School Committee — 2019-06-25

School Committee Regular Meeting

This meeting starts at 0:00 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● JUNE 25, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176

(ID # 7329) Executive Session To approve executive session minutes of June 11, 2019

(ID # 7328) 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 # 7326) Announcements - Superintendent Superintendent Updates (5 minutes)

(ID # 7325) Consent Warrants Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 7/17/2019 8:32 AM Minutes Melrose School Committee June 25, 2019

(ID # 7317) Educational Programs and Personnel Special Education Programming and Enrollment (30 minutes)

(ID # 7316) Educational Programs and Personnel After School Wrap Around Program (15 minutes) vote required

(ID # 7271) Educational Programs and Personnel Final Program Review: Science (45 minutes)

(ID # 7318) Educational Programs and Personnel School Cancellation Pilot Evaluation and Recommendation (15 minutes) vote required

(ID # 7327) Educational Programs and Personnel MCAS Resolution (10 minutes) vote required

(ID # 7319) Finance and Facilities Summer Maintenance and Capital Improvements: Update and Plans (10 minutes)

(ID # 7320) Policy and Planning Enrollment Expectation: Fall 2019 (10 minutes)

(ID # 7321) Announcements - Chair Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation Progress Report (15 minutes)

(ID # 7322) Announcements - Chair Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation (15 minutes)

(ID # 7323) 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 7/17/2019 8:32 AM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Good evening, one and all. Welcome to the meeting of the Melrose School Committee for this 25th day of June, the year 2019. For the record, this meeting is being recorded and broadcast. As is our custom, let us stand as we are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. First order of business is the committee's need for an executive session. We do have need for an executive session this evening. We will be returning to public session after the executive session. THE BASIS FOR THE NEED FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION IS AS FOLLOWS. TO APPROVE EXECUTIVE SESSION MINUTES OF JUNE 11, 2019 AND TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING REGARDING A MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT WITH THE MELROSE EDUCATION

▶ 0:59 ASSOCIATION UNIT A, WHEN AN OPEN DISCUSSION WILL HAVE A DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON THE NEGOTIATING POSITION OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE. THAT SAID, IS THERE A MOTION TO ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION? SO MOVED. by mr. Selms seconded by miss McAndrew miss Hogan would you call the roll please yes yes yes yes and that motion to adjourn to executive session passes five in favor two absent and we are so adjourned and we are returned to public session for the record let me state the results of our executive session as follows the school committee approved the executive session minutes of June 11 2019 and the school committee also approved an agreement with the Melrose Education Association such that for the upcoming school year the president of

▶ 2:03 the MEA will be afforded partial release time for the purpose of conducting union business and the MEA will reimburse the district for the cost to cover said release time and that agreement is subject to ratification by the MEA board which we expect in September next up is the public comment portion of our meeting this is the portion of our meeting when members of the public are afforded the opportunity to address the committee on matters that are within the purview or authority of the school committee without objection the public comment period shall be open are there any members of the public who wish to address the committee miss couch nice to see you again welcome back I am the special ed parent Advisory Council chair so just wanted to update the committee

▶ 2:56 we had our last meeting of the year on June 3rd we voted on our bylaws and voted in a new and expanded board for our CPAC which includes five officers at large as well as the vice chair and the chairperson so and this year I sent the email today to the larger group and just kind of outlined some of our what I think our wins for this year and so the focus of CPAC this year was on relationship building and collaboration with the district school committee and the community as a whole some of the highlights from the past year were that we had a table at the Victorian Fair which was exciting we had a presence at all the open houses and were able to bridge in with the principals and the ptos of most every

▶ 3:39 school with the help support and input from cpac members myself and mary our vice chair created a presentation titled how top schools spend to save the financial implications of best practices and we were invited to speak at many different pto meetings as well as school committee to share the presentation and we were also able this year to collaborate with the out of district coordinator who's leaving julie and jen chernisky to have out of district families gain access to in-district emails at their community schools which was actually really huge for us so our new board members we have five new board members the first is amanda cormier she has two children at winthrop elementary and she runs the running club in the library there she's formerly an

▶ 4:28 attorney specializing in family law and she recently completed a training at the federation for children with special needs to become a special ed advocate patricia dolan who has a 14 year old who now attends melrose high school she's a in addition to her position as officer manager in the financial service sector she's currently the middle school cpac rep and has been a long time cpac member noreen donovan has three children one who graduated melrose high another who's a current melrose high student and the third is at the tech school she's also a licensed clinical psychologist in a local group practice and she has previously served on the cpac board as a long-time cpac member heather mcdonald has four children ranging from age six to sixteen

▶ 5:13 she has two boys who are receiving special ed services and mps she's been a melrose resident for the last 16 years she's currently the melrose cpac liaison for lincoln elementary school and the middle school liaison for this past year and lastly carolyn ormond is a mother of twin 10th graders one of them is at melrose high the others out of district place both participate in marching band carolyn oversees the parent group for the band she was the vice president of the horseman pto for three years and the middle school pto co-president and has her master's in education working in higher education for the last 13 years and then there's mary was voted back in to be vice chair she has two children at roosevelt elementary school

▶ 6:01 for next year and a background in program development and branding and served as the vice chair this past year and then i was voted back in for to be chairperson um and i think everyone knows i have a 14 and 16 year old who were both out of district place in second grade each and just came back into melrose high for next year so that's really exciting that worked really hard probably two kids with just a lot of perseverance and grit so they're back um and that's it so we're just looking forward to a great next year and the great board and it's going to be really exciting thanks for letting me speak terrific it's all great news and congratulations on your re-election seeing no other members of the public

▶ 6:47 present and without objection the public comment period will be closed that brings us the announcements of the superintendent of schools hi thank you uh it's quiet thankfully um most of the staff and um students are gone as is our practice last year we had a last year last week we had a full week of professional development thank you dr adams a lot of staff were on campus still actively involved and this week is the three-day administrators retreat we just finished day two we are continuing our work on personalized learning and today we updated the strategy overview which we will have for you in september terrific any comments or questions for the superintendent seeing none thank you superintendent and that

▶ 7:41 brings us to the consent agenda which tonight consists of the following items the school committee regular meeting minutes for june 11 2019 and the warrants as follows fy 19 school s19056 in the amount of 543 172 dollars and 18 cents fy 19 june debit card s19057 the amount of 122 dollars and 50 cents and fy 19 school s19058 in the amount of twenty thousand three hundred and eighty five dollars in 68 cents are there any items which any member wishes to remove from the consent agenda seeing none is there a motion to approve the consent agenda made by mr selm seconded by miss razzie thomas all in favor and that passes with five in favor and two absent and that brings us to the work of our subcommittees first up is educational programs and personnel with mr selm

▶ 8:41 Good evening and welcome to the Educational Programs and Personnel Subcommittee. On tonight's agenda, starting off, will be the Special Education Programming and Enrollment. Superintendent? Thank you, Mr. Selm. As we discussed a few months ago, we thought it would be best if Patty White-Lambright, the Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services, came forward prior to the end of fiscal year to update you on um some of the achievements and challenges of this past year some of the changes we're predicting for next year and some of the anticipated needs so with that miss white lambright hello everyone um i shared with you i started off when i was thinking about my update um i shared with you just a little bit about the wonderful experience i feel like i have

▶ 9:57 every time we have graduation i so enjoy going to that ceremony and sitting and watching as students go by and celebrate their accomplishments and i shared with you a couple of just emotions that i was feeling as I got to watch students who I know not everybody knows but at times I know the struggles that they have had as they have gone through the school the challenges that they've met and along the way how many people support them to earn their high school diploma and participate in that graduation and I love our tradition of asking anyone who students choose to hand them that diploma and I'm always impressed when not only are there many high school staff members but middle school staff members and even sometimes

▶ 10:58 elementary school staff members and just kind of shows that culmination of the journey that students have taken so I just shared with you some of my experiences that day but I think it really highlights some of our basic premises in special education that our obligation to provide a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting and again I always like to remind those watching and the committee our obligation is to to provide services from students from the age of three until they earn a high school diploma or turn 22. so currently we have 656 students identified as being eligible for special education services they break out as 50 students at the preschool level 250 students at the

▶ 12:00 elementary 145 students at middle school 127 students at the high school for post-grad so that 18 to 22 year old 45 students out of district and 35 students who we call service only so they are Melrose residents who attend schools other than the Melrose public schools but they're eligible to receive special education services so that's kind of our overall breakdown of how our students spread out by grade ranges so in thinking about special education always are working off our district beliefs of which it we talk about creating safe supportive and welcoming schools all schools staff and members of the community can thrive in that type of environment so I was thinking how can we create and support our students with special needs within our public school

