School Committee — 2019-06-11
Agenda
- To approve executive session minutes of May 7, 2019
- To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a Memorandum of Agreement with the Drivers of Special Needs Children, Massachusetts Public Employees Council, and Massachusetts Laborers’ District Council when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
- To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a successor collective bargaining agreement with the Traffic Supervisors Associations when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
- To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a successor collective bargaining agreement with the MEA, Unit A Teachers when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
- To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a Memorandum of Agreement with MEA Unit A when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
- Report on Executive Session Votes (if needed)
- Late Start Update (5 minutes)
- Cafeteria Report
- Monthly Budget Summary
- Warrants
- Personnel Report
- Strategy Overview (10 minutes)
- No New Business
- No New Business
- Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation Plan and Rubric (10 minutes)
- School Committee Calendar 2020 (10 minutes) vote required
- MCAS Resolution (10 minutes)
- Liaison Reports (5 minutes)
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● JUNE 11, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176
(ID # 7283) Executive Session To approve executive session minutes of May 7, 2019
(ID # 7280) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a Memorandum of Agreement with the Drivers of Special Needs Children, Massachusetts Public Employees Council, and Massachusetts Laborers’ District Council when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
(ID # 7279) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a successor collective bargaining agreement with the Traffic Supervisors Associations when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
(ID # 7278) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a successor collective bargaining agreement with the MEA, Unit A Teachers when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
(ID # 7284) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining regarding a Memorandum of Agreement with MEA Unit A when an open discussion will have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the School Committee
(ID # 7281) GENERAL Report on Executive Session Votes (if needed)
(ID # 7266) Announcements - Superintendent Late Start Update (5 minutes)
(ID # 7285) Consent Cafeteria Report Adopted
(ID # 7268) Consent Monthly Budget Summary Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/18/2019 3:01 PM Minutes Melrose School Committee June 11, 2019
(ID # 7272) Policy and Planning Strategy Overview (10 minutes)
(ID # 7276) Finance and Facilities No New Business
(ID # 7277) Educational Programs and Personnel No New Business
(ID # 7274) Announcements - Chair Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation Plan and Rubric (10 minutes)
(ID # 7273) Announcements - Chair School Committee Calendar 2020 (10 minutes) vote required
(ID # 7282) Announcements - Chair MCAS Resolution (10 minutes)
(ID # 7275) Announcements - Chair Liaison Reports (5 minutes) Note: The listed agenda items are those that are reasonably anticipated by the Chair to be discussed at the meeting. Not all items, in fact, may be discussed, and other items not listed also may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 6/18/2019 3:01 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Good evening all. Welcome to the meeting of the Melrose School Committee for this 11th day of June in the year 2019. For the record, let me state that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast as is our custom. Let us stand as we are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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, and with God. Thank you very much. We do have need for an executive session this evening. We will be returning to public session immediately following the executive session. And for the record, let me state the reasons for the executive session. to approve executive session minutes for May 7 2019 to discuss strategy with
▶ 2:18 executive session and for the record let me state the following with regard to the executive session which we just concluded within the executive session the committee approved the following the executive session minutes for May 7 2019 a memorandum of understanding with our special education student transportation drivers relative to a wage increase a memorandum of understanding with our traffic supervisors relative to a new three-year contract that included a wage increase and last but not least I'm pleased to announce that the committee has approved a new three-year contract with our teachers effective July 1st and briefly the contract will fund strategic salary increases for all Melrose teachers elevate educators voice in decision-making establish a health and
▶ 3:19 safety advisory committee and add meaningful time to the elementary school day to promote wellness and movements all that said and moving on next up is the public comment portion of our meeting this is the portion of the meeting when members of the public are afforded an opportunity to address the committee on issues and concerns within the purview and authority of the committee without objection the public comment period is open are there any members of the public who wish to address the committee miss Donovan welcome miss Scott welcome nice to see you both nice to see you as well we're here on another matter but I just want to express on behalf of the Melrose Education Association our appreciation for ratifying the contract and we look
▶ 4:16 forward to productive school year next year and beyond likewise thank you good evening my name is Carrie Scott and I'm the political action leader for the Melrose Education Association and I'm here with Lisa Donovan president of the MEA to address the Melrose School Committee in regards to high-stakes testing well we support the letter on the agenda tonight that addresses the wildly inappropriate ELA MCAS question that asked test takers to write from the point of view of a racist character, we feel that the letter doesn't fully address all of the problems associated with high-stakes testing. In September of 2015, the Melrose School Committee sent a letter to the Massachusetts Board of Education regarding high-stakes testing. While the letter was park centered, we
