6.30.2025 FRPS Instructional Subcommittee

So today is Monday, June 30th, 2025. I'm opening the instructional subcommittee meeting at 417 Rock Street. Uh Deb, can I get a roll call, please? Mr. Nas here.

Miss Larby here. Miss Pereira.

Uh Miss Pereira uh told me she was going to be late, so she'll be in soon. Salute to the flag.

I pledge algiance 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.

Uh 13, open meeting law. Pursuant to 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 unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible.

On to citizens input. Deb, do we have any today? No, we do not. Thank you. Uh discussion 31 is discussion and vote to refer the Morton criminal justice job description.

Who will that be? Dr. I saw. Okay. So, as you know, um during the budget cycle, um there was a criminal justice position um added to Morton Middle School. Um the idea is all three middle schools actually have one program currently that aligns with offerings at the high school. So, Talbet has a construction craft labor program. Uh CUS has a culinary um program. And so this would be the opportunity to add a criminal

justice program to Morton um with the intention that obviously this is not a CTE program. It's not at the high school level, but really it's an an introductory sort of program for students um to um just get their their interest and then be a potential feeder for kids um who choose to go to Dery and may be interested in the criminal justice pathway at that point. So what made you what uh came from the team? So

so uh you know Dr. Betton Court and the team at Morton um were interested in adding this. They also felt like with this kind of a program there um there's not like this major buildout, right, or cost associated with it, right? So, it's not like adding a construction program where then you have to outfit an area or adding a culinary. So, they felt as though this would have been really

interesting to add. Um, I know they had talked about some other options, but you know, they landed here and felt like they could incorporate. Some of the things they were interested in incorporating were things like, um, CPR and first aid certification and different things like that, which I think would be great to expose, you know, our middle school kids to at an early age. Motion to refer to full

committee. Second. Quick quick comment.

um full support of this and um I think it's a really good idea, someone who's a criminal justice major myself, to um get the fall public schools, the students involved. Then the only question I would have is um I don't know if um this is more of an elective or and if this is so this is an elective this is something if we see high numbers in this and even for

the culinary program I if we're keeping numbers on that can um this something that could be expanded to all middle schools cuz you have to go to Morton to be in this program something we can look at exactly so just like the construction's only a tow but the culinary is only a cusp but I'm sure if there's a you know If there's a lot of interest, as I said, this is not a

program that requires a lot of the other capital improvement type stuff. So, there's always potential to look and see if we can expand. Yeah. No. Yeah. Very good. High yield. Right. And there's such a shortage, right, of police and, you know, get their brains thinking a little earlier. Could help the city out event like But vote. We already voted, right? No. Oh, no, we didn't. Mr. D. Yes. M. Yes. Mr.

Okay, next 32 discussion and vote to refer impact coaching for new teachers at Talbet. Great. So, um this is a partnership. As you know, Talbet is the recipient of an intensive assistance grant which is uh just under, you know, a million dollars uh for three years total. Um so, Talbet is going into the second year next year. um this partnership, this organization, Impact Coaching, who I've met with, um what

they actually do is they come in and do some um intensive weekly coaching with new uh new teachers, uh teachers in their first two years, preferably new, but teachers in their first two years.

Um the intention really is there to just support, provide them um a lot of uh support and you know, aid with recruitment, retention, that sort of thing. So um this would be I believe they would be working with five or six teachers. I think the the proposal is for no more than six from all three of those schools. Uh this is actually so there's two proposals. This is the second one. Okay. Um here that I have,

but there's a second proposal.

This is the one for Westall Fansa Watson. That's a separate agenda item.

Um I think the one we're on right now is so I have that. I can share that. It's a separate proposal. It's similar.

That's a separate one. That's a separate one. That's the next agenda item. Yes.

So, the first item is just specifically to Talbot and this organization actually comes in and coaches brand new teachers every week for the year. Um, and so they do one-on-one coaching. They come in and observe the classroom, meet with the teachers, do some collaborative planning. So, that's only for brand new teachers. Um, the second proposal, or I don't know if we want to wait, maybe

talk about this one, then we can get to the second one in a minute. I have I don't have the the backup meal that we have that one, T. No. Right. I don't think I got that one cuz the only one Yeah, we just have the Watson Fa. That's why when when I read Talbet, I was like, maybe they added it, but I guess not.