▶ 13:08 system and in order to do that sometimes we're looking at bringing in outside consultants to help us think about problems and we've had a successful relationship this year with Wodeco children services Wodeco is an organization that started off many years ago by providing summer programming for students who really could not find a summer program and so they started off through summer programming and they've developed into providing school year programming and consultation to districts so we started working with them and one of the reasons I thought about having them come in is that we have often we do a lot of good work and we know what we're doing and we talk about it but we don't always put that down in writing like what's that recipe

▶ 14:12 for success and what we did was have Wodeco come in and work with the Roosevelt school staff for our therapeutic learning classroom our TLC program at the Roosevelt that services students on the autism spectrum and we met and we talked and we said what is it that you're doing that's helping our students to meet with success and through their input and through the guidance of Wodeco we came up with a logic model for the TLC program and I think that process the staff really felt invested in having those conversations and reinforcing what they're doing and why they're doing something it's a very valuable experience and now one that we have documented this is our recipe this is what's been working to make this a successful program my plan is to utilize

▶ 15:19 that so we're here at elementary we need to go down to our preschool and up to our middle school and then high school with that same kind of process so all of that information has been captured in what makes successful programming so that's been an exciting body of work for the whole school year and then moving on to the middle school we have continued our work in having general education and special education teachers work together collaborate this continued collaboration between provides continuity of language and approaches for students whether they're in large group settings or small group settings and I did want to also highlight that we had a success at the middle school this year where under the

▶ 16:19 leadership of interim principal Jamie Parsons and special ed coordinator Susie Diodis we had no students from the middle school go out for 45 day placements that's the first time in eight years okay so that was an accomplishment and I think again it talks about the type of programming that we have available at the middle school so that's been successful I was happy that see so at the high school we've been working with some changes also come opportunities so we have a high school special ed teacher who has been with us for many years Tim Morris who is retiring and has been our alternative education special ed teacher and so we started to think what do we need to do what can we do differently with that programming and the students who have

▶ 17:32 been in our alternative program have been students identified on as having special needs they've been on an IEP and they are there to help receive their academic needs but also social and emotional support and as we talk with our school administrators and our teachers we continue to see a growing need for not only special education students but all students who maybe have periods of time when they're struggling with emotional needs and need some additional support and additional options so we wanted to think about how we could create a program in which all students needs could be met not only kids who have an IEP so next year we're looking at our alternative program and it's a little bit different way of thinking about things we're going to be

▶ 18:33 having general education teachers coming into our what has been traditionally special education programming. So we have English teachers who have on their schedule a period of teaching within the alternative program. So bringing in that general ed component paired with our special ed teacher, we will be able to service both special education students and general education students. And ultimately, our goal is to provide for students what they need when they need it so this is an exciting new option for us we'll be doing some work over this summer with all of those staff who are involved with the programming so that people are prepared and ready to go for september so that's an exciting change for us

▶ 19:27 so thinking about the future we always have to continue to look ahead assess what we're doing and keep thinking about the future our special education numbers have increased about 30 students from this time last year and i think in general reflect our increasing enrollment in the district but it's not just looking at the number of students it's again the needs of the students and i always look to the early childhood center as a good barometer so we continue to have students coming in to the franklin with more complex special needs and medical needs so as i think about that that kind of gives me a lens of what type of training do i need to plan for Thinking in the future about the need for potentially increasing specialist support, OT, PT, speech and language,

▶ 20:33 augmentative communication, BCBA, social workers, psychologists, those type of positions. So that's kind of looking at our increasing needs as we go in district. district, but we also have to look at our needs for our out-of-district students as well. So around this time last year when I came to speak with you, we had 43 students out of district, and currently we have 45 students out of district. So that's not a significant increase in numbers, but again, numbers don't tell the whole story. about the type of need and the type of placement that is required for students I came earlier in the year and spoke with you about two students had who had moved into the district who were in collaborative placements and you

▶ 21:37 recall that when students move into a district from a collaborative placement we immediately pick up both programmatic responsibility and financial responsibility so as soon as those kids move in we take that on I've also been I started to share with you at an earlier meeting that we've had two other students who have moved into the district those students are not in collaborative placements those students have been placed in residential programs by the districts where they were attending school so when those students move in we become programmatically responsible but we do not become financially responsible immediately but beginning on July 1st we will be financially responsible for those two residential placements and the total

▶ 22:40 cost of those two residential placements are approximately five hundred thousand dollars so that again two placements numbers alone don't tell the story it's the total need these are clearly students with significant needs their previous teams including their families and the staff that knew them in whatever district they came from determined that these students require residential placement in order to have their needs met and as an administrative team working with the city we are exploring how we will meet that cost of the additional five hundred thousand dollars um so again that's our responsibility beginning um july 1st thank Thank you, Ms. Dwight-Lambright. On that note. On that note. Are there any comments or discussion from the committee?

▶ 23:49 Ms. Rezzi-Thomas. Thank you for your inspirational note at the beginning of your overview. It warmed my heart when I was reading it and that rarely happens when I'm reading the packet. But I take a creative approach this time. I was wondering if you know and I probably should have sent you this question earlier and it didn't but if you know what the breakdown is for 504 plans versus IEPs in terms of special needs for students so I don't have that number off the top of my head we have far fewer 504 plans than we do have students identified in special needs but I don't have that specific breakdown but that's something you'd like we certainly could provide they're included in the total number though no not included the 655 so after a number is still

▶ 24:42 classified as general ed okay yeah the definitions of 504 was considered general and not special ed so it's those are 656 students with IEPs okay but on a 504 plan you can be receiving services like counseling some other services too Yes. Even though you may not be receiving educational services. Right, so the difference is- So I just want to explain it for people at home. So the difference is whether or not the disability impacts your ability to make effective school progress. Okay? So you may be making effective school progress and not need an IEP, which would provide you either modified curriculum of some sort. So on a 504, you may have a disability that impacts your ability to perform life activities.

▶ 25:36 So for example, if you cannot get around a building because you have some sort of physical handicap, you may be eligible for a 504, but you're obviously able to perform your schoolwork to the best of your ability, make progress. You don't need an IEP, you just need a 504 for accommodations. you have a 504 for students who have asthma or adhd not as many students with adhd end up on ieps as they did 25 years ago more of them are on 504s than they were sometimes we have kids on 504s who have anxiety because again they need some accommodations for life activities but not modifications for educational progress so miss landbright are you the one tracking all that or do they have someone else doing that that fall under you uh it ultimately falls under me yeah

▶ 26:32 um however um how 504 runs within the district is each building principal at the elementary level is responsible for the 504s they are if you will the 504 building coordinators so each building principle organizes how the 504 process that whole information sharing meetings around 504 so elementary it's the building principles at the secondary level our director of guidance is the 504 coordinator for 6 through 12 could get those numbers absolutely thank you any further discussion mr o'connell just a quick question um through the chair and miss white lambright thank you for the presentation um illuminating as always um in terms of the process for the out of district placements and i i suppose i should know this but

▶ 27:33 i don't know who decides where a student is going is that that the administrative team that's involved it's it's a team process so if the students needs can it's been determined through the team meeting that a student's needs can't be met in district then there's a discussion about possible placements so there is a number of special education approved schools within Massachusetts and depending on what type of need what age different schools take a certain population in a certain age and so there's a conversation at the team meeting about can the students needs being met at we always first go to collaboratives because collaboratives are an extension of public school and so can their needs be met at our case scene collaborative but sometimes it could be lab

▶ 28:37 collaborative or accept collaborative but beyond that a student may need a different type of instruction so it's again it's a team process parents have to sign a release for where we can send referral packets you send that information to those programs and then the programs make a determination if the student is a match for their program or not and then we go through the process of parents visiting students visiting and then ultimately making a placement decision about should it be this place or that place so it's all through the team process that's great that's very helpful and a follow-up question if I may please who is typically on the team what are these teams comprised of so So each person has a person who can commit resources for the district.