▶ 5:06 believe the sentiment is the same almost four years later. One quote from that letter that is still relevant today we recognize the value of standardized student assessments to improve teaching and learning at the same time we understand that excessive testing takes away from valuable classroom time that can be spent on teaching and learning we know well the financial constraints of running a school district and object to mandates that do not offer financial relief initially high-stakes testing was put in place to hold schools accountable for the additional funding that the state was providing at that time funding Testing has not kept up with the needs of our students, nor has high-stakes testing
▶ 5:44 benefited our students. One definite adverse effect of high-stakes testing is the anxiety and stress that it causes for students, whether they are in elementary, middle, or high school, when students must pass the biology, ELA, and math MCAS in order to graduate. This high-stakes testing is in no way making sure that students are critical thinkers or problem solvers who graduate with all of the necessary knowledge and skills to navigate the world today. Additionally, the tests limit the ability of students and teachers to engage in relevant, real-world curriculum. Countless hours each year are lost to test prep and test-taking days. Also, the results from the tests are not issued in a timely manner that benefits students
▶ 6:24 or helps teachers assess the students in front of them. Schools should be providing all students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills and not reducing them to the test score, as well as allowing and respecting educators professional judgment to create these learning opportunities given that they best know the students sitting in front of them we would love to partner with the Melrose School Committee to help pass a statewide bill to end all high-stakes testing all high-stakes standardized assessments especially testing that includes graduation requirements uses test scores and educator evaluations and results in school and district leveling we would like for the school committee to consider signing a moratorium on
▶ 7:04 high-stakes standardized tests that we will read and send a copy to for your consideration so the resolution reads whereas our future well-being relies on a high quality public education system that prepares all students for college career citizenship and lifelong learning and whereas our school systems in Massachusetts and across the country have been spending increasing amounts of time money and energy on high-stakes testing in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students educators schools and districts and whereas the over reliance on high stakes and standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in US public schools by hampering
▶ 7:48 educators efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation creativity problem-solving collaboration communication critical thinking and deep subject matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and whereas it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness and whereas the overemphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools including narrowing the curriculum teaching to the test reducing a love of learning pushing students out of school driving excellent teachers out of the profession and undermining
▶ 8:30 school climate and whereas high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects on students from all backgrounds and especially for low-income students English language learners children of color and those with disabilities therefore let it be resolved that the Melrose School Committee supports locally developed authentic assessments and more time for educators to teach and students to learn and therefore let it be resolved that the Melrose School Committee calls on state and federal education policymakers to adopt a moratorium on the high stakes use of standardized tests so that educators parents and other members of our communities can work together to develop assessment systems that support positive teaching practices and better prepare
▶ 9:09 students for lifelong learning and as Kerry said I'll send a copy of that for your future consideration and we want to thank you for your time very good thank you both very much and thank you both very much for all your work much appreciate it are there any other members of the public who wish to address the committee seeing none and without objection the public comment period is now closed and that brings us to the announcements of the superintendent of schools thank you uh first i want to share some kudos for both two of our staff um isaac haven who is our latin teacher is the 2019 Massachusetts Foreign Language Association New Teacher Award for, received the 2019 Massachusetts Foreign Language Association New Teacher
▶ 10:00 Award for Excellence in World Language Teaching. This reward really reflects, you have to see Isaac in action, that's all I can tell you. He's an absolute joy, he loves his kids, his kids love him. He speaks Latin, um our enrollment in latin has grown he really has been a wonderful asset to the district and this is so well earned it's incredible the other kudos is to dr william hurley who came to us not teaching marine science but i asked him several years ago to take on a marine science because we had this giant tank and went after it passionately has pursued multiple courses became part of a program out of um uconn and uri on marine research spent a couple of summers on a boat got kids on the boat um has built our wave tank which i think you all know
▶ 11:02 about we had a grant and he just received an award as the let me get this right um the ocean stewardship award from the new england aquarium as teacher of the year so um really kudos to our staff and the work they're doing and the very very innovative work they're doing um to make um education very meaningful to our kids so great any comments or questions in that regard okay please my you have a memo on late start a quick summary um just to just learn today that arlington will be joining us next year they're moving their start time to 8 30. so within the league we will be up to eight communities within the league out of 12 who have moved to late start and that was the original tent middlesex league would move in this together
