11.7.2022 FRSC Instructional Subcommittee

good evening it's Monday November 7th meeting for instructional subcommittee uh roll call Mr miss larabee here miss Pereira here salute to the flag I pledge in the United States one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all huh 1.03 open medium laws 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 proceeded or unperceived by those present and that are deemed acknowledged and permissible as we move on to subject 3.1 update on Dual language this is madam superintendent assistant first oh is it is there citizens input there is not there is uh in the stat at the bottom my apologies

um update dual language hi hi so um dick our kindergarten students arrived with the rest of the kindergarten so we have our two kindergarten classrooms playing strong our kindergarten into first grade transition 12 so we have our two first grade classrooms as well we've adopted a new curriculum within the jewel English program that we're very proud of the American reading company the teachers

are being supported very well through professional development in the company in developing um just their understanding of of the curriculum we have currently 20 students in each of our kindergarten classrooms and 23 in each of our first grade classrooms um we're asking out some of the Kinks to having a new program uh or when they had started kindergarten last year they were 50 of their day was in English 50 of

their day was in Spanish and they would transition midday which we found was quite a lot for five-year-olds so when they got into first grade um we we changed up the format a little bit so they now do two days in spanish-based classroom two days in english-based classroom and that way they're the middle of their day isn't um disrupted and it's working out much better the students are much more um

less time on learning loss through the transition we have three new teachers um from Spain that transitioned well that are really a huge benefit to the program I'm very familiar with dual language all three of the teachers and experienced and we're learning from them as they're learning from us and it's it's really been quite the experience for all of us involved the students and

the staff there's a question on that uh we're like where are they so are they you said three so two in kindergarten student kindergarten and one in um first grade one in first grade okay thank you here we go it's I'd love to answer any questions you may have about the program okay the American do you have anything do you guys have anything go first oh no we didn't get anything so I'm just

thinking like because I'm yes so I just have a couple quests so the American reading company can you just explain a little bit on why we kind of ventured sure because the students are learning in Spanish Spanish literacy we really didn't have anything in District to address those needs um so through research and everything we arrived at American reading company was the best curriculum that we found for

the students okay is it virtual too is it no it's all in person um we are looking into adding a platform like Lexia like uh imagine learning for our English speaking students and it's through imagine learning that offers Spanish literacy as well um it's you know just another way of equity for that those questions what is the um the plans of third graders for next year second grade well

sorry sorry it's like going into second yeah as they move up we'll add two classrooms um so the foundational classroom that we have we have a foundational strand within the virus right as they're moving up that foundational classroom is converting into a dual language classroom in one of our mainstream classrooms is converting into a dual language so with the foundational classroom gonna go it's

absorbed through we have as many students within our dual language program as would be housed in a foundational classroom okay um so it's it's just a shift of maybe Portuguese speaker we'd have mostly Spanish speakers rather than Portuguese speakers but we're also taking on some Portuguese speakers we're finding us on families want their students to be trilingual right so in our kindergarten we've

actually have four Portuguese speaking students right now so it's it's quite a mix and okay how are you measuring the uh the successes here what are you using for well within the curriculum there's assessments built into that and we're just now starting to find our way through it in first grade we add on English literacy so those students are also getting um dimmled and all of the things that we use in our English

classrooms um but for the Spanish literacy we're using the assessments that came with the new curriculum okay how the first grade is doing they're great yeah you see you see some success you see some it's a really amazing experience to walk in and see in Native English-speaking student sitting and conversing with a native Spanish-speaking student in Spanish as well as English um we'd love for you to come and watch it

it I can't describe it until you've actually gone in and seen right um what's transpiring who's in charge of this program um well myself as a building principal also arises as well is there a teacher in charge is there no we also have the um multilingual language Department Tyler Ramey oversees um with me okay she's the coordinator yeah she's the coordinator of the language and foundational classrooms

okay I I yield for now so you had sent all of the students that are there already next year so there's nobody at this place there's nobody that there's no effect on the district when you're assigning students to no other students get preference because it's their neighborhood School of course so if it were to come to a lottery or repair students would get preference in being placed in the Dual language program we

haven't gotten to the point where we've needed a lottery yet we've been right around that 23 24 student Mark um and as they we've lost maybe one or two to a move or something like of that sort but no we haven't lost so here in a foundational classroom in first grade you automatically go into nobody's choosing to do otherwise I'm sorry if you're in dual language no if you're not so you're not under

language no whatever comes into kindergarten that's the class that's moving up so I think Mr agyar is asking about so we have dual language strand so two kindergarten students but he's asking about what if they are foundational students that are coming in and that are not going into to Dueling then they would go to another foundational classroom within the district so there is an impact you're right there is some

impact because if we're taking obviously we have we chose to build a program at bevere so we have to have that strand available so if we are they don't have the foundational all they right now they have second grade and third grade fourth grade and fifth grade right next year that second grade will become a dual language so if you get if we get K one and two students whose parents don't

want them in in the Dual language but they are foundational students they're going to have to be placed within the district right that means they've got to be transported they can't there's only one class so it's one strand now of dual the Dual language it's two right because you always have to have two classes because one class is learning in English and the other classes you have two now

yeah and then two two and K two and one um and we have a foundational class one in second grade one and third grade one fourth but eventually that's good each year as the Dual language rolls over that Foundation those foundational students will be absorbed into it into the school if they're ready to transition into mainstream but um they can't take new students who are foundational into those grades because

they won't have classrooms that are foundational roll into other places where they might not have room or are we going to pay exactly they transfer with them and what if they moved in and they're not ready even after so that's going to be an old grades that will be in right now they're not taking foundational and K and one because they have the Dual language so but they might be foundational kids

there are but they're not taking them into the varis so if they're either Spanish speaking into K up until I want to say into the dueling into the Dual language yes but you can't in that sense it's creating a block in a way oh it is I think that's my was my only this is very similar to the way we had gate right if you have two like we had uh a

fourth grade and a fifth grade at gate in green as well as a Sylvia right so automatically it blocks off those two classes so if you're not at the gate program you have to go to the other classes that are available or if they filled up for some reason then they would have to be placed somewhere it's very Sim it's a program yeah and the same thing with staff absolutely so if

your staff is not ready they need to know well they should know a year ahead of time that they're not going to have a job if you're not certified in certain things like this if I'm teaching third grade and I don't have the certification for the language I'm assuming right or skill set you have to have a different skill set you never have a different thing than what you normally do so if I'm a third grade

teacher right now actually there's going to be those classes are going to move up if I'm not ready for that I'm out the second great I mean the thing is they have the program that started in kindergarten so they know that it's going to be rolling over that's something that happened as they were building the program at bevera so usually that those staff get absorbed into other open positions nobody's going

to be out of a job because we have positions but you're right they're not going to be if they didn't have it so you're right my concern is just that people need to be told that ahead of time so that they're not at the end of the year wondering or getting a pink slip yes because it's not fair all right unless you were not doing a good job so

that is there is an effect so I just need to think ahead of that and um you said it was only 23 so it was that 23 and first work is the higher number in the higher rate first grade yes and then theoretically it's never going to get more than 20 in the other one so if two kids drop out of the 20 you're going to have an hour c will probably receive a few more

students by the the end of the year in kindergarten we started similarly last year and had about 2021 and got a few more you know as it went by but across once we get it going it's going to be the highest enrollment would be okay and then it's going to go down it's not going to go up because there's no way to transfer it right you're not going to lose yourself for that program

yeah I mean I think it's it sounds like a good thing I wish I could take a day off to go see it but that's not really possible right now but um any other like anecdotal evidence or things that we get that are good maybe just send them via email to us just so we can kind of get a feel for it absolutely we're going to try to get you

a video and the timeline would be my thing would be the timeline of when we select these kids and when is that it's written down in stone of how we we recruit and when so that we have we're still working to improve it to be honest um we're learning as we go especially with covet it was very difficult the first um first year and then this year it it has its challenges

to recruit to be honest but we're working through it and we're we're I think we need to do that much more PR I'll be honest what we're doing now we need to well we had info sessions for families we reach out to the families um of the name of the varis first Etc but we need to put it out there publicize the people exactly so now share what actually happens invite people in to see because

