10.23.2023 Instructional Sub Committee of the Fall River School Committee

I'd like to open the instructional subcommittee for public schools uh for public schools uh today Monday October 23rd 2023 de can we have a roll call M here M here M here salute to the flag please to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant now subject 13 open meeting law

pursuant to open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible uh Deb do we have citizens input we do not now thank you on to

discussion I'm going to go in order three point1 presentation and discussion to refer 200 200 2023 accountability data Dr curlyy so um thank you for having me and uh the rest of our team here today to talk to you about our 2023 accountability data um I think this meeting is as much for us as it is for you because we'll be bringing this um the whole committee and we're looking

for some feedback in terms of what of this should move on um and whether or not there are some areas where you would want some additional information shared with the whole committee so these um in this uh this first slide here is really just um for reference in terms of how testing has gone um since 2019 we that was the last time we really had um 2019 we had full test Administration and it was actually the

last last time that we were offered full accountability data we'll talk a little bit more about that um 2021 when we're talking about referencing um some previous data we go 2022 and then back to 2019 um that's because in 2021 even though we did administer mcount there was only a half test um it administered in grades 3 through eight and so it's really that 2019 2022 and 2023 data um

that becomes most important as we're looking for like any kind of trend data over the years um so this this slide here um the refresher slide this was actually offered to us by through within um one of our state meetings and really just offers an overview and I know there are a lot of slides in here that speak very specifically but this one I think really highlights um the things that we'll talk

about today the fact that the accountability system in itself has um two components a normative component and Criterion referenced so when we talk about schools um being ranked in terms of their percentile that's really a um a reference to that normative component um and then we have a Criterion reference component those are the targets for schools and districts so for every um student group every school every

District um we're given targets annual targets that we work at from year to year so today we'll talk about what it looks like in terms of those percentile rankings of schools and then what those um Criterion referenced um targets look like at the school and District level and in some cases um for some student groups as a reminder um the accountability system references a whole bunch of indicators the biggest um is

achievement in grades three through eight achievement is based on um academic achievement for math Ela and science it changes a little bit at the high school because there are some high school only components um in reference to to high school completion advanced cours work extended engagement rate and things like that that's included in high school achievement um when we look at those um when we look at those

indicators and then um the last piece that's on this slide just talks about as we're looking at each of those Targets in each of those areas um we are assigned uh we're assigned points if a school um is not within the like lowest 10% the only thing that we um anyone pays attention to is the extent to which they're meeting targets um if they are in the lowest 10 percentile then that

becomes the that that becomes the focus in terms of they're requiring um Assistance or intervention um from the state level so we'll get a little bit more into that um this again is um just a reference to kind of the history of the accountability measures which ties right into that whole idea that 2019 was really the last time um the full accountability was in place in terms of the fact that we got numbers we

got we fig we heard um what percentile schools were in and we also got information about um those Target percentiles these are all the targets um these are all the areas in which we receive those targets um and so I'm going to just actually kind of leave it at that because this is really I included this for reference and we'll talk a little bit more about it as we go the next couple of slides off the

weightings so you can see um like how much each of these pieces matters in the accountability system and you can see that student achievement at 60% is is the greatest weight and then there are other measures as well so we have those for um non- high schools and then here for high schools and so I mentioned this earlier achievement up at the high school level the math Ela and science only accounts

for 40% because the other piece of their achievement is tied into only those High School

measures um the big maybe big ticket information that we haven't already talked about um so far is just down at the bottom that when we look at um the data it's a weighted average of 2022 and 2023 so there's uh that 40 60 split so whenever we're looking at school percentiles it takes two years of data into account um and that that makes a difference for schools because in order to really make some serious gains you

really have to make traction for a couple years in a row to really see a bom the big ticket um information from here is really that second bullet and the targets for achievement indicators back in the spring um is when schools actually got their targets for that year schools are always looking for targets next now how are we going to know what our targets are for next year how do we

know what we need to do over the course of this year generally speaking schools don't find out their targets until midy year and last year it was even later they found out what their targets were um in the spring and at that time for each student group for each one of those indicators schools were given a path and it basically was determined based on where they were in 22 in relation to where they had been in

2019 so if in 2022 they had already gotten back to 2019 levels they were put on a path forward if in 2022 schools were not where they had been back in 2019 they were given a recovery path so their targets were targets that were set just trying to get them back to 2019 and what we saw across schools and even from Stu you know within student groups was

that it it was kind of a mixed bag a school could be on the path forward in math but on a path to Recovery in ela they could be on a um a recovery path for um their progress toward English language proficiency but maybe they were on um a recovery path for science or something like that and this is where um when we get to what it looks like and how we did in um

in relation to our Targets this is where we'll see the um the scale the scales so anywhere we see a zero we know that our performance declined um a one means we were pretty much flat a two says we improved um to but below Target a three we met the Target and a four exceeded the target the other thing we'll see when we get to um the district data is that and for school-based

data is that for each one for each um set of grades 3 through eight and then High School uh we are measured against Target for all students and then specifically for a lowest performing group and that measure actually is kind of this 5050 split so the state really puts an emphasis on all students and doubles down on that by saying we want you you know we want you to hit these

targets for your all students group but when we look at those students who have been who were the lowest performing last year you have very specialized targets for them and it's they're going to be the combined achievement 50/50 split that um determines the way in which we um acknowledge your need for assistance I mentioned that the district accountability doesn't include a normative component so we don't get

ranked against other districts but we do um me get measured against targets um for us in this past year we were identified as making moderate progress toward targets so we earn 47% of our Target points and um that that put us in um a category as not requiring Assistance or intervention from the state so this might be easier to I can't I don't have my glasses on but this

might be able to um be easier to see on paper that it is um on the screen but this is an example of what and the overall District picture looks like and you can see here it really is a mixed bag of those 0 1 2 3 and four there are definitely areas um like in grades three through eight English language arts achievement um where we see a decline in math we're looking at um you

know kind of this flat and then science we make progress but we didn't hit the target and that's you know for our all students group and then right beside it is how we did for our lowest performing students so it looks a little different for our lowest performing students students again um there's a decline but then but in math we you can see that we actually exceed the Target that was set for our

lowest performing students math um the rest of the pieces there are there um for your reference the one thing I would point out is that there's a you know significant difference I would say in the high school performance where um for the all students group we exceeded the target for ELA and made progress to Target um in both Math and Science if you look at um the high school completion uh we did see a

decline in performance in terms of the four-year um graduation rate and the annual dropout rate but we exceeded our Target for the extended engagement rate for English um language proficiency at the lower grades um we were flat but at the high school we actually did meet our Target met we exceeded all of our targets for cism and then at the high school they exceeded their target for advanced

course work completion so there is there really is a marked difference um when you look at the high school in terms of the extent to which they reach their targets um when you compare it to the um Target meeting for the lower Brands we have a a major Focus um coming into this year on students with dis abilities and our multilingual Learners and so it was important for us to take a

look at um the extent to which we met targets for each of these groups and I've included this information here again you can see um a mixed bag at the at the in the lower grades grades three through eight there really is a um you know we're really looking at performance that is either declining or making progress but not quite getting there at the high school we do see more of those threes and fours indicating

that targets that were set for the high school were met or exceeded in in many areas for our English Learners and our former English Learners uh the the data doesn't look as strong at the lower grades um grades 3 through eight we again see the zeros ones and twos um saying that at best we we made some progress toward targets but and then if you look over at the um at the high

school much of the achievement data looks the same the achievement data the growth data but we do see um an increase and we are meeting targets when it comes to the English language proficiency total for those El's and for or else it's the exact same data as um as you see for the all students as but you also see exceeding targets for chronic anism and a course work completion so the school's overall accountability

classification is um do we want does anyone have any questions actually just in terms of the um the district data no okay so the school's overall um accountability classification I mentioned kind of comes in two ways um where we're going to say that schools are requiring Assistance or intervention or not based on um based on their performance so the first two bullets there that's designated as

chronically underperforming or underperforming that's actually something that doesn't have an automatic trigger it's something that's determined um by the commissioner so that's one category among the lowest performing 10% of schools in the state which many unfortunately many of our schools fall there um those schools are identified as requiring Assistance or intervention and then there are other

pieces if you have a phal graduation rate below 67 which we do not um you can end up in this category you could also be put in this category if you have low performing student groups so if your students with disabilities are in the lowest 5% in the state even if your school is performing at the in the 25th percentile overall you could still be put in the category as requiring Assistance or intervention if one of

your subgroups is in the lowest 5% and then finally not meeting assessment participation requirements we do have a couple of schools um in that category so this slide shows us kind of the breakdown um we have 16 out of our 17 schools did receive um a classification the one that didn't was the Early Learning Center because they don't have any test grades um among the 16 that did receive

classifications nine of them are classified as requiring Assistance or intervention seven are classified as not there's some comparison data here uh we do take a look at the um the other Urban schools and um in comparison across the state where we have um only 44% identified as not requiring Assistance or intervention across the state that looks more like 83% um where we are 44% not requiring

