2.5.2025 Fall River School Committee - Instructional Subcommittee

good evening everybody um I'm going to start the uh instructional subcommittee meeting uh today Wednesday February 5th uh can I get a roll call Deb Please Mr Das here miss ly here do you want me to I have to um just let everybody know that tonight uh Miss Pereira couldn't be with us it was last minute she's feeling under the weather she asked me to reach out to uh Mr Corey

to take her place he's parking so we'll attendance him and wining y all right so uh salute to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you does one literally have to be open uh yes yes yes yes yes um thank uh move on to the open meeting law uh

pursuant to the open the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or UNP perceived by those present in and are deemed acknowledged and permissible uh we're going to move on to Citizens input I'm aware that we have

one uh person joining us for Citizens input uh Jordan Sylvia Highland EV uh discussing dery so where oh where would I go you have 3 minutes okay sir thank you thank you um so um good afternoon everybody I think I'm was the only person signed up I can't really blame everybody in for for not participating I miss all these meetings too I've been to hundreds of them right over the last 10

years um but there's not any input from the city there's no from the regular parents right and my kids don't even go to in the school system I choose to have them uh learn at home they go to Teek a uh online Carter school but reason I'm here uh I was made aware of the dery curriculum M i' I've voiced this many times I spoke with the former superintendent Maria Pon uh this book

right here Rich Dad Poor Dad right um I asked her if she read it she said she was going to uh it's like seven bucks on Amazon this one's for kids I come from mle Gardens right uh broken home this book basically put me to a Millionaire right um on paper my real estate and stuff like that every kid that graduates dery will be financially illiterate I looked at the uh and it's not just a

dery thing or Flor thing it's it's in the country Nationwide think for some reason I think it's intentional uh just another book psycho cybernetics that I you know this guy Maxwell mult Whatever this one just taught me how to be happy and live successful whatnot um I looked at all the curriculum that dery has there's maybe two classes one of them's like adulting 101 or whatever it's a

one-term thing um I just think again I've had the former superintendent tell me no we teach this stuff to kids for River has a century long history of being impoverished right so clearly we're not teaching them even if we think we are we're not the results say otherwise so I've been raising this over and over again uh I'm glad to be able to actually speak to you person to person

but you know I felt like this was the best time the most appropriate time to raise this one more time the funniest part too is like like I said I don't know how many kids go to dery Freshman Class what the numbers look like like 500 kids or something thousand kids yeah so it's it would be a cheap expenditure they and I thought about this on the way here you don't even have to waste

classroom time on this if you just put this stuff in kids hands and then said hey this could probably like change your life more than anything you'll ever learn in college whatever else we do here and they could just decide to do it on their own or not you don't even have to spend a second of institutional time um but again it's something that the only reason I preach this stuff so much

I went to D went to every school in for River when I was a kid Diamond uh graduated from dery bccu M dmouth um like I said this was the only thing that really changed my life it's so cheap I think there's a reason why it's not taught in schools in this country um and that's a whole other conversation but uh I'm just you know wanted to raise that

one final time do it publicly to the new superintendent maybe you were more receptive to it I think that's a big part of what you guys have to talk about today Mr Cory all du respect like I've had people tell me no we teach this stuff to the kids like how to balance a checkbook that's just like how to survive right that's not being financially literate um that's that's basically my whole piece of what I want

to say thank you okay thank you appreciate it thank you okay uh first uh we have discussions uh it's 3.1 an update for Early College uh Dr is this Andrew is this yes we could first just do some introductions so good evening thank you for having us here today introduce a few important folks from the college program tonight Dr Trac Dart coordinates for the college program there and do a whole lot of

other important things atart over to my left we have Adam Sidell who's the deputy director ofv Massachusetts been a longstanding partner um the college program and and then two members of our early college team we have our Early College coordinator counselor Emma jino and our Early College academic specialist juliaa so thank you guys everyone for being here um we're really excited to be

here today and appreciate the time those who know me well know how passionate I am about early college and it's potential to have a transformative impact on community today we're hoping to provide you uh with um an update on early college some information on the Investments you have made some of the Early College outcomes we are seeing that are very promising we're hoping to make this a high uh level overview for

you today and then come back in the spring for a larger event to really uh give you guys a chance uh to hear directly from students and teachers involved in the program um so just to start off we just wanted to give you some background on the Early College why we launched the early college program four years ago this is a challenge in Fall River but also Gateway cities across the Commonwealth and the South region we

have almost 100% of our sixth graders when we survey them say they're interested in college and that number go goes down and students prr High School graduation only 80% of students when they get to nth grade think they're interested in college and less than that by the time they're seniors around 65% say they plan to go to college when we look at enrollment data students who actually enroll in postsecondary uh that

drops either further 45% and we look at some of the longer uh longitudinal data 6 years uh only 29% uh graduated with a postsecondary degree either Associates or Bachelors and that can be a challenge because especially in Massachusetts over 70% of jobs in the state require cccary credential we want to make sure our students are future ready uh are able to the choice still lies have opportunities

upward and we feel like early college is one of many students but an an important one the early college program at TH um is open to all students at tpy but we're really targeting underrepresented subgroups uh who are underrepresented in higher education already and that can be uh multi language Learners first generation College Bound uh students economically disadvantaged students

africanamerican Hispanic students and others students who are enrolling at lower rates students who are persisting and graduating at lower rates than their peers and our our our true goal is to support them help them build skills confidence and help them on their Journey um so that they can uh live Choice build lives and to do that in the early uh early college program U we try to eliminate barriers so that we can

increase access to more students uh just some key pieces uh that we do within our program uh some differences from traditional dual enrollment uh that you might be more familiar with number one all class are taken during the normal school day and that's important because a lot of our students have family obligations they may work have sports obligations or other things going on after

school most scho enrollment U courses are taken in the afternoon and evening um another big piece uh to uh eliminate barriers and increase access is we don't have a single academic prerequisite to join the program uh sometimes enrollment or a program or other things you need a specific GPA you might a speciic in particular class or an acup Place test score for us we look at the whole

student we look at multiple academic measures we also look at interest attendance engagement and all these different things to determine res 100% of the program is free for students and that includes not only the course itself but books lab fees and supplies you know often times that du enrollment courses the course may be at reduced cost or maybe free uh but the uh student still has to pay uh for BS