▶ 29:34 Typically, it's a team chairperson. We call them special education coordinators in our district, so that's an administrative position, the classroom teacher. Anybody who's been providing service, and in case of an out of district, the student would have been on an IEP. So it would be any service provider, special ed teacher, OTPT, whatever. School psychologists might be involved in, again, depending on the needs. The building principal would be at that table. If it's at the high school level, you'd have the school counselor there as well, the parents, and if a student's 14 years or older, the student. Great. Again, very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. further discussion I did have a couple questions if there is no further

▶ 30:31 discussion particularly liked your phrasing that we we have an obligation to provide free and appropriate education and the most unrestricted setting I think that really outwardly sets the tone of what we're trying to do I really appreciated that you send it I was curious with regards to I'm gonna to say this wrong. WEDECO? WEDECO. Does WEDECO fill roles that SEAM does not? Is that why we have that collaboration? Yes. So it's a different, I think SEAM fills a lot of our needs. But as far as consultation on certain types of programs so scene does not do that kind of logic model building so where you are doing a needs assessment of a current programming and you're figuring out what are those aspects seen doesn't do that

▶ 31:35 type of work for us so with depending on the type of program I want to look at I might go to an added you know a different group I also have used like landmark school I've had consultants who come into both the middle school and the high school to provide consultation on language based programming so again it just depends on the specialty and what we're looking to accomplish who might be the best person to come and help us do that thank you for that and then would you for those at home that are watching would you elaborate on what 45 day placements are and expand on the significance of why we had none last year so um a 45-day placement can be a it's a short-term placement that again the school team

▶ 32:38 along with the parents make a decision that for a variety of reasons sometimes we might have we might be in a situation where there's a continuing set of challenges that a student is having and requires we believe may require a higher level of support so we may go to a 45-day placement in which they're conducting an assessment to help us determine what level of support or what type of programming does the student need and in some cases they can go through that process and say gee I think our middle school access program if you could also do this component or they'll give us suggestions about what kind of pieces we can include on that students programming in district and the student can come back to district and we can

▶ 33:41 work those in and support this student here other times it might be determined that the student's level of need is higher than what we can provide in district and they may recommend that the students stay in a day placement and go out of district for the next school year or the remainder of the school year oftentimes the 45-day component tends to be around social, emotional, and behavioral needs. And currently, I think for next year, just, again, we don't make the decision based on money. I'm just giving you this information. A 45-day placement for next school year at SIEM Collaborative will be over $11,000. dollars and so if you are able to not have the need to do 45-day placements you know it's a cost savings to the district but it's also telling me that

▶ 34:50 at least given the current needs of students our middle school programming is meeting those students needs very well thank you very much if there's no further discussion I thank you for this report and discussion madam chair does it make sense that we change the order of business since we have miss Whiteman right here I know she has something else on the agenda I am perfectly amenable to that so you're proposing we go to after-school wraparound services very well madam superintendent would you like to introduce after-school wraparound sure so last year when we made the move to later start time one of these pieces of feedback we had received from the community was a concern that a number of high school and middle school students walk over to a local elementary school

▶ 35:46 to escort home a younger sibling and with the change in time there would be a gap in which those students at the elementary school would need coverage so we created this short fix called wraparound services inexpensive meant to be no more than a half hour and when we first did it we thought not that many kids maybe 60 and lo and behold it became very popular with parents and we were up to how many Patty some of the buildings were some of the buildings were having 60 students a day right never mind across five schools and so it became unwieldy to manage and who was there who wasn't there who was supervising them what were they doing so we took a step back and said okay maybe we need to return turn to another line on the ed stations program and rethink

▶ 36:49 wraparound so after a lot of conversation this winter this white lamb right is here to present a new option for that gap of time between the new end of day for elementary is 2 20 2 3 3 15 so exactly what the superintendent had shared our purpose with wraparound was to provide a supervised setting in which students would wait quietly for an hour that expectation may have been unrealistic and the feedback from student from the principals was that this was actually pretty challenging not to have a more structured piece for students and in thinking about the type of programming we have already a well-established after-school program education stations and how can we hold that piece in and so my idea is that we would in fact discontinue wraparound we

▶ 38:07 would provide a shorter term so currently parents can have their students stay at education stations until 430 or until six o'clock we would be instituting what we came up with the idea of the express line for this one hour period of time so it would be from 220 to 320 students would go into education stations we have our system of how we keep track of everyone so parents would have to register we would know who's there we would provide them with a snack we will provide them with structured activity and or opportunities for outdoor play as opposed to just supervising them in a enclosed setting and that's what wraparound was so this would be more engaging for students also give them that snack time and be provided

▶ 39:15 supervision by education station staff in order to provide that level of programming I would be looking to increase wraparound service which the cost had been five dollars I am looking I am proposing that we provide that service at the rate of twelve dollars which I know is a significant increase from five however we would be providing more programming and a snack for students and I think a more engaging experience for the students that need to stay the group of people that we had designed wraparound for when we talked about the change in the end times the high school students coming over whether they were siblings or babysitters that's really not the group who has been taking the most advantage of wraparound time so I think this is a good option for people

▶ 40:27 who need additional time and will provide the students with the more enriching hour than trying to wait quietly for pickup so that's my proposal so since you voted on ed stations earlier we are basically asking you to revote this mr. O'Connell Thank You miniature so for purposes of discussion if any I would make a motion to approve the proposed express line after school option and the proposed tuition rate for same do I have a second second motion made by mr. O'Connell second by miss McAndrew discussion miss McAndrew thank you I think it makes a lot of sense to put this in its stations for some of the reasons you described I had a few questions that I think would be helpful to maybe add to the description of this program before we go out so I would

▶ 41:31 Jennifer McAndrew: assume then that the registration fee to ed stations would still and the other fees here would still apply for families who choose this is that right so like a late fee all these fees that are here okay and could families choose to use express lane on some days and the blue or green lane on other days yes okay so there'd be so that will be added to this grid somehow okay I think that would be helpful and is there a sibling discount like there are for the blue and green lines for this I'm sorry miss the son was trying to help me navigate my screen and I wasn't doing a good job that's okay I'm asking whether so for the blue so you you could see a scenario where families would choose different lanes on

▶ 42:18 different days of the week based on their schedules and for the other lanes there are sibling discounts so I'm wondering if there's also gonna be a sibling discount for the express lane or not so we had not discussed a sibling discount we had there wasn't a discount for wraparound right but it was but as you pointed out it's a pretty big increase right I mean we do have discounts for siblings and all of our other options so I think that could be a reasonable piece that we could add into it I'd have to I don't know what that actually is I guess I'd have to think about but I think that would be reasonable yeah and we kind of so let me look at this a moment so if your sibling discount so like in the is about it depends I know how many days and this is

▶ 43:18 Jennifer McAndrew: a comp that's why I think having the grid with the express lane on here for sibling would be because I know it depends and that makes sense to me that like if you're only using edge if you're using it five days the discounts well maybe the discount rate is not I don't know after I would didn't do this counts about 20% maybe not exact but miss McAndrew are you asking that we amend the proposal to include in a sibling discount of approximately 20% or are you asking that we well I think that would be appropriate but I also don't know if the calculation of $12 was based on like I assume you're gonna have if you have 60 kids at some schools using this you're gonna have additional staff ed stations and if that was figured in I was just asking I think it could be I

▶ 44:12 Jennifer McAndrew: mean I would support that like $12 and $10 or however makes sense but I you know I just wanted to I think it's something we should talk about so I think that's a reasonable piece it's so in with our structure currently one of the discussions that we had today with the elementary principals is that we need to get this out to parents soon as I know along with a letter explaining the new end of day time yes so you know how do you want to proceed since you have to vote this right so we could make a motion to have the express line added to the you know to the twelve dollars per day for first child ten dollars per day for sibling I get that and but I don't want to I if you think that that is still and I get that we're a little bit in a guessing game here because you

▶ 45:16 don't know how many students are going to use this it's brand new I suppose if we get to a situation where any of these options is no longer tenable you come back to the committee so it's reasonable I would I guess amend the motion to to fit that proposal and madam chair I would consider that a friendly amendment you would consider that a friendly amendment excellent thank you so the friendly amendment is that we accept the current proposal here and add a $10 our sibling fee as opposed to the full rate for each sibling any further discussion miss McKay our mr. Ozzie Thomas I just want to say it's great I think we have the flexibility for families to go up or down in terms of the amount of time that they're in care and I also think it's probably makes a

▶ 46:10 lot of sense to have it more structured but it was also like a year where you were trying a lot of things out so I think it was good that you tried it but also it makes sense that you can't have a kid unstructured the first hour after school when they really need to go run around and play and to have fun and not be quiet so it is a huge bump up in terms of the cost but I also think the flexibility goes a long way that parents can keep choosing how much or how little little care they they need based on their schedules that so they and then they get if they they pay all this after the fact they get billed after the fact no they'll have a register they're gonna have to register and decide what they're

▶ 46:56 doing and then if things change yep and they get to change on a monthly basis as everyone else and then if they need more flexibility we also option of the drop in days and we switched that this year we had you had to do ten and now people have the option of just doing five just to give you know flexibility so and just I'll just mention for people that you know we were trying to come up with something again like you said to meet the need of this school year and in that process if you recall back in FY 18 we used to have what we called the red line and I went back just to see what that comparison so an hourly rate for the red line from FY 18 was $15.75 so we're not going back to that and it's I know