Assistance or intervention across Urban schools in the urban superintendence Network that number looks more like 55% so um those are those are some pieces there for reference this slide is just a summary slide um it shows where all of our schools are you notice that the ones on the left um with the blue green and yellow arrows those are are all of our schools that were I classified as not

requiring Assistance or intervention and in when you're in that category the the big the big information there the most important thing that stands out is progress toward targets uh we had just one school Sylvia that met 75% of progress progress targets putting them uh in the category of meeting or exceeding targets a large number of our schools made substantial progress toward targets

and we had two schools who were not in the lowest um 10% but made making only moderate progress toward targets the rest of our schools um are shown with red arrows those are the schools that have been identified as requiring Assistance or intervention and you'll notice that two of those schools um are the schools that were previously our level four schools Watson and fansa those are the ones designated by the

commissioner as requiring broader comprehensive

support uh the next couple of slides actually show information that the committee was Shar had been shared with the committee when we did some early releases um it's just another kind of summary document for all of the schools their percentile and then the rationale for um their classification so these are all schools requiring Assistance or intervention and you can see in that middle column um for

the mo you know for the most part they're among the lowest performing 10% of schools there's additional information there uh because for for the most part all of those schools also have low um student subgroup performance which means they have subgroups that are performing in the lowest 5% in the state the last two there RPA and stone have low participation rates and then in addition

um actually I think they are just low participation rates the next slide is all of our schools that are not requiring Assistance or inter intervention and you can see that all of them have accountability percentiles above 10 and important to note they do not have low performing subgroups that would otherwise put them in the category of requirement assistance so for us um as a district oh North End yeah that's the

official name my bad um so our big takeaways and we'll get um a little bit more specific about the data for each of our content areas and and also for the other accountability measures um is that in both Ela and math um there is an indication here that the overall slide has subsided and that we're seeing recovery so we are you know are we're on the recovery path toward those 2019

levels um in some areas grade 10 Ela has actually returned to our pre-pandemic levels so that's an area where they're on a path forward uh and um you know we expect to to see continued progress there there's also some evidence of Gap closing so we'll we'll get a little bit more into that but there there's some evidence that they're closing the achievement Gap um for some of their

subgroups math data is just about flat compared to 2022 but you're going to see some um some kind of big changes in grades five and six we do see slight decreases in science performance but we're seeing stabilization at those lower grades not as much at the high school level grade five is um is a standout for us because we actually did see some some growth in achievement in terms of the El both Ela and

math overall we have significant ground to make up and I think if if you've taken a look at some of the um school-based data and we can certainly see it when we look at um a range in percentiles from you know the Third percentile up to the 57th that we've got this overall District thing going on but there is so much variation from school to school um that a lot of

our work has to be focused on kind of personalizing that experience for the schools so as a district um we've we're looking to focus lots of energy lots of resources time money um into supporting all of our schools and and we're putting a lot of um I putting a lot of faith and um a lot of hard work into an internalization um process in all of our schools so we are kind of hanging our

hats on the fact that if our teachers really understand the content and they know their students and they know where they want students to go um that they can do this work right we can support them to do do the work but for the first time ever we're looking we're really looking at our our subs I know that um you know every year as a group we talk about we have to do

something for our English Learners we have to do something for our students with disabilities um but this is really the first year that we've kind of gone public with a statement like that um and actually called out our students with disabilities and our English language Learners in um in our districtwide priority um and and we're doing that because we feel like we are in a in in a good place to do that and that in

focusing um our energy our time our resources on unpacking the content on supporting teachers to deliver it to the students who need it the most that all of our students are going to benefit because at the end of the day our teachers are going to um have a better command of the content of the skills that they are trying to build in students um and of the work that they have to do

so as a district um we're we've we're subscribing to this system for instructional Improvement we've done a lot of work in the last few years um you know in identifying and making really clear to folks what um you know the kind of work that we need to do identifying four key resources that students have to experience on a daily basis in their schools and we've looked to this system

for instructional Improvement to get the work done and so you know that we've we've had a huge focus on high quality instruction materials millions of dollars have been spent on getting grade level resources and high quality resources into students and teachers hands that's one piece of it we are spending um a lot of resources on the professional development associated with the resources as well as uh just

building skills and content knowledge in our teachers we're doing work with our instructional leadership teams at our schools some of that includes coaching at the school level for those instructional leadership teams for compensating people for participating on instructional leadership teams for teachers outside the school day the internalization work is really happening through our plc's and I think

you'll hear um each of the directors talk um about that work in those plcs and we're we're investing in this you know the observ and feedback in instructional coaching for teachers so really trying to leverage um of the evaluation process in a way that is supportive to to teachers in terms of in terms of building them but also outside of that evaluation process using coaches and other staff to provide realtime

coaching embedded coaching for our teachers um and being able to offer people constructive feedback on a regular basis outside of the evaluation system before we move into um content specific data does anybody have any questions or I have a quick one sure so you you mentioned we know we have a a bunch of curriculums right A lot of them are new right so how much work is being done with the coaches and the teachers

is that there are a lot of work a lot I know you just mentioned feedback but they are getting majority of the say of how these curriculums working right they go back to the coaches the coaches go back to you guys it's that's the system but how often is that happening so in schools we're supporting teachers around um implementation on a on a weekly basis at the very least so there's structured

time during the day to to support teachers around that and really taking a look at the internalization process of that content and of those skills and of the students on on a weekly bis uh we made a significant um investment this year in asking all of our schools to to make sure that if a teacher was teaching both math and daa that they were getting that support on a weekly basis instead of rotating one week Ela

one week math and things like that so we're we're investing more time and effort there um we're doing work I mean the leads meet with building based leads monthly in addition to that we're doing um focused work with leader development that's happening through um the development of teacher leaders in some cases who are supporting their peers on a regular basis in schools and also leads development that is for coaches

and Department shairs who are doing the work who have been doing the work but really kind of perfecting their skill set on how they can best support um best support teachers outside of an evaluation kind of situ situation okay yeah I just want to know what the system was like and how how it was going down every week every day every month whatever Mr AA what would be in your estimation the boldest action that you

all are proposing as a leadership team to address these scores throughout this entire presentation all these slides and everything else what is the boldest action of the couple of them so I kind of get a feel for where you all are at from your whole entire team from superintendent to all of our team I mean I think that well what we came here was to present the data I think that there's a lot more

that goes into the data than um this is one standardized test that all students take one indicator the boldest action is to get our kids to school so that our kids can learn that's the boldest action we can we have to partner with our families to make sure kids are in front of us we can't do our jobs and our kids don't come to school ready to learn there's a lot of SE issues that are

preventing students from learning our teachers have to play counselor they have to do all of theal stuff before they even get to academics that's you know we can say it we can spin it we can do whatever we want but we need to make sure kids are in front of us and that we are supporting our kids and our staff to deal with the students in front of them

so that they are ready to learn our kids are are we struggled before co co just added more increase the Gap significantly we are what I see in the data is that we have stopped the bleeding right in most of our schools with the exception of maybe three schools that still uh declined that we are addressing but we we have to stop that and turn that around but that just because and I know

that we have invested significantly and we are grateful for that we have consistent curriculum we have Staffing that we've invested in but just just those Investments aren't going to just because you're throwing those investments in place it doesn't mean you're going to have automatic change change sustainable change takes time 3 to five years to turn around my what I believe is the boldest action even

though it's probably not the most uh popular answer right now is to stay the course because we are uh instructionally in the best place we have been in in several years we really are that doesn't mean that we have to we don't have to think outside the box and think about some of the ways to I mean our middle schools are hurting we have to figure out what's going on there we have some

feeder schools that are hurting too so we are exploring some options for that I I mean I'm a firm believer in the pre 8 model I think we have to invest and explore that and and probably uh look at that as yet another option does do I think that every single School needs to be pre no but I do think that we probably need to look at some options but I think right now the bll

action is getting our kids to school in front of us so we can do our job so what did it look like when you I'm assuming based on that response about attendance that you must have done a correlation between mcast scor and attendance and what does that data look like because I don't see it here but I'm assuming that when you did a data you call data Dives or whatever you call them you must have

that data that indicates that backs up that statement because it's easy to say oh we want our kids to be here and I get it showing the hot data is I think a different you might be right I just uh I I agree I'm not I well I'd like to think I'm right but I I'm not I don't have all the answers but what I'm saying is if you look at we have a 40%

chronic rate right so what would we expect when our kids are missing at least 18 to 20 days of school and some more right we and we're leaving our kids behind our students with disabilities in record numbers right we have to I'm not disagreeing what I'm suggesting is if you say there 40% of the kids that have a chronically absent or whatever the number is theoretically 40 the lowest

40% of the mcast scores should be very similar to those kids they are theoretically you know so like within range because I think that's when I say bold action is not there's no magic we're not going to stap our fingers and do it we spent 10 million more dollars every year for the last four years so 40 million didn't do it uh we've been talking about k to8 for a while we've

been talking so when I say bold I don't have the answer either I can just tell you that this is not a good these scores are not good and I don't think anybody here is striving to be back to 2019 scores because in 2019 we were not good then so if if that's what we're using as a test to say oh if we could only get back to 2019 we would like Champion that