▶ 12:00 so we're at that point lexington is changing their time but i'm afraid i think it's only going up to like 745 so that really is not considered beneficial I know that's the note I got the other day on that one I think the most significant impact as I tell you in my my memo at the middle school we've had a 43% drop in tardies that is huge at the high school it's been about 17.3 it's too early to see impact on student outcomes but we are monitoring that as we go along no complaints from the students some complaints about traffic I know some of you have been privy to those complaints about traffic on the parkway and the parkway has always been tough you have approximately 1,800 students and about
▶ 12:55 So 200, 250 adults arriving on campus at the same time, whether it's at, you know, 8 o'clock or 7.45, makes no difference. It's a traffic jam there. We have done traffic studies, as you all know, trying to figure out better ways, and it is a dilemma that we have yet to resolve. There has been some unintentional consequences on athletics. For us personally, there has been a little bit of a bumpy road in adjusting rentals with the rec. That should get better over time. And then some of the other problems that have happened is depending on when the other schools dismiss, they've had some issues around, so we still get out at a reasonable hour, 2.41. But the schools that are getting out, 305, 310, have had to do some early dismissals
▶ 13:51 for tournaments and things like that. But as we all know, the MIAA, if they want to have the golf tournament at 10 o'clock in the morning, you're dismissing your kids at 10 o'clock in the morning. And the last thing is wraparound at the elementary schools actually turned out to be more popular than we thought. It was originally intended for those children whose older siblings come to walk them home. And many parents saw it as, ooh, this is a great opportunity for me to come later for whatever reason, whether I'm doing errands or I'm stuck in the office. And so, as you know, we're going to rethink wraparound, Patty White-Landright will be coming forward later in either, I think probably the beginning of July with a new plan to revisit
▶ 14:38 how we do that service after school. Mr. Soong. Thank you. Thank you for the information here. You comment that it's too soon to tell if there's been an impact on student outcomes in the classroom. Anecdotally, what are you hearing from the staff in terms of productivity, enthusiasm, engagement, homework compliance from the students? I think it's still variable. I think there's multiple factors involved. Overall, we have very, very good kids. I think we all know that. And they are pretty compliant. Because at the same time, other things are happening. We're working on our habits of learning. We're working on test retakes. We're working on more project-based learning. So there's multiple, as you know as a scientist,
▶ 15:30 when you have too many, what am I looking, what's the word I'm looking for? You've got too many variables to. Too many variables. I understand. Thank you. And no control group to compare to. Right, exactly. So that's exactly, so it's a little harder to tell. no i am at the middle school like like i said because their environment's a little bit more controlled you can see it uh in the in the uh toddies because don't forget at the high school we also have um late start for seniors if they don't have a first period class sure okay very good thank you okay mr mccandrick and just following up with that the learning commons is open early right what time like 7 15 or something like that yeah okay so students who
▶ 16:11 need to be there earlier or who need to meet with teachers they still have that opportunity or do a club or something they still have that we do a lot of clubs early in the morning now so that that's that's been helpful and the middle school teacher gives breakfast but they do shoo the kids back outside before it's time to go upstairs okay great thank you for this anything further for the superintendent seeing nothing further thank you superintendent next up is our consent agenda which this evening consists of the following items the school committee regular meeting minutes from May 21 2019 a cafeteria report a personnel report a monthly budget summary and the following warrants FY 19 school s 1 9 0 5 3 the amount of five hundred eighty thousand
▶ 17:00 seven hundred thirty six dollars and thirty five cents FY 19 made meals tax S19054 in the amount of $91.63 and finally FY19 high school wire transfer for the month of May S19055 the amount of $26,596.34 are there any items which any members wish to remove from the consent agenda Ms. McAndrew I'd like to remove the personnel report please and that will go to educational programs and personnel any other items that any members wish to remove from the consent agenda seeing no others is there a motion to approve made by Ms. Driscoll second second by Mayor Inferno all those in favor and that passes unanimously thank you for that and that brings us to the work of our subcommittees first up is policy and cleaning with Ms. Driscoll
▶ 18:08 good evening and on our agenda this evening is the is an update on the strategy overview superintendent thank you um it's in blue red red was mid-year blue is end of year so you can see the progress we have been making a lot of the work this year has been on refining some of the things that we have developed over the past couple of years for personalized learning the scoring rubrics the use of common assessments the introduction of universal design for learning instructional strategies so a lot of the year was spent on refining that on those type of things a tremendous amount of time was spent at the elementary's with doing additional training in PBIS positive behavior intervention and strategies universal design for learning restorative justice and working on their
▶ 19:07 tier two and tier three interventions things that I really want to push out here for you to notice is the work that the staff has been doing about meeting students needs in a variety of ways of course we welcome tinker and I have asked mr. Bolduc to bring tinker to meet all of you you know and tinker is a big hit as a therapy dog and really has made a difference for quite a few children that struggle some days to get through the day the other thing that I want to point out is when we first got here we wrote the DCAP we've totally revised it with input from the staff so that it has it incorporates all the changes we've been doing over the past several years teachers have the ability to make judgments based on their professional opinions their professional knowledge