▶ 48:02 know it's more than the five dollars but I think the twelve dollars was a reasonable place to land thank you any further discussion okay all in favor motion passes 5 4 2 absent thank you very much and I think you are done for the evening thanks thank you at this time we will begin the final program review for science i would invite dr adams to uh the table uh and miss greenwood i'm sorry yes of course uh superintendent would you like to so as you know we have a as well-established process of program reviews we began it seven years ago we are making our way through every content area and the program reviews overlap this is year two of science so therefore it's the final year energy one of wellness and they will come forward in the fall to present on their first year

▶ 49:09 i also remind the committee that science we ngss came into the national science standards came in and the new state frameworks came into being three years ago so while we were doing this review it was opportune because we were also assessing for how we were making that transition to the new standards and what work remains to be done on those standards. Dr. Adams, Ms. Greenwood. So I just want to start by thanking the teachers especially the teachers that participated in the review so the teachers that participated were Kelly Bradley, Blair Cochran, Gabor Kiosian, Jess Lombardi, Sarah McLaughlin, Carrie Scott, and Jillian Victor and then we also had Marilyn Cobbs, Michael McLaughlin, Jamie Parsons participate on

▶ 49:58 the committee so a big thanks to them for taking part in this giving up their time in the afternoons to work with us on this so we start with the key questions the essential questions that we established for the science program review so the first one was how is the science curriculum instruction and assessment aligned vertically and horizontally how effectively are the science practices utilized how are they aligned horizontally and vertically how How well does the science instruction prepare students to be effective global citizens for STEM and other careers? How frequently do students have opportunities to make real-world connections? And lastly, how well does the science instruction curriculum and assessment meet the varied

▶ 50:42 needs of students, including our high-needs students, students with disabilities, and our English language learners? So our process is similar to other program reviews. began the first year by with a review of the curriculum the instruction and the assessment each grade span collects information from colleagues presents them and we take each of the questions and kind of try to answer the questions based upon that kind of program review looking at documents looking at data looking at the curriculum and we try to see how those that document kind of review and collection reflects and answers those key questions we develop some surveys of both families teachers and students the surveys for students

▶ 51:35 are done at middle school in high school and at the elementary we do smaller focus groups usually a fourth or fifth graders and ask their opinions those surveys try to reflect and gather information again on our questions we have one full day in the fall where we invite districts other school districts to come and spend a day with us it's a very full day goes from 8 in the morning until 4 and they visit sometimes 10 or 12 classrooms they meet with teachers they meet with students and again they're collecting and giving us feedback at the end of the day they give us feedback on what they saw in response to our key questions that we identified the group also then ends does kind of a triangulation of data where we look at all that data that we've collected and

▶ 52:30 says what do what are the answers to those key questions and then begins a process of action planning and trying to devise based upon the strengths and the needs that we've identified a plan to move forward to help move the science curriculum and instruction in the district forward so the first thing we look at are the strengths of the program that we found we found that core instructional practices exist and they support the district's vision for science instruction and curriculum we found that instruction is based on supporting students to engage in hands-on and inquiry based lessons across all grades we found that the curriculum is outlined for grades K through 12 we found that students and teachers find engaging opportunities for

▶ 53:19 hands-on and collaborative experiences in science using inquiry for learning across all grades K through 12 we also found that standards and scoring criteria of science have been developed and revised and that's an ongoing process just a couple days after school got out a group of three or four teachers actually we're working on that again so it's a continuing process some initial practices around personalized learning are emerging in grades 6 through 12 specifically digital portfolios project-based learning learning menus we've seen quite a bit of and the majority of students in advanced placement courses at the high school are attaining scores of 3 to 5 which is considered passing there's also been a increase in the enrollment in AP science

▶ 54:11 courses some of the needs or opportunities for growth that we find found at the elementary level we've sort of we've outlined our curriculum units either based on open source materials what's readily available online and also an online platform called stem scopes which provides lessons videos all ready to go minus the materials so it falls upon elementary teachers to kind of gather up materials each of those lessons has a list of materials we've asked parents to donate materials if you're an elementary parent teachers may have asked you for help with some materials as well as PTOs and the principal's budget has also supported some materials we did collect last summer some big things that were harder for to get donated like a heat lamp it

▶ 55:12 was harder to get donated and you need it and some bulbs so for some particular units there were some things like that circuits comes up I think in third or fourth grade those are things that are harder to get and you get donated that you kind of need and you can use year after year so we did some collecting of those pieces and gave them to teachers but I think that's what teachers would say the collection of materials as well as time needed to set up labs but now you also have to collect the materials is it is a particular need our stem scopes it's an online platform we went that way because we also felt like what available at that time three years ago from publishers was not quite aligned

▶ 55:57 though publishers said lots of stuff was aligned when we took dig we dug deeper into some of those units they really were not they were selling something they said was aligned but was not so at that point there really was no really good choice for us this particular area is in you'll see reflected later in our action planning is an area we need to revisit again and think about especially for our elementary teachers what makes the both sense to really provide a real hands-on inquiry based science instruction for our students in addition we've outlined core instructional practices for Kate's grades quick K through 12 but they're not always consistently implemented for various reasons including change in personnel and we had a discussion today about that

▶ 56:48 about the process of onboarding new staff as staff changes staff that would have participated in some of the professional development we did three years ago may not be there and so how do we make sure that new staff in addition to all the literacy and math needs especially at the elementary get also support in science as well as changes in science teachers at middle school and high school we found that science practices were all posted in classrooms they were often posted and teachers feel like they are addressing them through the curriculum and instruction but kids don't necessarily don't necessarily explicitly refer to them in our lessons so kids don't know when we ask kids what are the science practices do you use them in class they'll say oh no because

▶ 57:39 we're not as explicit in our instruction so you'll also see that later referred in the action planning as Laurie said there's some work been done on the revision of the science standards and scoring criteria in science however they're not being active as used in alignment of assessment and you'll see that reflected also in the action plan where we'd like to now move toward now using them with students and going through that process to see if they need additional revision as Laurie said we found that there are some practices aligned to personalized learning in science classrooms we'd like to kind of expand those and germinate those more into more science classrooms in grades five through eight when we looked at MCAS we have a gap with our students

▶ 58:33 with disabilities and high needs when we look at science results and again I I think this relates to science practices while there are connections in the curriculum that connect to the real world we may not be explicitly making those connections enough so that kids realize oh here's a real world connection and we need to be much more explicit and clearly identify those for students so that they see those connections more broadly so the recommendations and our action plan come directly from those opportunities for growth the first one being to increase the science achievement of special education students across K through 12 as dr. Adams mentioned we see a gap in our MCAS scores second to increase access to high quality k5 curriculum

▶ 59:21 materials again she spoke at length about the need for that at the k to 5 level to strengthen the implementation of the science practice across grade K through 12 and that's something that within this the scoring criteria we hopefully we'll see that a bit more and also to continue to revise scoring criteria but more so to start aligning performance tasks and assessments to the scoring criteria so that teachers from K to 12 can start using that more explicitly in their classrooms we believe the process allows the science K through 12 to continue to align its work to the strat district strategy overview and much of the action plan aligns nicely to the work we did today with the district leadership we've identified some specific areas for

▶ 1:00:11 growth based upon the program review and that will serve as an action plan at least for the next two to three years and we believe that if we do this work right we continue to work towards preparing our students for stem careers and the develop strong knowledge about the practices and the content related to stem the primary implication budget and policy is around funding that K through five requires funding for some materials and the continued professional development focus that is identified in the action plan as well that's it for purposes of discussion we do not need a vote tonight however the floor is open open for discussion if there are questions or comments yes of course so again when I look at this and thank you Laurie and Margaret for leading this

▶ 1:01:26 work once again this has always been probably the most troublesome content area because of the new standards and we knew we were stepping into an area in which we had great resource deficit as well as a major shift in instructional strategies and practices similar to what we had undergone when we did math seven years ago if you all remember that that's when we bought the Envision math and we began intensive work around retraining teachers how you teach math and about having the correct materials this is probably and I think at that time if I remember correctly dr. Adams we were able to strike a deal with Pearson because we were willing to pilot their envision and they gave us K through five books for about a quarter of a million dollars framing a context yeah

▶ 1:02:32 if we were to find an acceptable science textbook which there's mixed feelings about having I mean you know I'm always at the philosophy nobody should be teaching on from page one on September 1 and ending on page 300 and September on June 15th that's not how we teach but if we were to find an acceptable text that staff felt was robust enough and gave them good foundations I think you're looking at a hefty bill that's number one number two what makes science different having been a science teacher is the amount of consumables not just permanent equipment whether you're talking about weights and you know scales or test tubes or magnifying glasses or circuits at this level but there's a tremendous amount of consumables that our parents have been