So, yeah, just I guess give us some information. Yeah, I can give you information and then I can always, you know, if we need to the other one, we we can too. Um, so this organization has two arms. The first part is they'll come in and actually coach teachers themselves, right? And that's the part that we're pursuing for Talet with new teachers. Um the second part is really what the proposal you have is here for

those three schools where it's more of a train the trainer model, right? Um so for the Talbot grant, it's all uh grant funded. Um they would come in and work with no more than six teachers for the school year. They would provide them weekly coaching. They actually visit every week um and work with those teachers. So observe them, sit with them, uh co-plan with them. Um when I met with this organization um you know

they had uh you know pretty strong um recommendations and um strong feedback from people who participated um in terms of like satisfaction right feeling like they they got that support. Um so this was really just a unique opportunity for us given that Talbot's in this position where the intention is they get this surplus of funds to really accelerate like achievement in that 3ear span. This

is something that we thought um may fit in with all the other work that they're doing. How come just six? How many new teachers? That's really all the capacity the organization had. So they keep it small. Um I'll leave that to the team and determine um you know when they look at their new hires. Uh keep in mind that sometimes new teachers might also have support from someone else as well. Um so

for instance, if there's a new teacher that might be a math teacher, there could be support from Carnegie. Or a new teacher that's doing ELA, there could be support from Amplify. So we'd probably look to see who is not necessarily getting that support right now and how do we give them some some additional intensive coaching. So these aren't transfers. These are new teachers like right out of school. Yeah. They'll

they'll they'll work up to they prefer according to the organization people in their first and second year. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Um yeah real quick I'll to support it going to the full committee. I just asked that we get like the I'll share it with you today. Yeah. um just just for the full meeting in next today's last day of June later in the month. I guess my only um general question is um cuz I know we rely on a lot of coaching. So this is coming out of a grant you said that's

this is grant that grant and the grant has to be expended in the threeear span.

We just finished year one. This would be year two. So it's a partnership we're looking at. So as long as it it's in that total allocation over the course of 3 years um we can certainly expend. So this is this is all grant funded. All right. For Talbit for this um for this coaching, is this going to um duplicate any efforts from any other coaching services like? Well, yeah, there are

there are coaches there at Talbot. Um but I think what it'll help us do is really um provide more intensive support across the board. So if you have a coach at Talbot that's focusing on ESL, they they are more able to do that effectively because there's someone else that might be able to pick this work up.

So, I guess I guess my um I guess my only question would be so with this with this grant, right, we're not going to have like um duplicated services for for for educators and they're going to be getting like swarm swamps with different No, the intention would be that if someone's already working with a coach um a different coach in the building or through a partnership that this would be

reserved for someone who doesn't have that opportunity in the moment. Exactly.

Yeah. But we kept it small, you know, less up to six people, right? Motion to refer. Second.

So the third item of second.

Yeah. Okay. Mr. D. Yes. Larry. Yes.

And now it's the coaching the trainer, right? So three. Yeah. So as I met with these folks um I while we had the grant funds available with Talbot um and you know to support through the direct coaching partnership the other part of their business is really around train the trainer capacity building. So I think long term for us in Fall River if we can have an opportunity to actually

learn this and and train our own people it becomes more sustainable in the long run right than constantly contracting with an organization to support new teachers. So this is really a proposal.

Um what we've done this year is is sort of put schools in pods uh so that principles and their teams work together. And so this would be for this group of schools, West Alonsa, Watson.

Um the intention would be that this is a train the trainer model. Um and they would come in and train people that are in coach or department chair or any sort of roles around like providing feedback, supporting teachers um with the be a year-long partnership with the intention that they be trained by the end of the year. Don't. Sure. That's pretty straightforward. I don't really have

even that much of a question. I'll make a motion to refer. I'll second. I do have a question. Sure. Um why these three schools? Why did you put them into this specific pod? Yeah, I mean so um Fansa we know is one of our um underperforming schools, right? Um and then Watson just came out. Um and Westall is a brand new school, but also you know we have a lot of students from

Fansa there. Brand new school. But we thought as though that would be, you know, an interesting partnership to be able to work with those three um and have some impact particularly on our high needs schools. Perfect. Deb, will the call please call the role? Mr. D.