▶ 20:07 regarding students not every student in Melrose has to have an IEP or a 504 not every student has to have the same accommodations from class to class we trust our teachers to make those professional decisions that will help a child succeed whether it's a change in how they access learning or demonstrate learning if whether it's a change in this schedule the timing of a project we leave that to our teachers professional judgment and the new D camp will reflect that to a greater degree but our staff was already pretty good in implementing those type of accommodations the other thing that I want you to notice is we started a unified basketball with other districts it's been a big hit if you have not seen at least the videos it's just it's just a delight at both general
▶ 21:00 ed and special ed students competing with teams from other other towns so that was another thing that we added again because our focus is on supporting all students and finding those strategies or systems that will enable us to do that the other most significant change that I want to discuss with you and it goes a little bit to the comments you heard earlier tonight we're shifting our focus on intervention from what is typically categorized by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as high needs groups those high needs groups were typically special ed low-income african-american Hispanic what am I leaving out I think that's about covers it you know ELL thank you to the more realistic designation of lowest 25% performance when you had those
▶ 22:04 categories they either hyper accentuated certain groups that were really doing well or they missed other individual students who were struggling because we were focusing on that categorization with the new lowest 25% categorization you're really looking at your data you're saying okay which of our students in a particular class a particular grade are not performing as well as we want them to what are the things that we need to do to help them succeed so it really is a more inclusive model it is a more holistic model at the same time so that we are providing any student who's identified as needing interventions as to receive those interventions and opportunities so we are making that shift and you'll begin to hear more about that as the MCAS results come out
▶ 23:03 questions for the superintendent thank you so this is an impressive body of of work it's always nice to take a look at this and try to think of all the moving parts throughout the year across all the different schools and teams you know with our beginning potential discussion about MCAS today and also the idea of using different types of data to see how we're making progress can you give us a little bit of an understanding of how you determine who is in that lowest 25% quadrant and how you measure progress based on data so two things happen first of all quite frankly Jesse identifies your lowest 25% so but they used they have a couple of sources those of you who are not familiar with EWIS. EWIS has been in effect about five, six years, John? Early
▶ 24:14 Warning Intervention System, where based on a number of factors that they know from our sims, they identify, it's a mathematical calculation, given this child's background, they may be at risk. So EWIS is one source of the information and of course the MCAS scores are the other source more importantly again to the conversation around MCAS Melrose does a lot of its own assessing and data analysis you know at the younger grades we do beginning of the year middle of the year into the year assessments we have common assessments at the middle in the high school our staff spends a lot of time analyzing it we use achievement series to analyze what the outcomes are on those common assessments to identify who's doing well who's not doing well
▶ 25:04 you know where does our curriculum need some strengthening where does our instruction need some strengthening is there a pattern we're seeing among certain certain students on top of it we do the guidance department does a lot of report card analysis you know we don't wait till the end of the year so we're using a lot of local data to decide where those interventions should be and how do we deliver them we put in the flex box at the elementary secondary school specifically for that purpose to give our teachers time to work with students who needed it and other students to work on advanced projects or whatever they may have at the elementary schools they do it very they do it within the classroom because they send up set up tax task centers so when you
▶ 25:54 walk in you may see the teacher working with a group of kids and I may say to the principal when I do my walkthroughs why is she working with that group of kids that may be kids who are struggling or it may be kids who are exceeding and somebody else is working the sped teacher may be in there or the OT or the PT may be in there working with the kids who are struggling and it's all based on the data we collect and we build off of and that that goes on all the time so that we're we're making sure that we're providing our kids with what we need I think the other thing that needs to be said is we've worked very hard to be an inclusive district and take down barriers as you know several years ago
▶ 26:39 when we began to expand our AP courses we decided there should not be a prerequisite for AP because we felt any child who wanted to do the work and take the chance should do it personally as your superintendent I don't care if they get a one two three four or five I know US News and Reports does I don't because what I'm invested in is did the student stretch themselves did they get an idea what a college course is like and what will be expected of them we've begun to do the same thing with honors courses to some degrees we're having some conversations at the high school about should there be certain courses that are unleveled for reasons so that every child we don't have that situation where
▶ 27:25 kids won't go into a certain course because it's not the right weighted rank again all these things are not just about equity and opportunity there are also about how do we make sure every student is getting the rigorous education they deserve and sometimes when you remove these misconceptions about leveling and everybody has to get a rigorous education because that's what the teacher believes in and that's what we believe in it happens without the stress of MCAS or things like that thank you so you mentioned in the under professional culture and community engagement the fourth column you mentioned about the monthly PD of in cultural competence that the teachers are attending right so again we're five years into providing a range of courses