I think that people think that it's a bilingual program it's just the the kid the kids actually they're learning in Spanish they're learning all the curriculum in Spanish it's not like the following week they're going to learn the same thing in English and vice versa they're continuing on it's just that some days they're learning it in English and some days they're learning it in Spanish and I think that sometimes

there's that misconception that everybody thinks okay they're going to learn for two days in Spanish and the next two days they're gonna learn in in English what they didn't understand in Spanish or I think some parents may be intimidated that the child isn't going to get everything they need if it's being taught right right not in in their native language so I think sharing those

success stories yeah that obviously is really expressing educating people about the benefits of it exactly benefits are huge I wish I had it right I would have made my job a lot easier at the end of the day if I spoke Spanish I would have been able to assist my clients better bilingual and biliterate that's the goal yeah because we'll be able to read and write in English and they're going to

take my job let's hope what would the how will you prove that statement that they're getting what you said about that they're not listening anything because they're data on that well the curriculum is just that way um so that they're not teaching the same thing in English as they were in Spanish um and then the way that they're being assessed too so the assessment date is what you're

looking for we'll tell you like whether they're going to be or something like that because otherwise I think that would be a selling point to a parent if you I had to back up for it to be like oh look he is what we have so thank you uh one last question so is this something I mean you said neighborhood school as well as you uh Madam superintendent is this something we're thinking of

maybe in the future bringing something to the north end as well seeing it's only housed in the South End if there's a need but I'm not I think that I would love to see it grow right I think I personally think we need to go through the cycle and do it really well to make sure and then we replicate a success story right so right now we are working through it we're growing each

year and I think that when we're ready then we'll we potentially could do a dual language program Portuguese English and we have a Spanish English so we would like to grow it we just need to be um growing it smartly okay Master it then carry on I yield anything else okay thank you thank you very much uh subject 3.2 discussion update SEO curriculum implementation

um so in August we had the presenters from the leadership team they came down and presented um the curriculum and did model lessons with all administrators in the secondary level for one full day which was um a great presentation and the feedback was amazing from all administrators on the second day in August when it was August 3rd and 4th of the second day we had the new well similar lessons introducing the

program and model lessons as well with all School adjustment counselors and guidance counselors there were three presenters who came down from New York who were part of the people who wrote the program in and do this on a regular basis um the the responses were amazing from all the people who were present at that training which were really happy um from there each school at the secondary level was was asked to

identify an implementation team right to really look at and to be part of of looking at the curriculum and to be a support at each School level the district also identified additional implementation team so it was which was myself Jill Woodward and then one person from each of the secondary schools to really look at how do we support to schools with making sure that people have what they need to roll out their

curriculum that the leadership program they've been super supportive with us they have been on call and ready to meet with us via Zoom at all times so they actually came down again um on October 25th 26th and 27th and they provided similar to what they did to the admin in the August admin Institute they provided it at the school-based level as well too so that way teachers got that

presentation not only they just do that for the teachers they also went in and modeled advisory lessons with students so some of the teachers get to see some of those modeling lessons with the students the goal was for us to roll out the curriculum and all of our secondary schools at this week which is just the beginning of the term Durfee was super excited and eager to start it sooner so

we actually provided a training for all of their staff on in September so that they can have the support that they needed to roll it out so they rolled those out sooner they it's rolled out in an advisory so they have two days of their advisory lessons are um they're targeted for SEL supports and we purchased all of the books so that way every single staff member that's going to be doing an

advice we will have the manuals with them with those books as well too we also purchased um to support the way it was part of the SL curriculum groups targeted groups to support girls support groups and then boys to Mentor groups as well too and some of that other support that we got from this program was we we the empowering upstanders so they actually gave us a scope and sequence to that recommendation

um part of the the when we met as a in the summer for the admin team the middle schools wanted to have this um this they wanted to follow a district calendar following the same scope and sequence so that way if the kids are going to from one school to the other they're following the same sequence and also it was a way for us to provide supports um to all of the schools at the the Middle

School using the same sequence so we meet with them myself and Drew Woodward with the middle school teams in the high school team to provide any support that they might need and preparing for the curriculum so this the middle schools are starting it this week one school started it today the others are starting it on Wednesday so we're really excited but prior to doing that what we did October as you

know was on purpley awareness month we modeled the same way that the curriculum is written and we wrote lessons and we our lessons that we've been using in advisory we're using the same format that the leadership team uses so that way when when the the program's rolled out this week and earlier on at the Dorothy we all of our lessons from the beginning of the year were written in a

way that it was using the same format that the leadership used so it'll be a nice seamless transition from what they were doing from the beginning of the year straight into the the leadership SEL curriculum team any questions no this is just an advisory now you're saying and it's going to be rolled out throughout the curriculum eventually so the middle schools are starting this

week when school started today the other schools are starting it on Wednesday the high school started it in September so they're using two days of the advisory to to do the SEL lessons what does that mean two days of advice two days of their advisory what is their advisor their lessons they have advisory everybody's built advisory into the into their schedule right so opportunities to

build relationships with students we're focused on creating sense of belonging for all students so there are teachers that are delivering I was an advisor I had a group like you do like right now a lot of people in advisory they're working with grades reviewing grades with students um all so any of that stuff happens in advisory right it's it's uh Team Building Community Building small group

work they've designated two uh two days a week two advisory lessons that are going to be focused on rolling out the curriculum and really it does exactly our goal is we have to have a an Avenue to deliver the the lessons but then right that's where they the listen the lesson is delivered but then hopefully it lives in everything that they did sure right so the students get to twice a week yes same one one student's

getting it twice yes all right and what does that mean for a time like that's where I was getting at like well how is it built into the schedules for an advisory do they have an advisory period every day yes how many minutes is the advisory period for a day um Durfee I think it's 20 minutes um 20 minutes 25 minutes or 30 minutes talked about that in all the schools I

know that they built in like a half hour so it's going to vary within five minutes from school but they've built into their schedule advisory lessons at the elementary advisory time at the elementary it's called morning meeting time where they do all that um Community Building relationship building and at the middle and high school there's time for that as well as time for some character building some

work with with the curriculum leadership skills that will work with the secondary students same time frame Elementary Middle High School pretty much within five minutes of the time and who does it at the high school teacher who's actually just doing it there's part of their yeah or are they how do they get everybody has a group has a group right so they divide up the students in order

for the groups to be smaller it's all hands on deck they divide up the students I know that at the school at the high school uh Dr J did some work with the sax and and the leadership there and they really um matched up students with with adults that they connected with and created these small groups so that students could create those communities within their school and then they go to that

and then they that's the first person I don't think it's first yeah it is not first period yeah I mean it sounds good yeah everything sounds good you know when I hear the 20 25 minutes it's really not what's needed in my opinion I mean that's good from being honest having kind of logistically put 500 students or 2 000 students into that time with another transition like that's another you know so I'm sure you'll take

the good well I mean exactly you have to work through it and then I I agree it's we have to look at it but you know that we're giving up instruction time we have to be strategic about how we're going to take those minutes and and because it's a it's a trade-off right but it's valuable to also build those relationships we know that our kids have been disconnected and more so than ever

we need to create some opportunities for them to connect yeah I think it's a valid thing you know when I think they stop the win the what I need block no they have Russia was like I remember we were here in a meeting and it was tough to implement so now if I'm just thinking about a schedule some students um for some some students don't have advisory five times a week they have

Wind Block in place of advisory but it happens during that same time so if there are some teachers who are teaching a Wind Block um those periods each week other teachers are doing advisory right yeah so the two lessons the leadership I believe are like not compromised that curricular piece that they're doing with the new curriculum students have that and on the other days they're going to in the winter but they need

if we're saying what was valid for the advisory generally those kids are not getting the other piece of the advisory that we just said was about well they're getting it two days a week you're you're absolutely right yeah in an Ideal World we would have 45 minutes of advisory 45 minutes of wind and then fit everything in but the day's not eight hours long right um so I think that what what they've

done and what we've done is they're doing advisory you don't want to compromise and not give kids an opportunity to really build those skills also but you also are recognizing that some kids some kids need additional support and we are also providing an opportunity to to grow that and that's in its infancy stages and we're growing that we're going to learn from it and hopefully but we're giving them an

opportunity to grow socially as well what would the Middle School do for that they don't have the same schedule their uh period is actually probably a little bit longer we used to do it it was a little bit longer and they're doing also a few days of character building and all of that and as well as um the academics yeah I mean I I just my gut is it's not enough time alone enough

just even for the what I need block like yeah by the time you transition you go you get to like what are you really doing for that period of time if you really needed intervention that's why we pushed it to later in the day as well too because in the morning part like we were having advisory initially it was in the morning but kids might be coming in trailing in later so we put it later in

