6.5.2023 Special Education/Alternative Education and Early Childhood Subcommittee

I also like to call this meeting of the special ed alternative Early Childhood so Community tour please call the roll let's drag yeah here miss laravey here miss Roderick here can we try um

thank you Chris went to the Opera any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting to any meeting attendees are therefore advised as such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and our deemed acknowledged and missing it Friday too for anybody for citizen important because we're going to jump right to the

agenda and the first item is a discussion and a vote to refer special education job description I'll turn it over to the superintendent

assistant superintendent over chain will through this job description so like I had mentioned previously one of my concerns about being able to truly support the work that's happening in the building is the um the heavy lift that compliance takes on my special education leadership team currently meaning my supervisors who are certainly here tonight what I did was I created a job description that will allow another

administrator preferably in S9 to be able to take that lift of the compliance piece which is you know equally as important as to the instruction into the services that we provide students and really be able to focus on that we have plenty of data that shows our compliance is not great our files are not great and in order to do the work in that area I feel like we need someone that is

specializing or or focusing not really specializing focusing specifically in that area to support me and making the changes that need to happen so we can be in more compliance with deci regulations as well as allow the supervisors to do the work that's needed in the buildings with administrators staff and then ultimately impact the students um so that's the job description that you see here those pieces really are

things outside of the building and again do things overlap um sure they would with my position with the supervisor's position because in any given time it's all hands on deck when something needs to be done or somebody's out for any reason and someone else needs to step in so they'll certainly be times um we have a great team of people I want this team of people to continue to be

doing the good work that they're doing we've talked about caseloads and we're able to reduce those by adding more supervisors but this compliance piece was one area when I was asked to kind of think about a different you know a an additional role sorry about that an additional role in how they could better support the team is what I'm recommending I have one for now um who who leads the CPAC now is it you

so I go to all the meetings right now yep and um again with you know we have a great president our membership is really we're trying to get more parents to be engaged and you know Megan um is a great president she's hoping to get some more officers but right now it's on myself in our office to really help her do that and help her put out the information and plan the monthly

meetings okay but you'll still be involved as well absolutely but there are times where if I couldn't go I would like somebody else to be there which is crucial or like you know this coming so for example we have a meeting tomorrow night in CPAC one of the topics the families want to talk about which I think is important right now is esy so I'm bringing my team of Supervisors because they're the ones that are

helping me right now with esy where this position would be able to speak to that and they wouldn't always need to come right so those types of things so when the burden wouldn't always be on um and this leadership team so on that this is a little bit off topic but just on the the CPAC piece I think part of the the rationale for having a position like this too is about

restoring trust in the district so a lot of people are not going to see pack meetings because there is not a whole lot of trust in the special ed Department right now and for good reasons like let's be honest about that when you're bringing a whole team of Supervisors right as a parent that's intimidating and it feels very much like it's a district meeting versus it's a family meeting so I think having that

one person that could represent would be really helpful not that you know anyone at this table or behind the table are intimidating people but when you're sitting there as a parent and you're trying to understand what's happening it's really overwhelming right and the reason to bring you know a group of people with me is some specialize in Elementary School summer in the high school so you never know what type of

questions you have that right personally if you had that one person not that that person wouldn't be working with this leadership team but they would have all the information to be able to bring forth yields for now so I had a question on obviously you know I support the need for a second administrator but I'm trying to look at it in the context of the organizational chart for your department and I don't

recall getting the the new one but from what I can see is it seems like it's yourself and then the supervisors cross my personal belief is that we need an offshot where you have an assistant that would be above the supervisors to be a second person I called it an assistant superintendent because it just right kind of right makes sense to call the assistant to the assistant superintendent but

I'm not so worried about what the name of it is whereas where this is going to fit in though I do see it because like it is I'd like it to be a 12 month position because a lot of our planning and you know it happens in the summer so I already see that as like above the supervisors but I am going to still be supervising you know evaluating supervisors this person's it's like a

branch off right so if it's me then a new physician the supervisors off of that person are these people the team chairs the clerks the related service providers all those people that's in the district and now are being supervised by all different people depending on where um they provide the service right so now we can consolidate that piece of it all and although I say my leadership team

because honestly um these guys are you know the the boots on the ground they keep our department moving forward they work really hard so yes this person and I would sit above them but not to evaluate them because I want that relationship to still be very very very collaborative they have to work in tandem compliance and services and when you put one above the other as far as evaluative goes then you kind of lose

that piece so in the sense of you know the work days and the extents of like what this person is doing with all this compliance solely fully falling on them and not having this team like another team with them right they would be in my eyes above the supervisor in an organizational chart that would be yourself it wouldn't overseas basically yeah yeah I just want them to maintain that collaborative

relationship and I want to oversee that person and the supervisors to make sure that the vision of the program the needs it what it's we're going forward right I just think the old shot is where I think we need to focus because things change things come go whatever things happen you get pulled in different directions and like so if the way I was envisioning this is you have a name assistant

just like Mrs Pond says you as an assistant and with Dr Curley so I was in envisioning in this department the same type of thing now who you choose as the Director to the superintendent to say these people are going to get evaluated by so-and-so or so-and-so in an organ shot it it still should be the position should be your assistant meaning if you were absent from the district right now

we have six seven I don't know how many supervisors you have but if you look at an object you'd say this would be the person if we look at a school we have a principal in the vice principals or associate principles so we would know principle is not here this is the next layer of I think we need to be careful about how we wear this to try to not necessarily