▶ 28:29 in cultural responsiveness social emotional learning inclusive practices and they're really all one when you think about it when you think about what you want when you wanted to build a system that has equity and opportunity you you look at anybody who may need some sort of accommodation or rethinking of the curriculum or rethinking of access so it's a again everybody is responsible for this day in day out it's not you know again you've heard me say this about SEL it's 903 we're going to have our SEL class now let's move on for the day it's something you do six and a half hours a day whether it's cultural responsiveness SEL or inclusive practices and we spent a lot of time offering our teachers training for that our cultural responsiveness is on class
▶ 29:21 we over the years we've used different outside trainers we have a lot of our own people who have been trained a tremendous amount of our people have been trained in trauma-sensitive schools in the leap training that came from the state on poverty in schools so they train other students we have a person that we originally met through Metco who has been fine who provides a series of trainings for us every year in very tough topics around cultural responsiveness I was just doing some catch-up on the work today and one of them was I you know about the development of racial identity how does that occur I mean you know this is not lightweight stuff the other thing is what we did this year is I borrowed a document from another another state
▶ 30:21 actually that is a very good guidance to all our administrators on how you check our resources to be culturally appropriate and there's a checklist in it and it's things questions to ask things to do and then when we went out to do our teacher searches one of the things I did is I gave the interview committees questions that they should be embedding in their questions along these lines so again you know it's stuff and stuff's the wrong word it's it becomes a daily mindset in a daily practice I won't lie to you I won't tell you why it's a hundred percent it's never a hundred percent is your PD Institute is it culture is it voluntary or mandatory it's voluntary right so how is your participation in that this year um i would say it depended on the course the the participation
▶ 31:22 in the sel and the inclusive practices is very good um the the cultural responsiveness is a little bit harder those are tough conversations that people aren't always comfortable with but i would also say to you we're five years into it so you know it's one of those things that you keep chipping away at more and more people every year you reach and just from my own background working in schools oftentimes things are made voluntary so you have people being willing and able to have those tough conversations and if you try to force people to have those tough conversations when they're not ready it doesn't work well so there's a method to that it's not because you're trying to give the people time off you know so I just want to clarify that too
▶ 32:02 is that that's there's actually a strategy in there and you know that when people volunteer to to participate in some sort of training they become you know we use the term early adopters and they begin to have the conversations with their circles you know it's that pebble analogy one other question I have is just and you mentioned that the restorative practices are really happening now at the high school they're beginning to be more and more adopted if you can can you offer any examples of how discipline has possibly changed or will change at a high school level suspension this year we engage in restorative practices you've got to be pretty egregious for us to suspend you so that's a big shift
▶ 32:48 that's a big shift do you have any complaints over that sometimes the other parents are looking for a consequence and they want to know what happened to its student and as we all know it doesn't matter whether there was a consequence or restorative justice you can never discuss what happens to a student after a discipline situation so sometimes that's the frustration but I think that's not necessarily tied to the restorative practice it's just people well did you punish the person parents being protected we we in and right they are and I understand that and the high school administration has a very simple answer we dealt with it in accordance with our code of conduct thank you other questions or comments mr obromsky i'd just like to comment um i'm extremely impressed by the no
▶ 33:45 suspension uh comment that's just off the charts that nobody's been suspended also earlier in the meeting uh with the change in the schedules with the times is just remarkable um the fact that toddies are down uh 40 was a 43 percent and 17 percent and uh just the uh general conversation that was just happening about what's happening in the schools like i think uh it started out as an mcas question but the uh the real things that happen in the schools is day to day and i think parents and kids have to be reminded not to emphasize the mcas test results all there for the educators to look at it's not something that any child should ever be judged on the things that that are happening day to day in the classroom,
▶ 34:37 how the kids are interacting with one another, how the kids are interacting with the adults, the curriculum that's provided by the district, that's the real true signs of a good school district. The things that are happening extracurricular, I know the Roosevelt just did Aladdin, you had Mama Mia, amazing programs. So I just want to emphasize again, not to get stuck on the MCAS, the suspension thing just blew my mind. That's amazing, and they should be congratulated for that. That's fantastic. Thank you. Other questions or comments? And I just wanted to applaud the digital portfolios. Oh, later in grades three to five, I think as you look down the road to higher education, that's where higher education is going,
▶ 35:26 and I think seeing that alignment from relatively young students in our district is forward-thinking and positive. So thank you for that. You're better at it than the adults. And so just by way of explanation for the community at large, this is a report to us. We receive it three times a year. This does not need a vote. So that concludes policy and planning. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Driscoll. Next up, educational programs and personnel with Ms. DeSalle. Thank you, and on tonight's educational programs and personnel docket is an item pulled from the consent agenda, the June 2019 personnel report. At this time, I would entertain a motion to approve for purposes of discussion. So moved. Second.