Etc uh we offer uh multiple onboard points for students uh the first time is within the ninth grade year at the end of the nth grade year during course selection but students also enroll in 10th and 11th grade uh we want to understand that students are developing at different rats uh they may have interest or the confidence uh or the skills to join Early College in 10th or 11th grade or they're not interested in

and we also know uh that thy is a high mobile community where we have students enrolling you know every month of the school year every year we want to give opportunities for students who move into paa later on in their high school year uh we have comprehensive support um in our program you think about our early college program it it mainly uh two hours the two periods of the school day

about 50% of that is taking College coursework the other 50% is mandatory uh support uh so that's a big difference from uh traditional dual enrollment is the mandatory support that we have outside the classes and then we allow for students um to accelerate or decelerate within Early College based on their Readiness and what's going on in their life so our typical path for students is to take two college courses

a semester some may only take one and Others May accelerate the three or take summer courses um to deter where is so that's kind of a a high letter overview I'm going to turn it over uh to Emma to talk a little bit more specifics Early College um so early college act the spring of 2025 just um kind of out of glance we have um 233 11th and 12th grade students who are currently

actively taking credit bearing for work um after being in school during periods five and six in their school day we've got about 40 students in the 10th grade um this spring in addition to students who took it earlier in the year taking up an onr course for the Early College seminar it's taught by an early college staff member at dery to be ready to take credit bearing course work come the fall

um part of our early college team we have four dedicated staff members um that the city and district has invested in to help run the program so myself as the Early College coordinator and counselor uh Julia as the Early College academic specialist and then two ISL roles um that serve as Early College advisers and teachers within the program um in addition to the four of us that are dedicated to just this work we have

um there are 22 classes that we're run we're running this spring between all three of our high Partners um that are all taught five professors at the higher end level um but are supported by our dery staff members um who take this on in addition to their four um class course load as teachers who typend opportunity that participate either teaching the one go curriculum that Adam's going to touch on in a little bit

um or acting as a co- teer a support teacher for the professors who are providing instruction um or as a tutor during their prep periods so part of this we have all the dery internal stuff but we have our Partnerships with our um local higher ed Partners so we partner with Bristol Community College Bridgewater State University and UMass Dartmouth we feel really proud about all three Partnerships since they are the

schools that most students after be high school do end up matriculating to after graduation um and through that we have built um six different Pathways of study that stud students can engage in um and are very strategic and the pathways that we've chosen in working with each highed partner knowing um some schools specializ in things more than others so we our business pathway is through

Bristol Community College and UMass Dartmouth we have a lot of interest in that pathway we have a health science medical pathway through Bristol um an education and Social Service pathway through Bridgewater State a criminal justice pathway through Bridgewater State um and then a stem engineering kind of exploration pathway for you masterart and fashion as well so I'm going to turn it

over to Tracy just to talk a little bit more about the depth of our specific partnership with um but and so I'll kind of stay on the the pathways but if you have other questions ask them the presentation when we were putting together the um the pathways we really had three kind of pieces in mind one was to get students excited about the pathway so not just in English or math but starting with the course of

Interest like business or engineering um in or art kind of get that hook right right up front the other one was U something that would match up SC to get that room in the schedule so that they would be able to take a history for example as part of early college and free up their schedule a little bit to be able to engage fully in the program and the Third Kind of

um we were looking at in terms of course selection was high transferability so if students don't end up at humas Dartmouth we know these courses are highly mobile to other institutions and so that was kind of the um the first pass and then it was about a year I would say of iteration sitting with Department chairs at the University talking about appropriate cour work for high school

students and looking at prerequisites and things like that so we finally got it down after much back and forth um with with dery and and the um Department chairs U we ended up with a pathway that I think has worked really well for us overall but we're we we St open to possibilities of plugging in different kinds of courses based on student interest and that's kind that kind of Engagement comes

regularly within the program we visit the students we have events that bring the students onto campus because these courses take place on the high school campus we really do take the idea of college and culture ation activities seriously so we build those in intentionally and have full day visits to campus where they can go into the you know cafeteria and have lunch with our students pick a course of their choice

to visit and sit with Native New M dartman students in the class to see what that feels like you know what's the tempo how are people behaving how does the class you know how does the is the class instruction look in comparison to what is out their high schools just the physical layout of the the campus walking around and engaging with different offices and different people different students that are you know

that will talk to them about their own experience so those are the kinds of activities that we've been sort of embedding into the program since we started and from from the feedback that we're getting from the students that's I think part that they really enjoy the most is kind of seeing how where the work that they're doing at JY High School how it's translating how it could be translated potentially when they

graduate to go a place like Dartmouth or one of the other high partners that is working with their Fai so that's kind of it and nutshell I was just going to I was just going to add that one of the benefits um of our Partnership of our deep partnership has been kind of like high school and highered collaboration uh especially between like the department heads at diry and some of the department

heads at the colleges who have never who had in the past had you know in some cases never really communicated or connected before um and now are regularly connecting about sequencing of courses and things of that nature it's been it's been a nice thing to see their relationship um increase as well well it occurred to us that k12 and H didn't have a lot of time to talk to each other

particularly those folks that are in the classroom with students working on curriculum so when thinking about the model for instructional you know how we were going to design the instructional piece of this we knew we wanted College faculty to be with students so that students could differentiate that content I know there are some models out there that leverage High School teachers

and there's some fantastic teachers at the high school that are perfect for that but just to kind of keep that separation so that students would know um that this is a different course you know this is a college local course with the college local faculty that they might run into in the halls of um Dartmouth when they're walking you know there as students um when when they matriculate

and the other piece of this was the conversations that kind of third space for High School faculty and college faculty to really look at curriculum and look at that alignment and talk about that vertical integration I think we talk about gaps in education but we don't actually know what lives in that Gap and this is a way to close it and to have you know meaningful sustained relationships about curriculum over time

and building relationships between the University faculty and your High School faculty I think that's so critical in in terms of getting students ready for a college and and looking at those expectations not just from a high level sort of um admissions presentation view but looking at classroom level expectations for coursework in various majors and then bringing that reality back to the high school students to have

those conversations with them very important I think and Powerful in terms of their Readiness yeah again going on that a big value piece of the early college program that can't always be Quantified um is the overall experience in students taking college level cours workk that helps them um experience this in a lower State setting um where they do have safety nets within um the high school

that are very very explicitly um thought out with our highered partners in mind and really kids builds confidence on the dayto day not only in a Content area but also in as a student and as a person and thinking about choice and thinking about interests and thinking about um themselves and how they see themselves in their life after their free high school um so a lot of the value in Early