I'm not sure the rationale for why it's called what it is or the salary and this and that but I think we need to get it right so that when it's done it's this is what we have a person in charge we have a person under them in charge on the org chat then we have the list you can you guys pick who is I don't think the evaluation piece of like

the formal evaluation needs to be in the job description because that would pigeonhole us to that whereas it says supervise is different so you can supervise somebody on a North chat but not be their evaluator so I think we're just going to be careful as we're writing it to to not lock ourselves into something that might not be functional a year from now or whatever because once we do this it's going to be so set 12

month piece I I agree I think we need to look at time the neat the time that it's needed to do this job effectively just like for yourself as a superintendent but we can't do that without also understanding what the contracts look like what do the other people get paid in the department what do people get paid in the schools so going to the bottom of this where I see salary 12-month position 100 to 130

that's way off in my opinion because who are we going to start at a hundred thousand dollars if we're being honest at this level of a position that I we all I think agree that in the org chart would be the second person under and we have everybody else making more than them at a hundred thousand this hundred thousand shouldn't even be listed in my mind because it's just totally out of whack we Vice

principals in the elementary school get paid 115 000. and we're going to hire the second in charge of the special education department potentially a hundred but we could if we can bring the range to the school committee just like we do for other s9s right so if the if this gets referred and we can it's if it's an s n as an S non-position then we can adjust and bring that range to the oh we could

always change I'm just saying now I'm just like right the purpose of this type of meeting is so that we can hash through some of the questions before it gets to the full committee I did um ask Mr Coogan for feedback on this patio range because I was going realistically when I think about a special education director in a different District like in starting range might be around here but

I'm not the expert in ranges and you know so um I didn't hear anything so I thought it was okay to put that rate but again I'm open to suggestions what I think I guess I can say like this trying to be nice that the when we put something like this at a hundred thousand to 130. it gives the impression to people that that's what we actually think somebody

would take the job for like a new person just coming into this type of role would get a hundred thousand so like if you compare it to a council or a teacher or whatever the range is 60 to 90. well your first year you get this you know this is actually hinting that we would get somebody for this position be able to put them in and they'd be making 20 000 less than everybody else that's

that's the plot that it to me is not but we can change it we can sure we can tweak it we can have like motions to come back and we have to change it because if the supervisors are below this position then the other supervisors are already making more than 100. so we have we want to attract people that are that want to come into this District that have its applications then we need

to be able to pay accordingly and I I think it's just um we can't be afraid to actually have a conversation about reality of what salaries are and I think sometimes around this table and other places people are worried about trying to say well talk about salaries of this and that but the reality is this is true I could say I could pull out my mind and show you what the union contracts are

how many days they work how many of this and we could justify that and this shouldn't even be here um so I don't want to not put this forward for that but I think you guys maybe have to come back and do a little research on them well we can we if if the position if the job description gets approved or referred to the full committee we can make the adjustments

and share it in the Friday saying that we're gonna with the new range or one would bring it forth on on the 12th we can have the new range on there um if that's the will of this subcommittee yeah I think we should have somebody do you have another question no not right now so just to continue that line of thinking so the rationale should be related to what everybody else is getting I think you've

got that message and I think at the same time it's good to look at that too because we got to realize what people if I'm making in certain positions and whether they um report to other folks or it just shouldn't be it shouldn't go backwards the 12-month piece I think is something that's needed but we also I think realistically when there's certain positions that require that type of investment of time

we have to also look at all of our other positions that we currently have we actually sometimes get like I said pigeonholed into a certain thing there's a lot of positions that shouldn't be 195.

181 they've got they're that way because of History just the way that it's been oh you're in the union you get this you know like these are the days but the positions when they get to Upper levels 130 000 140 000 positions you no longer should be in the those I can only work so many days because she works more than that even though the contract says she could take more

vacation view the same like so I just think that's a bigger issue to be aware of before we start having as we add let's just be honest and say this is what it is we had assistant superintendents as you know we advertise at 120 to 135 the person was making more than that before they advertised I think it doesn't make sense so but was this paid down at all like what teared down from

I guess paired down from the if the org travels that they are under you if that's what you go back and look at this and and you see that the org chat said that this person's under you I think under the responsibilities we need to put something in here that they're the second in command yeah something along those lines because I looked at this briefly and it doesn't um it doesn't appear as

clear in my in my mind so I'd like to I think that that number 14 we could actually adjust that it says assuming any additional responsibilities and duties as deemed by appropriate assistant superintendent special ed or and we could add um also in her absence or whatever we could we'll work around with that and my last comment is in the title I think a and I could be totally off on this but I

think a title of assistant special ed director but assistant whatever you call it the Special Ed and student survey whatever the name would be I just think that's a more popular way to get somebody in right we just don't we we do have um some positions with those drugs right so but we can call my opinion would be we can call this whatever we need to in order to attract the best person and in

my mind calling it at the right salary as well as an assistant super assistant to the special ed director is a way that we should something that we should consider or associate to the sometimes whatever you wanna I think if I look at this and said if I'm out there in the stratosphere saying maybe someday I want to be a sped director maybe somebody I want to be whatever yeah and I just look at it and

says oh I can be a senior advisor A specialized compliance and programming or I can be the assistant special ed direct I'd probably go with the idea I totally understand your thinking I the other pieces there are some positions that have already existed with different descriptions and if they've already existed I just don't know again this is like not in my world right I live in special education but

creating a title for a position that is new using an existing title I'm not sure where that goes like how that so again I just need some more guidance on what does that look like if it already exists I think I think certainly you could get there my personal feeling is just because something was called something we've never had a position that has these responsibilities with this type of