I'm not sure anybody thinks that's a good idea either but how do you get Beyond it so all I'm suggesting is that that the attendance piece if that's what it is I think for the full committee summarizing what is your action Y we could look at slides all day and they're going to tell us the same story that you could probably do in three or four slides that I I personally want to just

see what is the actions now I might disagree with some of them I might have suggestions whatever it is but I synthesizing your team's uh what are you going to do differently than what we've done before we went we've been over this last year the scores were lousy we created evaluations for you and all of your team and principles that were based on these numbers so I'm if I can just I understand what you're saying

right and I think that it's it's human nature to say okay let's change course we got to try something else we got to try something else but that's not we need stability if nothing else you are right we shouldn't be striving for 2019 but the folks at Desi use that as if we see that we are getting back to those levels that means that we have stopped the decline line and then we can start

pivoting right and that's what we're doing we're certainly we've done data Dives every Everybody human nature right is is to say oh we're ahead of the district we be the district and I said you can't say that because as a district we're now where we want to be or need to be chase the high performing districts those are the ones that we should be aiming for right but we have to we have

to stop that slide and then we have to you know uh uh focus our our efforts I think that impact some of the impact on this data I'm not going to make excuses we had a staffing issue right we had people that are were not uh um were new we had substitutes we had Paris covering classes we had administrators covering classes all of that impacts the data would the data be uh you know uh through

the roof no it's not it's not going to be like that in a year it's going to take us time we need to make sure all I'm saying is is we have a concerted effort we have focused on teaching and learning for the first time in many years and I feel like we are in the midst of a turnaround we've seen it happen we've seen it at Henry Lord we've

seen it at Dorne we've seen it at cus we've seen it happen we know we can do we're seeing we saw it at lerno we're seeing it at talet we have three middle schools in the third percentile three very different third percentiles three very different percentiles because they're in three different places those three middle schools I I think as a team we are very very very well aware of that

data we are keeping track of that data we are talking to our administrators evaluation tool I'm a firm believer that we use the evaluation tool to build capacity it's not your data is not good because there are many factors that impact data what are you going to say to a teacher your data is the worst data in in the third grade cohort so you're going to be me imp them are you going to

be unsat I don't believe that that's the only Factor the evaluation tool should be away from for us to grow our people yeah I I'm not giving you a hard time or disagreeing with you I what I think is though we we looking for feedback for bring to the full committee and just bring it so that everybody's on the same page with what it is your answer and expounded upon to me is much more

valuable than all of these slides put together so I think acknowledging the fact that this is these numbers are not good I think that's the first step and then saying here's what I think we're going to be doing and then we have to trust that you're doing that with your team we can agree to disagree whatever it is but I just think that analysis is what I was looking for versus we've seen these same

slides about the 20% for this that that's we can't really do anything about it when I say both you just we just had a meeting where we said we had no certified Math teachers at our alternative school we have no specializ certified teachers at other places do you think that this is a surprise if we don't have certified people in there so when I say bold what is your bold and

I'm not looking for an answer but this is what is your bold way to say how can we get more certified people in to compete against other places whatever that means I know what that means it needs to come from you guys to say we can't get certified Math teachers so should we just keep doing the same thing year on year and then we got half the schools are R lowest 10% or do we say

time out we got to do something different here and negotiate some way to actually compensate people accordingly same thing with special ed if we have some we can't find people for the most needy special ed classrooms we should just keep doing the same thing again and we'll have 5% whatever that number was in here 5% of kids meeting standards uh in special ed at the high school just

keep doing the same thing that's when I say bold that's kind of what I'm saying just say time out we have to do something that's totally out of the box totally different we did that with the subs you brought an issue to us we all helped you to try to figure it out and said we need to pay subs $155 so why are we doing that because at $120 we weren't getting anybody so at

the rates we currently pay we're not getting anybody for a subpar classroom or a math teacher or whatever something bold so I just trying to get you to I could question all these numbers all day but that's not going to do anything really it's just a matter of i' rather have you just say this is where we're at you know when I mentioned the evaluation it was only to say we all

talked about how we going to put the scores in like these targets into your evaluation now if I was to just say that's the only Factor then you and all your team are going to get a bad evaluation in essence you could be busting your butt you could be doing all kinds of great things but based on those scores everybody's going to get a bad evaluation which I don't think is fair

either so I think just acknowledging it and trying to figure out how we're going to move on and then set some targets if you said K to eight I'm so sick and tired of hearing about K to eight schools already because the only thing we haven't done in the last two years is not one thing to move forward towards it so just take it bold and say you know what these aren't working I keep seeing

Watson School on here the lowest or whatever that thing was all all the way to the right where they're targeted I remember two years ago or four years ago saying to you or whoever was in charge how many more how much more resources are we going to put into that same school before we do something different down there oh well the scores were I think it was before you Watson will get

out this year watch but my point is how long have we been saying it and the same thing is happening so I would say let's just go go for the Gusto you brought up Watson that's a very good example actually because we have poured resources in there we have supported that that school in a way a couple years ago we you know we went in there and supported them we tra uh uh supported

the structure of how they supporting teachers Etc and I Watson probably would have gotone out with it because they they remained at 10 which means that their you know uh um uh level was probably slightly over we'll have this conversation we'll be celebrating Watson getting out but if that's the case time so this is my point though if the Watson like you you know the the pictures up there so if if

Watson is a situation where you have a different opinion other than what's on that screen with the red line on inside of it all I'm asking for is when you present to the full committee you have a one pager on Watson here's what I think on Watson here's what I think on Henry W here's what I think on because then it's going to give us a perspective on like

not having to like figure it out like we all know the squad isn't terrible but you is a different opinion that you have y you said talit was different than the other yep well they're all 3% mhm so I understand why because I happen to know some of the other pieces but tell us that in that one page addresses all of these slides it's that's really what I'm trying to that's actually good feedback

so so we're going to skip to pla action plan um so on the slide you'll see that we separated this into two two different um areas one is previously in place and will continue to support and I would also say um that we should have added or expand which I think we did on our other on our draft um and then the new to our plan and so as you can see um wond is K

to 5 we will continue to support that work in buildings we're in our third year of implementation at grade 3 to 5 um all schools are using it and internalization of that content will make instruction more effective the second thing listed is the Yukon and Hill partnership and so we now have two cohorts of that work um cohort one started two years ago and the new cohort cohort 2 with Watson vava Sylvia

and LNO started this year um and so our first cohort is working on tier 2 practices and so taking the work from the tier one and bringing it into tier 2 to um provide supplemental work and instruction to our students who requireed tier two and then our cohort 2 the four new schools are beginning the tier one practices um that's enhanced core reading instruction in wonders content um at this point in the year the

cohort one has not started on November 7th they're receiving their first PD um and the work will launch during at the start of their next inquiry cycle and then Co part two has already started with data collection and coaching um and so those four schools have already have coaches in their buildings working specifically on um the enhanced core reading instruction practices um the third thing that you

see listed is um consistent support of our digital platforms um Lexia Core 5 is up and running Lexia PowerUp which is for the struggling um and striving readers in grades 6 to 8 um is also up and running but we are running into a barrier um as our new program is being lifted by the teachers so it's it's difficult to have kind of both things happening simultaneously um they're working on it

there's alternate ways of engaging have been um have been offered and we are launching a districtwide incentive um alongside other digital platforms that um will hopefully boost the um engagement both inside and outside of school um the next thing listed is our writing Revolution initiative that we've had running for a couple of years now um we continue to offer courses to teachers

that are new to the district or that need a refresher it's also part of our plc's um where the coaches are supporting the work of the writing Revolution and this summer we had a teacher work group come together um and they received uh additional doses of PD and bite-sized chunks and then created curriculum aligned activities to be used across the district um the next thing is training

special Educators an interventionist in tier three intervention materials so last year we were lucky enough to purchase um Project Read Linguistics and framing your thoughts materials and over the summer and this year we have trained a lot of special Educators and um interventionists you can see 48 Educators in kada 3 were um were trained in sy23 and then 49 so far this year and then in fourth grade and

up 56 Educators have been trained in sy24 in the reading interventions and our writing intervention PD begins on November 1st so that's um that's exciting as far as supporting that work um um Mrs obain has her coordinators and supervisors also attending that training and they are direct support to the teachers in the buildings in implementation alongside literacy coaches who are also trained

um we continue our journey in making all uh having all Educators engage in the science of reading and aligned pedagogy um and so in K2 we had 113 educator trained in um sy23 and 19 so far in sy24 and we have a plan for an additional 50 as the school year continues um we intend to expand this year to include 50 Educators in the grade 3 to 5 science of reading course

and um also expand into the Adolescent lierac course which is um the science of reading for for grade six and above um and we'll have three cohorts of spe of um Educators in grade 6 to 8 um and still continue with our providing and expanding direct support to our school-based literacy leads um through joint observation feedback PLC observations planning for those plc's facilitation of professional development