College I um truly believe comes from the overall experience your learning piece of the program um and all the additional embedded supports that are kind of built within a community students engage in this programming in a cohorted model and so they have group of students that they are rotating with um for two years and teachers that they're rotating with for two years that really

allow them to be pluged in and invested um in themselves and in dery high school um to kind of go on PR rest of the next L can I have a question yeah so Emma uh at what grade would you start looking at at the high school kids would would you start looking at the Freshman the sophomore Weare yeah um so our really our really first entry is in the freshman year we start talking students

about the program they won't take College bearing cours workk until they're in 11th grade what does the talking look like is it done in classrooms is it done at lunch like when are you talk how are you talking to the kids when they're freshman through our school counseling team um we talk about it through our different um School counseling presentations when we go into classrooms and are giving students um

information about what's available to them at dery high school things like that that's kind of a first like Conversation Piece then students will self- select to come to a deeper information session where they're going to get a lot more in depth um conversation and knowledge about what the program entails then through our scheduling studies through scheduling students will opt in to that enter in as

interest in 10 grade years they'll take a term course as that Readiness course to get on boarded and then they officially that that's the seminar uh class right I I would say just to add to that um um early awareness is a key piece that we're focusing on for students and backing backing it up even to the Middle School level um so we've been going like parent uh information nights at the middle school level um we

brought uh eth graders tow State all eth graders now go to State University seventh graders go to um D and part of that is a little bit a little talk about the Early College opportunities that exists while they're in high school and just uh realizing that um students experiences an opportunities early on in their educational career so that maybe when they hear it for the second or third

time it resonates when they get to high school got so what the thing that excites me the most is that term vertical alignment I really really appreciate the idea of connecting uh a high school kid to the opportunities that exist at the college level um we have vertical alignment in our curriculum from elementary to Middle to high everything is vertically aligned in our curriculum and so that's an

incredibly important component to having success I'm concerned about the buyin so if it's introduced to a kid uh what at the eighth grade level and parents have an opportunity to become oriented to this idea and then by the ninth grade level are you talking to them openly in classes is that how it works well it and I'm going to follow it up because you said self uh select so

that kind of gave me a little bit of a pause okay so we get here here and then it transitions into a self- select so that's where I'm I just want to know a little more about after self- select what happens that was a missp on my part no that's no that's all right but we also we have but um we also are continuously looking at the data of the self

selection and say okay what students are coming forward and saying that they're interested in this and um we look routinely at who are who has self- selected and who maybe are we missing and we go out and we actively invite students to information sessions to say okay um have you heard about Early College here's a little bit more about it and through that usually after our information sessions more students quote

unquote s select because then they end up filling out the survey um so we go and we really kind of hands pick send students down to engage in an information session and a little session to get them informed about what maybe they might not know about and part of our work too is communicating with teachers who are in the classroom with students you know every day um so um we'll go to like the special ed

department meetings and talk about early college and ask for recommendation so we're trying to build these multiple ways for students to get involved in in Early College U from recommendations from looking at maybe data or um other pieces and also students to say my stud interest beautiful Mr z a question sure um so obviously this program is um it's great that we have this especially in

this District um my younger brother who went throughout the fall Public Schools was a part of this program and it's a real real benefit to students who can get those credits early on and graduate sooner it's really looking at it now and him himself looking at it now as a college student it's it's really really extremely helpful it's a great program my questions are more towards um geared

towards um potential expansion if that's ever in the works have we ever considered partnering up with um MIT New England Tech more technical institutions in the future to offer some you know courses or credits there has there ever been a conversation we're definitely looking at expansion that's always a goal some some of the research uh about ear the college say like you're really transforming in a

school Community When You Reach 25% of the student body or more we're currently at around 20% right now grades 10 through 12 uh so expansion is always something that we're looking at uh we haven't specifically talked with a technical school other than Mass Maritime about possible expansion however that is a good good suggestion and something uh that we would definitely consider one of the other

things that we want to keep in mind that changed their mind often while they're in high school and college so we want to make the course work whatever the college or university is that they're taking they it transferable they change their mind uh those credits can come with them you know to a different school as well right I guess I would throw out there like some I know like dery has

their own vocational program that offers certain like credits and certain um credentials if you gra if you pass the courses and whatnot but I'm sure there's I mean maybe we should just do a look into if there's um things that Derpy doesn't offer that maybe another institution like New England Tech MIT may offer that we don't have at the dery level that students can look into um last question is so this is just for

dery students correct um have we ever talked about expanding this for RPA students students at Stone who might be at the same age and grade levels yeah I mean I it it's not that actually I thought you were going to go outside of Fall River Public Schools um I I think that scheduling wise the fact that we have it during the school day it is something we would be able to open um

and I don't know how deep the exploration has gone but um it's definitely something that's been talked about over time right and I think that's something we should obviously just consider again just for the purpose of equity and you know and just understand that we have students not just at dery at RPA as Stone who also could greatly benefit from some of these programs something that should be considered in

the near term and been pushed for that um thank you I you anything

else said about 50% of the time that they're in the college program is based on the support and so one goal um as an organization we partner with schools well National Organization but we partner with schools all across Massachusetts and we really exist um because of what we know is what we call the degree divide which is that students from low communi generally graduate college 22% students from higher inome

communities it's about 67% that has nothing to do with ambition or ability it's really opportunity and so our work is about how do we create time in the school day for students to think about the future that they want and then take the steps to plan for it um and it's a really nice stail with the early college experience so so many students are experiencing the first college class and

they are developing that sense of self and that mindset that I could do this myself and so we sort of build community with them to do that we then help them explore and as Drew said they Chang their mind a lot but we want them to explore all different types of careers and then ultimately choose a path that they think is the best for them and take all the steps for that um so our model

is is unique in that um get it in the school day it lasts three years so it starts with a junior year um students enroll as sen years as part of the early college program and then we actually support them in their first year after college so again really build bridging that divide that can often happen between k12 and Mya um and then um the other piece of it is like some of it is

about the big picture aspiration development some of just like really tactical how do I fill out the FAA um what are the steps I need to do to compare financial aid offers what's going to be the best decision for me and my family so we can bring some of the families in and we do that through the advisers that are teachers that teach the course and happy to jump in and

share a little bit more but wanted to just give that overview as sort of part of the support of the experience that the students have in the early college program questions um so I'll just speak really quickly the ways in which we support students among our staff um so we have developed an mtss system that we've modeled after dery's pod system um where we sit down weekly and review student

data both quantitative qualitative um to tear our kids based on the supports that they need so a lot of that comes from feedback from these partner teachers who are in the classrooms um the one goal teachers were also running attendance data um getting feedback from our highered partners um and between the four of us we are providing one-on-one interventions as necessary um on the

tier one level we have one as a great support um and we also have a partnership with jfy networks that um allows students to get access to one-on-one tutoring for some of the uh core academic pieces of the early college experience just briefly to share some some data points it's early on but we're we're very proud of and want to share with you guys number one is our en grow we started right out of Co