of information so whether something was called it or not that's not to me that's not an issue secondly what we do here in this District which I don't understand is that when we get rid of positions we don't take them out so if I had a position called XYZ and we no longer have x y z by the contract that's gone it we do we just keep these things lingering in the background it makes it

confusing so I think that's why contractually speaking we can't just do away with the position whether that's frea or fraa we can't eliminate that position and then two years down the road resurrect that position under different guys and say okay now we have it's a different position because if that's totally different responsibilities you could well we would have to rework that so that because we

want to make sure that we're also true to you know and as you say truth and advertising we don't want to we don't want to say we're going to eliminate it get rid of it from the union and then bring it back with a different name so we were just trying to be cognizant of that and making sure that the physician is something that is not something that already existed and that it's something that's going to

serve the department well and this is the title lost in public schools that's that's what she went to a thing in Urban's and she looked around so certainly we can look around to see I just want to make sure that it's a position that's unique and serves the needs of as her assistant as you said or a second in charge yep so when you first came to us right one of you yeah number one

Focus area was compliance right so and I remember that right off the bat and when I first saw this and read this this weekend I saw that and it made me happy so what I'm trying to say is as long as we put the duties in the job description and your focus is going to be what you want to focus on I don't find anything wrong with that if we can just put at the

bottom that this person is going to be in charge in your absence I don't I like seeing compliance there because it's your mission that was your focus and that's what your belief is is moving forward is something we should be focusing on so I mean I'll deal with that I don't think we'll take compliance out I think it's what comes before the word compliance right yeah okay yeah I would like to leave compliances

well I think that's I think that's accurate that that person is responsible for compliance and programming and okay but the senior advisor piece I guess is is the piece that we're kind of wondering about right where does how does that fit in but to be fair again if they're completely different job done job duties then why couldn't you call it something different right senior advisor to

compliance or senior advisor special education compliance and programming right how is that different from an assistant to the assistant or an associate you know whatever that's like right are we going to attract the right people with senior advisor I think that that's what the question is we're going to track the right ponytail and there's no title protection anywhere so it's not so if if we have a

different title in there that would attract the right people with completely different job descriptions I'm assuming that we're we're in an okay shape those are the questions I just don't have the answer to like I don't I think it's good to say you guys nowhere I think we're all coming from like we want to support you and and support this type of position I just don't want you to be afraid for

reasons that are they've existed before I want you to do what you think is the best thing to get the right person at the right salary and they what they need to do and don't pigeons hold yourself to what the responsibilities are there has to be at the end of every job description additional duties as opposed to that has to be in every job description going forward period and the story of my

opinion I will not vote as one member for that ever again to come in like we have in another couple cases but you also have what if you've been a person in and this was tailored to this particular piece and you get this great candidate that was great at something else you know you got to give yourself some flexibility too that they could do other things that's why I think the

assistant to you is actually the best piece because you can use them to their skill set the best that you you know they might offer you and you might not even be something that you know about right now it really wasn't so much a question that was just reiterating that I don't think we have to get stuck on what other people's titles were in the past so we're looking for a motion to refer

with those two changes seconded and the changes would just be what we discussed that you guys going to come back with a couple of Innovations we'll send it into Friday we'll send it in the Friday update does that work so yeah Miss Lowry yes Ms Rogers yes thank you very much thank you I just uh while we're talking about job descriptions can we also get an update on the job descriptions that are in limbo

under special education

that has gone back and forth related to any other special job descriptions get sent at the same time sure we'll go to 3.02 discussion about specialized programming curriculum superintendent or your designate yep um Miss Kennedy is actually going to talk about this so um so I had met with um in this open chain about the students that are currently sitting in our Middle School grades

um that are struggling to accurately read grade level text um and to come up with an action plan for um supporting those students and in turn supporting the teachers that service their students um when we think about the students that historically are going into our middle schools there's about 15 of them that are struggling to accurately read grade level texts when they live fifth grade um

this is this is a small subset and and technically if you think about like an mtss triangle it kind of matches what it should be I don't know if I should say should be but what they're what's expected um and so we looked into the program called um language Circle project grade Linguistics which is created for um grades three in all the way into adulthood um it's an accelerated phonics and word

study program that's aligned to the phonics program that we um provide professional development and materials in this year for our elementary school kids um fully aligned to the science of reading um it so what happens is students take a diagnostic assessment once we identify that a student has an issue with accuracy which will directly and negatively impact their reading fluency which will directly and

negatively impact their comprehension so once we identify that that is the issue we administer a diagnostic assessment in that diagnostic assessment tells us where in the program a child would place to begin instruction um it's a multi-sensory curriculum it's got tons of research behind it it's created by um Dr Tory green who um has been in the field for a very very long time it's focused on the five components

it has a spelling component it has a comp component it has all language work in it um and it follows Madeline Hunter's design which is you start with a review of what you learned yesterday um you are taught a brand new skill directly and explicitly then you're giving given an I do we do you do um opportunity for practice to Independence and that skill and then the next day you start with a review of

the previous skill and all over again it's heavily scaffolded for students it would be done by special Educators um or interventionists and potentially powers in some cases that would be trained by the company in a six hour virtual training um and they would be prepared to begin the work with students um right right after the initial training so where our ask is for the materials

and for the training of those materials

let me pull it up for you she's just gonna pull up the amount of money and then Stephanie this supports the we use Project Read in the younger grade we do right yes yeah so our substantially separate students will receive Project Read for they're identified as you know struggling with reading in the early grades if they still have not mastered reading by the time they get to middle school then this kind of

takes over right and continues the work does anybody have any questions Mr Roberts so did you say it was only for yourself separate did I misunderstand that no okay sorry that last comment just yeah so if there's students in the inclusion as well that still struggle when they get to fifth grade solution to this type of program is this sort of a continuation when you mentioned the or the phonics program in