the day so that way there's feel like it's not important right not advisory we hope they don't miss you and this is the frequent that we paid if we had purchased yes and that's a long-term directions so so it's it's a one-time purchase that we had made so what we're doing is that because remember I said we had a district um implementation team as well too so part of that District implementation

team that I'm part of and Drew is we're going to scope and sequence it out for a few years so that way we're we're using um different lessons in those three to four years three years in the middle school and then the high schools it's different books for middle and high school so in age like the ninth graders won't get the same thing correct content correct as you go what are the school

adjustment counselors do they have advisors as well yeah everyone has them liaison everybody has groups everybody that's how you make the group smaller right so if you have an all hands on deck approach then the more people that have a group in front of them so if I'm Sac I might have some of those students that I need to see and that I know really well so you have to be

strategic about who you put in front of each adult but the more adults that are delivering that the the smaller the group can be that's a great way to build a relationship with that advisor as well too because it's a smaller smaller group of kids and that really is the goal of an advisory is to build that Rapport without with that adult that go to so if if a teacher's absent oh whatever what

happens to those students they just go to another advisory double up well the administrators would have to work uh with coverage we have some people that are designated to be Subs villains um but that's a no lesson plan The Advisory should be in their lesson plan or no so the advisories so our ICL curriculum they're all in a Google Classroom so they are done in advance so again we have the scope and sequence we

have it all set up and we have the teams in place everybody should be doing the same work when it comes to the SEO lessons yes they are all should be doing the same so if they did have to move to another classroom they should be doing the same work yeah I would I would say it's probably not about doubling up the kids because then that impacts two advisories and

right kind of takes away from what it was meant to be it's more about making sure that you have uh people that are going to step in and take that advisory of somebody sick that is out of the circle well the other question I had it's SEO related but what is the program that that um we had that they get wanting you guys get warnings if kids is doing something

that what might not be you know the best for them it's a social emotional learning um topic I can't think of the name of it is it Sentinel or something like that like a sentinel the thing that he was just like um it's actually skies actually yes it's social Sentinel that you're talking about so if if um somebody is uh the flags since some words that we get

warned oh so so use this word so then we have to check to make sure that you know somebody could be writing paper and use it or or if it's actually something what is the protocol on that foreign

who get that email right away so as soon as I let's say if I get that email right away I stop what I'm doing immediately I read I locate who that student is and I contact that school adjustment counselor via a text and send them an email so an email goes out but a text also goes out please verify that you're receiving my my email to look into a potential email

concern but is that 24 7. like that was I think we talked about what they said one of the principles that was like yes can't be responsible for this oh and that's pressure is it school hours Scott set some parameters so that it would be because I agree we can't be responsible for what happens at five o'clock in the morning on Saturday um but usually we still um they still get them but we have

parameters as to when we're flagged so you're not responsible look if you missed something at right one o'clock in the morning you're not supposed to check your outline it's all hours I just I think we should maybe if we get a one pager on that that would be helpful to the committee to know what it is as well as to the workers so that you all know right what is the boss saying when you

should look at it some schools have people on call I believe if there you know but I just don't think you should have that pressure on it personally so with that ideal thank you sir thank you very much thank you okay Dr Crowley 3.03 presentation doctor for public school data so um so the presentation is centered around the accountability data and the elements of the accountability

system and the way it's set up is that we'll talk through some data points and then um for each one address directly following it and how um how how we're working around that indicator in the district so um the first PCR is really just an overview of what MCAS testing Administration has looked like over the last four years what you'll see in a couple of the later slides is the way is

the fact that MCAS is like the greatest contributor in terms of accountability status of a school in the district we didn't get an accountability rating as a district this year nobody did but overall MCAS is what is the is the largest contributor so when you look here at what you know what it's looked like over the last couple of years and we think about the 2022 Administration it was the first time since 2019 that

the grades 3 through eight had a test Administration the current third the third graders that were tested last spring that was a class whose instruction was interrupted when they were in first grade our 10th grade students the high school students who took the test last year they hadn't taken MCAS in the seventh grade so they hadn't really had exposure since that the SE are all of the different elements

that we'll find and we'll talk through in terms of the accountability system and in 2022 the accountability is based on two years of data it kind of differs by which indicator it is MCAS data is based on 2019 and 2022 because that was really the only time that we had a full Administration in both three through eight and ten access data we did have a full Administration in 2020 before schools closed so this

year's accountability is based on 2020 and 22.

um absenteeism was just the last two years 21 and 22 and you can see on the list you know the two years that that contributed it's um and generally speaking it either follows the protocol that it always has because there is always like kind of lagging data around dropout rate and graduation rates and things like that or it's dependent on how you know valid scores were and the way they wanted to

um count them in the accountability system so then in addition to that um the next couple of slides just highlight how non-high schools and high schools how accountability is actually determined the biggest takeaway really from these slides is like and you can see it specifically it's kind of easier to see at the non-high schools is that we've got um eighty percent this is where I was

talking about MCAS being the largest contributor um 80 of the um determination for non-high schools is dependent on MCAS 60 um achievement 20 growth if you look at the um schools that don't have enough English Learners to factor in the progress toward English proficiency um it's still that 80. the breakup is a little a little different but basically you're looking at achievement and growth

both being valued but it's more like achievement is what's valued most in the system and then they also give a nod to student growth and say you know care most about you know how students achieve but if you're growing kids yeah you know there's some appreciation for that too and then the other contributors of progressive proficiency that's basically you know access hostage is doing on

access and showing that um progress and then additional indicators which at the non-high school is just chronic absenteeism do we have any schools that we did ELO so we see what we end up seeing is a range right where we can see you know a range where you know some schools their progress you know you might see something as long as like 14 of kids making progress and then you'll see yeah

I mean I'm referring to the theater Stone if they don't know yeah not enough else um yeah but Stone you see Stone RPA but they actually don't even have enough students testing to get an accountability rating um I wouldn't be surprised if tansy I can't have at least 20. so yeah we definitely have some school swaps in um that might not happen well that goes to nine months that's what I'm saying

yep they do so like if you have the non you get 90 so if you're really strong in the LA Math and Science you get 67.5 right so yeah so that number would be a little screwed if right if you don't it's I mean it's really dependent onion cast if you are an elementary school and you do not have enough L's for that progress to our English language proficiency to be considered the one

thing that remains constant in all for non-high schools in that high schools is there's always a three three to one ratio for achievement in student growth even though the percentages change the ratio of 60 to 20 and then 60 75 to 22.5 the ratio of three to one yeah but wouldn't that wouldn't that say we can strategically place our strands of ell okay so if I'm just looking at generally all those with the El

strands that will meet that the left side of the schools that are having the most difficult time with this course and their accountability measures you know so when would there be logic and taking that and like flipping it around we don't have enough we have more schools with elves than without so I don't mean all I'm just saying strategically looking at it to say if we already have a school that's

struggling to make the gains that need to be made with all kids and then we put more difficult populations on top of that would it be more beneficial than to say we kind of put them in a different place where the school might be stronger in a certain thing so it could give you a better Outlook potentially right it's just looking ahead of the little schools a tansy that you can't really play

around with with the popular I know what you're saying is like we could potentially move kids around and and make sure that they balance you're talking about balancing right trying to balance the the the high performing school with some of but I think that you would have we have almost all of them that have else almost all of them and maybe the numbers maybe that that I've seen recently has been to try

to spread yeah I need kids across all and I'm not sure I agree that that's the best thing to do because I think it's spreading it the problem amongst a bunch if you look at the data and say well maybe we need to either Flip or be more strategic with some of the stuff if one school has a great bunch of teachers for elves you know and the system going but they only have one

strand well why not make them two strands if they it's just a balancing act that's a negative thing too and you need to make sure that the reason why we have spread our foundational students across the district is because we had inequity so you're you're loading up a tablet right where they were like uh you know most of their kids were else and then they were they they weren't that's that's a huge

they have a huge number of L's there and we still haven't straightened that but we're getting better at it so um and we can speak about that in other schools too we need to make sure that so we're moving kids out of their District neighborhood to place them at a specific school because that was the program school and we're trying not to have a program School we're trying to say we have the same

Equitable Services across the district middle schools are easier than the others because there's more of the others right they might have some of the others that don't have any everybody have a little so all I'm suggesting is if you look at the data it might be something to look at let's see and so for high schools kind of thing it Ela math and science is only what you think about with L's is only weighted at