202 we started with a pilot year and our first graduating class was in 2022 started in the last two years our enrollment uh has grown over 78% and we really have gone from about 10% to just about 20% of the grade level at 1 Gres 10 through 12 um we tried to do it smartly by not going too rapidly um but also trying to make substantial increases to increase that access to

more and more students and our our goal is again uh to grow um next year about about 20 students so that we can continue to increase the access as well question and some are just one sec one sec no it's okay so so Drew according to the enrollment growth are you noticing with the students a a natural sense of enthusiasm to enroll in in here Emma sorry um yeah just some of our

other you have all this done forther outcome data just what Desi um holds us accountable for and measuring success in our program um 100% of our class of 2024 graduated with a diploma um and uh 87% of the class of 2024 last year graduated with 12 plus credits that are going towards their higher education currently um more notably 91% of the class of 2024 filled out the FASA or Massa um and we

just see that that being the number one predictor of college enrollment and persistence because if you don't fill those things out you can say you're going but you're not going to be able to enroll um and this is compared to a 54% average across the state of Massachusetts so that's something that we definitely are proud of um and currently 88% of the clocks of 2024 have been verified enrolled in higher

education um and the state average for the class of 2023 since we don't have enrollment data for 2024 currently was 62% so just kind of showing a highlight and a snippet of the things that are are definitely working our students yeah I I just said I mean that's some incredible data um what what is the max credits is it uh 16 is it 15 that they can earn at their fee if they take traditional

pathway it's roughly about like 18 to 20 18 to 20 okay I thought for some reason it was 16 yeah U the goal is to have all students um engag with at least 12 um 12 the minimum right yeah yeah so like we said students can t salary or X salary depending um our paway is 21 I thinks our pathways are 21 one how they handle that and then use

that as a predictor to scale up to two which I think most of them do very few might keep you might but it it's definitely still a differentiated pathway at that point but primarily those that start with that first course they'll go on to continue and earn 21 credits that's awesome which is like the semester and a half quick question um so out of the I know you're raising the the allotment from

120 to 140 um could do you believe if you increase that even let's say like 160 or 200 you think that could easily be filled is there like a want to be in this program we currently have a weight L to be in the early college program right now it's just resource how big is it yeah those car right now it's about 20 students added the so this could go up

to 160 if there was the the resources to do so um correct we just don't want we want to make sure that we're doing sustainable growth to make sure that we're continuing to align with all the things we were just saying with support and making sure that we're not just on boarding students without a home for them to get support and things like that so a budgetary concern okay thank

you Mr cor so looks like we have a considerable Financial goal here at the end in order to uh adopt this program um I have no problem with that I just want to know that with the vertical alignment set up between the college people and the high school people that there would be constant conferencing and communication back and forth so that the colleges are always in touch with what

it's what what curriculum work is going on at the high school so that everything can stay in alignment and the kids are being oriented properly towards these goals so that we can see our investment dollars maximized by that success that's what concerns me the most our faculty at the University are that is part of their Early College duties when they accept the assignment of the Early College

course the expectation is that there um ongoing collaboration and planning with the partner teacher those Duties are spelled out um in in writing and they're compensated so every faculty member at the university is required to have that ongoing collaboration around curriculum and student support throughout the entirety of the course delivery and I mean what we hope is that there'll be relationships built and those

conversations will even happen in the interim right in in between semesters and the summer and so forth so those are the kinds of relationships we we we see developing and we hope to continue to develop with our faculty and yours thank you I was just going to say um my role at the high school as well is I'm in communication with Tracy and our other higher end Partners weekly if not daily

depending on the time of the semester um as well as all the faculty members like I have a very direct line of communication in addition to all the teachers that work in the program the expectation is that these conversations are happening regularly um so it's not just plug and play and no one talks to each other there is um a definite pride and need in those um very uh regular

conversations I just going to add at the student level it's part of the one program we have Partnerships with high institutions all across the state so that the students are taking their credits with them and then they're finding the people on Camp connecting them to the people on campus to make sure that they maximize those credits when they get there and for dery students a lot are matriculating

directly atass Dart Bristol or Bridgewater State and so that we make sure that they don't lose any of those credits and it sounds like that should never happen but it easily can u a student could show up on the campus and not know that those credits are now should be applied to their you know their their profile um so we help them do that and the partnership allows for that to happen thank you uh just one

more question on my end um how many of the high schools in the Commonwealth have this practice this collaboration is there I just have the number in front of me I mean a guesstimate I think there are 50ish programs around the state be eight designations but it might be 35 high schools so will have multiple designations right but it's somewhere in that that b in that realm and growing I

mean this year we're in the designation process UMAS Dartmouth is in the designation process um with five school districts and UMAS Lowel is same in in in designation process with five and so just being in that process you're kind of a priz to the tempo of what's happening in the Early College World there were 40 applications submitted to the Joint Commission this year to applying for designation so the they're

it's scaling up and the demand is there it's just capacity of the institutions and that's what we're talking about on on our side you know how do we continue to meet the demand and and and expand the capacity of the university to be able to offer these programs scale them up offer more Pathways for students that are on weight list so we don't have those sorts of things plug in and and we

we're thinking about all sorts of things you know um developing a a pool of of Faculty perhaps collaborating with our College Partners to jointly offer programs that might use some of our resources and there so trying to be creative and collaborative in the way we're approaching this work we do see that the expansion possibilities are quite Hefty and the goals uh for the Commonwealth are as well and we're

trying to be in alignment with that beautiful thank you keep up the uh amazing work I love it anything about it anything good okay we now going to move on to a discussion and vote to refer the uh Jeffy high school program of studies you Dr J we Dr J no no that just a discussion G to go with Dr J hey Dr J thank you for having us so thank you very much for having us

to discuss our program of studies for the um 25 26 school year we our our aim at this point is to give a high level overview of our proposed changes for program not inclusive of every single thing but the goal is to highlight not only some important specific changes um but highlight in a way where you can see um the way that they speak to our values and how we think about all our entire

program of studies so with that said we organized an executive summary for you where there are four uh key focal points for organizing principles and the first one that we wanted to touch on is just the idea of strengthening student achievement um by using high quality instructional materials and um for next year that would be with a heavy emphasis on math and science um I think the key

in kind kind of this focus is its connection to our tier one realm our tier one world and um part of why that's so relevant I think is that over the last while we've done a lot of thinking about the tier 2 and tier Three Needs extenda needs that young people have um and while we've always tied that to the tier one world and just that idea of what all students have access to I think

at this point um there's just a very shared understanding that that our emphasis needs to be in that realm and how we use HQ to um accomplish a really meaningful productive experience for students in the tier one realm so with that said um we're looking at some core course changes just to strengthen um student achievement by using these materials um specific ones in the science and math realm are noted then

there but our focus is really on how we are tail ing these materials and how they're being delivered to really hit standards and ensure that um students can access and learn and master the material so some specific focuses um pre preap biology preap algebra the idea is that in those Realms you know there's an expectation that preap curriculum is used um however we've worked so we are