▶ 36:37 Jennifer McAndrew: Motion made by Ms. Razzi-Thomas, seconded by, I'm sorry, I missed who seconded. uh thank you uh i believe this was pulled by miss mcandrew would you like to speak to this please sure just a quick comment and a question um thank you i i pulled this because i i think um you know sometimes there's a lot of great information in the packet um some of it's you know in all the different parts of the agenda and it's important to highlight things sometimes that we see all the time but just to bring to the attention of the community and in this case and superintendent please comment or correct me if i'm wrong on the personnel report we have a series of positions that are being added the reason is listed as new position as opposed to
▶ 37:26 Jennifer McAndrew: a retirement that's being replaced or someone being transferred from one building to the next or something like that and i believe that those are positions that are being funded because the community pass the override and so i just wanted to give you a chance to comment on that things like making assistant principals at the elementary level full time in one building a new teacher math teacher at the high school new science teacher at the high school so i just wanted to call that out for the community and also give you a chance to comment on that you know as we have spoken and a couple of times that we talked about the school budget it's a little bit of a slow go adding the positions because we want to make sure we're doing it right
▶ 38:08 the one thing we were able to do right away after the vote was to post the high school positions and the middle school positions so we did do that but we have a pretty good process on hiring we do initial interviews and we invite certain candidates back to do a demonstration lesson so we take our time so you're going to begin to see those positions filled as well i'd like to also comment on something else in this that without calling out particular names two or three years ago we went into a partnership with salem state university and to begin to take more practicum teachers and many of those young practicum teachers stayed on as paris and we are beginning to hire them so that investment in that relationship
▶ 38:55 has paid off tremendously. We now are sought out by 15 universities in the area for practicums, to the point that we had to put a system in that we can control it, otherwise we'd be inundated. But I have to say, again, talking about high-quality teaching and learning, how many of those young people that I've been signing in the past two weeks have said to me, oh, I had the greatest experience here my supervising teacher was phenomenal that's why i want to stay um and and i think that people in the community have to recognize that as well thank you any further comment or discussion seeing none all those in favor motion passes unanimously and that concludes educational programs and personnel thank you
▶ 40:03 Thank you, Mr. Salm. That brings us to the announcements to the Chair. First up, Superintendent End-of-Cycle Evaluation Plan. In the packet is a document describing the process that we will follow. It is in keeping with past practice and procedure in this regard. The Superintendent will present a report in this regard at our next meeting on June 25th. The members will be provided an evaluation form use in support of the evaluation process as always members are encouraged to meet with the superintendent one-on-one in this regard and members will be asked to return the completed evaluation form by the June 25th meeting date to me as chair and that will allow me to prepare a an executive summary which will
▶ 41:03 incorporate all of our respective evaluations and I'll present that at our meeting on July 30th any comments or questions in that regard seeing none thank you for that that brings us to the school committee meeting calendar for 2020 I have prepared and included in the packet a proposed meeting calendar for the calendar year 2020 and I was able to prepare that in consultation with the Board of Aldermen I'd like to thank the clerk of committees Kristen foot for her assistance in that regard and her time in that regard as well this does require a vote so for purposes of discussion or otherwise is there a motion to approve I just want to say I'm not I'm not being rude. I'm trying just to check the Jewish holidays. You're okay
▶ 42:05 In 10th, is it when's Veterans Day? Do we do that actually on Veterans Day? I can never remember the 11th November 11th So you're gonna have a meeting the night before when there's no school the next day. So that's just a consideration. Very good Thank You superintendent Any other comments or questions? Just to sound please as has been passed practice approval of these now does not necessarily set them in stone if in the future should we need to adjust this correct thank you I I think your foresight for this and I have no problem doing this knowing that they are not cast in stone very good thank you for that comment I appreciate that is there a motion to approve so moved by mr. Selms seconded by mr. McAndrew any
▶ 42:56 further discussion seeing none all those in favor and that calendar is approved unanimously thank you for that next up under announcements MCAS proposed MCAS resolution this agenda item was actually submitted by Mr. Selm Mr. Selm please thank you so the overarching purpose here is to reaffirm to the community that all are welcome that racism and bigotry have no place place in our schools, in our classrooms, or on our exams. While there are certainly greater topics for discussion here, namely the invalidity or validity, however you view it, of high stakes testing, this resolution is aimed at pushing the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to hold them accountable, such that they should not punish students who took
▶ 43:50 the role of whistleblower, and that if we must operate under a high stakes model, They release their exam questions to districts at the conclusion of the testing year to ensure egregious errors such as this do not happen again. It is important to note a couple things. First, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education upon hearing the public, upon the public learning of this ELA writing prompt pulled it from exams that had not yet been administered and agreed to disregard answers to this question for whom, for those who took exam already. Also, there are five groups back in April who came out in a public statement stating that just this, that they should hold the exam, DESE should hold the exam harmless.
▶ 44:38 Those five groups, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Boston Teachers Union, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance, and the New England Area Conference of the NAACP. And they want it held harmless, regardless of whether the question was removed or was present at the time the students took them, and regardless of how the students scored. My intent is that you review the letter and the resolution, and at this time, I invite and expect suggestions and comments for revision. The intent here is to have you discern over this and that we return with an updated document set for discussion and vote at the next meeting. At this time and with your leave, I would read the letter to Desi.