One on One support um in our monthly meetings any questions previously in place and will continue to support before I move into the new question when uh were you assessing using an AET to assess Ela as well last year yeah yes so one of the things that in my mind was always over the past several years we were talking about the value of how much we spent on it and what that was showing as far as

improvements and then the scores are what they are were they equal were they were they falsely um higher than what we we anticipate or was he not a surprise based on AET it was not a surprise in Middle School specifically in fifth grade we did see that there was an increase in scores over the course of last year and so it was nice to see that there was a slight bump in fifth grade

um we struggled in third and in fourth in in 6 to8 we we knew that that was happening we we made Moves during the course of the year to try to stop the bleeding um and made strides but didn't so where does that fit in the previously in is that yeah so um we actually are changing what we're using as a benchmark um we're moving into previously released mcast um through

the illuminate platform um and we'll use it in a very similar way in that we will have teachers engage in that assessment and rip it apart as far as um what makes the piece complex so that they can use that information as they plan forward it is not different than anet but what we did notice is that with the anet ass assessments the level of complexity was very high as compared to what was

happening on um on mcast and so you almost could feel like this um I don't know tension in the room around yes I understand how hard mcast is but this is over the top from teachers um and so I feel and what we've already experienc as teachers feeling that the mcast is going to be a better and more fair assessment of our student students and it will help them in making the instruction match the

um River of that assessment so did I miss that we're no longer using AET so that's we're not spending any money on that we are not we we in the absence of having consistent benchmarks that's when we used it and now we built our own benchmarks we invested in illuminate where we have the ability to create our own and now we have common assessments across the board I'm trying to no I recall us

saying that the reason why we went to AET was because it was aligned it was am my nuts or that no no you're right and we didn't have common assessments across the board at that time so we knew that it was going to be something that we would use until we could build our own assessments now we have the ability to build our own assessments we purchased illuminate which is allows us to build

our assessments that are aligned that we're able to do that so we transition transition out of and it's must be in the fine print of eliminate when that came before us that we were eliminating this or no I think we did but I'm just curious to see if I missed it how I miss but I was just of the belief that going back four years ago whatever when we did

that we were told this is the aligned one this is so now when we're going in a different direction just surprising no we still want aligned benchmarks right so that there was a purpose for them we didn't we didn't have any so we that's what AET did it plugged in that hole now we're able to create our own we have a system to do that so we're going to pay

for that and have the ability to do that it's not we're not going in a different direction where we're saying it's a total different assessment we're able to create our own assessments now because we have rocket if the test is released and you know like hello we haven't been doing that over the years since cellcast has been I probably Pockets I'm guessing at time what happened was when when the

um when mcast went next gen there weren't enough released items for us to build benchmark assessments over the course of the year to have three or four full-blown assessments there just weren't enough released items so over the years as the bank has increased there were two pieces to our partnership with anet one was that we were using their assessments and then the ex the other piece was that we were

using them to do coaching in our schools and we it very specific to the data piece but we've built our own capacity to do that so that we don't need their coaching anymore and the mcast banks are such that we could build our own assessments yeah you can get it thank you and just so the practices that we use during an are still being brought into um the this new assessment tool that we're using the eluminate

assessment tool um we have the adoption and support of amplify Ela in all middle school grades um PD and coaching through amplify as well as um coaching PG and network support through The Hil literacy um both of those serve to build up teachers um as the coaching is for teachers as well as building up the academic leads in their um in their knowledge of amplify and the fuses um there has been a um our our mlfc

classroom are using core materials in grades K to 8 and so in K to 5 um they are using wonders L and the anchor text from the regular wonders curriculum and so there's alignment there um and then in grade 6 to8 we um intend to have an amplifi pilot which will be they'll start a little bit later than um than they haven't started yet so they have a staggered start time and the reason is

because we just want to give more access to grade level cont content to students in the developing stages of language acquisition and um Miss agella will talk more about that um Lexia PowerUp at dery um we are using it with our multilingual Learners and um specific to foundational rooms and our students with disabilities in substantially separate classrooms in grades 9 through 12 um when you looked

at when we looked at the data we did see that there was a gap closing happening and so um we will continue that practice there has been a focused collaboration across departments in all content areas um I have been working very closely with Miss agella in um making sure that we have a language focus when we are internalizing our content and so there have been several sessions with academic leads um to

um we have had a very heavy focus on supporting our special Educators in um what to do to close gaps in students specifically around tiered intervention um we've purchased research based materials and we've trained up as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago um and so uh the other piece that we have common protocols across schools which is really really important um our internalization with a focus on language

during that internalization we start with determining the objective the standard and the assessment and then we plan backward from there we engage in a high level overview of the lesson or the text um we analyze that fully and then we plan for lesson facilitation and implementation um which includes crafting questions and planning for differentiated instruction in the classroom and another piece that's

really important to mention in this is that we're using an equity pause protocol for data analysis which puts the data of our students with disabilities and our multilingual Learners on the table and that becomes part of every conversation that we're having um in PLC whether it be we're internalizing talking about multilingual Learners or students with disabilities or we're analyzing the data and looking

specifically at students with disabilities um or um multilingual Learners in looking at student work or um after an assessment and then finally we have a common PLC plan and that goes across content areas um where we operationalize the process for supporting teachers and content and pedagogy bro and we're seeing come alive that's the important thing any questions no questions at this time okay thank

you we are going to move on um to maass um and discuss um what we've been doing and what's new for this year all right so I'll go through the First Column quickly it's divided the same way that Ela is and science in place right now and what we'll continue to support illustrative mathematics and Carnegie are our Core Curriculum we'll continue to internalize our resources illustrative

mathematics will continue to receive professional development we mainly do the professional development through virtual sessions for new teachers Carnegie does in-person professional development on our early release days we continue with the use of all digital platforms stmath to support cor at the elementary matthia for Carnegie matthia we continue with the support and coaching and a lot of our coaching this

year will be focusing on matthia it's different than other the digital resources where if you look at um math stream or stmath they're an addition to those resources but with Carnegie you have a textbook and you have matthia and you can't do one without the other it's it'll be like 2 Days in Carnegie and then one day in the Maia digital resource so we continue to do professional development teachers need

support with pulling small groups and using that data I ready in elevation this year we've done professional development in all the Middle School the secondary schools in order for um them to analyze the data at all of the diagnostic assessments beginning of the year middle of the year and end of the year elev math is something that was new and came in last year so we wanted to observe it for one year and then bring

in professional development so we could help guide teachers in the best way to structure their classroom using that digital resource for foundational students we continue to support the design of all PD in service to the instructional priority we do this through our math lead meetings we plan together um survey what teachers need and then develop the professional development for the early release days and full

days I'll continue to differentiate support based on the need of the math leads I go in and observe with math leads for um individual grade levels or teachers we construct feedback to make sure that we're normed using the tntp tool we'll observe PLC and give feedback or just discuss PD planning based on their schools need or oneon-one problem solving new to our plan this year as Stephanie mention we have new

District benchmarks we wanted to utilize the illuminate platform also some of the standards were being taken to another level in the old assessments which were not giving us accurate data so the new assessments this year will consist of mcast released items items taken from the curriculum resources and and any AET questions that the teams thought were useful when we created these assessment

teams it was with each a group of two leaders math leaders did the assessments for a grade level and then they would receive feedback from two additional leads then it went to a teacher team so the teachers were able to look at all of the new assessments give us feedback for change what we'll do at the end of the year is analyze the data consistently through the year but then get feedback from all of the

schools to see if they want to see any changes made to the new vks checkpoints it's the first year that we're administering these across grade levels K to 12 utilizing the curriculum resources there was a need for smaller formative assessments based on feedback from teachers from leads and from principles so right now we have developed um for every unit and for every module we'll do one to two mini

assessments that consist of three to five questions students will take them on the digital platform this is also additional practice for them they need to learn the skill of taking what's on the computer putting it to paper then from the paper back into the computer so we're starting with grades 3 to 12 we'll transition grade two at the midy year for the mini assessments can I ref back

quickly just to the benchmarks if you mind sure when did we uh start the process of developing the new benchmarks is that the process started in the end of April we started talking about it and then we put the teams together the assessments we created May through end of June early July then those teams received feedback July to August and then August to September where the teacher teams and then Beth

Lewis is uploading the new benchmarks into alumin okay thank you I just had to get a Time ask a question on that second one so you mentioned the formative assessments the three to five questions uh monthly like that's new to the plan this this is new if you look at aluminate illuminate has checkpoints embedded in the platform so it wasn't a consistent practice across schools we had some schools who were utilizing it

they would do it for some units but not others we just recognized that we needed to do consistent across all schools principles wanted more data points and in terms of just equity for students um one of the conversations I had had with special ed was when you sit down at a table and you're analyzing data to make recommendations for referrals we have inconsistent data sources that were you

were utilizing teachers were creating their own assessments and it was just inconsistent so I just it blows my mind how that can even be possible like I agree with what you're saying I just blows my mind of how that's possible that we had a program that we paid I don't know 500,000 for or more and and the directive wasn't and I'm not blaming you I'm just saying how as a system we created we spent all this

money and it says we're going to use illuminate and I might be using the word the wrong words they have a math program that says you're going to do three to four question benchmarks 10 times a year how did it happen that we don't have people doing that I just we do I mean we do now I think it was also an inconsistent practice where some people did did it on the digital platform some

people did it on paper I needed them to do it the platform so yeah maybe we can just I don't want to believe the point but I think it's a valid question to say how would we have pay for something which is yeah I mean one of the and I'm not it's not necessarily a discussion for right now I get it but we did I would say um I don't know maybe four or

so years ago through the joint Labor Management um committees the curriculum instruction and assessment committee actually came to an agreement to only do do three to four District assessments so that when that that the district would collect data on that that was the agreement with that through that committee without with the F so coming out of that process we that's what we did with AET basically for ELA math and

and any other District benchmarks and so coming out of that the district collection of the data so we are going to schools and saying you know here are the here are the checkpoints or but we like couldn't collect the data at that point I for that what you just said to be valid it has to go against what she just said yeah and that's the problem that I have is that she just said we had

plenty of places that were doing it anyway and other ones didn't and your answer is that we couldn't because the Union contract said they couldn't require people to do it in the platform because the agreement was that we would only do three to four assessments a year and I'd like throw the data on where what what does that mean and I don't need it now so we have these subcommittees that don't really have

part of the contract was that in the contract or was that in the side agreement that the school committee never knows anything about they reported out to I mean this I wasn't in the position but I remember the joint Labor Management uh committees going and Reporting out focus are all I'm asking for is where is it say in the contract that we can't when we bought illuminate for let's just call it