working continuously with District Partners academic leads Mr ooso Dr curly um um to work on how we tether preap materials to our hqm in the um Science World that's open Sayad and the math world that's carnate and just for context sake the preap materials there tends to be a heavy skills Focus the hgms that we've adopted tends to be a heavy standards focused and much of our efforts and

really our responsibility have to be how we tether those two to create a really meaningful productive experience for um our students our second point of focus is on broadening our course options to better serve diverse Learners um you know it's kind of an unspoken known truth to all of us that diversity is a huge strength a huge gift um and we are very fortunate to have it um in a beautiful way exist

in Fall River and we have an e and and professional responsibility at dery to capitalize on it and ensure that we are you know looking at who our students are and really servicing them in in the way that it's merited so first we're looking at increasing SL coursework for our MLL students um you can think a little bit along the lines of a cohort Just For clarifications Life uh tends to be a complex world because

when we're thinking about our MLL students and interrupted learning um at times it's hard to capture but it's definitely a huge responsibility that we have and work that the state um maintains as an expectation of us and how we are best supporting them so looking at expanding course offerings and math and science to support their language development and then expanding The Accelerated track for our heritage

language Learners I think the important piece there is that we have so many students who are you know native speakers of different languages and it's such a gift and a skill and a strength and it's one that we should be capitalizing on to create expedited opportunities into the AP um realm and in different languages and then the reality there is that by creating that uh that track into AP it

it creates the opportunity to boost access to the seal body literacy but just that General theme that we have a responsibility to C relies on those traits and skills and gifts that students have already and ensure that we're giving them opportunities to achieve and attain in these ways third um just looking at increasing access to Advanced coursework for our underserved population so if we think

along the lines of AP um prioritizing co- teing an AP seminar uh we we have uh we have a current pilot right now K talk we are having a very successful experi experience there and we are looking at expanding upon that reading or sections Etc another realm we are looking at piloting AP caught classes so there's access to special education students in the human geography realm in the um

psychology realm as well as potential Pilots um with caught courses increasing access to um pltw work by expanding into our newcomer Academy so looking at creating opportunities for advanced course work for our upper classmen in the newcomer Academy we are hoping to tether that opportunity for uh the biomedical Sciences program for our newcomer Academy upper classman to have access to

it also hoping to add an early college pathway that would be an interpreter track so the goal of that pathway would be to increase access for um our MLL and our students in Early College Pathways while aligning um with growing labor market demand for by Li support and then finally we are really focusing on enhancing our senior experience that's been a dialogue for some time and we have some specific

changes where we're hoping to begin that process in a tangible way next year first we are looking to increase um or create if you will a credit minimum for senior year currently there is no minimum um and what that ends up looking like for some students is a five credit situation you know they they earn five credits and they can graduate uh sometimes 10 we are looking at creating

a minimum requirement of 15 credits for a senior year so that students are required to you know engage in a meaningful way or um at least there is a greater sense of weight if you will on that time and what they choose to do with it so the goal of that would obviously be to increase engagement in their year um both in and out of their core classes but give them a greater uh

a greater motivation for things like attendance and participation in their place in their experience so just I'm going to ask a question as they come so they can't beet graduation requirements starting next year as a junior well I mean that's rare but a student who excels and takes all those extra courses and this English and that English and all their cores they're not going to be

able to meet their graduation standards until they correct So currently we have students that you know hypothetically and this comes to life all the time they might just need an Ela especially if you use the summer to your advantage or what whatever it may be so what we found over time is that because because that's duded the meaning if you will of the 12th grade experience sometimes because there's so

little purpose so little cause so little Mission we just don't see anything close to the best version of them because they're they're not bought into to it it doesn't have agreed enough meaning so that's the hope there is that it would keep them inage yeah enforce an effort to create a more meaningful experience whatever those classes can still be you know you can still expedite your

experience earlier and potentially take whatever classes you want to take but there would be an idea that we can't be calculating the bare minimum number of assignments we have to do to get a 65 in one class to to graduate at that point you know thank you sure so where was I oh go ahead I'm sorry oh oh sorry oh are you done sure no no no no no continue I have a

question for I don't even know exactly where I was so you would go you the we go on to B we're on we're on four experience uh the experience for senior students and stuff we're on it that's all right go ahead so overall I'm I'm really I know that the program of studies being a former faculty member at dery is constantly evolving to the needs of society at the

given day and age and I applaud you guys for understanding all of that that growth and evolution over time you know and modeling your cewor accordingly um through it all through my experience uh in education uh working primarily with the underserved student the student who wasn't really a high academic achiever so to speak just because of the demographics of our society here in Fall

River I've just been a huge advocate of Career and Technical education and just wondering what type of vision you know you guys might have as far as constantly growing and developing CTE programming along the way to serve maybe that special needs student who may take a a a real interest in some Hands-On type curriculum or maybe that L student who's in elementary school now and uh an

English language learner who um you know may slowly grasp the American culture and then maybe want to grow into maybe an emergency medical technician or Emergency Medical Services type of career something like that that could serve our community once they graduate from dery high school and not necessarily just go to college and potentially move away cuz as as we all know so many of our great kids that

graduate with college educations here you know leave the community I'm trying to figure out a way how do we keep kids in full River once they graduate from dery and then go on to further education to come back to our community to serve us and I can't help but think about the growth and development of CTE I met with the superintendent and spoke at length of my advocacy for this I would like to

appeal to assistant superintendent raposo and and and put myself on record as being a strong vocal advocate for the growth and development of CTE programming I fully support the Early College Endeavors that we just heard I think that's great we want to increase College enrollment but I think I know it's not for every student in our in our public schools and so I'm just looking at that

and wondering what you all might think about you know that that as a question I I think one of the things we've been talking a little bit about lately is um just the idea that CT in the sense where you know you are participating in a program fully you do the three years you know that kind of thing is one way of looking at CTE I think a way that we haven't really

tapped into CTE yet is the way where you know there are certain students that could access construction or could access culinary or could access other programs um that might not you know their interest might not be in being fully immersed in that program but there might be elements of it that that could enhance their experience via elective or could tap their brain or heart into things that they haven't been tapped

into um yet so I think in a broad sense in thinking about CT one thing that definitely comes right to mind because we've talked about it a bunch lately is just how we create a more expansive um opportunity for Access that it's not like you're in or you're out necessarily but there has to be this middle gray area where all that we have to offer there can be accessible in other ways it's not a zero

or a 10 in other words but how do we open the doors to more students because to me one of the most important aspects about the experience that young people have as they navigate K to 12 you know through K to 12 education is that we have to tune their hearts and Minds into things that are going to continue to um Inspire them or compel them to learn or engage as they grow Beyond this and so