40. but that's because High School completion is considered achievement and so there's 60 to achievement and then 20 to student growth when we look at this um schools that don't have a large enough number of L's which again when we think about the um high schools um it just looks a little different because Durfee is you know the largest high school and and they certainly have enough English Learners so we're really

focused on of this column here and what the breakdown looks like um for high schools with English learners so we have some um you know the takeaways um you know before we look at you know specific content areas we certainly saw that um in three to eight we saw those English scores decline um but we saw some improvement in grade 10 math scores increased in general um in in three day in ten and then grade

five science so I can increase but a decrease in grade 10. I don't mention um a decrease in grade 8 I don't mention grade 10 year because it was a new test and so we don't have the comparison data from the previous years we know that we have a ways to go across subject areas um and and one thing we'll highlight a little bit later is that first glance you look at Gap closing performance

between you know white students and students of color you know our white students and Hispanic students and at first the Gap you're happy because the gap's closing but when you look closer it's really because our white subgroup is performing you know lower and so that's how the Gap closed it wasn't because we were raising degrees um yeah so can I ask you a question on that question so grades three-day English

language arts course decline do we have that bicycle but that's something that we can you know kind of put together yeah it's on the website to kind of you can click through all the schools um on the Desi website but we could put that together yeah I'm just just curious to see because sometimes that's a blanket statement and there might be Pockets that uh yeah well there are but you're looking if we're looking in now

the reporting is grades three days eight is bunched up before it used to be so we're looking at all of um you know looking at all at the schools in the Aggregates so certainly it's as a district that showed some in increases but certainly um first of all it's slight increases but individual schools you have some schools that increased and then some schools that didn't make I mean I it's

especially me La across the you know the state the ele scores went down let's think about that you know our third graders took that test they haven't gotten their foundational skills right they didn't have consistent instruction and I know we struggled before the pandemic that is accurate but we also exactly and typically we struggle now you add three years of interrupted schooling why wouldn't the like be

shining on our struggling students and that there's a lot of work to make up the recovery is going to take I mean it's going to take a long time theoretically and I have that's why I was asking about it for each school but if three years ago we were struggling and the kids got no you know the covert argument and all this that they can get then they should be the numbers should be terrible

under that logic the numbers are awful I'm just saying it more terrible I guess is what I'm saying so if we looked at like before covid before I work okay where were we at so then if we use the argument that says and I'm not saying yeah doing this but a lot of people just say oh it's covered they didn't get this and that whatever so if the scores were here after three years of nothing they

shouldn't even be close to this they should be way way down that's what I'm trying to figure out by seeing the right and I think some of these sides might yeah and you'll see a little bit of that for instance had done very close to being what it was three years ago right is that a victory because the yeah theoretically they should have like fallen down so a school that has maintained

we should be able to see that to see exactly right keep that in mind because you were absolutely right that is the point because what we it's scary it's a scary place we're in you're right if a school was let's say 20 of the kids were proficient before the pandemic and if they held on or if they were in the fourth percentile and they held on they held on for dear life that's good

because that tells us that maybe we've stopped that bleeding and maybe we're trying to stabilize and because it's weighted right the data is weighted and we've stopped some of that bleeding and we're actually making uh inroads towards recovery if and you'll see in in the data we what we looked what I said to principals is if you're looking at 2019 we should be comparing 2019 to 2022 as

an accurate comparison 20 the the the data from the year before it was a half test hybrid test if we went if we would expect that we went down right from 2019 to that if we continue to go down the following year we're still in trouble right but if we maintained as you're saying then we're saying okay there's a little bit of Promise so now our work is to get that

ship turned around but that's not right now if somebody went outside absolutely so that's the part that I think is right how we present the information is going to tell like there's only a few Pockets like that I think I recommend yes they should be praised for whatever they're doing and if they were doing it in covet three years of no school in all those arguments and a school maintained or

there's those that went up yeah the other schools should be doing what they're doing right whatever it is absolutely and as I said to you when I shared the initial data the schools every school will work because we're not in a place that we're celebrating anything we're working right there's a lot of work to be done but the schools that are the most worrisome we have three schools that took big dips and

those schools we sat down with them around the table okay what's going on why did we do that what were we looking at what were we you know what was going on try to get to the root of that because if a school like I'll say a Watson right if they improved two points that's a good thing right because they were able to maintain you got a Henry Lord who was who went up

above that was their goal and they went up above the 10th percentile they're on the 12th that's yeah that's still not where she wants to be but that's huge because it was weighted so they actually probably did better than the 12th percentile but when they weighed that down right it was brought down to the 12th so we do need to celebrate the schools that maintained or the schools that increased

or the schools even you know I said to those principles when we're meeting even if they are like around the same or one point give or take that's okay but the ones that took dips those are that's worrisome to us for the most part we maintained right our percentile for most of the schools or went up slightly but we do have some that yeah I only mentioned it to be I

think the more granular we get with the data to know what it is and we can say well this is where we put resources this is why that happened you can do the research and tell us this is why but um this is fine for the global but I think we need to drill it down to to see what's happening thank you so this um so this page actually this this slide actually has like information that's

been shared it's the kind of thing we talk about all the time here in the district we know that we're performing below the state like across contend areas and hearing these um we know about the performance gaps that we have we know that as we watch our kids progress from three to five to six to six to eight and then ten there's an even wider gap between us and the state

um and that's been true for years um we look at the Gap um for our English Learners and students with disabilities I mean what you know what that looks like compared to other student groups we see the black Hispanic and multi-range students and the challenges you know from start to finish um but there's this element of looking at former English Learners in grades three through eight most often

outperform the um all students group so when we look through the students when we look at the students who have um met their targets and they they have progressed and now they are former English Learners they outperform the all students group that's why um all the way up like through middle school and there's a fall off at the high school but there's there's something kind of special about that

um and and we're trying to dig in to see you know the why behind that um and so you know there are some other bullets here but basically like we do see the same Trends in anet in terms of the gaps it's we don't use anet as a predictor but we do see the same kinds of Trends on our local assessments we are um you know we look specifically at the dropout rate

um in graduation rates in in how being an English learner or a student with disability factors in because we see kids dropping out at a higher rate and graduating at level rate and things like that um and then but when we looked at the vocal data um students weren't really reporting um that that's something they take after MCAS so it's not every grade that um it takes the the vocal but um they're not

indicating that they're having different experiences so when we look across the different groups they're not indicating that their experience is different but um but we're looking at it so we identified some underlying factors coming out of um kind of data Dives and into this year that included that you know the assessment data but also some feedback data um in in two really important takeaways

that we had in terms of an end-of-year survey with teachers where um nearly 40 of teachers responded um that they they responded they disagree or strongly disagree with the fact I am confident that all of my students can Master skills I'm teaching in a class this year so you know we think about like okay that we've got a larger you know we have a good number of teachers that are thinking teaching the kids

can't do it right and then but at the same time we see the same 40 percent of teachers responding um that they disagree I strongly disagree with the statement I have the tools strategies and support I need so teachers are saying I'm not sure the kids can do it and they're also saying I I'm not confident that I can do it I don't know that I have the tools and the

strategies and support to get the work done or are they saying they don't think the kids can do it because they don't have this choice right so we see like a really close connection between those two and you know it kind of fuels the way that we need to be thinking about what we're doing for students and what we're doing for teachers can I ask a question on that sure so

what is this survey anyway is that a big survey you get the results now this end of year survey was a um was a survey that we did but yeah they're just curious these were the only questions asked but yes yeah the other one is when I see these two comments it's obviously disturbing but what are the goals student learning goals for these same individuals so we have been um so we've been really

um sorry but I'm gonna this is gonna be part of the answer to that question so coming out of um taking a look at all of that data yeah sure was that Ely just teaching and learning end of the year end of year but it was just focused on teaching and learning um yeah the questions yes well it's about how kids felt supported how could I just felt supported yeah okay I mean

and we were we were asking the questions specifically because we wanted okay to kind of get some perception data that we thought like might be contributing could be a contributing factor okay and found this so we came into um this school year we came out of last year working with principals and then over the summer with the teaching and learning team and then bringing it back to um all of our administrators in the

admin Institute in establishing um an instructional priority for the school year and so we landed here providing all students Equitable access to an engagement in grade level and Beyond using appropriate instructional scaffolding as needed and um and we got here because when we think about students who um have that data around our other show the kids can do it and this idea that

potentially if you don't think the kids can do it we're not going to put the work in front of them because we don't think they can do it anyway kind of thing and really tapped into research that was done by the new teacher project tntp the work they did with the opportunity myths where this was a study 4 000 students 250 teachers four really diverse um school districts where they did some