$500,000 where is it say in the contract that says we can't implement the recommendations of the illuminate program that we just spent $500,000 we can now we're doing it now why why could we do it before then do we have a new agreement that was part of the it wasn't mandated by me it was an agreement of the team and it was brought back to schools and everybody was an agreement I

did not me right and nothing's changed we we just started doing it now I understand that bought eliminate this year uster but she just said that we had people not doing it last year it wasn't required and now it's required y Under The Joint management labor committee so we can um has that changed has the joint management labor committee change their wording they we haven't met as joint

Labor Management committees um since coid um we met with one the teaching and learning team that wasn't the focus uh last year so you understand the question you're saying she just said that the reason why we didn't implement it was because we had this Quai agreement whatever that said we couldn't do it you say as the math head that we didn't implement it for the year and I'm saying

to myself what in the hell is going on here because well I was assessing what schools were doing last year in terms of checkpoints unit assessments getting the lay of the land and notice that there was inconsistent data checkpoints within UST I don't even remember I think you will probably hear in the middle like you just come in in the middle can you please get a copy of what the uh

Direction was to all the schools related to this because at that point it's going to tell us either we have a problem with people just don't do what we say or is anybody not holding people accountable when they just do whatever they want instead of we've gone over this this committee two years ago to say no we're going to use this if we buy this platform we're going to use it we're

going to buid Fidelity all of those things I think it's even in your goals Madam superintendent yeah and we are do we are using the just rewind back and then get something on it because I I'm hearing different things are you thank you monthly calendars to support the scope in the sequence after reviewing data um you can see that towards the end of the units they're not being they're

not being fully rolled out and that really is just with the new curriculum teachers are getting used to it the units go way past into June so what we did was we developed a monthly calendar so so teachers could see you have a scope and sequence that's in illustrative and in Carnegie what we did was month by month week by week teachers could see how those lessons were rolled out and they can just make strategic

Decisions by month on what lessons they might be able to eliminate based on their student population the needs of the student um or parts of lessons that they might not need to internalize the evaluation of academic leads expanded last year I was an evaluator this year it's just been expanded I had principles who reached out who fully capable and um have been evaluating but wanted more

content specific feedback to their leads increased collaboration across departments in service or instructional priorities Stephanie talked a little bit about this I'm on the opposite end I'm working with both MLL and the special ed department but I'm leaning more towards the students with disabilities and working with the assistant superintendent obber chain and her team we are roll we have rolled out the

language acquisition training for all math leads at the elementary level this week we will do it with the secondary level with the support of Miss agar's team we developed um a professional development for one of the schools in the district and we will be rolling this out to all math leads and then on November 7th it is internalizing the cont attend in math lessons while unpacking IEPs so we will go I it will

be co- facilitated by a math leader and a supervisor in the special ed department where we will take teachers through X2 and how to how to look at ple a and their vision and just start to unpack how we can support um those students in a math lesson we've also done observation of classrooms across two schools when we have programs that go from elementary leading into the middle school I walked with the special

ed department and we were able to make recommendations and just think through how we can support schools and classrooms onetoone and small group professional development in the elementary schools at the end of last year with the uh continued implementation of illustrative we survey teachers we survey the math math leads and we also had oneon-one conversations with principls who attended and what

came out of that many things came out of that but the most important thing was that Educators were asking for more support unpacking the curriculum resources they have support from their coaches or their math department heads in the school but they wanted more Global District support on unpacking them and we decided to go with coaching and provide one to One professional development in schools so they're

they'll begin receiving that now common expectations across schools again Stephanie brought some of this up there's Comm common protocols across schools where math now is having PLC weekly I also had discussions with the secondary team around what was happening in terms of honors accelerated program we had it in um across the middle schools but we just had conversations around the curriculum

and expectations for that common PLC plan for all content areas um I follow the model Stephanie had developed a SL on what those plcs should look like I modified it for math so we just make sure that we're doing and looking at the same things across content areas and grade levels and the lead development training that's happening right now with lead teachers and coaches and department

heads across the district where we all attend as content leaders any questions thank you m thank you so for science um many many of the same things are in place in science that you've heard about from CLA and math um We are continuing to roll out and support our highquality instructional materials that are grounded in open sad um it's farthest along in the Middle School we're in year three of the Middle School

cohort where by the end of this year we will have teachers who get through the entire curriculum like the plan and the pilot that we were part of was two units the first year four units the second year now all six at every grade level in the third year that's going to be delayed somewhat for some teachers because we've had turnover so I have teachers that are really in year one of

this and have to really have to we're working with them to kind of stay supported and on track but they may not be proficient yet to deliver all six units but I do have schools and unit and teachers who will get through the entire curriculum at the middle school level this year which is which is a plus um the high school did the field test for two years and we're now rolling out

released units for high school so our high school team is continuing that work for Bio physics and chemistry with open sad and we've started field testing of the elementary units at Sylvia and Doran Sylvia is all in K to 5 all their teachers are experiencing these units and providing feedback to the developers um and Doran has incorporated this grades three through five they felt at

the time last year when we had to commit that they had spent and invested all this time and energy in getting their arcaded two teachers to be proficient in delivering Project Lead the way that they made the decision to stay with the Project Lead the Way curriculum for K to 2 until released items are a real thing so we've started to see this work um see this work for open sad at two schools

we've done some walks already this year and they've embraced the curriculum we're hearing accountable discussions with kids we're we're seeing differences in construction and we're excited about how that is now going to be vertically aligned um 2 years from now K kada kada High School which will this still be a continuous Project Lead the way this is it will probably live more in our stem

in our stem areas with our stem teachers and have this core science in okay open sad for our Core Curriculum and it'll allow those two vertical Pathways up to dery where we have some project leway have happening at the CTC in science and math for computer science and and um biomed so it'll kind of support both of those tracks thank you yep um learning walks have been more frequent we have as

as a result of the field tests and the work um Elementary and high school we have Partners from Boston College oei the the um Equity initiative that support all the opsed professional learning that our teachers go to and then work with us in our schools to help support teachers in shifting their pedagogy to be Shifting the thinking the deep thinking to students and so I've been on walks already um at high school

elementary and middle will be coming up in another week um to be able to look at the practices and we're seeing changes in practices on the walks that we've been on this year so teachers are becoming much much more comfortable with the pedagogy and the approaches and are starting to really start to shift their practices which was was just a difficult thing in the beginning um because this

is so high quality curriculum is far more complex than any teacher even the best of our Master Teachers have time to develop and teach and do all those other things so having this curriculum available for our classrooms is is going to make a difference we're already seeing changes um we're doing some of the same things in science that you've heard about for ELA and math we have now

coaches for the first time um a science coach at talbet there's a science coach at fonsica and I'm working with those people to be able to support with their teachers within their schools that's a different experience for science like I don't have the Cadre of coaches that that my comrades have so um it's helping move some of the work forward faster having those content area Specialists to

work and support other teachers are more coaches is something you foresee it would be it would be a definite benefit okay it and I do think a lot of of the building leads are starting to think about how how could we shift some resources to maybe do that in the future but we'll see more this year as that work moves forward um we have as you know invested in Explore Learning gizmos

that are computer simulations that are designed and developed like the new in the new mcast is going to be for grades five and eight so I've been supporting that work in our schools our schools at elementary and middle have all participated for the last two years on the new mcast roll out with the state that's continue um this year into next so that in 2026 all schools across Mass chett will

be using this new mcass approach which is Project based simulation based where students are using the data that they generate in these simulations to answer questions so it's going to got a whole different look and feel and we're supporting that work and going to be figuring out the long-term um PD plan for our teachers to be able to make that transition that's work that's happening

this year um in terms of lesson and internalization our focus in science has done we've done a lot of that work starting last January December time frame I think um moving it into this year to support our multilanguage Learners um the lift was pretty high for our foundational teachers in lifting the new curriculum and then having this influx of multilanguage Learners last year so I worked with the MLL Department

to bring about and and create a lot of professional development for our science teachers at the secondary level to be able to support our science roll out and to support the learn our our our highest need Learners and our multil language Learners and our students with disabilities um we're also continuing to support this mcast planning um and shifting our assessments to Performance tasks instead

of a lot of individual items that were like more the historical um the current mcast so we're kind of we're shifting totally instruction and assessment and science um and that's work that I've been supporting and we'll continue to support question questions just looking at the results the uh I don't know what the pages the science results by it's showing that 12% of all of eight

grade across the district uh meeting or exceeding and right and some function of that is two things I think primarily the fact that year year one and year two we we were only rolling out part of a curriculum right because we were making this instructional shift to open science the other piece is we've experienced like math and special ed gaps of teachers we've had lots of we've had

lots of positions unfilled in the last like last year last year was was a hard year for filling positions and keeping someone in them and have constant turnover in some of our schools and I think that's impacted some of our school It also says that in um as I said before 2019 is nothing to Aspire to there was 13% decrease so before open S and all these other things that we're talking about now in 2019 we

didn't have any of those and we were 25% meets or exceed now we added all of this money and all of these things and now we're down to 12% so so I will say we are ahead of the curve in making the instructional and curriculum shifts that the state is going to expect and measure by the new mcast um that's a shift that we've started at the beginning of our Middle School pilot and we're moving forward

