're, we're utilizing. So that's the work we've done over the co last couple of months, um, to set the stage. And, um, our next steps are really finalizing those walkthroughs and giving that consistent feedback, gathering that data, um, and looking at that equity, uh, big piece that disproportionality, what, what are we, how can we do better? Um, how do we close achievement gaps? What are our, our, what are our achievement gaps? Um, we have to call 'em out. We have to name them, um, in our buildings as we discussed earlier, may, may look different. And then one of the pieces I think is really important is, is this perceptual data. How do students think we're doing? Like, I don't know that I'm sure, I know we have awesome educators, like I'm sure they're polling students. I don't know that that information is making its way to the leadership team or maybe even to their principal. So how do we design, um, some surveys that are consistent across buildings, across grades, across curriculum area where we can really understand how our kiddos doing, what is, do they feel like they belong? Do they, you know, have control of their learning? Do they have that choice? Do does that represent the UDL principles? So those are, are our next steps, um, that some of the evidence. Uh, we have a lot of work to do with a little bit of time, but, uh, more than half the year still to get through. Um, and I just welcome the opportunity to, um, continue the work and, um, happy to take any questions you have.

▶ 1:42:44 Speaker 1: Mr. Hartman. Go ahead. Um,

▶ 1:42:46 Speaker 5: I'll start in with one thing. Um, so I really appreciate the update and, and how detailed it is and your thoughtfulness and bringing it forward and speaking to it. Uh, and I actually, I really appreciate the equity impact analysis that you've got some focus on. Um, not, not uncommonly, I hear, you know, our MCA scores are great, we have 80%, uh, meeting or exceeding expectations, things like that. Um, and I constantly reply back that we have lots of gaps in subgroups of students. And so I really appreciate the focus that you're putting there to, to draw out, um, those gaps and to understand them and understand how we can address them. And I think your, your background in the special education world is really important to be successful in that arena. Um, so that in particular stands out to me as a, as a really key focus that calling it out upfront here as a, as a space for us to focus on is really important. Because I think that's where we, we struggle as a district. Uh, when we have limited resources to apply to issues that we're seeing, that's where we can't get into the weeds. We, we don't have enough to do there. And I think that's really important that we're identifying it. Um, and hopefully we can, we can find what we have now and, and maybe more in the future to bring to it. 'cause I think that's where we have a lot of space to grow. So thank you for putting that at the forefront and as a, as a key aspect of, of what you're focusing on.

▶ 1:44:10 Speaker 5: Mr. Kelly. Sure. Thank you. Thank you very much for putting this together. This reminds me a lot of, uh, your presentation from our September 9th meeting where you introduced many of these topics, and I'm glad to see the follow through that's occurring with them. It seems to be really focused on getting the, the district organized, prepared, kind of the back to basics. I think it's very easy to follow and understand. So I just really appreciate the work that you and your team have done, um, in the summer and throughout this fall.

▶ 1:44:39 Speaker 4: Thank You. Definitely a team effort.

▶ 1:44:43 Speaker 1: Ms. Der. Thank you.

▶ 1:44:44 Jennifer McAndrew: Um, I echo all that and thank you. Um, I know we'll be getting more into all of these, um, throughout the, the rest of the school year. I, um, I also think to me something that comes through here is your, um, the longevity of your career in this district. Um, so I, um, I'm really glad that you mentioned student voice and sort of student feedback. Um, and I'm not surprised by that because of course you came up through the secondary, uh, school and system here. Um, and I just, I really appreciate that and I, I really think I'd like to hear more, more about that going forward. What your plans, how you plan to do that and sort of instill that, uh, throughout the district. Um, I think you probably have a lot of students at all levels, um, all the way down probably to pre-K I mean four year olds have a lot to say mm-hmm. Um, that have feedback and, and ideas for you. And I think, I think you're the perfect person to hear that because, um, you know, this district and those students so well and have known them for so long. So thank you.

▶ 1:45:54 Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? I would just add gratitude too. I think it's really clear to be able to say, this is where we're starting, this is what we've done thus far. 45 days isn't that much time. So to be able to see the movement that's already begun, I think is just very helpful to be able to picture where we're headed is even better. So thank you for including those next steps. I am incredibly appreciative of you stepping up. I know you recognize that some days are harder than others. Um, and I am grateful for the years that, again, you've been with us here in Melrose and the path you are charting currently in your role. Um, thank you. With that, we have a couple more things under the announcements of the chair. So one is the MASC resolutions, not policies. Um, I just wanna acknowledge that the previous meeting we did vote for Mr. Kelly to serve as our delegate to the MASC conference. Thank you again. Um, during the conference, the resolutions that were sent to you all via email will be put forward. We actually are not gonna move forward with a vote tonight, um, as I don't anticipate that we would be attending that delegate assembly. So no need to vote, but wanted at least for folks to be able to see what they were so that we could lean in, understand some of the topics that are gonna be discussed at that conference.