research and they had some big takeaways like it was kind of this thing where kids have big goals kids come to school and they do all the right things but at the end of the day they're not being asked to do grade level work like there's this underlying things like low expectations for kids and then looking at the different experiences for students English Learners low-income families and say

overall kids aren't getting access to grade level work but when you look at those subgroups in particular they have even less access to it um and then finally um that if kids have great their research says when kids have greater access to these four resources they are meeting with success so we're making a commitment to that putting great appropriateness assignments in front of kids supporting

teachers to provide strong instruction in deep engagement and that and kind of building up teachers expectations um so that recognizing that when teachers have high expectations kids are going to rise to the occasion so I know I cut you off before and you had a question I said I felt like no it was about the goals like what are they okay what are we approving for student learning yeah so I find that there's a

problem with um when you say that and then just haven't been on this committee for a long time and seeing the amount of Investments that we've made for the last before I got on the committee when I'm back on the committee seeing and hearing this type of stuff drives me crazy because this shouldn't be happening when we 15 years ago or 10 years ago when we didn't have the resources it was

sort of overwhelming but we should be out of this already in some ways and I don't feel like we're not getting a good bang for our buck instructionally just my own opinion bye I I will push back on that a little bit um we are not where we need to be but we also have not had those resources until recently like money has not not been an issue until recently would you agree

with that yeah so but we had an incremental right now it's kind of sort of like we haven't had um like so if you look back prior to the student Opportunity Act yeah we were still getting five six million dollars more per year for the three four years prior to that so I'm looking at it as probably a five to seven year window of millions of dollars extra every year including resources when when I'm saying

yeah I think you're pointing to the the recent things anymore so I'm looking at it as okay what did we what have we done for what are we getting for bankrupt Buck for the amount of reasons we start so we started to roll out new curriculum right so and that happened unfortunately um while school was closed right so it's like we we're providing professional development initially and putting new

resources in front of teachers and therefore in front of students and we do it while schools are closed down and we are you know teaching remotely or our hybrid or you know whatever the student particular student experience was and then we come and then we come into last year and we're rolling out more this for us this year for me is is where like rubber meets the road and I think we're really well positioned in

terms of we have a district priority we are hyper focused on it I think if you ask people in any school about you know the kinds of things funding requests that are being approved at schools the kinds of principal goals that are being approved by principals a teacher goal is being approved by principals principal goals that are being approved here they're all like hyper focused and very

intentional and linked directly to this idea of great appropriate materials in front of kids and Scaffolding so that every kid can have access I mean that is it's all we talk about all we talk about so and it's all we are focused on in terms of supporting teachers so tomorrow we have a PD day I will I'm happy to share with you the links to all the course descriptions like every single one you say like oh

yeah they're doing this so they can support grade level work and access to it for our special populations and for all students um so I feel like that that feels a little bit different that we don't have a lot of like one-off my school wants to do this if it's a my school wants to do this it's because it's a my school wants to do the same kind of work everybody

else is doing we're just in a different place with it and we need a little bit more or we need something that's really targeted for our school so we're trying to use um you know we're leveraging this framework for instructional Improvement it has six elements um everything we do from you know the vision in terms of the focus of the instructional leadership team how common planning time is being spent what our

Focus for professional development is the kinds of feedback that we're giving in all of the schools and then also in terms of our selection of um the quality instructional materials it's all focused on grade level work being put in front of kids and making sure that we support all students to access it so um as we go through this we'll talk about some data and then kind of skip to what's being done in particular um

particular content areas to support the work so that we can grow and improve the student growth here is actually you know kind of across Ela and math and the big highlight for us really is that um in order to show that we're accelerating student learning and really growing kids we want the students to have student growth percentiles certainly above 50 but really above 60 and that hasn't been where you know we

haven't been there in these last couple of years we have students with sgps in the 30s and 40s which basically says if I'm a student and my you know if my SGP is 40 it means when I'm compared when you look at last year's scores and you put me in a group of kids this year I did better than 40 of those and it means 60 of kids kind of like

just like me outperformed me this year um and so we need to we need to be on the other side of that right now most kids like our kids in terms of performance last year perform better than they did so um that's this this growth of students for us it feels like will be a big sign for us upcoming um out of like the the testing in this spring like how much did we grow in

comparison to other people what are we doing to accelerate student learning um so this is a table here that shows Ela performance three through three through eight and then grade ten and there's State data and there's Urban superintendent's network data there but what's in blue is Fall River Public Schools and you can see what we looked like in 19 and what we looked like in 21 in what we looked like in 22 and I

highlighted the 19 and 22 because that's the data that actually contributes to accountability um in 2022 it's the changes that um superintendent Ponce referenced um you know we saw a change from 19 to 21 and certainly there was a decrease and what we're looking for in terms of a change from 21 to 22 is either that we've turned things around and things are positive like we see in grade 10. um

you know we made a two-point gain but in three through eight what we saw is there was less loss we had a seven point loss from you know 19 to 21 but then only a five point loss from 21 to 22 and that is considered a win yeah we hopefully our stop we've stopped the bleeding and we're starting to turn things around so that's a the overview three three through eight and

then 10 and then here we see each grade um we see each grade individually okay oh yeah sure just the conversation we had earlier about the 19 to 22. like if you just looked at three through eight that's the problem so going from 34 to 22 it's from 19 so if prior to covet we were at 34 yeah and all these things happened and then you know we're down 12. that's not a

victory I'm not saying you're saying it's a victory but that's really telling that it's that trajectory is not the good trajectory even close to what we were talking about the one or two percent that are up or down oh yeah we agree that's sick absolutely um that's going to take a lot of work to to turn that around yeah absolutely right you know that's bold is my point I think that's what's

needed this same of just a little around the edges here isn't going to cut it in my mind there you go um so the slide by race and ethnicity it's really what kind of highlights this idea we're on the surface it looks like the Gap um in some areas is closing but again when we look a little bit more closely it has a lot to do with the fact that our whites have a group

um their performance was was lower and so we are kind of closing the Gap by dropping seeing a drop in performance of what um often is the highest performing supper yeah so we um the highlights of what we're continuing to do in ela as we look to turn the tides some of the stuff that I referenced in terms of high quality instructional materials wherein you know a multi-year rollout where we

first work K to two and then we added three to five and this is the first year um where there's nothing new in terms of ela curriculum rollout at the elementary school where Winter's cater five now across all schools we're still using Lexia Core5 and then Lexi and power up in the um in the upper grades but the the piece of that that's different this year is that it's it's up and

running everywhere I know I think at some point we've given an update last year and we were kind of like lagging and who was using it if kids were meeting their minutes and things like that but we are in a much better place this year in terms of getting that up and running and then this last piece here of the differentiated School supports based on need that's really something that you'll see across all of

the content areas when you when we get to this slide um in you know the collaboration between central office and in each of the schools in terms of the observation and feedback modeling and observing in plc's and giving feedback there helping plan school-based PD it also collaborating around what we're doing at the district level um and then that one-on-one problem solving and monthly teleport meetings

new this year we are piloting high quality instructional materials at the middle level so that in grades six through eight we will hopefully see a new curriculum roll out as early as next year that would be a huge win for us we have we are supporting schools in terms of the evaluation of their academic leads so that their support from central office in the observations the feedback and

support for school-based Department chairs and things like that we are facilitating vertical lead meetings we had a you know a change this year where now we have a director that's six through K through 12 for ELA K-12 for math K-12 for Science and so we're able to facilitate vertical leads meetings where everybody K-12 is is there it doesn't happen monthly but periodically through the year

big kind of ticket items where we are getting a lot of positive feedback from schools is training K to two teachers in the science of reading we had a large group say about 40 over the summer um just finishing up training I think it's finished now 40 about 40 teachers and starting up a new training for the next 40 teachers so that everybody is getting the same professional development around the science of

reading and what that looks like in terms of implementation um teachers so how many trainings about that is a good question outside of that we we do partner with um Yukon in the hill for literacy where we do have and the schools are listed there we do have some schools that are receiving training from an outside provider and support from an outside provider and those schools are listed

there so we'll kind of get to that Finish Line sooner because it's not for every single School rolling out the writing Revolution across schools and that is something for ELA social studies and Science and then again supporting PD and identifying the support that's needed in tiers intervention model any questions about that piece for ELA the only question I would have is across all of them are doing the same in the

past has been like sporadically uniform as far as everybody using with Fidelity the same curriculums and the yeah this year yes so yeah improvement from a huge Improvement I really think for some schools we had some we probably had some reluctant schools we had in some cases it was reluctant grade levels or reluctant individual teachers but everybody is using wonders and Lexi Lexi I think what they needed it's