the elementary school is it similar to what the kids are doing with equity and the idea no okay absolutely that language sounded similar right so it is it is similar in that it's aligned to the science of reading so Equity is um for the most part the grade level content that the class is working on at that time where this would be where the child is developmentally and bringing them up from there so children would

actually receive both of those things um if they were a child who needed to have the intervention okay thank you sorry because I'm looking for it right now what is the uh I think Superman said it was like seven thousand I think so roughly seven thousand for this stuff and that's an annual occurrence or is this just a one is this online or you just got to keep on buying no you don't have to keep

buying it so once someone is trained with the materials the materials are then in the building and they'd stay there the only recurring cost would be if a teacher were to leave and we needed to train a new teacher to take on those materials very similar to Advantage yeah we do and when you're serving It's associated for grades three to adult and then the great the Middle School like

are we not going to do it with grade three because there's other things in place or is it no we do uh we could start it in grade three Project Read um is typically what we use in grade three but in grades four and five it's appropriate to use Linguistics um the purchase that we made would cover grades for through Middle School um as it would cover all of those teachers

and all of the materials that I needed so um the difference between the two programs is that project rate is at a slower Pace there's many more exposures to the same content as you go through it where when you get into grade four is where we usually make the shift when you get into grade four it's accelerated I'll give you an example in Project Read you learn the syllable types in in um in

a sequence that makes sense for younger students so you'd start with closed syllables and you'd move into magic e blah blah when you are learning it in linguistics it accelerated in that you learn closed syllables but then the words that you're reading are multi-syllabic so it might be picnic instead of capped it means much quicker sometimes we find that with um our students in grade four and Beyond

um it's too fast and we have to pull back and drop back into project three we want to do what's best for the kid okay thank you so when you get 19 or fourth grade is 15 of fifth graders are struggling that's with all of the things that you already have uh Project Read training happened in February um Project Read has been in the district for a while but it kind of fell off the

radar no one was supporting it um we started the training again this year we and teachers began using the materials with students so this is historically this is basically what it looks like so at the end of this school year that's what our kids will leave those that's how our third fourth and fifth graders are leaving thirds so theoretically it was worse if these no if we're doing some other interventions

now theoretically a couple years ago it was worse than this um pretty true to what it usually is and so what I would say is that for an intervention to really take hold it has to be done with Fidelity for up to 20 sessions um I can't for sure tell you that anyone had done it with Fidelity for 20 session sessions um because the teacher was learning the program at the same time as the kids

learning the program so when you think about effective intervention that teacher like knows it inside and out and so now they've been using it for the past couple of months when they start in September they should feel far more comfortable with those materials and their kids will benefit more from it but we still have several special education teachers that aren't trading so they

have not gone through that training yet so that's the other thing that we need to do um yeah I'm looking at what you wrote is that one of the questions I was going to have was who's going to actually do this work right and you were a special educated interventions of Paris so I'm assuming that you have enough of those in the fifth grade and the schedules are such that you can't actually do that it

costs every fifth grade in the district well it's only for a subset of students um it's only for the students that fit this particular profile um we have wind blocks in every single school and within those win blocks for the most part it's all hands on deck um with regard to the staff that can provide services to students and so when we did the training in February I sent out

um uh an email or a survey to principals and school leaders the ELA leaders asking them to list the people that would be providing interventions such as language Circle Project Read and um then we took that and we use that list to compile the list for um participants in February but if they if this program gets approved it sounds like we're going to require those children in fifth grade to get

basically a pull out of some sort of it's an intervention you know a more intense intervention than just a whole classroom right absolutely so my in my mind I'm saying what happens in there if we know that in third grade fourth grade and fifth grade these are the numbers what are we doing to do that same type of just move it down a couple of grades yeah we still not have that Personnel no

do we not have the we do have the Personnel so um right now if you walk into a first grade a first school and there's a first first grade win block happening you'll see students pulled in small group some of those teachers may be using these materials because that's what's required for those students and other teachers would be doing other interventions or extensions based on what the kids need is that answering

that question I think what the question was once they get to third like he's saying here the reason why that they've tried these other things and they don't work for lack of a better way to say so now we're going to go with this new thing that is based on what you said it's scientific it's all of these pieces all I'm trying to figure out is why if we're going to do it in fifth grade

wouldn't we just do it in third and fourth we do feel consistent yes but then you mentioned another program that they're going to use instead so I think that's the confusion um yes it is that's that is what's confusing so language Circle has a series of programs they start with on primary phonics which is the little guy's kindergarten and then it moves into Project Read which is typically

grades one to three and then um Linguistics which goes all the way up through adult head and so right now we're not waiting for third grade when we did our project read intervention um training in February we had first grade interventionists in that room like we're not waiting until kids are failing we're trying to catch it real quick and then move on it right away um not wait but the new program is

called something different than Project Read it it is yes it's the same company yeah it's just different levels for different levels that's I was trying to figure out what the difference it's two different names yeah but it's basically very similar just you know so we're not waiting till the law school basically yeah that still need that they still need the intervention and they haven't had it

right so we need to or they don't have it currently in middle school or upper elementary school it doesn't mean that we still need to do more training for special education teachers on Project Read for grades one through three currently because we have not trained all those teachers she said we've already have that curriculum like this isn't in addition it might just be more materials but we already have that this

is something new now bringing on board to extend the reading intervention curriculum that we have in the district and the writing component too did you speak to them so the writing component is called um written expression it's framing your thoughts written expression um and what that does is it supports students in writing and understanding complex sentence structures um and so students are taught from Bare