for some kids that's going to happen happen through the belongingness in a program from 10th to 12th and that being a huge part of what they did and for others it's going to be an elective that they took one time where they felt something a little bit different so that's just one piece of what um we've talked about another thing that you touched on the potential EMT program I think to us the sky limit relative to

what we could offer if it' be meaningful and received well by students so that type of a program in particular is some definitely something that we are open to and would see value in you know in its right time and whatnot so no I would say not only just open to but building towards like we are definitely on a mission to see that through we just need time and um your support in sort of like

betting it it's a brand new program criminal justice in general I think first responder will fit in there nicely we just need time to sort of watch it grow and continue but we definitely U being thoughtful about building theart so if I can get really r um in order to expand these particular programs was uh a school within a school concept ever considered you know to have a separate schedule for CTE you know

programming and then the academics on the other side anything like that is I I understand that there are hangups you know evident you know but I was just wondering if anything could be worked within you know the up so I know it could be complicated so I'm asking a complicated question I'm just curious that's all I think there's hurdles but not barriers we would just have to get creative and thoughtful and probably

engage with the district leadership around um conversations that would entail you know moving in that direction but I I think in many ways it there are elements of that right now in the way that it functions right so students their schedules are going to look and feel different because of you know the coursework that they're in um the other thing I I just want to mention is that the um I think to your point

around using our kids and our community as an asset is really important right and so some of the like ongoing parallel discussions we're having are around developing we have a team right now with teachers on it administrators on developing a grow your own program right when I think about like Educators and how do we tap into our own kids and that could connect easily to kids that are

sitting in early college or kids that are in a medical you know in an interpreter p paway right so I think like beyond the scope of including CTE you know and more than that um I think there's a broader piece around tapping into the natural asset of the human beings in our community and how do we create um a systematic approach to getting people to stay connected and even if they're going and taking some

cours work how are we creating opportunities to build power professionals teachers counselors you know from right from our own community so I think there's you know it's related to that broader discussion right one of the pieces Dr J uh touched on earlier is offering multiple access points for Career Technical learning one of the things that we're just embarking on as a pil is the fashion design

Advanced manufacturing Advanced manufacturing textile uh program where seniors um are going to have the opportunity to have some exploration visits some of our uh manufacturers in the city V and leathers centure matuk and then at least 10 of them are going to be able to do some work Workforce learning with a paid internship over the spring semester and the ability uh to have a full-time offer of employment

depending how the internship goes upon graduation so these are these are things that we're exping right now in a small pilot um to build um rapport with industri companies where we can connect high school learning uh to Future employment uh for students who are interested uh going directly into the workforce keeping yeah please keep us aware of that pilot program and and how it evolves over time so I'm I'm really I

mean I I just think such an important touch point in education um and right now I think there's there's a demand in in our country but especially in our community for more Hands-On ability you know every contractor I ever speak to outside of Education says there's not enough people coming up to replace those who we have already whether they be a carpenter or a mason or in construction or building

walls or electricians and stuff like that it's it's like that's where I'm getting at you know so I I I just want I know that we have diamond and that that's a great resource for all of us I'm not looking to replicate what Diamond has obviously they're a vocational technical program we're a comprehensive school I understand that but I think if we can tap into the evolution of growth of CTE I then I

think we're answering some questions down the road that's where I'm coming from thank you so much for hearing my point of view I yield you want to continue oh I'm sorry Mr no Dr Stevens I'll I'll yield to let you finish here because I have a many questions on some of aspects of the career B you finished with the presentation sure thank you so relative to strengthening the senior year experience um the second

element to that is just building 21st century and post High School skills into the core senior academic coursework so two examples of that are um adding statistical reasoning in sports and life as um senior CP level Math course and so the point there is I me the last sentence the say the course examines fascinating questions about sports and Life by investigating the underlying statistical questions and creat a fun

atmosphere in the classroom so the key is really relevance and um how we continue to know and understand our kids who and where they are developmentally um societally soci culturally Etc and really being thoughtful about what experiences we create in that 12th grade year that keep them compelled and tie in tied into what we are trying to do um and then continuing to build Real World skills into our senior history um

contemporary issues curriculum so same kind of concept just that we're looking to be thoughtful about courses that are offered in their senior year and how we make them relevant to where they are in their lives and what compels them to continue thinking and learning it it it came to my attention a big reason for this particular one the uh Sports and life is is was the the statistical uh purpose right it it needs

to have some accountability because of the project red and black is no longer and that was a statistical uh accountability portion right is that accurate albra too right and algebra too but it was stats trigonometry those upper level math classes certainly help us on the accountability form but this one will as well we're going to draw people in you know we want something that's going to fun fun engaging I I I

love it I love it okay go sorry Dr J thanks me and then third increasing access through 21st century post High School skills by adding a class uh that would be called achieving the vision of a graduate and having that at this time as an option for senior year so the concept of this class uh given given recent shifts if you will I guess I'll I'll tie it to

where we are as a state but given recent shifts with mtas and implications there where it it is not going to be you know no it's no longer a graduation requirement uh one of the Silver Linings to that is that we really get to um consider what competency determination and graduation requirements look like what does that mean um what does it mean for a dery student and um who do we you

know who and where do we expect you to be at these these certain points and what type of an experience are we going to create for you to be able to demonstrate that um to us so the objective of this class would really be you know there'd really be a focus on developing skills and competencies connected to the dery way uh both the dery way of instruction and the dery way

ofal um you know as you know there's been a lot of time and effort kind of put in there defining what the vision of The Graduate looks like defining what the dery way looks like and we have talked and thought over the last while a lot about how we tie that if this is what we're saying the way of dery high school is if we're if this is what we're saying the vision of our future

graduates is then how we create opportunities for them to demonstrate to us that they've mastered that or that they can you know they can show that they've done that so that would really be the objective of this class and the idea would be that would emphasize their thinking their critical thinking communication and collaboration with one another while um also integrating financial literacy and postsecondary

planning uh really just to empower them to grow well and be thoughtful about who they become and the direction they want to go um so you know this number two down here says no adulting 101 a primer for Life After High School continue to be a term-based elective um it's a flexible Mastery learning Workshop based on student interest so that's what guides the um curriculum if you will

there is a curriculum but it's largely dictated by student interest and you know what they share that they'd like to learn one thing that I think is super important to note here is that given what I had mentioned about CD and um graduation requirements I think a vision or dream that we have if you will is that the vision of The Graduate re really as a dream like I say but a

realistic one is one that it feels like it could be incredible incredibly meaningful for it to become a requirement at some point for all students that this is how you show your you know this is how you demonstrate that you have learned or mastered these things this is nowhere with you know nowhere at all where we are right now but I think where we're thinking with a course like this is that when we have to