and seeing big instructional changes in the classroom through our learning walks it's not reflected in this data because I think the data really is confounded by a lot of gaps we had turnover of teachers we had a lot of open positions last year many of our schools were filling teaching positions with par professionals and things just to be able to have a consistent adult to be doing so what you're saying if I'm read

reading into what you're saying is that we're training the teachers and the students for something different than what they were assessed on we are and I I think that's sort of a valid one pager to say you look at these numbers they're terrible they are terrible there's more to that that like so this is where I'm saying like I think picking these out because other people will do it the

public so either we let it just be and go for it or do we create our own narrative that we're aware of it we acknowledge it but we're going to do this is why whatever the same thing on the page before that the results by students with disability is 4% like I mean the high school one was five this one was four so these are just like the ones that I'm picking out as

we're talking the same thing something's going to get and I know we don't have the teachers in the world I haven't seen that data I'd love to get it how many teachers did we have non-certified in all of these different places in all of these different schools we had this debate over the last school committee so if my school school has none and her school has six well why the heck aren't

we taking three of them and having whatever like you get what I'm saying but throwing the data out and say this is what we have because we're not going to make a bold decision on like what do we why is it that we can't keep people because there it's a tough work they're not ready for the work and they make $10,000 less than they would have made if they were certified to teach in

another play whatever so this is where I'm pulling out like I just think the one Pages like paragraph means a lot more I appreciate everything you've been doing I've been sat here and listening to open sad more than I've ever you know thought I was going to listen to but this whatever's going on over the years I get what we're trying to do when the results aren't there it's like what's

next so that's all thank you are thank you I mean I think what I'm hearing here is that we have some great curriculum that we've invested in but the reality is if we don't have students in the seats and teachers in the classroom it's really kind of a waste of money right not a waste but you get my point and what I've been hearing everyone say is that we have lack of teachers so how do we

expect this expensive important curriculum to be taught by power professionals who've not received the training to do such a job um and that's not on you obviously or anybody NE you know anybody necessarily sitting here but I think when we talk about what we need to do to change these numbers we have the curriculum in place you're right we need to help we need to increase attendance that's obvious

that's a no- brainer to me if kids aren't in school they're not learning they're not going to pass whatever assessment test you give them if they're not there and then you have the kids that do show up that may still be struggling right so that's a combination of people that are not going to make our numbers look very good but I think we also need to really focus on getting

teachers hired I mean Now's the Time I we got to pay let's pay them more well we also need to be bold and recognize that working in urb settings such as ours requires some oops will require us to be bold and I've said that I don't I don't see why we can't I don't to me there is a difference between someone who is teaching in a traditional you know first grade classroom and everything's hunky

dory and there's a few issues and we're going to compare that same thing to a teacher who's teaching is one of our classrooms that maybe is dealing with more and I understand that can change Year from year depending on what you have you know in your classroom but certain teachers just need to get paid more sorry so if that's what we have to go out there and do then let's do it because we need special ed

teachers we need Math teachers we apparently we need all teachers so we need to stop paying them or we're not going to get them and then we're going to be spending money on curriculum and we're going to be sitting here and my colleagues going to say we spent a lot of money on this and you're not showing me anything and I get that but in the same respect how can we if you're

telling me we started I mean almost every person here it said we use the but we didn't have the teachers in the classroom but we had holes not anybody's fault here here but I mean who's in charge of of doing of hiring teachers principles all right so let's get them on it this is something that needs to be done and I'm not saying they're not on it they need more money

that's cool they need to come and ask us because that's what we will do I believe that's what all of my colleagues would do because we need teachers but I can't tell principals what they should be paid cuz I'm not a principal that's not my education that's not my background right so the principles need to say hey Shelly you know why I can't hire a science teacher because they can drive 15

minutes over a bridge and get paid 15,000 more a year oh really well then we need to pay them 20,000 more than they get paid in Somerset if that's what we need to do to get them here it's true we live in an area I was you know I I work hybrid type of thing so my technically my office in Hoke western Mass very different than out here right western Mass maybe you know spring

Springfield pays well everything else relatively the same you teach in lllo probably the same as if you're in hoio whatever we are in an area where I can drive an hour and be in Boston I can be in newort I can be in Providence I can be there are so many places I could go that could pay more which is great to live here because we get to Vacation all these cool spots not good we're trying

to get teachers and we're not paying them and then we're asking them to come in to a school that there's not probably going to be enough teachers at first right cuz even if we hire there still not going to be enough so are they going to feel super supported right so you kind of have to say okay we're going to hire you we're going to give you a good Sal and

we're going to ask you to be patient because we're going to need to hire more support for you to me this is a no-brainer and this isn't necessarily the conversation this is an instructural group but if we're talking about how we can get numbers up when we need to get teachers qualified teachers who are learning the curriculum we paid for to be able to implement it so I think that's what you need to be telling your

principles like let's go if they need they more money they got to ask right they they advocate for yeah right we have contracts Etc bargaining but I will say that I wholeheartedly agree I was in the classroom many many years so I know we could never pay teachers what they're worth ever no matter how much we pay them agreed because they work hard in and they work much much harder in high

needs areas I don't want to take that away from anyone that works in the Suburban area because they work hard teaching is hard and the kids that are coming to us today this day and age come with many more needs they are signifant they are not ready to learn because there are many factors that are preventing them from being ready to learn we have to address those issues also so that it would be awesome if a

teacher could actually teach for 50 minutes the the entire period but they are doing some seal work prior to or interrupted by some issues before they can get to that and that factors in listen I'm never going to sit here across the table and say the date is good enough because it's not all I'm saying is we cannot teachers cannot take all of this date listen I'll take it I that's I'm the superintendent right

I will take responsibility for that but we're not going to put the data or the lack of progress on teachers because it is not entirely on them there are things they can't control and we're asking teachers to be social workers first right yeah they're social workers they their parents and then teach and then go ahead and and go teach and while you're doing all that teach some math exactly

it's not easy to do I agree with you 100% it you can't there is a difference I'm sorry I will say it I don't care who hears it there's a difference between being a teacher in a nice little Little Town out somewhere than it is to be in an urban community where we have a diverse population and people with more needs there is a difference and any teacher teaching in those places knows

that some of them that's probably why they there but there are also a group of teachers that want to be in this community they want to be in an urban area this is where they Thrive right um so we need to find those teachers but then we need to pay them a lot more than we're paying them because turnaround I don't know that could be money but it also could just be lack of support like

you want to hang in and you want to do the best by your class but if you constantly feel overwhelmed at work and that you're dealing withal issues and are not able to teach because you don't have maybe other powers of support in that classroom to help you I mean you can be the best but at some point that's going to break you down too you know so we got to hire them con

consistently and a lot of them and support do you want to become a math teacher no I know a place no right or an English teacher or a science teacher these numbers obviously numbers are never reflective of one group there's so many things and I certainly never blame the teachers um you know obviously everything's a factor but I wouldn't not in the situations of daily with this is

like and I hate to say like Co but it guess what it's still here and the people that think it isn't other people who weren't affected socially and emotionally by it because I know firsthand that there are still people dealing with that so to say it doesn't exist anymore as a joke we're still recover that it impacted adults too every that's what I'm talking about yeah not just kids lot of moving pieces right

so all of that was just a lot and we're still kind of coming out and getting over that and I get it but again you know let's just I don't know but Mr agar brings up a good point our data wasn't strong before Co right exact so there's more to want to make up there there and there's more to do to address those root causes so that we can move ourselves as

a district so yes I think um coid um was a a magnifying glass right and just added significantly to to the issues we already had right so Amplified those issues but we had issues and what we need to do is we need to make that we support yes we've invested a great deal making sure all our teachers have the resources they need and they should we added PA professionals we added slea ons we added

all all those things and now we have to fix those other factors that you just mentioned factors that we're saying that are preventing kids from learning so that everybody's Runing in the same direction and we can make strides until we do that and acknowledge that that needs to be done we're never going to do we're always going to be two steps forward three steps back two steps forward St it's

acknowledged yep I think it is by everybody yeah we have to acknowledge it and then we have to like make a plan and move forward right because yeah it it's it's it's a complex issue it's acknowledged I might have to go back to school to become a r all right where are we we are before the Finish SL so shockingly um there are not enough enough ESL teachers Public Schools um this is not a

new problem though and this is not something that ironic even an increase in Pay may help I will I was not an ESL teacher for those of you that don't know my history the Fall River Public Schools made me one um I was an Ela teacher and I was somebody who was interested in working with multilingual Learners and at the time we had a program that offered me some courses that I could pay

for and I transitioned um into working with multilingual Learners in addition to working as an Ela teacher um and that's going back about 15 years which is crazy cuz I'm only 25 so I I must have been 10 when I was I don't know I don't know how that happened um so we also face the shortage of teachers we Face lots of challenges in the multilingual Learners Department um we do have some high quality instructional

materials I will say honestly with the exception of the American reading company and wonders I'll be totally transparent about Sage we have um we have some focus groups going on we are dealing with the tension between giving kids access to grade level material and students who do not um yet have English language proficiency to access that material so when you look at Sage Sage is a curriculum that is addressing ESL

needs for students who are newcomers um who exactly gets that curriculum where when and how is certainly up for scrutiny and we are scrutinizing lots of our systems in the ESL Department we've had turnover in our leadership um and also for those of you that don't know there's been turn there's been shifts in how we approach multilingual Learners so if you look on the right hand side roll out of waa 2020