changes hard people were used to to doing something else but what we've impressed upon them is before teachers were creating their own curriculum because we didn't have a sustained curriculum across and what we said was that's a big lift you need to focus on delivering that curriculum not creating the curriculum at the same time so we said we need to take that off your plate so they can focus on teaching

instruction so um you know we've had some conversations with people about why we can't gauge its Effectiveness if we're not all doing it every all subject matters now have we've put the investment to 35 with as we said we're exploring right now in the exploration phase for ELA for six um in the middle school and we're hoping that we're going to purchase um Ela curriculum for Middle School financier

consistency there too so we talked about um math as a place where we were seeing um some gains in this last um you know from 21 to 22 we are in grades three through eight and in ten we saw the percentage of students meteor and see the expectations on the upswing it wasn't a matter of like oh we stopped the bleed we actually improved over 2021 um at you know both of those um for

three through eight and for ten so that that you know to Mr aguiar's point we are still we're still down from 2019. it wasn't good in 2019 and we're down from 2019 but it looks like we turned a corner um in this last year where we saw gains over the previous and then specifically in some grade levels the biggest gain in four but in three four six and ten those were grades that um

that show the names similar Trends in terms of um the race and ethnicity and kind of what that um of any of the Gap closing any potential outside to the Gap closing um and we still saw um for African-American students the Gap actually widened um that was kind of an off it's kind of a one-off so you see the same kinds of um what's in place and what we're continuing to support in math so high

quality instructional materials in math it happens to be illustrative math and Carnegie so they do have a secondary common curriculum in grades six through twelve that's a little different from the ELA but we were able to get that already into place for six through twelve ST Math Mafia and I ready in place and again that's a that's we're seeing more consistency earlier in the year as opposed to last year where we

were having some real difficulties in terms of um you know some schools who you know they were ST math schools but they were still supplementing with some other resources for intervention or for core instruction and now they are just using ST Math and they're seeing you know in the numbers and in the games that kids were making earlier in the year same thing for Matthew um in the use of I ready at the middle level

um that differentiated support I think looks identical or very similar to what the kinds of support that we're providing in ela and then the new to the plan is some of it runs very parallel to the kinds of things you see in ela but this implementation of elevation mass is something that's new we have it in a couple of schools and we're looking to expand to a couple more and that's

really support for English Learners it's a lot of front loading of vocabulary kind of pre-work primers and it complements the core so we're not looking at foundational classrooms that are using a different core material because they have English Learners in front of them they're using the same core material and we're supplementing with a resource like elevation math just so that we can provide better access and

it really is a support for teachers and students so we're pretty happy about that the mafia Flex is something we're able to offer that compliments work in the um in the core math with Carnegie but used for intervention so that that's something that we're able to do this year um and then here ST Math we didn't have it in every school at the elementary level we have it in every single school now

that this is the first year that that's the case um we're looking we're piloting formative assessments across grade levels so that we're not dependent district-wide on just looking at anet for those um those kind of Big Ticket assessments or marketing progress schools are able to do that at you know shorter intervals in a way that's more uniform across the district and again these pieces of supporting the

evaluation of academic leads the vertical lead meetings the PD and then supporting tier intervention and they didn't have the ST Math what did they use in Chromebox DreamBox which is something that we had used for a really long time um and a lot of it was people some people loved it it wasn't um it was an intervention it was an intervention it was core I remember we had a meeting with SD Mathis right kind

of like more uh science-based so yeah exactly Yeah the more you do it it's going to help him when you said it was not in there just yeah like why and we started it with you know a pilot through a grant program where we at first we invited schools and said oh you know if anyone's interested we'll support you to apply for this Grant and we got a couple schools and then the following year a

couple more and then this year we put it out there as something every school is going to do next year apply for the grant most schools did get the Grant and then we we we funded it and we didn't when we defunded some of those programs we weren't using that was right we pulled yes the dream boxes and other ones we're not we don't have any more wastes we took the ones that we weren't

using and then we have consistency across and it's safe to say we don't have any more programs that we're paying for that are not nice I mean I think we hope not we've articulated that but I will check on that yeah but I think that when we said that they were gonna I think the data like this uh new systems just checked to see exactly yeah because it was just made no sense right

yeah we're actually paying for things that we're not using and part of it I think I will say with something like that other program DreamBox is that we had we'd had it for so long and we were like grandfathered in that there I think we had discussed it and if we decided we would end the Subscribe end our full district and just go with the couple of schools that still were kind of supported to use

it it wasn't going to save us any money right so we had it it was turned on for the whole district and so even some schools who technically weren't supposed to be using it but loved it and wanted to use it they were kind of going back you know for some students or at some grade level and trying to do both but you can't do both a lot of these systems rely on

you know a minimum number of minutes a week and whether it's a lot or a little you have to meet that minimum or you really can't expect the gains so that's what we're supporting schools to do and schools built in time like in their like in their schedules so that people can say like this is when we're doing ST Math this is how it works into our schedule and uh we were able to do that

last year it's cool for following through with it this year they're meeting there and I think that that's the important thing to note um pointed out we've invested we have invested a great deal and we should be in a better place but we actually we used to we knew kids needed intervention but we didn't have a research-based intervention platform until now until now we have one across the district

there are many of those things that we had uh hits and misses here and there but not consistently across the board the differences that we have consistency across the district we have support that we've put in place and we've been intentional about everything that we do and that we're asking our schools to do so and and while monitoring that that that's a big shift so the result should be there well I

have no doubt the results are going to be there I can't tell you how much it's not going to happen overnight but the results you're going to see the results hopefully while I'm still here and while you're still here this uh the next piece is science and I mentioned like with some of our big takeaways grade five is where we saw you know the real only gain in terms of the science and it wasn't we're still

down three points from 2019 but we seem to have turned the corner that doesn't it didn't seem to be the case in grade eight this year you know we had fallen Five Points from 19 to 21 and then another six 21 to 22 so that is an area of um major Focus for us um and we're lucky because that's where we actually have kind of the best we have the best materials in front of kids

um at the secondary level in the you know coming into this year we're in a much better position to support the implementation and we'll talk a little bit about that grade 10 there isn't a comparison because it was new um for this 10th grade class so open Syed is something that we've been rolling out in the district um over the past few years started at Durfee um three years ago so they're in their

third year of implementation at the middle schools we're in grade two uh year two of implementation and it's a big shift for us in terms of instruction it is a big shift because the the pedagogy is different the focus of the instruction is much different it's not so much content based as it is you know kind of developing skills in students as scientists and it's a it's a huge shift

for teachers so we are um that's what we're trying to support right now in all of the schools um it you know in the grades six up through the high school but it's the same again you see the same kinds of things you know as we talk about like the investment that we're making it is about supporting the high quality instruction materials that we have in place because there's no there's

no like excuse there anymore you've got the materials in people's hands we just have to support them to use it um you see the ongoing expanded support which is very you know it's pretty much the same as what we saw in the ELA in math and then new to the plan is all about just kind of adding some things that like Gizmo those simulations increase three to five increase three

through five we don't have the same high quality instructional materials that open Syed isn't available in elementary we're anticipating a pilot for next year but we're still trying to support people and give them um give them the resources that they need to still meet the standards even though there isn't this full bone curriculum and uh how old is osc again that we're year three at the high school

two at the middle so we're actually four and three three in the middle school but year two of the pilot of the pilot so it's year two of our teachers getting intensive PD right to go with it okay and at the high school we're actually in year one of our teachers getting the Intensive TV so the materials have been there okay but yeah but this is with it okay for this is the third year

but this is really year one for them that they're all in with with intensive pieces okay thank you and so that's like that's the new piece I think it felt very different with the ELA and math where even though it was a rocky time in terms of um covid enclosures and in the way instruction look we did have PD and the materials for science it hasn't been like that it we've put you know we were

able to put the materials in front of teachers but as I said it's a lot it's a it is it's a heavy lift for teachers and it's just in the last couple of years that we've actually been able to really support it with the PD and so we and it's not all in-house um a lot of it is is taking teachers out to do that kind of work so that they're bringing their any

feedback right now from the teachers from the teachers it's so so the high school teachers are really grappling with it right because it's your kind and it's it's very different the Middle School teachers where they're for our teachers that have been with us from the beginning that aren't new hires they're in year three of using this and and they're starting to really get excited about it okay

it's different it's really different than the way people have been teaching yep it is different um we are a lot of the we're collaborating a lot this year um with the multilingual learner department so even I will send you the PD offerings you'll see a lot of work when we're talking about access for all students there is an element to some of what people are seeing where the and for it's like I