▶ 1:03:31 supplying whether it's pipe cleaners or empty paper towel rollers whatever it may be so this is a hefty undertaking and my third problem is in a state that counts itself as the leaders in the biosciences and is the major source of income for the state we are not doing enough authentic assessment and authentic in connections to authentic life and where this goes okay so you have those three major problems when you consider this and there is no easy solution what dr. Adams and miss Greenwood are proposing in the action step along with the team is centering on the instruction getting the instruction right so kids have the skills and can make those real-life connections and can think apply inquiry based practices but you're going to continue to have that

▶ 1:04:46 issue around resources and the committee needs to be aware of that I think in our action plan for the elementary it's geared around three years I believe and first year is looking we wanted to pilot perhaps some physical science I think of all the I areas of science that's probably the hardest most material intensive and it's it's an area where elementary teachers tend to have less expertise we were also thinking of looking at and we do a process of looking at what's available at this moment is looking at some kit base so that it was an opportunity for more of the doing of science as well as looking for some more science nonfiction that might supplement the content so that kids we can do more integration with the literacy block where kids are reading

▶ 1:05:44 more informational texts related to content the next area that's probably the next challenging for elementary teachers would be earth science the one teachers have the most strength around and it's easier to get stuff collected for the most part is the life sciences you're often talking like soil and seeds and it's a little easier to still some collecting of materials but it's still and teachers tend to have more expertise and knowledge around the life sciences then they do the other two so we're proposing taking a look and seeing what's available at the moment from publishers and resources and and and trying to take another look at what's available to try to enhance what we currently have and build upon what we've started thank you

▶ 1:06:41 Jennifer McAndrew: mr. McAndrew thank you thank you for all your work on this it's really impressive and important and there's a lot of great documentation in the materials you provided I just had two sort of general questions on the topic of budget and for materials in the override there was money for instructional materials and without I know we're going to talk about how that is being spent and broken down at a later date but is this the type of information that goes into the decision-making about how to deploy those resources since those are in the operating budget okay great and my second question was around especially at the k-5 level is more just like a philosophical question how much of a challenge is the schedule to science and especially at the lower grades where

▶ 1:07:39 there's and rightly so I mean you need to learn how to read before you can read for science or social studies but how much focused on ELA and math is there just a time challenge at some of those grades time is always a challenge on multiple levels I think we are current reading curriculum certainly has lots of science and social studies connections so it's based upon kids are reading about science and social studies in literacy being able to connect more especially in the primary grades literature and stuff kids can read would be a great asset and help help increase kids access to more science I think what teachers often do in all K through 5 classrooms is that small time that's left for science usually at the end of the day we spend doing science so like

▶ 1:08:38 we really want to focus on the doing of science during that time and when kids are reading and writing about science it often gets integrated into the literacy block so that kids can read about if they're if they're learning about the moon and the seasons they can read about it in literacy and even write about it literacy but the actual doing of the inquiry might be during that science piece so while there is certainly some block scheduling I think teachers do a lot to sort of try to integrate in math those extensions are not as explicit enough I think as you go up in the secondary level into middle school and high school teachers try to make more connections between the science and the math I don't think that happens as explicitly in the elementary mostly

▶ 1:09:29 because teachers just don't make that connection themselves most elementary teachers don't explicitly see that connection and the curriculum in math doesn't necessarily specifically focus on that piece so I don't think that connections is as strong so thank you one of the other things that we've done and we've talked about it before in this chamber is we've encouraged teachers to specialize for science and social studies you know your elementary teachers are generalists they're supposed to be experts in everything and it's difficult especially as the frameworks have expanded so you will find at least in the three through five grades one teacher and our team will be the science expert one will be the social studies and that allows them to

▶ 1:10:09 spend more time developing their materials their resources and their lessons and that has had some mixed success you know again the truth of the matter is people teach what they prefer and you know our teachers love to teach literacy they love to teach math and it's a little bit more struggle with with the sciences thank you any further miss Rosie Thomas thank you for all the reflection you did and all hard work on top of you probably have very big jobs as it is so I appreciate what you did for the overall vision of science at Melrose Public Schools I'm wondering if you have a number like if you almost like a moonshot number what number how much money would you need to really get all the resources that you think would make a as robust a program as you would

▶ 1:11:03 ever imagine what's the number the curriculum materials can vary I mean some are labor intensive so if we looked at kits they can range from as little as four or five hundred dollars to fifteen hundred for a class and then if there are consumables you have to replace those consumables so if you did the math times 15 classrooms or if grades share kits and trade in kits so you use this kit first and then you another kit comes later and if they're shared between schools and classrooms that adds a challenge but so you can do the math if you did 1,500 times five schools per unit you'd come up to maybe $30,000 but we also if we're going to invest the money we want to look at the materials have some teachers pilot it because we when we looked at materials and we had

▶ 1:12:02 some teachers pilot it teachers like oh no this is not appropriate because they took a kin for example third grade weather moved from kindergarten to third grade there's a strong focus on weather and climate and one publisher took a kindergarten unit slapped a third grade level and put it in third grade and the teacher opened it up and said oh this is too easy for the kids it's not appropriate and there were a couple of other instances like that we were like yeah we're not the publishers aren't quite ready so we really want to be cautious and really make a very good choice so that we can sustain that for several years to come so one of the things that just is striking to me and what I know from my own school where I work is that there's incredible

▶ 1:12:51 opportunities for partnerships around this work especially where we live and I just wonder you know there's some even scientists in the room here you know there's there's so much money out there with the biomedical field being so close to us and I just wonder if we could do this through partnerships have you looked into project lead the way at all yes it's too prescriptive I do have colleagues are doing that don't lead the way tons but but lead the way is mainly about the computer sciences that's not what I've what I know about it okay so I've been you seeing it in terms of a lot of the maple organizations are using it as well and I think the cost to is prohibitive and we found it very prescriptive so well that's part of the problem yeah because you you have to you

▶ 1:13:53 want to get kids thinking right and critically with the science inquiry steps and all that it's what I've seen from it at my school is that it's an incredible hands-on way of learning about biomedical science and tons of labs I mean it's so time-intensive for the teachers but there's also a lot of grants and there's I just wonder if there's a different way to think about this that we haven't gotten to yet so so related to what you really need to differentiate about is the secondary versus the elementary where we're struggling as the elementary at the secondary we have a robust science program we have a strong computer science track we have environmental science we have biology physics on AP physics AP and bio in anatomy and

▶ 1:14:48 physiology what else do we have Laurie bioethical issues bioethical issues so the high school is very strong and again part of the reason it's strong is because we've said to our staff some of whom are career changes from the biomedical in the engineering field where do you want to go with this what you think is important and how does it align with the with the frameworks so they've built a robust program the middle school is getting there and they're getting there mainly through the personalized learning they're doing a lot around learning menus and options especially in the eighth grade they're getting stronger I would tell you the sixth grade curriculum needs work probably where we're really struggling is the

▶ 1:15:32 elementary and that realignment that came about three years ago as Margaret has said has been disruptive and we have yet to become comfortable with it to tell you the truth and I think teachers at elementary understand the inquiry process and really do buy in I think the secondary is taking time to buy into inquiry but they're getting very close especially the middle school there that you can see a change in science instruction so elementary bought into inquiry I think it's access to really high quality materials and the ease of it because remember they're planning multiple subjects and so it's the ease and the access to high quality materials and resources that allow them to do inquiry because they buy into the instruction and they can organize good

▶ 1:16:27 instruction around inquiry and engage kids it's really the access to materials and I think we'd see some great pieces one of the highlights of the elementary is the engineering curriculum from the Museum of Science really high quality materials high quality lessons teachers love engaging with the kids with those materials and so it's a real good example of when we have something of high quality and it outlines a real good process teachers can do great things with it it's a real highlight of the elementary curriculum right now is that every year we have and one of those units that kids engage in yeah and I've seen the inquiry nights at the Roosevelt and they've been fantastic and you can see how excited the kids are yes the teachers can do it too yeah you know so

▶ 1:17:16 it's really that access to high quality materials and you're right we don't know what's out there I mean that could be that's part going to be part of our learning is to see three years later what's available and there are grants I mean the thing is is that you only have so many hours in the day and we can't continuously ask the citizens of Melrose in this the parents and PTO is to spend more money but i definitely think that there's there's a way to solve the problem because there's so many resources here in this area and people who want to get the word out and get kids excited about science so thank you for all the work that you did though mr brensky um thanks for all that uh the good news is my kid loves science he's at the uh horace man and uh he comes home and it's