Bones like a sentence needs to have a subject and a predicate and then how to expand those sentences to include on predicate expanders like how why where when um and that helps kids in both the writing of complex sentences and the reading of complex sentences because they understand common language structures um about how like an author using uh when in the beginning of many many

sentences in literature and so they're able to look at and I and um dissect and for a lack of a better word dissect that sentence in a way that um allows for comprehension so again same company language Circle um different arm of that company cervix I was just looking that up because I wasn't following so I understand better now so you're talking about we have a phonics program for the

little guys that falls under a language Circle and then grades one through three has a different number but again falling under there yes and so this is the expansion piece I think that was the piece that I wasn't fully grasping and so then I'm hearing like we're basically buying a whole new program and just sort of like throwing out the rest but not training everybody in the prime that's

what it sort of sounded like if you took a fifth grader right yeah if you took a fifth grade or a sixth grader and you started with Project Read the pace that that goes at they're never going to be exposed to that in the texts right in the classrooms because it's much below where they are right so what they do and many other reading programs do the same thing is they take

and tailor it to what they'll be seeing how they'll be exposed to um reading in the Middle School level okay for lack of success is the expert but it makes sense was it for emotion to approve second question maybe second day to forward live in approval let's try it again yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Roger yes thank you thank you very much so we'll go on to 3.03 update on credit recovery

so you have the 4u credit recovery options for both directly high school as well as the rlm RPA um I I know you just got it right before the meeting um Credit Recovery was added to the agenda later on and it was in the middle of preparation for graduation at both of those schools so I apologize for that but um uh Mr Woodward actually has put together pretty comprehensive um sheets for both schools and can

highlight some of the things that we're doing at each of the schools as well as who is serviced by these options so sure good afternoon everyone so I'm happy to share the credit recovery update for spring uh 2023 as super as a superintendent shared as you said there's two fact sheets in front of you that goes through some specifics on each program and these are the programs or the the path of the

credit recovery Pathways that students have the ability or access to have access to um in in the second semester of this school year so the first fact sheet is uh outlaying the uh the dirty credit recovery options the second fact sheet is the RTA ones I'm before going into a specifics just generally we are looking to expand credit recovery options for students throughout the district not

only from covid loss but our students are coming to us with very unique needs and oftentimes there's either a learning Gap or some interrupted education or students are moving around so we see this as you know a really strong tool to support on-time graduation increased engagement Etc as we've gone through this year we've noticed some pretty strong results especially for our seniors in Credit Recovery

we feel it's a really effective structure to support their their on-time on graduation but we've also noticed uh less consistent or inconsistent results for our underclassmen in high school grades 9 through 11 and that's something that we're looking to work on tweaking and you know retooling and always trying to be Innovative to get better results um so if I can just share some of the

highlights for spring 2023 starting with Durfee the first is a unit grade recovery and this is kind of like a tweak or a pilot of programs that we've dabbled in the past but this is really the first time it's been really structured and uh been given an opportunity to all ninth grade students who had been failing throughout the year so we have it um for the first time we're not waiting till summer

um when a student has already failed but we're trying to push that back and give students opportunities in a more structured way to recover quarter grades whether it's quarter two or maybe they had a bad quarter a quarter three so in this intervention or this Credit Recovery pathway uh teachers and counselors identify the students who are failing one or more core academic subjects we really tried to prioritize

math as if the student was failing multiple just because the research show it's so important on time graduation our next priority was science to the fact that students are taking uh most freshmen are taking the MCAS in science and it's a high stake test so we want to support them with those skills as well um in in the unit grade recovery varied by subject it was an after-school program so students were required to

attend two days a week from three to five but because the platforms were online they did have access to it you know at home as well and some students moved quicker than others through the modules you know Max trying to use Mafia Ela use a net Benchmark rewrites and revisions science use Google Classroom format through open Syed social studies use some specific units through Edgenuity

before you um you can also see the enrollment generally between 30 and 50 students we had two teachers staffed for most of these Corps we felt it was important to have content specific teachers who could provide that academic support when students got stuck and the results today right now we have 56 quarters we've covered in our last two weeks so we'll have a better understanding of the final results once

the school year ends oftentimes we see kind of like a mad dash at the end to complete work before the uh the school year so we can update at the end of the school year how many quarters are recovered and for that program our secondary goal is really to have um really to have as many students as possible pass with their final grade because this is a quarter recovery so the hope is that while they're going

through this Credit Recovery they're also passing their quarter four so it's helping them in real time you know in their current class and also on getting them prepared for sophomore year uh at therapy the next two uh next three um uh kind of Pathways that you see the credit recovery Labs um are for juniors and seniors that's your Edge annuity Credit Recovery courses uh both 11th and 12th grade students had

access but 12th graders were prioritized to support on time on graduation we started this back in quarter two but it continued and picked up steam as it went through the school year we also added an online or not an online an after-school component in the spring due to demand for students um so um some of some of the results in Credit Recovery see about 95 students were enrolled in the spring the majority

of them seniors they completed 103 courses needed for graduation senior summer school is also um somewhat of a New Concept at therapy high school it's essentially students who are who teachers have identified are almost dead in the water or on track to fail for the year after April vacation and for the last three to four weeks of the school year they're in this intensive Credit Recovery lab

that they have the ability to pass for the school year so this was flagged by 12th grade teachers as well as counselors and support staff we had 79 students within senior senior Summer School uh taking 115 courses so these could be academic courses or they could be electives that a student might need in order to earn that 100 credits or to fulfill different Collective requirements so on