can't do this and I'm not sure what to do with students who um you know have language needs but the truth is it really lends itself to supporting students who are English Learners and so I think as people are are starting to realize that I think it if you look at it and you think like it's not accessible I can see where if we have a high number of teachers who

say not sure our kids can do this they're feeling that way I think about some of the science but as they continue to unpack the materials they're realizing like it's literally what our kids need so I think we'll be in really um a really good position um social studies even though it's not tested the work that they're doing in social studies is really runs parallel to what we're doing in terms of

building literacy skills in our students and so you see that writing Revolution that was in ela and science it's also being supported in social studies for all of our teachers there also rolling out new curriculum um in you know supporting the the coaches and Department chairs at the um at the middle level and um and also you know you see the rolling out of sub curriculum that's specific to

the high school there pre-ap implementation um in place of honors and then the work that we do with Civics day the new to the plan is similar to the others in terms of um some new curriculum and also looking at some pilots and the potential to roll out more curriculum at the secondary level and actually Elementary as well Massachusetts I hold a little more would yeah that is the issues I wasn't

sure do you want to talk about Massachusetts or home yeah they the books textbooks were delivered last week to all the schools and um the teacher resources were laid in getting shipped out they'll received them this week so they're implementing the grade three curriculum using this textbook they used to use the same you know obviously an older version of it I think the last purchase was like back in 2005.

yeah it's a nice book thank you anything um so we do have some work um certainly in terms of attendance these are some numbers on the table at the top is focused on average school days Miss and the percentage of students missing 10 or more which really is the marker year after year in this particular year though for accountability the state used percent of students missing 20 percent of days or more and so that's why

there's a separate table at the bottom because those are actually um the numbers that were used for accountability purposes this is where the big work is yeah because we can't get to any of the other work unless our kids are in school so it's a big workout what do you think is causing this huge difference from what doesn't matter if we're looking at 10 or 20 percent for going from 2019 25 to 48 in 2022.

yeah I mean kids uh create they were bad habits that were created while they need to get our things back to school it used to be I mean I it's tough for me to go back in the office that's what I have to do so yeah and that's just a lot of it I think that's a piece of it I think that in 2022 we also it was a year where people were

asked to stay home well that was my next question is when I look at this the numbers can be Shady to me in terms of why are kids absent we know that we've been telling kids to stay on if they have coveted I I don't think that guidelines last year um you know if my sibling had coven and I tested negative was asymptomatic I'd still go to school with the mask so it

wasn't we're getting there but how much of this it's almost like the numbers are fuzzy because we don't know how much is related to Children maybe right parents not getting them to school or children you know Scholars choosing not to go to school and what part of these numbers have to do with the fact that we're still being um just hyper aware I think we'll see a natural um decline in the numbers because of

that of the coveted piece where we told kids to stay home I mean we have less people staying home now however we've always as a district struggled with chronic absence of course some schools more than others so I think that um some of that will work itself out this year we'll see some natural declines and we have to we met with that I met with them attendance officers today we need

to do some serious work with them at school and with families and getting our kids to school every day our teachers can't do their job if kids aren't in front of them so these absences are excused unexcused yeah and one number everybody thinks that only excused absences count for accountability yeah it's excused and an excuse that count for accountability so there's work to be done and you know

um grade 1 through 12. right um that's the accountability um those are the years that um the data but we have to build those good habits starting with Pre-K and okay yeah because every day counts so um I I think that there's every school has uh you know uh attendance teams they're targeting kids who are on the cusp as well as kids who are chronically absent they're involving families

creating Student Success plans Etc but um you know I think it's a mindset that needs to change and it's uh habits we need to create and and from our standpoint too we need to make sure we give I think that part of this is they were adult absences as well as student absences right so um everybody you know adults cover too just like kids did so um we need to make

sure as we're trending downward with the numbers that we're um with the coveted numbers we're also trending downward with our chronic absenteeism we has had the budget meeting I recall almost a year ago where the principals were supposed to give us the details what more it drilled down they mentioned the cafeteria so we know it's been better we still haven't seen that but I think that's some of the problem is that

we're not drilling down exactly what's happening focusing on you and focusing on you it's sort of we get lost in the in the shuffle so I I would say mustache in schools the teens are drilling down to the kid level right so individual students creating uh um small groups and creating Student Success plans but um we're gonna own our piece but we have to also do some work with families right

to support our families and getting our kids to school um because um our kid you know for whatever reason some kids are absent because they're legitimately sick and then um we have to especially at the secondary level we have to give kids reasons to come to school and engage them and and really make them feel like if they don't come they're missing out on something that they want to be there that badly that if

they don't come they're missing out on something really important yeah before they get a penalty of some type it has to be both sides well they do but you you know but yeah I think that's part of the problem is that we don't necessarily focus on it and I'll ask the same question I've asked a million times uh every is every school doing the same thing that we know it works in certain

places across the district with fidelity because I don't think that happens in attendance and I've been saying this for years well we have attendance procedures and protocols right so um I know that every school has attendance teams Etc today I talk to the attendance officers about that who who are you all part of those teams yeah um this is something that we are monitoring that we have to tighten up

some systems uh yeah I would just say based on the attendance documents that I've seen and read when I go through that every school is not doing that so in it it tells you what is expected of every school if certain this is going to happen that's going to happen every time I bring this up it I can tell you it's not happening in the schools and that's the part of

the problem is we have a document that we're not following for every school to make sure they do so if that's the case then we'll never know if that document needs to be adjusted because we're not all doing it the attendance office is the same they need to do if one great attendance office and you're getting results and I'm not getting the results you need to help me to figure out how I'm going to

to either we don't I don't think do that we've been talking about attendance for way too long for everybody so like so that's why I think it's a little bit of the problem I think it's a big part of the problem engagement is a huge piece of education but it's looks like there's enough time to be spent on how we get these kids here and clearly it's not just communication although obviously the high school numbers are

higher yep it clearly it's it's apparently engagement as well cool um so one of the one of the other indicators for accountability is progress toward English language proficiency and it's measured by access which happens mid-year every school year for students um there's a significant difference um in the progress of our non-high school students and high school students so even where we saw a slight bump for

high school going from 13.8 to 14.6 we don't recognize as um yeah a huge win because that number is is so low in terms of the percentage of students um making progress so we recognize this certainly as a place that needs some very focused work and um you can actually who takes the the access testing of is it all students English Learners football or is it so is that number divided up amongst subgroups

within the within the so foundational English Learners yeah like foreign

um so there have been some changes certainly um in the last couple of years that you know we're going to continue to support um we did purchase new curriculum um that was approved so time zones and impact um at the middle at the middle school level um from vocational and mainstream students and then as um Crystal witty had described the American reading company for the dle program new new resources there as well this

year um the more consistent use of the digital platforms just as we saw in different content areas we're looking at um more consistent use here as well for the Imagine Learning in our um for our English Learners and then all of those differentiated School supports that are based on need we were um you know we added their additional coaches this year um and some new Personnel in place and

so we're looking at you know across schools that have those foundational programs co-facilitating um plts I I mentioned this earlier I the collaboration between our content um leads and the MLL leads is but I mean it's it's so much improved this year um it's it's we're really encouraged by a lot of the work that's being done jointly around early literacy um as well as planning across content areas for math

you know by social studies new this year is elevation math we've referenced that in in math piece that extra layer of support for foundational English Learners in their core and math classrooms elevation we are working right now with the MLL Department to really take a closer look at elevation it's a resource that's been in the district for a few years underutilized that's the theme

there underutilized great resource for ESL teachers as well as mainstream teachers in terms of identifying um you know getting a clearer picture of the students in front of them and the strategies we can use to support them that's something that we're getting up and running and we'll be doing some elevation PD actually at the this is an assessment it's a platform and you can talk a

little bit more about it but I mean it's a platform that can be it has professional development built in it has um it's there for data storage um on individual students you can pull pull District data reports full data Reports look at profiles as individual students um and it's something that we had at one point said when we were buying our new system illuminate for the kind of assessment platform and data

collection platform and warehousing you know analysis tool can't we just put all of the ESL data in there as well and we can except this is way better because they're they're kind of pre-built strategies in there in professional development for teachers that they can access oh is this encouraged or are you going to make it mandatory no we're using it people just have just haven't

been trained so it's one of those things that's like we didn't use it lives out there and no one had been using it but do you want to talk a little bit more about it sure um so before elevation came into play into our district um all of our fellow data lived in X2 and it wasn't exactly user friendly for our teachers to access um now it all is an elevation so it