▶ 1:18:07 like his favorite thing so they're definitely doing it at the horace man and uh you know he's describing the clouds to me and everything more of a social studies guy i try to talk to him about that he really doesn't have any interest in it which is fine uh you know i think part of the uh thing we're leaving out of this picture is i'm not sure there's a district in the state in the at the elementary level that does this well like i think the emphasis and it's it's mostly you know the adults fault as usual is uh been on you know it's been on what's tested and uh you know reading and math are the areas that are tested until you get to fifth grade and i you know i know we're going to talk about the mcs later in the meeting but i don't think we can discount that piece also

▶ 1:18:50 i think what the superintendent brought up is that you know the teachers every elementary teacher that i know they love to teach literacy that's their passion like that's they want to read all these great uh and introduce all these great uh readings that um authors have created and they love that in the science for some of them can be a challenge and um uh that being said i i love the fact that we try to divide it up between staff you know you teach social studies i'll teach the science and uh most districts that's what they do because it is such a burden to plan um i and i think if we could uh pool resources and how how often does staff get together to discuss science and uh those things within not just within the buildings but

▶ 1:19:43 in the district would that be something that we could do or is that we had a group of teachers working together writing the units i mean that's how we got the units written we had teachers volunteering to do it get it done but it's you know what the competition is for time right so you could be writing and today the and today the Board of Ed approved the new art framework wonderful right so so gee I have you know 80 elementary teachers actually about close it I'll have about 90 elementary teachers next year and all this gets done after school and gee where am I going my writing social studies am I writing art am I still writing wellness you know it's tough it really is tough I mean our ideal situation is if we could

▶ 1:20:33 pay people over the summer to write curriculum and you know that we've got a little bit more money from the override for PD that we could possibly do that but how much can you get done in the summer you know what it is to write a a write a curriculum no it takes it takes years right it takes years and i get that and i have but uh you know i appreciate the effort and i think that's the best way to go if you get the teachers talking and follow standards and they create the lessons right it really is uh the best way to go for this specific area i appreciate your efforts thank you any further discussion mr o'connell thank you madam chair um could you talk uh and you have talked about this but maybe a little bit more about um you know increasing the science achievement of special

▶ 1:21:26 education students and what kind of shape and form that might take uh what particular challenges are presented and how we can help financially or otherwise i think one of the things that we're working on again overall is that personalized learning piece and i i think that that'll play a big part in helping our special education population a lot of especially if we're talking middle school seventh and eighth grade in particular have really embraced the personalized learning sixth grade as well but in seventh and eighth doing station centers where the teacher is more readily available to the students so for example jillian victor in seventh grade has this great centers rotation that she does where she does

▶ 1:22:20 small group instruction while the students are working on other pieces and that really allows her to really get to those students i think if you look at the middle school data we've seen a little blip and an increase and we're hopeful that the change in instruction where kids are taking more ownership for their learning is good we're pretty confident and we had some good research reminders this week from some presenters who said you know if we really give kids ownership for their learning we really do the inquiry piece well where kids are engaging in their own learning we're gonna see that boost in achievement and we did see it we saw changes in how teachers taught science at the middle school and we saw that increase so we're hopeful we're on the

▶ 1:23:14 right trajectory and we had some very good reminders that this is the right way to go with science instruction we also last week the Department of Ed is working on some awesome some instructional strategies around math and science and stem and last week we worked with some teachers on phenomenon teaching so we're hopeful we can also kind of germinate that kind of idea where we take a phenomena and really engage kids in questioning and designing investigations that again in Creek K through 12 again getting kids more engaged in that will hire achievement as well and the science department at the middle school has had some folks working on universal design for learning principles and you'll see that reflected in the action plan where we'd like to

▶ 1:24:05 sort of help germinate that and really extend that so teachers are making that connection and that was part of the district leadership's work this week as well is trying to deepen our understanding of that so we can support teachers in moving them forward we believe that work will have an impact on those specific populations I would echo everyone in the chamber that this is a fantastic packet 157 pages worth for those at home who do not have it open in front of them the work that you did you and your team it really is to be commended I am reminded once again that the scientific method is no longer taught as it were some of us old-school scientists still use that in our day-to-day I would like to hear a little bit more if I'm a superintendent about

▶ 1:25:11 the mixed results with regards to breaking it up by teams a science focus teacher a social studies focus teacher you know subject matter at the elementary school I think where I'm struggling is I'm hearing a need for curriculum and curriculum related materials that are some of which are kit some of which are being brought in from home toilet paper rolls paper towel rolls etc I know my wife who teaches first grade bring did a run on Pringles cans and uh tennis balls um so i i understand the oddity of certain requests i i think i'd like to hear more about what the strategy will be not just next year but going forward long term on this um and i'm sorry if i'm having you beat a dead horse so the teachers when they created the

▶ 1:26:14 units and really they did i i have to tell you i was skeptical that we could get all four content areas done in three years and we did it when you look at the report all the you know physical science earth science life sciences they're they're all they're all done and when they created the units if you look at the unit did the design documents they have in it very clearly what the materials are that they need for every hands-on they knew know right up front at the beginning of the year And so those of you who get the request for the five boxes of Kleenex the four the four cans of Lysol wipes You know you're also getting these requests for this stuff so that we can be Supplied Going into the year, so I think that's part of it

▶ 1:27:07 But then there also has to be and there's always consumables in science I mean you know you you were in the field you are in the fields. I taught taught in the field you know every year I got my bucket of worms my bucket of frogs you know so there are those type of consumables that you always have to replace other in other things when you know when you make the circuits and you and you use the potato for the circuit people have to bring in potatoes so and then there's the kit stuff that you have to have but it's not indestructible and that's part of the problem that you always have in science nothing's indestructible whether it's breaking it a beaker or ripping a lead out of the conductor you're always

▶ 1:27:58 going to have a certain amount of turnover in that too but there is a steady supply of stuff you could have and that's the type of stuff that we can buy but there's always going to be a need for those other type of funky consumables so we know that up front we have FOSS kits and I had John Shannon gather up all the FOSS kits in the city and put them in the garage we just need to get people to go through them and see what's redeemable in them but even then what you bought those FOSS you being the city of Melrose bought those FOSS kits 12 years I think it's 12 years ago 12 years ago because it's a three editions maybe three they're on their third copyright since that they were bought so it's 12 years maybe so yeah and for those at home can you

▶ 1:28:49 expand FOSS kits FOSS kits was an approach to science as Margaret was saying that you buy a kit that teaches a unit of science it may have the circuits in it it may have the little lever in it you know whatever else you need for the electricity unit so we have some of those but as Margaret just pointed out it's changed so much that you need a new version of it so that's an expense on top of it all when we divide up the schools I have two strand schools I have three strand schools and I'm about to have four strand schools so at Horace Mann I have two grade five teachers let's use grade four three two grade three teachers next year at Roosevelt and Lincoln I'm going to have four grade three teachers at Winthrop I'm going to have three grade three teachers so again

▶ 1:29:55 part of this is logistical when we try to divide up responsibilities among the teachers who's doing what sometimes we're redundant and sometimes we're stretching it so when we first start to work with this idea we had a three strand at Roosevelt and Aaron Hogan who is now a coach took on the engineering units so you had a wonderful situation you had somebody doing social you had somebody doing engineering and you had somebody doing science and Horace Mann you don't only have two so the person who does science has to do engineering as well what we'll do next year with the four strand we'll figure it out but that's what the variability is that we're staffed differently and we're trying to help people master this by not asking them to master both science and

▶ 1:30:50 social studies and I remind everybody we're in year two of that new framework When the science curriculum was revised three years ago, that three-strand engineering science and social studies had to be revised because there was so much science content now that the engineering person had to pick up some of the science. We found that in our results that we had to now be able to spread out the science even little further because we weren't getting to all specifically all the physical science pieces that were in the standard so we had to say okay we need to even spread this out even further I think it's also a challenge at the elementary level when there's so much integration because you have the kids

▶ 1:31:39 all day so you do that science and you don't have enough time to finish it you can say to the students when you come in tomorrow morning go do that or when you have a free moment go do that and so when you departmentalize it that kind of flexibility isn't always there very well any further questions from the committee with that I thank you very much for your time and your effort thank you very much next up on EP or yes EP and P is the school cancellation pilot evaluation and recommendation there will be a vote required at this time I would entertain a motion okay superintendent please so when you look at my memo I tell you that I wrote this memo a week ago and again it's dated today because that's the date

▶ 1:32:43 the meeting and packet documents are finished approximately six days before we actually meet and at that time I included the line that Jesse representatives were planning to share the information suggestions with the Commissioner and senior staff that was part of the working group I was on then and I shared that we I knew the Commissioner had concerns through other work that I do in the state I had heard he had concerns and I was recommending you hold off on the vote. Lo and behold yesterday comes the memo in which the department states clearly the department will discontinue the alternative structured learning day programs pilot after school year 2019-2020. Previously locally approved programs may be implemented as needed through school