the results of that I was pretty successful 77 of 79 students successfully completed we have two students still working and going to be working this summer to complete their requirements come see this uh testing which is also an Ingenuity exam only course that is being phased out at Durfee and it was really brought in to Durfee designed to support students during the covet years

to adjust the learning loss so this year seniors were able to take an exam if they failed a class during the 1920 covet shutdown year or the 2021 remote hybrid year for courses failed last school year they had to take the full course students need to earn a score of 70 or higher to demonstrate competencies and all the students um 100 of students uh did earn credit uh through these exams totaling 72 course credits

uh the final Pathway to highlight is evolve although it's not a specific Credit Recovery pathway it is geared towards off-track students and helping them get on track so that they graduate on time preparing for colleagues uh and careers um so again they have rolling admissions throughout the year based on Space the students go through the 10-week courses called transformative learning experiences that allows them to

demonstrate Mastery in a subject and earn credit and they currently had 82 students and I projected at 100 for the beginning of next school year so for their senior class all of them off track by a year plus 26 out of 31 graduated on time two of them are still engaged and enrolled in summer school and three students unfortunately have left us but hopefully we can we can re-engage them so those

are the Derpy high level view any questions

um I see some there's some efforts for our ninth graders right and then for our mostly 12th graders right sounds like that but what happens to our kids in 10th Grade it looks like the only option we really have for them is evolve the good question originally um the the night the unit grade recovery we had hoped to roll it out for grade nine and ten so strategy really for nine

and ten I think to do more real-time recovery for grades um during the roll up practice uh the procedure and building it up with the Deans and with the with the teachers we were able to staff it with um we had to make a a decision to prioritize one grade over the other for this year we prioritize the freshmen just because of you know the research that showcases how important ninth grade

is uh the on-time graduation but our our true goal is for ninth grade to roll it out much earlier at the end of quarter one and have it ready to go um for 9th and 10th graders ideally where students would be recovering in quarter to two for quarter one for quarter three they could recover they also would be a full year program instead of one that's launched in the spring of the year

um I think the the Deans and the teachers worked really hard to identify some high impact uh standards based pieces that would help the students not only recover but also will be more successful in their classes so that's I think what they're hoping um one of I think the Lessons Learned is that we feel like it would be much better um launched earlier in the school year so that we could service more kids well

that was actually going to that sort of answered my other question was why are we waiting until the spring when we know that if we if we catch these kids a little bit earlier we'll have better engagement like I don't I wouldn't want to see my kid failing and then we wait until you know the fourth quarter to say hey now you're in danger or failing for the year and now we're going to lose

this kid so if we can intervene sooner that makes a lot more sense and then I just saw a gap for our 10th graders but it sounds like that became a staffing issue yeah because we felt um that it would be most impactful we had like the teacher of that content uh uh that after school class we wanted to keep them relatively small so it became a challenge to get everyone and we

didn't have the Staffing for that yeah it was a volunteer stipended opportunity just a question on the uh cbt's can you give me um an idea how that is is how the kids take it where they're taking it who's administering just give me that sure at Durfee um cbts are administered by the student support um specialist one of the student support Specialists during a period that they have some elective period so they

typically take uh one hour to two hours and is demonstrated by one of our support personnel um and those are typically pre-scheduled throughout throughout the spring okay there's it is there more than one person is there more than one student is it one to one is it they have their electronic devices as their phones and stuff like that so um they're they're not allowed to have their phones out we have been talking

with Ingenuity they have some increased Security Options where it can actually like shut down uh access to all the different websites through um so that's something that we're looking to bring on for next year it's typically it could be one-on-one but more typically it's in small groups so you could see up to like five or so students especially if they're taking the same exam in a computer lab setting to the

rest of my knowledge that's how Dorothy does it all right I know we're going to cover RPA in a minute but is that the same um system over there as well so uh for comp C based at RPA is a little bit more widespread um I mean I guess I can wait but my Hope was we this was most related to Jeffrey sure sure I do I yield you know my only concern is

um the grade nine that we see here uh and also the reason why I ask for this to be here is because I'm curious of how this affects special education students and that's why it's before us in this particular meeting I've received some calls and complaints from parents related to students that have earned no credits at not making progress and they haven't been allowed to do some of the

credit recovery options such as what you just talked about the competency-based test or Edge annuity or other options and I'm not understanding why we would one we would phase it out totally and two why they don't have access to it when students are not getting any credits for the whole year that's a major major problem you had mentioned some kind of data I couldn't write it down quick enough thought if

students fail ninth grade it's not good yeah for lack of a better way to say it we're going to say that so when we have ninth graders they're not making any credits like what are we doing and what programming do we have another agenda item here about continuing of programming so that we know what is it in the Middle School like if I have a certain set of issues that I'm dealing

with in Middle School how is that at the high school I think there's a the disconnected in the system so that was two of the reasons why um but when I saw the first thing the target ninth grade is for the unit grade recovery I don't understand why we wouldn't allow a student when we've allowed it in covid we're allowing it for seniors why we wouldn't allow one ninth grader to do a

credit recovery option of a competency-based test so if I'm a student that's having difficulty social emotional issues or whatever and I knew English nine I might be well above English non-curriculum like I could just go and bang it out on math or whatever they don't have that option and then we wait until 11th or 12th and then now they'll have that option so or they get transferred to IPA and they have that

option so that's my concern so anybody can answer this is a lot of layers to that so when we think about the transition of students to high school it's a difficult one for most and then when you think about kids that struggle the most um what are the issues at hand a lot of it has to do with the environment a lot of it has to do with their behavior a lot of it has to do