come up with a way for students to demonstrate competency determination um they have to demonstrate that they're hitting these certain points this you know will give us an opportunity to see how a course like this is received and ultimately it could become adulting 101 you know embedded in there the idea being that yeah you develop these practical skills and tangible takeaways from it but it's also deeper than that

you know because checkbooks are important paying bills are important and those things matter they're practical skills that we definitely um you know we have a responsibility to do our part to help kids learn in those different practical ways but we also have a responsibility to teach kids how challenging life can be if you don't have the inside part figured out and that if you don't find meaning and

purpose and cause and whatnot so it does feel like a really natural opportunity potential to build those things together um so what what about the the students that are not in their senior year like we want them to have those competencies but we're only offering it or going to offer a senior year at what point do we start a little younger you know sure so and I just want to say I've always

advocated for I wanted to start in middle school but go ahead so I think that I I really think we're on all on the same page relative to that I think right now is a tough time given we're living through this chapter where we're waiting for guidance from Jessie about how we Define this work around competency determination Etc um and it seems like a decent time to put this as

an elective in the senior world with the asterisk that our vision or our dream is that we need all students to show us at some point um but given the fluidity right now and not really having a complete grasp on what the what the expectation is um we're limited we're a little limited exactly and so the for us the dream doesn't stop right here this is just the very beginning and it gives

us an idea to see how this course would be received and what it could look like how it could manifest you know gotta the so I'm very excited to hear about this particular topic you're talking about at the moment back in '96 97 I I ran a Counseling Group exactly around these topics we we did budgets we did what do you expect when you leave school we had discussions based around that we

had pre and post tests so that we could see where their competencies were so but it wasn't embedded in the curriculum so there was no real grade quoti applied to it so if they didn't do well it didn't affect their overall grades but I want to see it embedded so that kids can work hard to live up to these life skill expectations of them so that when they enter the real world it's like they have

a real clear idea I like this is really exciting what you guys are talking about right now thanks I thank you Mr Cory Mr Das thank you and I agree with basically everything my colleagues just said and just to since we're on adulting 101 just uh you know something I feel very strongly about something um many parents in the community uh at least speaking from for myself um all they want to see

is life skills and more this sort of adulting oneon-one taught more in the schools is something that's being adopted across the country especially in recent recent recent weeks months years um I really like this I think this curriculum is very important and I really like the the concept of it and the idea of it I I think it doesn't even go far enough um for example buying a house is something that's very important

um it mentions basic banking um like the concepts of ba basic banking which is good however about stocks IAS I think we could go even further entrepreneurship owning a business um investing in a business is very important and something I personally as one member of the committee would like to see one mandatory not just as an elective it's something that should be taught with in our schools and two this is um a

one-year program it's for grade 12 so fall spring to grade 12 I would like to see it for two years um I think Mr lar said something that should be the sort of stuff that should be taught and early earlier age and I agree something I believe should be taught 11 and 12 is there any conversations of expanding this program at all yeah I mean I think I much of what

you said very much resonates with me and I think I would love to consider as as we think about you know defining this competency determination world and that's work we're going to have to do collaboratively anyway I would love to collaborate around what this experience looks like and how it potentially speaks to competency determination I would love to collaborate around what this involves

and you know what topics are covered what we see as important um so there's absolutely talk about expanding I think the biggest implication right now is the the limitations given the time period um until we get further guidance um it's hard to take these leaps right now you know one more thing I'd like to add very Bri are you good Mr D are know yes so I mean it's it's great this this seems

like it just lends itself to bringing in guest speakers throughout the community you know guest speakers come into the classes talk to the kids straight up you know the head of a bank you know the head of a construction company you know anything like that Stop and Shop supermarket anything like that what's it like you know uh what do you pay week on week out for food you know to fill your

refrigerator this is all really important stuff thank you ield can I build on that just for a minute of course um with the achieving the vision of the graduate class we see a direct connection to the pride statement right which is a really like really document that BS everything we do at dery to be Pride to have pride school pride City Pride to have PR pride in oneself to

take pride in your work as a high school student right so we want people to come in and share that Pride we want to build upon that Pride yeah adulting 101 right now is sort of driven by choice right like the teacher has a base we're going to do professionalism we're going to build a resume we're going to talk about certain topics that I'm going to take interest into account what would you

like to learn about what would you like to learn about so the experience can be very different based on what the students in front of the teacher say right but achieving the vision of The Graduate would be more focused building upon the one goal sort of successes that we've seen through early college and Senior year is just a start I'd like to have Dr J just now but I feel like um

junior year we get to see what's happening are you in early college are you in some other program already great if you're not then we need to talk to you right we need to be thoughtful about your senior experience make sure that that senior year is really meaningful for you good good you good thank you jff squared you really good so we're probably going to what Mr D has his hand up what add more

questions Sor oh I didn't I'm you're pointing I'm looking so go ahead um I I do have questions on since you're done I do have questions on another um piece of the curriculum so um two others one I noticed that africanamerican studies was an elective for AP however just um no it wasn't it was a um requirement for AP however it was just an elective for um College Prep unless I'm

mistaken and if so I'll just right but it's also a college preparatory course as well I believe I see so CP is you had an afrian American course at the CP level the program of studies but we have didn't run it this year here um I think the last time we ran it was two years ago du to other staff in the school so it was just a lack of Interest or it was

a lack of lack of Staffing uh there there was um some interest in CP level course U but I think last year we had to made the decision based on the staff that we had um based on all the elected and all the interests where uh to which courses to offer and which courses to not based on the staff and where the interest was that was one course well as one member I I don't

think that's Equitable I mean since you have the african-amer studies it's a requirement for the AP level however at the CP level it's an elective what do you me I don't really and if there is an interest in there as well well I was just going to say that it's not the when you when you see the list of the AP courses it doesn't mean that if you're taking a course you take all

of them so it's not a requirement it's one of the courses that we offer at the AP level it's not so ne ne the courses are requirement even at the AP level it say because it's mentioned in the core courses it's a core course but there are multiple core courses and so you might have one student who takes AP um Spanish or Spanish or it's one of the AP courses

that we offer but what's true is that we offer it at the AP level and that we are not currently offering it at the college prep level right I guess I would say I would Advocate that if there's an interest for it at the college preparatory level it should be and and that's something students in in our community have an interest in that that should be offered to them without any question okay okay um in the

last um I'm just going to question is the um the Fall River um the history of Fall River which again I believe is a great great concept great idea that's also something in the future I'd love to see mandatory I would love to see students in our city know have to know the history of our great city um just have I have a couple questions um and it it doesn't necessarily have to be for