although wia's framework shifted in 2020 shockingly that wasn't the biggest news item in 2020 and the whole world was not focused in the year 2020 on English language development we were focused on the pandemic so really um it seems crazy like there'd be a question of like well why Leisa in 2023 are we focused on rolling out standards and a framework from 2020 full transparency I was at a

director's meeting a couple of weeks ago and other districts in the area have not even touched this they're saying yeah we think that really important to do a systemic roll out of waa 2020 and we're not there yet so full river is actually ahead of the curve that we're even talking about this and training as uh my colleagues Miss Patterson and Miss Kennedy um have said we are training our

leads in weda 2020 putting us ahead of the curve so um we also have added you know MLL coaches were added to our budget last year we have had some struggle finding MLL coaches um finding people that if we don't have teachers and we have vacant positions finding people with the years of experience in ESL to coach people is also a challenge so we have some of those positions still

vacant but we are building up our MLL coaches many of whom are new to coaching so um they are working with department heads in buildings to support professional development to support professional learning communities so that's an area where we are growing and where we have people focused on English language development um something that people don't always think about when they think about multilingual Learners

and ESL ESL is something kids get 45 to 90 minutes a day but really to instruct a student who's a multilingual learner my Department's really responsible for that child seven hours a day so we can't just say what's happening in ESL class because frankly whatever I do for 45 minutes is not going to move a kid if the other five and a half hours are not if we're not all rowing in the same

direction to help that student acquire language so that's just something to keep in mind that there's ESL class but there's also this idea of Sheltering content and um growing the students experience throughout their entire school day on the right hand side um the revised ELP process English learner success plans are something that the state mandated for kids who are not making progress towards their targets

the state has decided that a student should exit ESL services within six years and it a child gets a Target every single year if they are not moving towards that Target we are supposed to have a plan for them so we had a focus group over the summer that met that really dove into what we were doing how we can improve that process and we are rolling out some new steps to that

process this year um and trying to support our kids who are not making the progress as expected as I mentioned WEA 2020 is up there we are specifically at dery we we do have an ESL coach and we have a department head we've decided that the department head is really focused on that ESL class as I mentioned our coach um who is wonderful is working heavily in math this year to really

think about what is happening with our mlls when they're in other areas of the building outside of their ESL class thank you all very much for approving the weda model interim benchmarks um we are doing right now we are in the window of our first Benchmark so hopefully you'll hear from me again with a report back on how wonderful and valuable that data is to our teachers um and hopefully

that will be soon as you know the wonderful team at dery has piloted a newcomer Academy and that is we're get seeing some great initial results from that it's something that's on the table for thinking about how can we roll that down what are we learning there that also might be helpful for our middle schools so um that's something that's on the table we're thinking about really

what the newcomer experience is what the newcomer experience needs to be um as my colleagues have mentioned we are partnering with content leads and we are our digital platforms we are expanding our use of Lexia Core and power up with MLS and we are piloting Lexia English hoping to get some feedback um on whether imagine Lear learning or Lexia English is our way forward both of those

programs why is there an add-on for mlss both of those programs address the speaking domain which the other Lexia programs do not address um so that's that in a nutshell Lots I could say about MLL education the one thing that I will say I I don't hide the ball I will tell you guys what I stand for I'm deeply invested in dual language education um I I do think that that is a

way forward for us I do think that um I'm sure you hear all the time that it's the best way to educate multilingual Learners it's an investment it certainly costs money um but I firmly believe in bilingualism for everyone our multilingual Learners and our English-speaking students um I just think that in a global Society bilingualism is our way forward if you ask me the one thing I'm most

embarrassed about myself it's that I'm not bilingual I wish I really really wish if my education had failed me in any way I wish that somebody had said to me invest in learning another language Lisa um because our community here in fall river is certainly multilingual and the world is certainly multilingual so you will hear from me in the future um about du language education because for

sure I think it's a Way Forward I also think it's something we can capitalize on at the high school level you know with that seal of biliteracy I think that we're only going to expand in those areas and if something is worth doing it is worth doing well and I'm going to go after it so I I really want to see those stamps of biliteracy on more kids diplomas and I I just really want to see

I really want Fall River to be the premier District in Massachusetts for educating our multilingual Learners and for promoting vialism that's just who we need to be any questions D yet on the slide that preceded the progress towards efficiency so this begs the question of non- high school that basically 26% less when they get to high school I'm guessing that there's probably uh another picture to

this of how this is possible or is it are we talking about the same kids that lose 26% or are we talking about some new kids that show up at 9th grade for the first time and not don't so I'm not looking for an answer but this slide to me beges for like some other explanation because it's probably more to the story than just absolutely in just a quick yes

it's both so some of it are kids that are coming to us new in high school and just have less time to acquire English is what it is you come in 10th Grade there is no six years right that's not but it's also um we do have many experienced multilingual Learners who if we are not catching them back to that ELP process if we are not catching them and we see a kid in fifth grade who's

not transitioning out of our ESL Services why because that chances are that same kid is sitting in front of us at high school still not transitioning out of our ESL services so we really need to dig into that as a district and figure out who's slipping through the cracks and there's plenty of Assessments to know we shouldn't be surprised after year six we should not but one of the

challenges right is is this a language acquisition issue or is it something else so there's a lot of push and pull we don't want to over identify our multilingual Learners as is having a disability and our multilingual Learners might have a have a disability right um so there is a lot of really deep diving into what's happening with a kid how their language is progressing and one thing that we don't have is we don't

have n native language assessments so we can't necessarily we don't screen a kid in Spanish when they come through the door so ESL education is really different if I have literacy in my native language that's a whole whole different trajectory than if I have no literacy skills sure I speak Spanish I speak Portuguese but I I don't deal with the written word so there's um lots of areas to grow there to get an even

Fuller picture of who the kid sitting in front of us is um seems like you're on the track with like a lot of the things that I'm hearing as far as my own two senses with so I would support all the things I'm curious about the Dual language and looking at um not for discussion here but maybe for or something related to the old way we did you U before it was even called MLL back

20 years ago when I first started in this and what that looks like now because I think we went from similar to what you're saying now we went backwards in my opinion but I'm curious to see where you think we should go forward because we whatever that was quick turn around everybody's going to learn English in a year or two or three and then throw them to the Wolves the way I

think of it so I think you're trying to Via a dual language when in reality we probably should just admit that that didn't work and we should do something else but I'm totally open to uh what you suggested so that's just not a feeling that you had Massachusetts was one of two states that fully went English only and really it set us back as a state so other other states 48 other states did

not go in that direction Massachusetts did and so you will still see if if people were in the classroom during a certain time period when Massachusetts was English only you might actually see see them say to a kid no no don't speak in Spanish don't and we're moving away from that um but Massachusetts wouldn't even allow for dual language education programs for for a window so now we're

seeing the pendulum swing back in the other direction um and so there's a lot of work to be done makes sense thank you thank you yeah thank you Dr curly um we're going to do a little bit with special education sure um just quickly with special education we have 20 9 Teacher vacancies right now 10 of which are filled by par professionals on top of that our class size in our inclusion

setting is very large I was in a kindergarten classroom a couple weeks ago at Henry Lord and I think they had 27 or 28 kids that was a uh inclusion classroom with a special education teacher that is shared between K and one so knowing the challenges that we have with not only recruiting and maintaining the teachers and the class siiz um concerns my goal for this year which it continues to be is to

provide um buildings with support from special education experts that we have in the district meaning our cluster coordinators our supervisors are not only working in the classroom especially our um substantially separate classrooms or our specialized programs with the instructional strategies understanding how to internalize content um meeting the needs the the great needs of all of our

students but also um sitting in on ilt teams in buildings being members of the data teams in in buildings which has been a shift um they were not as entrenched in the buildings as they wanted to be and so so now we've made that um a clear goal for us because we have to get our staff and our students some more support um really that is the the big idea for

me when it comes to instruction and mcast and kind of accountability data you know we have the resources with the curriculum we have the digital platforms that give them the multiple um opportunities to access and practice skills we have the collaboration with office of instruction and special education and now our time is to get into the buildings and provide that level of support I just trying to make a small

comment I was out yesterday and somebody approached me somebody from Somerset an attorney or something from Somerset and she had asked if who I was and if I was the shell in the school C I said yeah and she said that she was in an IEP meeting um at fonsa school and she said it was um she said she does a lot of this work what she does different work

as an attorney I guess and she said that it was one of the best teams she's ever worked with that she said um everybody she said it was one of the best I she raved so I just wanted to let you know that thank you for give them some high fives over there at F and I will tell you that um our team chairs are parti my voice I that our team chairs are

participating in that um year-long PD with the sley group and um they are really embracing how to run facilitate meetings more effectively embracing IEP development so thank you for sharing that happy to hear I was very and I was around other people and I was like I'm sorry this is Fall River what is your so it was good I wanted to share it with Youk you thank you one a question good questions you

mentioned you have 29 vacancies in the special education can we get a how many like you mentioned first grade at some school how many vacancies are in first grade or second grade I have it by building yeah I have it by building but I don't mean by I don't mean by in special end oh oh oh give that so my hunch tells me that we're we're not having as much trouble filling a grade

one teacher or grade two teacher oh you're right in with that being said there is still value in a second teacher in the room even with the special educator doing the IEP piece but having a second like those numbers are crazy yeah you know when you add up all the things that Mrs Pon had mentioned before I think there's value and if we can't like we can keep throwing it out there

we need to hire more special teacher but why don't we hire 10 more first and second grade teachers so that we can provide some relief that there a second person in the room special educated that's the other piece so I think there's more value in just looking at those things and obviously if we have the money we should do it are you thank you Dr Curley so there are other indicators um in terms of advanced

course work completion um um and some of the other High School indicators but I wanted to give um Dr bronhard since she's here an opportunity to talk about the efforts on chronic cism um so upon assuming my role this year you know we've started even in the summer with our showup campaign at the back to school bash um a you know as superintendent Pont mentioned you know when 37% of our kids are chronically absent I

think it's really important to recognize that means over the course of a school year kids are missing eight 18 or more days and I would love it if we were only talking about 18 or 19 days but that's really not the picture right um kids are missing upwards of months of school and I don't know how anybody can be successful at anything if you're missing that much time over the course of a