Yes. Larry. Yes. Per uh 34 discussion and vote to refer ESL curriculum purchase. Who is that?

So this curriculum um is HMH English 3D that we are looking at. Um it is for our newcomer students in year 1 and year two of receiving multilingual services. Um we did look at another curriculum besides this curriculum. At this time um this curriculum has received the WEDA prime seal. The other curriculum, although it had some good points to it, it had not yet received the Louisa Prime seal and

we did not feel comfortable coming forward and recommending saying we hope it gets the seal. So, um, but now it has the seal now. But so, this one already had the seal, but we did look at the other one because it was something teachers were interested in and had recommended to us. What was the other one? It was National Geographics. Oh, yeah. We talked about that. Um, and so there were some positives about that

curriculum, but this one does have the seal. I will also say that this curriculum company has been highly supportive throughout the process. So they were immediately accessible when teachers had questions as we were piloting it. Some teachers were struggling with some of the units and they actually came on site completely free of charge and supported the teachers. Um, so they're heavily

involved in making sure that we have success with their materials which was important to us. we want to make sure that teachers and coaches have access to someone who is going to support them.

Um, so this is the curriculum that we felt at this time is best for us. Um, and that would be at all of the middle schools that have students at those levels as well as the high school. Um, and also with materials available for RPA and STO if they should have students that need that service as well. We wanted to make sure that was in there and that those students are included.

What's the D? Yeah, this um one question. Sure. So, I see we I'm just trying to see how much of a how many students this could support because I see for the um for like the English 3D we have 300 different than for some volume two, some course B's and course C's the number goes down a little bit.

Um could you explain maybe why that? So uh language launch is for truly newcomers. Um so those are for kids students who have just arrived in the United States. Volume B is for students typically it happens in their second year but we don't restrict students from moving on. So it's when they're ready to go into the next level. Course B is really more geared towards middle school students. Course C is geared towards

high school students. And then also there's a a distinction between teacher materials and studentf facing materials.

Okay. So the numbers that are really low are most of the teacher facing materials because obviously we have you know a smaller group of teachers and um they wouldn't need you know 100 something of the resources right so yeah um the only last thing I would add um vote to move this to the full committee I would just like just to request just to see what else because I know we've as a committee

approved different um curriculum in the past so I just want to make sure we're not um overlapping so that could be providing the backup the full committee.

Yep. So, just so you know, we had Edge that National Geographic, they are no longer publishing it. So, that's what we were using. We have to sunset it because it's no longer being published and no longer being supported. So, we don't have a choice to really continue with that material. So, we had to adopt something different. Right. Right. No, maybe I'm also confusing. I know we have a different curriculum for the

elementary school. We do. And we also have different curriculum for different levels. So, if it's helpful to clarify that, I certainly can. No, no worries.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Motion to refer to the full committee. Second,

this next piece I think I'm sorry, go ahead. Yep. I don't know the rules. Mr.

Right. ESL.

So then this this Boston College partnership is also a um which I'm not seeing them. I don't see it. Yeah, we don't I think this was the Marie of Risk thing. Um I believe yes. Okay. Which we're waiting for an updated quote from them. No, we have the um it's going to be grant funded. Okay. So So okay, this we have the grant has to come through for us to fund it or find it. So let's

just talk a little bit about the partnership. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit? Sure. So, speaking of ESL curriculum, as you know, last year um the school committee supported some grant funded work around a curriculum that we are building around systemic functional linguistics pedigogy. Systemic functional linguistics we were using with our advanced students. So, not the students

that we just spoke about, the students who have come out of the foundational levels but are still designated as multilingual learners. Systemic functional linguistics is a pedigogy that is known for being really useful with multilingual learners. It's also a pedigogy that works for students who are native English speakers, right? Um so Maria Brisk is affiliated with Boston College. She currently works there and