▶ 45:34 Dated June 11th, 2019, the Honorable Jeffrey C. Riley, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Honorable Katherine Cronin, Chair of the Massachusetts Board of elementary and secondary education 75 pleasant street malden massachusetts commissioner reilly chair Cronin we the members of the mo school committee sorry lost my place are writing to request the department of elementary and secondary education exempt all students who took the 2019 10th grade mcas exam from the graduation requirement this exam was flawed containing a writing prompt from Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad where students were asked to write from the point of view of an openly racist character who actively forsakes slaves
▶ 46:25 attempting to flee to freedom. This question, which required students to adopt a racist point of view in answering the prompt, only provides seeds for furthering racial divides, fostering marginalization and bigotry and has no place in today's educational landscape further we request the department of elementary and secondary education adopt the policy of releasing old mcas exam questions to districts across the commonwealth to ensure no such egregious errors happen again we thank you for considering our views and for all you do for the great commonwealth of massachusetts sincerely members of the city of melrose school committee very good thank you for that at your leave I can read the resolution itself
▶ 47:13 Jennifer McAndrew: I'll be it I believe everyone can read it themselves should they feel the need thank you for that and thank you for bringing this forward both of those documents are in the packet are there any comments or questions at this time yeah if I may I would ask that if you do propose things tonight please put them in writing for me later so I can properly add them proper thank you so much for bringing this up I think it's really important I just wanted to point out I guess for discussion or for your consideration that I think that the language in the resolution itself is not quite the same as alleged the language in the letter and so I think we should sort of make a decision on which way to go so for example in the to make it consistent I think you would want to for
▶ 48:06 Jennifer McAndrew: example add the word English before MCAS or after MCAS to make clear that this was being held harmless in the 10th grade MCAS English exam not which is in the resolution but not in the letter I wouldn't I don't think we're implying that we would suggest this applies to math and biology so that was one thing and then in the letter and you mentioned this when you're in the resolution it says you know be it resolved to exempt students who took the test with the rejected question but the letter just says to exempt students who took the test and so I think we need to decide what which sort of which we mean and then either make the resolution consistent with the letter or vice versa because it is a big difference I mean I understand that either way this is just
▶ 49:02 Jennifer McAndrew: a request putting forward our views to the Commissioner to do as he will but I do think we should make that clear so again going back to the conversation we've been having equity if you just reject the kids who took the test with the objectionable question there are other students who still then I know that need the ELA for their graduation is that what you're getting at I'm not suggesting that right or wrong I'm just saying that what we have in two documents does saying both things and so we we need to make I would think the resolution consistent with what you said and what's in the letter if we mean holding all students who took the 10th grade MCAS in 2019 harmless from the graduation requirement then we should say that in the resolution to not just
▶ 49:58 students who took because we don't know right who i mean well they know they know but we don't know they know but we do not know right mr obramsky yeah i would like to see it just cover the entire mcast i mean the ela test is given first it completely disrupted uh the testing environment for all students across the state uh it was uh very obvious that the question was inappropriate but I mean that the MCAS test itself as a high-stakes test it that's what it's evolved into originally that wasn't its intent its intent was originally just a line curriculum across the state and it was given only in fourth eighth and tenth grade and then it's evolved into this test that's really bigger than life
▶ 50:47 some school districts it just encompasses almost everything they do which is ridiculous and it's a test based more on selling textbooks than anything then really trying to see what kids are doing or what they are learning and I think that can be emphasized just by this one question that we're talking but I I can reference questions that go back years we we had a question many years ago revolving around a snow day it was an essay question and that's when they released all the questions but in the district where I work we hadn't had a snow day in two years and we have kids from all over the world they had no idea what a snow day was and they're answering a question oh it's a great day it's a snow day and the assumption that a snow day is a great day was crazy
▶ 51:41 because it's not a great day for some kids it disrupts their whole day so I think we really should emphasize the fact that you know we are in complete disagreement with this as a graduation requirement for any student who took the MCAS test you know it's it's an interesting that you bring it up John because we were just talking about cultural responsiveness and it's a test that's never been culturally responsive my favorite story is about the fourth grade math test in which they had asked kids to find the diameter of a patio there were kids who didn't know what a patio was no equestrian some of the questions revolve around equestrian right it's it's it's absolutely ridiculous the way that some of the questions are formulated and that they're