▶ 1:33:39 Jennifer McAndrew: year 2019 2020 districts and schools should take care to implement these in a manner that's consistent which we've been doing so if you vote this next year will be the last year that DESE will allow this so that just came to me yesterday it's dated June 24th with that and I would like to pull the room briefly do we wish to take this up for a vote then do we wish to implement this next year uh miss mcandrew so just a question i guess i would say um well what would we be voting on because the recommendation in the packet is to not talk about it tonight would we be would we be voting on continuing what we've done or because each year we've done something slightly different we we can uh as this expires

▶ 1:34:37 as of the end of this year we can choose not to vote at all and let it be expired or we can choose to have a vote to approve it for one more additional year based on the memo the superintendent we just read out so that those are our two options mr. Ozzie Thomas can I ask question absolutely why is desi saying that this should not continue I think Jesse has a couple of problems let me pull up the memo again I don't think they got that specific in the memo I know that they have had long-standing concerns about special ed children and whether their services are disrupted even though we've had some robust conversations not only with the working group that I was part of but with the commissioner himself that most of us are very responsible and we make sure that

▶ 1:35:41 we provide students compensatory services as needed I think the other problem that is really an issue is that this is not a program ten school districts participated in the committee is that it is difficult to implement across the state with consistency you'd have you talk about the word variability we're able to do it we're in an area where we had one snow day not not not a lot of concern if you're on the western part of the state you can easily be looking at seven eight snow days and what is the impact on the quality of education of education the kids may be getting there you know one One of the counters from the people on the working group is every decision is a local decision. And it should be allowed for the local, the LEA,

▶ 1:36:47 the local education agency to make that decision what is best for their community. But the commissioner is not looking at it that way. And so again, he does not really lay out his reasons. Regarding such programs meet the standards for structured learning time is what he puts. But he does talk about other stakeholders have raised concerns as whether students can have equitable access to this program, as I just said. Thank you, yeah, are we going to have a discussion or are we going to vote? You may continue discussion as you will. Well, so I have a couple of ideas. that I think that if we're really a policy you know one of the our main purposes as a school committee is policy and in order for policy to be kind of

▶ 1:37:42 really impactful and consistent is to know what's going to happen ahead of time so I guess I've never been for the pilot I've been on the record for that with two years of voting but if we're going to end it anyway i think it you know it's only for one year either way you could vote you could you could argue for that or you could argue against it i think it's really important to note that this is something i think that's more helpful for planning for high school and preparing kids for college than it is beneficial to elementary students and i i do worry about special ed students this past winter it was a non-issue because we didn't have snow days i know the superintendent does not call snow days easily or quickly so we know that

▶ 1:38:31 about you we wouldn't know that about future superintendents so i think just for consistency sake we should consider just saying no to it now if it's going to be no next year because we it's very rare that we actually know something a year ahead right we're usually like you know when are we going to decide this you know anyway that's just what i want to say as a comment thank you prior to miss McAndrew do either gentleman wish to weigh in for the first time thank you madam chair so I understand superintendent what your recommendation was before commissioner O'Reilly spoke yesterday is there a recommendation now is it your recommendation that we don't do this for next year I'm sorry to put you on the spot but it's a hard question to answer Mr. O'Connell

▶ 1:39:23 we got lucky this year we had one snow day if you ask me next year and i'm looking at canceling april vacation it's a different conversation um so i i don't have a crystal ball okay so so my sense was that you know at the end of the day we had some success with this uh we there were some shortcomings but if the state is saying this is going away it strikes me that we're expending resources on this every year we do this um and given our limited resources um you know if i had my druthers we we would walk away from this at this point and essentially cut our losses and move on um but i'm happy to hear what other folks have to say about this mr obronski get a way in um has this has this obviously the staff is unaware of this they're not aware of it yet i mean like

▶ 1:40:19 Jennifer McAndrew: i said i got this last night and and again the cover letter basically said the commissioner would make an announcement today you know everything is really coincidental that it was on the agenda i got one letter from one parent today who happened to read the packet and waited on on her opinion and i replied it's going to be moot um but i need to once you vote because we could have had a year and not have a year once you vote i need to tell the staff miss mcandrew um so i i agree with what the sentiments expressed so far i think part of why i supported the pilot was because i think if we're going to implement something permanently we should do a pilot and see how it goes across several years particularly we had two

▶ 1:41:06 very different experiences with the weather since we know there's no chance it's going to be permanent i don't really see the point of extending the pilot so so it appears the consensus in the room is that we do not have a vote on this and we do not pick it up for the next year i also concur with that so with that that concludes the school cancellation pilot the last thing then on the agenda for epnp is the mcas resolution uh by way of introduction since i introduced this last meeting i have updated both letter and resolution document i did not print it for this evening knowing that there were two members absent that said it is on the docket for a vote and i would entertain for purposes of discussion a motion at this time motion to approve second

▶ 1:42:01 motion made by miss mcandrew seconded by mr o'connell uh discussion riveting seeing none well I will measure just simply thank you for the work I assume it was you and miss McAndrew and perhaps others I was impressed with the passion that people brought to the table last time we met both from a personal perspective as parents and as school committee members and also from an educator perspective and I think what's been prepared for tonight's consideration reflects the discussion we've had and speaks to the issues at the heart of this so I'm more than happy to support this just really quickly yes please thank you for bringing it up the whole I think there's a larger longer discussion that we could

▶ 1:42:52 have about MCAS as a practice which perhaps next year we will and I just want to thank you for both of you made the writing so much better between the last meeting and this meeting so thanks miss McAndrew and mr. some may I ask a logistical question please is your expectation that all seven members sign this it is so who is going to facilitate that I will bring the printed document for next meeting I understand that okay mr. Abrams key thank you for bringing this to the committee and i think it's important that people start to recognize the issues with the testing and i think this is a very well-written document thank you miss mcandrew well since we're talking um i um miss mcandrew your input is always welcome

▶ 1:43:53 Jennifer McAndrew: i i mean we all spoke on this last time i know the committee supports it i um i i guess I would just say that you know it seems to me and I agree we can have a longer discussion about MCAS but one thing it seems pretty great at measuring is privilege and white privilege in particular and it just makes me frustrated that we seem to keep doubling down on that in our testing this is another example of that promulgating those disparities and I'm glad that the committee is taking a stand and I thank you for bringing it up I think each and every one of you for your input last meeting all of that went into the preparation of this document miss McAndrew specifically for your contribution to the letter and comment with regards to the resolution itself

▶ 1:44:52 were very helpful I will read it if that is the desire of the committee otherwise I'm content to have it be read by members of the public because it's in the packet we can also post it to the school committee website and Facebook page these pages if that's helpful i i would agree with members can share it um the i i do want to reaffirm you know or i'm going to say reaffirm a couple times here um the purpose of this resolution from the get-go was to reaffirm to our community the values that we already know and hold dear so yes miss mcandrew it feels like as though we're running in place and doubling down on issues that we should not have to double down on but it makes it that much more important that

▶ 1:45:55 Jennifer McAndrew: we do put out a public face and reaffirm those values so without further discussion all in favor motion passes unanimously and thank you everybody that concludes EPMP for this evening thank you mr. Selim next up is finance facilities with ms. McAndrew good evening everyone welcome to finance and facilities tonight we have one item on the agenda which is the summer maintenance maintenance and capital improvements for our school buildings there are two documents in a packet one is the annual summer maintenance and then one of this one is the special projects in addition to that annual summer maintenance superintendents or anything you want to say about this I know I will tell you the work on the auditorium at

▶ 1:47:00 the middle school has begun we've had a truck all week and the end of last week and I got two emails today from in wait showing me snapshots of the new audio system being installed and of the new carpets being installed so again I remind everybody we have a very short window in which to do that work Wakefield repertory began on Monday so we're trying to get that done and get out of their way and more extensive work will take place in the fall again once we stop using the auditorium for the summer we have about a six to eight week window before it's used heavily again and we'll try to get some more work done at the auditorium at that time of year the rest of this some of this is pretty standard

▶ 1:47:46 this is the first summer I have been here that we do not have a building project thank you are there any questions or comments from the committee mr. some DPW if you're listening thank you very much for all of the work that you do and they're always listening I think they're always listening I'm sure they are and also mr. Shana and superintendent thank you for your collaboration and ensuring that our schools get the maintenance and repair that is needed thank you thank you any other questions or comments I was just briefly I'm sure I was gonna say the exact same thing thanks to mr. Shannon and the DBW team and and kudos to him and to you superintendent for fostering this kind of constructive and productive relationship it means a great deal to