connects with PowerSchool connected with X2 and so if I had to pull up my students data it's all there including access scores demographics how many years they've been in schools how many years they've had access to um the English program in our in our district and it also has that piece which is the English learner success plans so within that platform we can at each School based on the access data

dive that we've done already this year we are now implementing for our students who did not reach their target goal on access and have a difficulty index of 60 or more meaning it is that difficult for them to reach their goal for the next time they take access we're creating goals around the different mobile of language and teachers can hold their goals for their students and align it to their

their instruction so are there many teachers proficient sorry I have a cough drops proficient in it right now many not as many yeah ESL teachers using elevation I think we just need to expand it okay to follow teachers um we're also presently exploring Pathways for MLL certification for teachers so that there's you know this possibility of having our mainstream general of teachers duly certified so

that they can better meet the needs of English Learners in their classrooms um and then providing professional development for leadership and MLM best practices and that's really collaboration between our the leadership that exists within our ml Department that collaboration with the leaders in other contents doing some doing some work there Advanced coursework another indicator just for high school

um we can see here that we did have an increase in the percentage of students taking Advanced coursework between 21 and 2022 and this slide just really highlights the things that we are looking at doing like the things that we're doing right now that we so that we can further increase that percentage of students so you see it in um in you know ways that we can increase enrollment in Early College increasing

our enrollment in AP classes expanding project red and black because that is something that you know attracts already you know a large number of kids and looking to expand that and then the building of the co-op program because that is one of the um that is some of the coursework that contributes to that um Advanced coursework marker

and then here we see um the data for graduation extended engagement and annual Dropout rates um so we saw the graduation rate increase from 2020 to 2021 we saw um expensive engagements stay pretty much the same and then the annual dropout rate has decreased slightly kind of flat pair from 2020 to 2021 foreign strategies that are being implemented in terms of kind of improving that data

so we're expanding credit recovery and acceleration opportunities expanding Workforce Development opportunities at RTA expanding access to career and ticket standing student enrollment in evolved um

re-engagement events for students who have dropped out and then expansion of portfolio-based and cast submissions for substantially separate students so that's something that is has already started up where students are building portfolios as as as they go so that um if they're not sitting for they can sit for traditional MCAS but they're already preparing their portfolio so that in the

event that they don't pass and pass they have a portfolio of their work that they can use as a part of classical evidence toward competency I think with that slider we talked about this alternative uh meeting to high set should be an option for students and I don't think that we do because it's all they're going to be considered dropouts and all this other stuff but it gets corrected in the year after but if we're

just doing what's right by kids many of these students that are dropped out can pass a high set if we work on changing the law with the legislatures which I think we need to do and they can go to college and go to trade school I think we're missing a the block of kids that we're trying so let's spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to to get them to do something that

they're not ready for whereas if we spent less than that teach them the how to take the high set with the supports and the council is in place and they go to college okay we're missing that piece on any of these uh just normal opinion and I've seen it work in person it definitely is about a valid option um and so this is the last piece so all of those things across our schools feed

into calculating school percentiles um whatever the year one was in some cases 2019 other to 2020 2021 depending on the indicator um that gets weighted at 40 year two gets weighted at 60 that's how we arrived at the 2022 accountability ratings and so the last slide here shows where we are and you can see that comparison from 2019 to 2022 for a lot of schools there was um you know there was little to no

change people kind of stayed flat in terms of their comparison um to other schools in the state but we certainly did have some schools make gains I mean the biggest one for us really was Henry Ward which had been in the lowest 10 percent of schools Rose out in 12th percentile and then we also saw Watson which was at M8 Rose to 10 still not out of the lowest ten percent but sir I'm sorry six

um but did make a gain there a pretty significant one and then you know we saw some schools that that fell and fell in pretty pretty big way um yeah darn so yeah a concerned yeah and so um the the state didn't change any of the um any of the classifications of schools everybody kind of stayed put where they were but um but certainly we I mean we

can see the Dana so we know that we had some schools pump into the lowest 10 percent so it's the hard part you get one out and then yeah and another one so what do they do now so if they're not they get no supports that you would normally get if you're in attendance so what we did for anybody who had previously been in the lowest 10 percent we've got our turnaround grant funding that gets

allocated to the district and then we worked and put from the school so that we can put different supports in place for those schools so we did not get funding any additional funding for cuss but we were told that it wouldn't be in that first round because that was for existing or previously existing lowest 10 percent and that they would be doing another round where they would provide

they would provide support for those schools so I put everything so is it going to pick and choose when they so what school closed out they're not going to say they came out and the school goes in but when I say they want it well they're not actually change what they're doing because they're not actually changing the classification they're saying to like a school like Henry Lord

you you know they don't change the fact that they're labeled as in need of assistance and they still offered the the district allocation to further support them as they continue to rise but for a school like cuss even though they haven't designated they're also going to allot the money for cost they just said it wasn't going to be in that first round but what is that like why so we're meeting us

yeah I know it's interesting it's interesting so what we have done though so we're you know we're partnering with the Department in their um Statewide system of support so there is a team that we meet with uh regularly they came into um we had the Statewide system of support team we had our partner from tntp bars from tntp come in we partner with um lunch School of Education to

come they all came in to do a walk so there are three major partners and we've worked really hard with them since you know last spring and into this school year to get kind of all of them working in sin in terms of what we need for support and who's doing what and so um either we did a walk with that team of schools who were those schools in need

of assistance and we did include we did include cuss so there's a there is a recognized need there and they are you know looking to support and so and we certainly recognize it here and you know included them and they'll be they'll be part of our kind of more intense support how many gay kids are still like us they only have eighth grade now so it's every year it goes It goes down a little yep

fifth is 50. it goes down by 50 per year that's a lot of each year yeah that would reflect any uh those numbers I don't even know if they have 50 because one of the classrooms only had um one of the years they only got one class it was enough just for one class of 31 kids in the class not typically you would have two full classes filtering in and those

numbers dwindled um the past few years 60 kids at 80 or whatever the percentage of achievement you said that's 14. yep in fact I could explain it just there we took out 50 kids that would have been the higher Achievers potentially yeah I mean so the elements of um sure without a doubt it's going to it's going to it's going too lower I think the one like things to keep in mind is not all

say 50 in a particular year not all 50 came from the other middle schools there there is a percentage of that those 50 students who in any year would be would have been cuss students whether they're in the gay program or not so those scripts they would have owned and kept even when you know as the gay kids stopped filtering in um and then I do think that student growth is up for grabs for any student

and regardless of how they perform so that element is still there as well and then they wouldn't have lost they haven't lost any gay kids in terms of the science component and that's a third of the achievement comes from science those eighth graders more certainly gay students so yeah I mean there it contributes but maybe not as much as we want to rationalize on any given day there are issues and a lessons as well

I think they're playing style like that we have a problem with the middle schools keep doing the same thing and seeing the same results oh we do something bold but we also have a K-8 school that was a high performing school that took it a based out of a big dive so um I I know exactly what you're talking about because I'm a big proponent of K to eight

um I think that we have to get to the bottom of white both of them why our middle schools aren't performing and why our K-8 which is a community school usually our community schools have tended to a middle schooler in a community school is different than Middle School right so absolutely okay what does it look like if it's in a K-8 school that's maybe in the lower percentile versus a middle school all

those kids absolutely what is the effect of that educationally it's one thing but socially and isn't it there's an argument to be made for people you're right you have to weigh it out right the one thing and it's something to keep an eye on um is that so generally across the state elementary schools perform better than middle schools so when you see um so a K-8 school that has Middle

grades in it there in the same group for comparison as just straight elementary schools that do better so it's an interesting I think it's pretty cool I think when you see a Henry Lord kind of rise in their percentile be because they do have a number of large number of middle school kids contributing and their moving along the ranks of some schools that are just elementary school so I mean it is a pretty

um it's an it's an interesting thing and I think we need both in this Community Schools the middle school students did better did Elementary in elementary yeah what is that against how do they do against the middle schools across the state I mean we'd have to take a closer internally like I think that'll be valid something to look at to say the grade six seven and eight in the 2K to eight

schools yeah how do they compare to what they're doing versus the other three right Middle School's tough so I think I'm a big proponent okay to eat as well for a number of reasons I just say one last thing sorry Henry Lord yesl teacher that's our besides Derby we have the highest population of English language Learners at Henry Ward so to see the growth um more impressive oh

thank you