with class cutting so when you look at some kids that are struggling and they're failing a lot of their courses we're also trying to just get them to go to class right and when we think about the foundational years of freshmen and sophomore and the learning that needs to take place in the classroom to then simply cut straight to the chase of of credit recovery a competency-based tests

that's not to me that's not the answer okay because um see time in the classroom with a teacher with you talking special education with the services that doesn't happen by way of Ingenuity and what we've seen as we've started to Pilot engine will be going back several years in summer school and then bringing it in in Cove at times the students that struggle the most with Ingenuity of our special education

students because the services aren't delivered in real time there's not someone in the room to to do what an IEP says you know um so the decision was made that we're going to focus our Ingenuity efforts on the upperclassmen we're going to Pilot some things with freshmen this year to build in structurally you know prior to covet we were already working on this unit recovery piece because I think

that's the answer I think that when the student struggles after a term if we can have certified teachers and support staff with students after school to recover grades now they're back on the beam with the skills that they need not only to succeed the next term but for the whole course and then the courses that follow when you're talking about a senior that's exiting and you've got a

freshman course hanging over their head but they've done well in that in their courses let's say a TLA they failed the ELA freshman year um but now they're a junior and a senior and passing in there fine well why make them go back and take that whole course let's give them the competency-based test that lines up with what the state did with MCAS for the last three years right but that's going away with this

particular graduating class with the competency determination um we can't say that okay Matt you failed elamcast but you passed your Ela your senior year so we can hand you a diploma that that's the terminal it was terminal this year right when unless the state changes their mind they're not going to allow that to go forward and then thinking about the high school experience and the opportunity to be in

school and to be with trained staff over the for four years the class of 20 and 23 didn't have it their freshman year or their sophomore year so um the thinking behind ending Competency Based so let's direct it otherwise right was that this was appropriate for this time but moving forward the best answer is is a student in a classroom with a teacher always um of course there are unique cases and

where kids struggling in the environment and they need to be an online schooling Etc but when we're looking at what we could offer like think about what we what we had five years ago six years ago we had summer school that was the option so all the advice that we're getting we're building more and more and there's more and more options but it's not about depriving people certain kids from

access to it's about thinking about the students trajectory and what's coming next you know and to put a freshman in a credit recovery lab to do a competency-based test because he blew off 90 days of class or his behavior was such that that he was out of the classroom a lot well we just maybe reinforced with that student that oh I'm going to do this next year too

and then I can just take a test at the end so no I understand what you're saying yeah I do think that you describe a bunch of different things so I'm not saying that you haven't tried those things I'm just trying to look at it from the perspective of not all kids are created equal as far as what their issues are what their disability is and the life and if we've tried things and

we're not successful with the services that you mentioned if they're either not implemented haven't been with Fidelity something something just went awry all year so a freshman doesn't have any credits that's not a good setup and I don't think you anybody would agree that that's a good setup moving into certainly next year with no credits at all so if that happens what happens in

summer school are they not eligible for summer school either they're welcome so what's the eligibility criteria so typically we look at um having a minimum grade of 55 however we're working with our freshmen we know that struggle that happens in that year and The Freshman wants to go to summer school and needs to go to summer school again they go to summer school what does summer school look like is that so is it

who had a recovery was it Edgenuity only because of covet or is that a component in summer school is summer school of hybrid is it summer school depends on on the setting it depends on the numbers you know we're going back two years we leaned heavily on Ingenuity because nobody wanted to work summer school um last year staff started to come back around this year we're fabulously

staffed with content certified people so we're saying all right just similar to what I just said let's take the staff that's willing to work and be here and put them in front of our younger kids and give them what they need and if they're you know specialized areas that we don't have someone to put like calculus stuff that people go to school for summer school for calculus but that's where the lab would come into

play yeah and if they um in special education and you don't make progress for the year how does that happen so if we have a freshman that just did not make progress all year and we're at the end of the year with zero credits what are the systems in place to stop that from happening that might be a question for special life folks too but I'm not only saying you but there's a lot that happens along

the way in terms of Team meetings we've been doing looking at the IEP looking at appropriate services in the IEP is the student engaging in those Services um I think and then through summer school through all the other options meeting with teachers after school to get all the information that we can giving opportunities for after school help before school health any outlet that we can get a kid to re-engage I

think we're going to try in that building so in ninth grade where we said the um we create a grade recovery that just not happen this year in grade nine grade recovery did happen in grade nine um from when it started at the beginning of quarter four so in the April 1st or the first week of April and it was for student any students who failed um one or more quarters uh though the

priority was for students who failed two or more quarters because they were the most at risk to fail at the end of the school year um so it's after school it's it's still ongoing right now it's going to wrap up in a week or at the end of school but there's a great recovery and math uh science Ela and history and the uh the the Deans in the department heads worked

with you know the the ninth grade teachers uh to determine what were the most high leverage um pieces to the online platforms uh that they wanted students to go through what I'd like to just ask at some point to get how they were notified and recommended for the program but fourth quarter obviously is not the greatest time but as Mr McNamara was saying sometimes we get kids that based on

their disabilities just on having they just don't go to class they just can't come to school whatever to tell them now you're going to come to school all day and then go to three to five a lot of times like if I predict what that answer is going to be which is why I was advocating and I still advocate for a system of some sort of even in the school when you have a hook a counselor

or support people said to support people whoever we have staff we've stacked up that I don't understand why we wouldn't offer them so that they'd still have to have the seat time for that program to be able to and you can document it that they're doing it just a different look at it for a certain kids not as a as a whole because I think your points will have taken that kids will just saying heck of