10-month span right um so being able to get After School attendance really thinking about our district priority around kids feeling connected to school and kids having meaningful relationships in school and also I would would argue that also plays into our relationships with our parents because when our parents feel respected and heard and that the school is a safe place for their kids we begin to mitigate some of

those other factors as it relates to parents not supporting School attendance on the regular approach right so for for us as a school district it's it's all-encompassing between students and families and so as part of that work you know we also invest in attendance officers and attendance officers have really over the last several years have been left to building principles to navigate and and put systems in place

for those for that team um I believe that that's an under I believe that was an underutilized team so I've taken the lead you know with attendance living in my court I've been working very directly with the attendance officers and with our student information system so that way the data is live and at our fingertips uh we are reporting out and we we have developed some really strong

systems across the district based on what has it what has been successful in my own experience as a building leader um and during my time at Lord and really it was creating attendance monitors so that we have individuals in every building that have case loads of students that they are monitoring they are celebrating success when kids are coming to school they're showing up and giving high fives and and also

supporting with those difficult conversations as it relates to why are children not coming to school for those children who are not coming to school how do we put supports in place at homes if that's what families need and how do we personalize the experience for those families that need the extra supports because as we all know the needs across our community EB and flow over the

course of a year and what some families might need in September and October will be very different come January will be very different come the end of the year um so really getting to know our students not necessarily being in the place we used to be where one or two people overseas over 200 students that is not personalization around attendance so this year we have really been working

heavily with our vice principles um building out a vice principal professional Learning Community where student attendance is Central to that work um working with our attendance officers in partnership with our schools and then having every school develop an attendance monitor plan um at dery there are upwards of I think the report today was about 40 attendance monitors up at the high school 4 Zer attendance

monitors up at the high school so they are really digging deep they've got manageable case loads um the adults are beginning to learn the students and learn the stories so that we can really mitigate and intervene in proactive ways um and we are already seeing that Trend yield some pretty strong outcomes over the month of September and October the last couple of weeks we've been able to notice upwards

of 12 of our schools for the last two weeks have all been above 94% attendance um so we are seeing the traction we are noticing a dramatic drop in our chronic absenteeism rate already uh we are approaching in we are right now at day 35 Friday will be day 40 so as of Friday any student who had four absences or less they will four absences or less they will not be considered chronic

anymore so we're really honing in at the student level as it relates to tracking the data um and we are noticing big increases because to the superintendent's point if our kids aren't here nothing that any of the team that just spoke ahead of me is going to have any traction um so we're really working hard around those pieces um and so that is where we are at right now with chronic absenteeism and really

getting after it putting systems in place at every building and we are reporting out every single Thursday in our uh weekly email that comes out from our team to all principles we're also including I've been also including all of the support staff so Vice principls guidance counselors and adjustment counselors are also receiving the information so that it is widespread across the district and everybody is

getting updated um and then meeting with individual teams to make sure that every that all the teams in the district understand how our student information system of Aspen can help them in doing the work because we don't want folks spinning their wheels just because they don't understand how the platform and the reports that are available to them can give them the information that they

need so really making sure that folks have toolboxes with the appropriate tools and reports to be able to really do the work and not have it take up the majority of their day or overwhelming anybody's workload for the day um and so far we've gotten some really great feedback um as we've continued to navigate the shift um to be more inclusive and having more hands involved in the work and not just

relying on the subset of a few in buildings question The Chronic absent rate the kids in get grades in the elementary school or is it standards based report cards standards as we look at it because we're talking about The Chronic absentee and then therefore the mcast is lower I would then therefore if we did a correlation of if you should have those children not meeting the standards standards on the

report card so I'd be curious to see what that looks like because sometimes what happens is kids miss all the time but you know she's very nice she does this and that oh yeah she's getting there and then we kind of give cushion grades rather than to say no the reality is there no way you missed 38 days you shouldn't be able to be proficient in this you know so when we get that it'll

help families to understand whoa whoa whoa like if it was a grading system and a kid got a 65 average you'd you'd be concerned whereas if she missed 30 days and she can still get an 82 h no big deal she's got an 82 so I'm just curious of what a correlation might look like and if there's changes that need to happen with that to to help the work that you're doing so with that I thank

you Mr I'm curious when we monitoring um student absences is there a way like how are we um tracking the reason for the absences and then being able to like go back to that so say the reason John is absent a lot is because he's dealing babysit his brother whatever he had to babysit his brother or whatever the case may be his mother's car broke and she doesn't let him take the I don't know

whatever the the reasons are maybe they're just having school refusal or what have you but how are we is there a way that we're doing that right so they're making phone calls and direct contacts home with families leveraging all of our communication tools right parent Square direct phone calls email um all of our attendance monitors are are logging through the student Journal which is our main Hub of all things

student information as it relates to all of our Outreach communication and just essentially contact with outside providers whether that's families and or if we have releases to connected to students right the journal is a hub that all School staff know to go to as it relates to all things about a student um so we're leveraging the journal to be the main Hub of where these things get

documented in addition to that in the students attendance field set if you would there's also a place for comments so logging the reason in the comments will also have it live in a couple of different places so that we can see patterns over time to be able to then work with families as it relates to the patterns of attendance right I think it's really important to note that we're not saying that kids can't be absent

from school everybody's human right like AB like absences happen but when we start talking about chronic absenteeism and we start looking at 10% of a school day and when we see kids on a pattern of attendance that causes us concern that would that they would be on a track to reach 18 by the end of a year um we're looking to intervene with a multitude of different ways and really you know to Mr

aia's Point educating our families is about the why the why is about the academic achievement without you know at a minimum our kids need to graduate from high school in in this day and age Baseline high school diploma is our non-negotiable we can always talk about where you're headed Life After High School but every student in the for a public schools must and needs to earn a high school diploma in order to have

opportunities and options in their future so so that is the goal that is the message it is not about antagonizing families it's not about you know getting into it with fames um but really it's about understanding for families to understand the academic connection um and also what we've seen firsthand when kids come to school school gets a little easier right and and all of a sudden I

can access school with more confidence and and everything else want than you want to come who wants to show up to a place every day where I am not sucessful somebody's ask question you know and we're working with our schools um again you know we've invested heavily in oural supports so we are on top of it across all of our schools with systems and structures as it relates to building a

climate and a culture in our schools that is warm and nurturing and caring and a place that kids want to be um and really working with our building leaders to create that climate in culture and it stems from all of our connected relationships in a school building and being able to meet the needs of our kids so a principal can log on to this system and know if Sally's been out or whatever

he can log on and read the notes that the monitors whoever and make a connection oh Sally's been out because this is the issue that's going on at home or with her or whatever and can then navigate and have those like nice conversations yes thank you Dr BR we hope that helps can I make a recommendation yes can we just jump to the next I'm looking at the agenda it

looks like the only thing to refer as the ktie BR said two hours in so we can just do that and then maybe get the last two I read the the update right I want to get to the refer before we end up okay so motion to refer this right first the first one motion to refer yeah motion and refer all in favor I I with revisions right with reion rision yes so we are going

to move to 302 update and discussion to refer Katie Brown who am I to um so yeah so the Katie Brown contract um is the last contract that we'll be bringing forward um looking to present it to move it forward historical um historically the contract has been 110,000 I've shared with you um the grade level objectives to note that Katie Brown has been coming into the for OFA public schools for many a years I'm

not even quite do you know back to like 2012 at least at least right um with Dan coming on um later in the game and more recently you know we haven't had too much of an opportunity yet to connect around the program's Effectiveness so as noted at even the last school committee meeting around you know when we were looking at the people in contract my goal would be for us to really get an

analysis this year of what how do our Educators feel this program is meeting the needs of our kids um in a time right now where violence feels at least after the last week that we've had here in the for a public schools it's been a challenging week um and I I wouldn't I would not recommend not moving for with this work um but as we move forward really taking a key look to see um if

this is the right program for us Andor if not where else will our kids get access to this information um I know the new health uh standards are rolling out and so I'm curious to see whether or not there's a place for us to adopt some of this work within our own curriculum with our students I think they might be right um however for this school year I do feel that our historical work with Katie

Brown does have a place in our schools and so we're recommending um that we move forward this year with an opportunity to assess the outcomes and then make a recommendation moving forward same you're recommended be at the same level as last year correct make a motion to approve second all in favor I to refer to refer to the full committee yes at the same level as last year yes no no increase funding so we

will uh refer perfect motion agenda second all in favor two I can just include in the Friday email perfect yeah that's fine CU they were just updates than thank you very very much we know