▶ 1:48:39 Jennifer McAndrew: what happens in our school so thank you for that thank you I'm just two quick things that one you covered I wanted to draw attention to the auditorium upgrades I would just add to that that one of the reasons that's so important is because it's a source of major rental income to the district and also just a wonderful facility from the community when we see on here like 13 classroom moves 12 classroom things like that at different buildings is that a reflection of the um our enrollment situation where we're moving one year there's four third grades but the next year it's you know three that sort of thing so our our objective is always to try to have um the grades the uh the grade level classrooms as close to each other as possible

▶ 1:49:29 so every year we may move them around in that effort it's not always possible so for example i believe next year at winthrop we're going to have two classes on the first floor and then but at the staircase so that right above it on the next level is the third classroom but we do try to do that um some of it's also a matter of efficiencies so um we have the otpt room at roosevelt again takes up a huge room it's a double basically a classroom and a half and we've determined we can move it to a smaller space take that space subdivide it and get some other space out of it um so we do a lot of that type of rearranging also in the summer great thank you that concludes finance and facilities thank you ms mcandrew and that brings us to policy

▶ 1:50:21 and planning with ms razzy thomas welcome to policy and planning um we're going to just go over the end of the year 2019 enrollment numbers as well as what you're anticipating for next year so i'll turn it over to the superintendent who gives us these updates usually on a monthly basis but this is our year end one right so please notice these were run at the end of the school year 613 and 614. at that time we were ending the school year we include the ecc in our account with 3961 and we were anticipating based on what we knew about enrollments at that point we are anticipating beginning the next school year with 4009. i will tell you that annette mcpherson and judy chan ran me new numbers june 24th and already the number is up to 4033.

▶ 1:51:37 we'll continue to have a fair amount of movement we had a lot of movement late May June that we had been waiting on but we actually had more come in that went out obviously so we'll continue to have movement over the next eight weeks we still have waiting lists for kindergarten at Winthrop Lincoln Roosevelt Horace Mann with I think the most extensive waiting list is at Lincoln still any questions or comments I guess just as if this was the stock market would all be rich because this just keeps going up and up and up and we roll with the punches I know thank you how are we doing with the projections from our studies so far I mean I know it's really we're just in heading into year one from them right but you know again we had one number that was higher

▶ 1:52:50 than the other and i said to the committee consider it a range and we're right in the range okay thank you very much superintendent that will conclude policy and planning thank you miss rosie thomas that brings us to the announcements of the chair and most of which will be taken up with the superintendent's end of cycle evaluation before i hand it over to the superintendent just to talk briefly about her progress report I JUST WANTED TO REMIND THE COMMITTEE NOT THAT IT NEEDS REMINDING THAT ACCORDING TO THE PROCESS THAT WE AGREED UPON THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS WOULD BE BRINGING TO TONIGHT'S MEETING THEIR COMPLETED EVALUATION FORMS AND THOSE WILL BE SUBMITTED TO ME FOR THE PURPOSE OF MY PREPARING AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO BE PRESENTED PUBLICLY AT OUR JULY 30TH MEETING AND ALSO THAT

▶ 1:54:01 copies of those uh completed evaluation forms would be provided to miss hogan for the public record that said madam superintendent okay so uh thank you mr o'connell so when i was thinking about this and i was writing my report and providing you with the artifacts um i was thinking what an unusual the year this was most years i'm highly focused on academics tax, instruction, developing curriculum, and this year we were focused on finances, finances and finances, whether it was the override, budget A and B, or contract negotiations. That was really my primary focus this year, and I am very fortunate to have the team we have. We never missed a beat. We kept the work going. You've seen it in my strategy overview reports.

▶ 1:54:54 You heard it tonight from both Ms. White-Lambright, Dr. Adams, Ms. Greenwood. We kept the work going. Our personalized learning efforts are coming to fruition. We're at the implementation stage. We've done a lot of good work around scoring criteria, setting competencies, doing rubrics. We've done a lot of really deep training around universal design for learning. You hear it referenced constantly, and all that kept going while the major focus for both this committee and myself was the override and the two budgets. So I really need to thank my team for keeping their eye on what the real purpose of our jobs are, student achievement and learning and growth, while we fought the battle for the resources so that we can have those outcomes.

▶ 1:55:52 So it really was a little bit of a strange year. So everything I gave you really centers on the override, the budget, and the contracts, and a little bit of instruction thrown in with the strategy overview there. In terms of going forward, I think probably the most valuable thing that we take out of this year, not only myself but all of you, is the fact that we had the discussions and forums that we had in order to help educate the public were were instrumental and I think they were a turning point for the history of this committee and if there is a way we can keep those efforts going and find mechanisms in which we continue to have those type of deep discussions and forums and question and

▶ 1:56:40 answer sessions the committee really needs to find a way to rethink what you do on a bi-weekly basis in order to have that happen as the mayor was not with us tonight pointed out when she first began this journey for us this is something we're going to have to do every eight to ten years and I think it's important that we keep that level of public education no pun intended going with our eye on the future very good any uh thank you superintendent any comments or questions from the committee in this regard mr robreski please um and it's just related to something that came up tonight uh i really think um people don't always recognize how much of a battle this is for you every day and i think when i i really don't think they do and i think an example of

▶ 1:57:36 that can be the snow cancellation policy um and i didn't mention it in my evaluation because i was unaware of desi's um decision but that was definitely a battle and it was a battle within this room and it was a battle within the community of should we do this or shouldn't we do this and i find it remarkable that desi just said oh we're just going to cancel it after all of the efforts you and your team put into that and the teachers and the staff i'm definitely surprised by it but i don't think people always recognize how much of an effort you put in to creating a progressive system and i think it can a snapshot of that can be the snow cancellation policy and another snapshot of that can be how much effort you put in to the budget and i thank you for that

▶ 1:58:29 Jennifer McAndrew: MS. MCANDRE. MS. THANK YOU. I JUST WANT TO HIGHLIGHT TWO VERY QUICK THINGS AND THANK YOU TO YOU AND YOUR TEAM FOR A TREMENDOUS AND ALSO CHALLENGING YEAR. TWO THINGS I WOULD HIGHLIGHT IN PARTICULAR ARE YOUR LEADERSHIP AT THE CONTRACT NEGOTIATION AND, YOU KNOW, I THINK WITHOUT SAYING TOO MUCH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THOSE CONFIDENTIAL in those confidential negotiations your leadership your team support was just absolutely crucial in getting a great outcome for not only our students and our community but also for the educators themselves and so I really appreciate that and the second is though even though I know you mentioned that you in your evaluation of yourself it took a bit of a backseat this year I think that

▶ 1:59:23 Jennifer McAndrew: what really continues to come through to me including tonight with the science presentation is that I think a hallmark of your instructional leadership is the culture of continuous improvement and professional development that you have you and your team have embedded throughout the district and I think that that's something we need to continue to do and I think I think it really came THROUGH SO THANK YOU ANYTHING FURTHER I WILL JUST UH ECHO UH THEN BRIEFLY WHAT MS MCANDREWS SAID AND I I SPOKE TO THIS AND SPEAK TO THIS AND MY EVALUATION REPORT UH THE THE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS WERE AN EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCE IN TERMS OF BEING ABLE TO SEE YOU INTERACT WITH BOTH YOUR ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM AND WITH THE TEACHERS AND TO SEE YOU DISPLAY LEADERSHIP IN THAT CONTEXT

▶ 2:00:23 to see them react to it positively despite the fact that we're in contract negotiations and to see in real time the buy-in on the part of of the teachers and the administrators for that matter it was very very impressive so you know the the big thing that will be remembered this year will be the override and certainly in some circles the teachers contract but in terms of this evaluation process uh i almost feel despite you know the the huge win uh for the school district that the override was uh that it was for me uh in in the context of that that uh the contract negotiations i think that's where i saw um your leadership and the buying it created and i i just think it was tremendous um and and it's one of these things you know but for miss

▶ 2:01:25 mcandrew and i being there people would people don't get to see it um so it it it's worth uh noting and talking about um anything further in this regard i was gonna say thank you for that because you were also there when i got tired and cranky yeah and and i'm a person who spent has spent a lot of time bemoaning the laborious nature of the process while valuing the outcome but for me that that was huge and so it was in this evaluation process this year having had that experience you know had great value for me personally so again just to conclude seeing no further comments at this time members evaluation forms will be submitted to me and to miss Hogan they will become part of the public record and available for public review

▶ 2:02:17 and on July 30th I will be presenting for further discussion and review an executive summary of our collective evaluation so anything nothing further I seeing nothing further do we have any liaison reports not everybody wants please and mr. Selm no liaison reports at this time mr. chair thank you very much mr. snow and as they say all good things must come to an end is there a motion to adjourn mr. Obramski seconded by everybody all those in favor and we are adjourned

School Committee — 2019-06-25

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