so hence why it's a Boston College partnership. She is willing to come and her team to work with us and a couple of schools to build out some units. so that students are able in our core classes to have access to systemic functional linguistics as well. What that will do is expand the work to our core students to our um all of our students in Fall River. It also will potentially allow more flexibility for schools to

determine whether they want to do a pull out or a co-op model for our ESL students. And the focus is really on um writing y writing instruction. So just improving our writing instruction. Lisa has been doing some book studies with um groups this year and then we basically just reached out to the author um themselves and and who works at BC as a retired professor from BC to see if they

were interested in in potentially partnering to expand that work. Almost all of the leads, ELA leads in the district have done the training and this really was a this wasn't something that we kind of pushed down to them. It was something that they took the training and they became really really interested in. And so it was more of a bottom up where teachers and leaders were becoming

really interested in the pedigogy. So they were it was it was not really us saying you should do this. It was them saying we want to do this. Okay. So um you know we're trying to find a way to support them. So how many um faculty me how many teachers do you think are going to be involved with the the BC people?

We're looking at potentially grades four and five. um across three sites, three schools. So we would start small as sort of a pilot, but all of fourth and fifth grade across three schools. I thought you were going to go older with that.

You just kind of shocked me. So we do do work with the older students. The context is a little different because ESL and ELA y don't overlap as much at the high school. Not that and at the middle school. Not that they couldn't.

Um that is also something that we're exploring but we have had um a lot of stability and buyin at the elementary level. So that feels like a good place to start. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Um yeah. Just um real quick, how much is so the this going to be fully funded by a grant? By a grant. So whatever how much is the grant? I've requested $100,000. You're going to see a letter come across your desks for the hey, we've applied for the grant, right?

Yeah. And and that full 100,000 will go towards this No, just a portion, a smaller portion, I want to say less than 50,000, I believe. Right. So, I've I've requested 50. This current partnership is for about 25 so that we have a little bit of flexibility to because there'll be other components of the grant as well or or expand the partnership. Or expand the partnership. Yeah. Motion to refer.

A second.

Do you want me to? Yeah, please. I keep forgetting. Yes, per I just didn't know if there was any more.

This next one is sort of just just informational really. Um so we've established um partnership really formalized a partnership with Bridgewater State University um which has been exciting. In the fall we're launching two cohorts um of 25 students each um graduate students for a masters in special education and a masters in ESL. Um two areas that you know we have found challenging to to

really staff. And so we thought we would really take this approach of let's build the capacity of the staff that we do have. Um, so with Bridgewater, the way we've, um, you know, designed the cohort, um, teachers are actually going to be able to take advantage of what's called the TEACH grant, um, because of the areas of high need. Um, and so between that, um, and, um, you know, the the tuition reimbursement that we

currently have in the district anyway, um, it's going to be very cost effective um, for educators. Yes, exactly. So, it'll be very cost effective for them.

Um, so, you know, we're excited. It's really justformational only. We already have as of the first informational session um so we have 50 slots. There were 38 folks already interested in the first session. We're doing anotherformational session in July and again in August because we know that we are actively hiring folks and there may be folks that are coming on right now that are interested in doing this and we

think this will support us with recruitment as well because we're going to do something different in Fall River than u maybe they could take advantage of. Right. And and this is correct me if I'm wrong an addition to the UMass program that our teachers. Yes. Exactly.

So we've done Yeah. So we sort of tried to differentiate there's different paths for different people. So UMass is really an MAT masters of arts and teaching.