today i' um thank you for the backup on the um the adulting the life of the high school um a primary for life in the high school I'd love to see the backup as well for this course as well to see exactly what is being taught and how the history of our city is being taught as well um I'll just ask one question just for today and I'm going to vote to

approve it to the to the to the full committee when I believe in the in the in the description of that course it mentions teaching history of fall teaching Faller today what what does that entail exactly so um really the the term course through I think up until like the Great Depression so about the 20s and 30s it's a struggle to kind of History keeps building so you know it's hard to get to

current day in a term El so um I think the course is really again when you get into it with the teacher there's a lot of student interest taken into account Lizzy b a lot of talk about the Mills there make sure that there voices it is included Mr Das too it's the second I just put everything in one packet for yeah but it's in there as well but um it's something like the description

itself hasn't been something that we've looked hard at in a while so it could be something that with your blessing um we could strike that L it's really about the history of yeah okay um thank you I'll make a motion to um refer this to the PO committee second all in favor I I thank you Jess J Square thank you you been rocking guys yes thank you for that veryimportant we wish you all

the very best so we're going to move on to uh 33 discussion and vote to refer the uh steam job descript which is in our packets uh Dr Curley is that you I'm actually yeah oh it Mr sorry Mr repo sorry so this is really just um we currently have a stem job description um yet we've had an interest um and we have some courses I believe right now around like art technology and so this is

really just a revision to our stem job description to be uh to just you know broaden um the scope of it so that it would be a steam teacher um and so that we'd have the opportunity to attract candidates that have you know a visual arts background or some sort of an arts background um and offer some courses that are that are also related yeah I got no problem that sounds good to

me uh no issues either there a very quick questions um how many many um stem teachers do we um employ in the district right now I will have to get that information I know for instance at talit when I was the principal there last year I had three um but I will have to get that information out just for like when we vote on the full committee um I just

want to look for like how many we employ currently if there's any vacancies um that we need to fill and that's why we're CH is that why we're changing the the responsibilities and the qualifications so from what I understand I know know that there's been um some arts classes that have morphed into like an art technology and so as we were looking at those courses I think it can fit sort of under this umbrella of a

broader steam uh course um and it would you know we'd be able to get a candidate that could teach something like that so for instance there might be someone who's doing a course on like actually making music like digital you know sort of music production or something so there's this steam kind of focus to the course um I know that we likely have um we may have a POS you know a position or two open

um and we could certainly Market those open positions in this way differently okay and um my last question is um salary determined by contract this is a teaching position y this is a teaching position thank you are we talking High School this we actually have these positions in um middle school high school I'm not sure if we have uh element or Community Schools yeah yeah we do actually so K K12 really um for the

district sounds pretty exciting Mr ooso especially the Hands-On bringing in real life things you know whatever whatever the curriculum affords you know to bring in real life I like that yep motion to refer to the full committee second all in favor I I okay we are going to move on to 34 uh competency determination you have one don't okay one I didn't um for candidates in uh in classes prior to

2025 Dr Cur so the last time we met we um we had a discussion at subcommittee and then following at the withh whole committee around the graduation requirements and specifically the competency determination for the class of 2025 um and now we're taking a look back in terms of how can we determine a competency what is the compet competency determination for students um prior to the class of

2025 so um looking all the way back to you know the early 2000s when the mcast requirement um became the competency determination and how we might U be able to revisit upon request um you know for those folks who received a certificate and did not pass one or more of the mcast um tests that would um qualify them for a competency determination and so much like the what we are what we would require um in terms

of we have local graduation requirements plus the competency determination we're proposing a competency determination that would include um for folks who had not um earned it through mcass in one or more of the content areas they could earn a passing grade in English 10 or its equivalent course earn a passing grade in both Algebra 1 and geometry or they equivalent courses um and earn a

passing grade in the equivalent of biology chemist um chemistry or Physics course and so the importance I'd say um specific to the algebra 1 in Geometry I'll that as an example you know or equivalent courses is that um as we do transcript reviews you know we've looked back at um at some um there was a time when we offered courses like integrated math one and two integrated math one two

and three or over a period of time um students could show um Proficiency in Algebra 1 and and geometry but the course names were different so we would consider those to be equivalent courses um um and that's you know the importance of that that language yes yes just a few questions um passing grade would be considered Now 60 or 65 it actually might Depend and we would have it on the transcripts it just shows

up as a b c d or F we don't see numerical grades so whatever the grade equivalent was for a passing grade you know the D minus or better at that time that is what we would use okay and um the committee votes to uh approve this in in final um how many people do you estimate would receive their diploma do we have a number on I don't but I can

get that ready for when we discuss it on Monday and um how many individuals in general um might be eligible for this not if we pass this or not but how many are we looking at hundreds yeah I would say so over the past you know 20 years years yeah 20 years it's a long time M older than you no 24 so can I ask a question done yes I you

so are they given an opportunity to take a course or take a retest or so we haven't um we actually did just have a discussion today um there are some districts right now who are exploring the option if if if somebody hadn't met the local local graduation requirement because they didn't pass um you know grade 10 I mean if you don't pass grade 10 English then you didn't take 11 or 12 but it's

possible that what kept you out was passing um you know the second part of that integrated class that would have that would signal to us that you were proficient in Geometry standards say um and we would want to other districts have are exploring the idea of like you know if you're off by course you could come in and take a course right now we haven't developed that option so as the St that what we're

proposing as a most immediate um option for folks who had passed all of the requirements um you they could retro you know they could have their diploma awarded to them we haven't yet but I think it would be something that we could discuss exactly what that would look like if we wanted to support people to now meet that graduation requirement maybe it's something the state should pay for right right

itly be um it would certainly would be you know at cost to the district and or maybe at cost to the person who wanted to um take the course or something but um this is something that we can do uh you know relatively free um assuming that we would we were able to keep up with the demand of the request ests and the transcript audits you know in the course of the regular school day and

people's work days go ahead no I'm just glad just something that we're keeping on like on top of and is something I think really as you just said help hundreds of people who have gone to school within our city and I'm glad to support so I'll make a motion to refer to the full committee any questions no question second all in favor hi okay do we have any new business Mr L

just quick yes Mr Das um there was a citizen's input today and um during that input the gentleman um referenced two books that he would like to see um added to the curriculum I'd just like to request that the superintendent um just look at them and get back to see if that's something that we could do sure I specific to the um Rich Dad Rich Dad Poor Dad um I I'm

going to read it myself first um and then I think we can have a conversation about where something like that can fit into the curriculum as as we heard tonight um from you know two at least two maybe even all three of you um feeling that that say adulting 101 is a good start where could we broaden where could we deepen maybe it starts a year earlier that might very well find itself

in our curriculum that's great no I'm glad to hear it thank you how you may I get a motion to motion to adjourn second can we get a call on that one Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M Bar yes thank you