▶ 52:30 Jennifer McAndrew: ASSUMED TO BE VETTED, BUT I DON'T KNOW. MS. MCKINDREA, PLEASE. SO JUST BUILDING ON THAT, I WONDER THEN IF THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO EXPAND THIS LETTER EVEN FURTHER, NOT TO GIVE MR. SELM MORE WORK, AND I'M HAPPY TO HELP, TO TALK ABOUT ALL OF THESE ISSUES AROUND HIGH-STAKES TESTING. AND THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A BLATANT EXAMPLE, AND WE KNOW ABOUT IT ONLY, AS YOU POINTED OUT, BECAUSE OF STUDENTS AND THEIR their educators who advocated who stepped forward and talked about it when they're instructed not to actually um so i wonder if that i mean i'm just wondering if given mr ramsay's comments if that's something that the committee is interested in um making a slightly more expansive statement using this as an example mr please um i think that's a really interesting um idea i do think
▶ 53:25 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: I think that there is benefit sometimes in asking for something very specific at a specific time with a specific request and an outcome date. Like you want, I think you're asking to do something within a certain period of time that affects certain students. And I think, I would hate to see that message get lost in a bigger issue that sometimes evokes emotion around people. I'm not opposed to having that kind of discussion. I just would hate to muddy the waters, and I think it would give us more time to reflect on the larger issue. And any position we might want to take. Just a thought. Mr. Sall, please. If I may redirect, to all three of my colleagues' points. This, or some version of this that is very limited,
▶ 54:20 Jennifer McAndrew: already passed uh medford school committee and somerville school committee and is under discussion in malding currently that i'm aware of um i would welcome a greater resolution i think mr school's point to a narrow view is helpful um and and very pointed um I might suggest, Ms. McAndrew, that we look at this in concert with a second one that looks at a greater issue. Ms. McAndrew, please. That's fine with me. I'm actually not suggesting changing the resolution itself. I'm talking about changing the preamble in the letter. Really? Because I think Mr. Obremski is bringing up important context about this sort of, I agree, we're asking for this one specific thing around this egregious example,
▶ 55:13 Jennifer McAndrew: but it's it is indicative of a pattern and that of that is not maybe known to many people and and there are other issues around high-stakes testing that and disparities among students that I think is probably worth you know writing into the setting the context of the letter but I'm not suggesting besides the few changes I recommended to the resolution I'm not suggesting changing what we're actually asking them to do this year back to the strategic plan to we were talking a lot about cultural competence and responsive teaching and learning and that if a test doesn't match our values that we should definitely have a longer deeper conversation about it because you know I think everyone around the table is very invested in having an inclusive
▶ 56:11 district inclusive practices and also uh trying to work on you know the problem of racism as it exists in our world so um i i also enjoyed the comments made during public comment we could potentially look at the letter that was offered to us today but not tonight to make any decisions about but we can certainly have that influence our conversation further because i think we all all want the same thing which is one community open to all and if we're going to challenge you know I think DESE offers great training that I've gone to about lots of different things and it's good to reflect back to them that if they want teachers and educators to be excellent that they have to offer an excellent product too so I don't think we're going to ever get to the point
▶ 57:01 where we have to we can get rid of standardized testing because I think It's part of the world that we live in right now, but we can certainly ask for what they would want from us. I think that's appropriate. Well said. Mr. Wierbski. I think also, from the Department of Ed's standpoint, they're always saying data drives instruction, data drives instruction, and that's been the emphasis for years. In the past, they've dismissed the fact that now we're taking the test, it's completely computer-based, and all the data, if you looked at it through the years, kids would perform better if it were paper paper and pencil they completely dismissed that the idea that for years the department of ed has said you know we're not ranking school districts we
▶ 57:45 don't rank school districts like the boston globe would publish a ranking of school districts now there is a percentage there's a rank on the accountability standards i i think that the idea that they're going to allow this question to go by a kid taking that test seeing that question what did that do to that kid on that day and it just further emphasizes what we were saying earlier like parents can't rely that right rely on this test as an indicator of their child success the best indicator of a child's success is to go and talk to your kid's teacher and they will tell you how the child is doing how the child is performing and the child's growth but this this test in this specific test this year the 10th grade test is it should be
▶ 58:32 completely dismissed by anyone who wants to have a fair and equitable testing practice it's just it's ridiculous thank you very good thank you any further comments questions alrighty so more to come on this it sounds like some work to be done do you have any final comments or thoughts as to how we should proceed in this regard mr. some so as to not violate any open meeting law what is the best way to to to invite comment and revision so I would say at the next meeting if you would maybe consider the suggestions that have been made this evening and everybody come with any additional suggestions we will have the packet at the same time as the public on Friday we read that and we come with any
▶ 59:37 additions and they can be discussed and we can reach consensus and and as per my understanding if miss McAndrew and I were to collaborate on this it would not be it would still be within the norms excellent thank you very good thank you all for that a worthwhile discussion thank you so much finally do we have any liaison reports seeing none is there a motion to adjourn so moved made by mr. Ozzie Thomas seconded by miss Driscoll all those in favor and we are adjourned