This is really honed in specifically on special education ESL as a area really high. We've been I think yeah this has been we've been developers that reallyizes it. Some of the pathways have existed but this is branded. This is cool stuff. And then there'll be what's not listed here as well um and they they created a website for Fall River like a BSU Fall River website um is also a

autism certificate um which is great. So we have you know growing population students with autism. You know we we so I think there'll be a lot of educators that might already be a special educator or someone who's not but is interested in really learning more and so there's going to be I believe it's a four course certificate offered through Bridgewwater as well with a focus on autism. Is it

all online? It's all online I thought so. Okay. fall in line. It takes about it'll it'll take about 3ish years. Um, so it's very part-time, very doable for folks. Uh, you they kind of wanted to make the pace in a way that people could easily be working and also doing their uh their coursework. So, I love it. Very good. All right. Now, on to 37 math curriculum enhancements. Yeah. So, we

just have several This is sort of just FYI things, updates as we shift things or pilot things just to keep everyone informed. Um, so I'll just go through this. First one here is called um it's got modern classrooms at the top. If you want to look at that sheet first.

Yeah. Yeah. So I can talk through that first. So um we have several schools participating. Um this is very much a pilot. So um again this is actually no cost to us right now. um funding was secured as this is part of a research opportunity with American Institute for Research. Um this organization modern classrooms originated the the folks who who work here and um started this actually started in Washington DC in

high schools and the problem they were trying to address was um how to meet the diverse needs in a classroom. Students coming in with various readiness levels um someone might be absent one day coming in the next day. So, how does a teacher in that sort of like let's say traditional environment address that?

And so, this really um is is sort of um like an opportunity to do some more blended learning. And so, what they come in and do um is um they're working with teams from these schools, Laterno, Beveris Green Spencer Bordon Stone Tansey, Westall, and Doran. And they've actually trained they're going to train teachers um on using their current curriculum, illustrative mathematics, which is our math curriculum. and

they've actually have it built out so that it can be used in more of a blended format. Um, and so it gives kids the opportunity to really focus on being more mastery based. So they might start in a different place than someone else.

Um, they can watch some videos, they can go back and review those. It also allows the teacher to spend more time in small group or one-on-one um because they're really leveraging the technology, you know, in a different way. Um, and so that's really what the the modern classrooms is. The second one is project based learning. Um, also this has been um funding has been secured um through

uh 18 Foundation which sponsors um this opportunity. We've already done this in grade six last year. Um we're actually rolling this up to grade 7 next year. So we just pilot two project based units.

Um it's really about using an opportunity to have project based learning in a math classroom. Right? So how do kids have real world experiences um real projects to get their hands on?

They actually interview. I had an opportunity to observe some classrooms kids actually were like interviewing community members around a particular problem and then addressing that project. Yeah, it's it's it's yeah, it's pretty cool. So, they're about they're just units that I want to say might take like a 6 to 8 week sort of cycle. Um, but all project based learning teachers receive training in them in order to to

run the units. Um, and we're piloting in sixth grade and seventh grade. So, we would continue our sixth grade next year, add in the seventh grade um next year as well. How many uh middle school?

Uh right now this is at uh Cus Talbet, Morton, Dorne, and Lord and all. Yes.

Last year I believe Talbot and then I want to say um some substantially separate classrooms at the other schools. Next year it'll be all of the sixth and seventh grade classrooms at those schools. That's great. And teachers like it. They So far the feedback has been positive from the units. Yeah, that's cool. The the high schools um just cuz on on the back page Mhm. I know um Derphy's

participating. Um no appetite to expand that to the alternative high school and or um we're actually looking Yeah. So I'm actually looking at something different um for Dery and for the high school uh for RPA and Stone. Um I have a a info session the end of July. I mean I can speak about it. It's not on here because it's not something we formalized the partnership yet. Um, but I'm

actually meeting with um, Spring Point um, to um, take a look at what they what they use called TLE, transformative learning experiences. Right now we use those at Evolve. Um, but I'm looking at how to expand some of that competency base to RPA and Stone and then potentially Dery as well. Yeah, this the reason I'm not going to go into detail, but I just can't stress enough how important it is that we um, keep the

access to education equal throughout all the schools. Absolutely. Yeah. this this this um unit on the back for high school is focused on um AP statistics and that's called skew the script. I believe there's another one pager there as well.

So again these are all pilots um us just really exploring trying some different things that are a little bit new researching them seeing if they're worth you know expanding um implementation but um and right now they're all uh grant funded so it's it's no cost to us right now better.

All right. So, next is discussion only to review districts curriculum and we do not have technology.

Who's got that? Um, I know this is a question you had asked. Yeah, I was the individual who um referred this to this committee. I guess my question would be if Wi-Fi goes down, technology goes down, we go back 300 years, we're in the dark ages overnight. Well, I taught with no uh not quite the dark ages, but I did have a chalkboard, so that's uh there was no technology then. Exactly. So when

when those situations happen, um what are what I guess what are we doing when when that happens? like if um there's a test to be taken specifically on technology. I I know some educators um raised some complaints when the technology went down and they couldn't um utilize certain tests that they wanted to give to their students. So I guess that's um where this where this came in. Sure. Yeah. Um so in general,

you know, we've obviously we're we're building on the presumption that we have the resource that we have. um in the moment where we've been unable to do that and speaking as a principal at Talbot, there were days where the internet just didn't work for a day.

Let's say that could have happened, right? It happens. Um and so we would have to pivot, right? One thing educators are good at is being extremely flexible. Um and so in those moments, we might have to pivot. Um I know other challenges have been, let's say, making copies. I know that's that's tricky. Um most of our, you know, we would have our team just support educators with um designing a plan that makes sense for

that day. you're not always going to be able to execute the same thing you did.

But some of our curriculum, for instance, Amplify uh ELA curriculum.

There are also um books that come with it, right? And so there is an opportunity instead of a student reading a text, let's say, and answering questions on the online platform, they might revert back to a book, right? Um in our social studies curriculum, students might be reading an article, right? Again, they might have had access to it online, but it's something that if we had access to a printer, we could

potentially pivot, you know, in that moment. Um specifically for what we experienced, we had um made some readiness plans to go to because this was during testing uh MCCAST testing. We had made some plans to go and work with the state to potentially go paperbased if we had to. Um before we were going to have to do go that route. Um we were able to um uh actually uh operate do a

small pilot one day with some cub excuse me computer based testing which um you know the tech people could explain more how that happened. Um but basically um we we didn't have the need to necessarily move paperbased but we had actually made that plan um worked with principles um pretty quickly you know to put a plan together if we had to move to paperbased testing we would have done

that. So, um, but I mean, can I say that everything would be seamless? Absolutely not. Right? We've built it for one one um one piece. Um, but if we knew that it was a going to be an, you know, uh, uh, sort of a longer term thing, then we'd have to really rethink um, some of, you know, some of our other resources. Yeah.

Right. Especially at the high school level where especially at Derby High School where students are relying on those Chromebooks and where a lot of the curriculum is on on those Chromebooks as well. So um just there and and of course it's also the safety. This isn't just I don't want to go too far of course from the top but also the safety aspect as well when we have cell phone policy in

place and if these things happen I definitely um yeah I think I think this is definitely a learning curve for everyone administration the committee the public. So hopefully if I hope not talking whe this doesn't happen again or any similar incident happens again but definitely um if it does ever happen we'll be more prepared. Yeah I will say the positive just to really put a positive spin on it. One of the some

positive feedback that did come out of the experience was that teachers especially teachers that have been around a while right um reverted back to teaching having kids work in groups having kids work in partners you know one of the things that I think happened post pandemic is that we became so reliant on the technology in some ways that you know it was really isolating in some our student everything was sort of

individual and we know that kids struggle with they need opportunities to interact socially to learn those skills and so I will say that I think one thing that we've seen and it's it's actually stayed on is that it's important to find that balance, right? I don't believe that a student should be on the computer all day long either, right? That's not that's not good, that amount of screen

time. So, how do you find that balance as a teacher? Um, which I think, you know, because we were forced to be in that situation. Um, you know, we saw some folks really make that pivot and had kids work in group, had kids work in partners. Um, so I think that was to to your point, hopefully that's something that we can, you know, teach students throughout all grade levels that face to

face interaction. Absolutely. Yeah, it's very important. Yeah. And I know um that's something the district values. So hopefully that continues. Thank you for the important part of the work. Yeah.

Okay. On to new business. Any new business before us today?

I don't hear any. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move. Second.

Yes.

Yes.

I just pulled them out to go.