it I'm not going to class I'll do this but when we have no credits I think you know some special cases could be made especially when they have disabilities and they need they just can't go to class if we used to have homebound back in the day sure I don't know if we still have that I mean the students with yeah medical issues or legal issues absolutely so when that

happens what is Dale what does their day look like is it the same as it used to be if tutor teaches all the subjects and they get to work and back and forth pretty much so I don't want to be in a position as a school Committee Member when a parent calls me to say we have a concern my son has this disability I don't want to be in a position to tell

them you know what I would do I would go to a doctor and get a note saying he can't be in school and then he's going to get a homebound tutor and he's going to be able to pass classes with a lot less scrutiny than what you have to do during the thing everything the way it's set up here the next time the person calls unless something changes I'm recommending that

to them because a lot of kids that have social emotional issues and a bunch of other issues can get a note and have to be on homebound rather than be in school if they're going to have a more doable type of situation and I would rather have them in the school with the council with the support staff in front of me to say yeah do the edge annuity do a competency base

do something to at least give you some credits going into you can actually touches me personally but anybody else have any concerns or what's on the subjects well I have a lot of concern about an IEP that Team 15 year old kid who doesn't have a whole lot of control so we can talk about behavior and we can talk about what's keeping that kid out but then I would say that maybe we're looking at an

IEP that doesn't have the services that that kid actually needs are we in the right setting are we in the right placement so the end of the year I would have a lot of concern about a kid with zero credits I don't know anything about this particular kid but that screams to me like we have a problem here in that in that system there was a breakdown somewhere

I agree with you I mean a lot of times we talk about it I think we need to talk about environment services available placement um we're in a brand new school and everybody wants to be there but it might be 2400 kids it might not be the best environment for every student right so then what do we do for those kids because it can't just be you know oh well you know that kid didn't make it

here or that kid didn't show up in class and that kid isn't in a seat yeah I mean I I say confidently that there's nobody on my staff that says oh well right I think we're looking for the next thing right and I'm sort of being facetious but at the end of the year that's not the time to have the conversation the same way that I just asked you know Drew

what are we doing for those kids after they fail the first order together if you look at each case and you go through the documentation we're not waiting till the end of the year to see what we do now we're it's a constant conversation families student teachers and it's ongoing um sometimes you know whatever it is you're trying doesn't work that doesn't mean nothing happened right right and that's

what I'm saying how are we having those conversations with families I'm not saying this anybody at this table let a kid just go all year long let them fail and now they're calling you know members of the school committee to complain about I'm not for one second suggesting that but what systems do we have in place to kind of capture those kids before we get to the fourth quarter

because that by that point it's too late right we've already lost them and it sort of goes hand in hand with that discussion earlier if we're waiting until the fourth quarter we've waited too long well this was a pilot to launch and say this is I want this from day one next year right so that by the in the term one it's offered to students if they failed they can recover their Break

um so it wasn't like let's just wait until fourth quarter to get this going um but there was also a lot of legwork that needed to be done to set up the the curriculum of what is the powerful standards that we're going to pull from these courses to focus on that would be tethered straight to the next course so it would set them up for success I absolutely rather have seen it

launched um in the fall after the term one criticism I think sometimes we hear this stuff criticism but not right I'm suggesting that if we're talking about that and it sounds like everybody here is on that same page how do we capture these kids sooner so that we're not getting the phone call at the end of the year especially if you've got a kid on an IEP that kid shouldn't be ending the year a

ninth grade or ending the year without any credits my last comment is on the phasing out of the competency base I think that should be Revisited whether it's used sparingly or whatever as we're talking here I know we talked about the seniors that had the option for that I don't see why any student if they could pass with a 70 score with Fidelity with uh proper security you know they're

not cheating or whatever why we wouldn't allow them at some point to even if it's only a couple of classes to help it could be a ninth grade or a 10th grade it could be anything to say you know what if the kid could pass algebra one whatever the Freshman equivalent of that is on the test if they already know the material right now they've got zero credits but if we said there's some sort of program

where this is it's allowed for the kid that's graduating to graduate but it's not allowed for my son that was a ninth grade that could do the same so even in the current year I understand phasing it out I understand all of the rationale but I think it should be looked at again to see if there is such a way to sure I hear what you're saying just to get a

hook and suggest I just want to be careful with that you know if if a senior just compensated competency-based tested out of an algebra one course because he demonstrated that he passed subsequent to that I mean before he even took the test for that he passed geometry he passed algebra two he passed statistics right but he had this this thing hanging over from his freshman year hanging over his head right

so that I think that's an appropriate way to do it I don't know that was setting the kid up for Success if we competency test him algebra one at the end of his freshman year after he failed um but maybe maybe I won't right but is he set up for geometry in subsequent higher level yeah you can use any costs but I even use out for one because it's

in my head it could be English shine it could be a social set whatever it is we have children that can't come to school for a variety of reasons but they have the capacity and the intellect and experiences whatever to be able to pass that material that's what true competency-based testing is so whether it's not on a math class it's just a way to get the kids some credits you walk in

as a 16 year old now you're a repeat freshman at 16 and a half so if four years go by 16 and have 17 now 18 and a half 19 now we're telling that kid everything's gonna go perfect for you for four years and you're gonna be 20 by the time you graduate you ready I don't think that's I think that's setting some kids out whereas if we gave them a little bit of even if

it's a elective class system build up some credits give them an opportunity that's how the alternative school work back in the day I think that some of how you guys explained what you did this year to get some of your seniors a little of this a little that little this little that you know to make them get across the I'm only asking to take a look at a financial breeders that's all

with that being said I think a good segue is into the next one the Continuum of special ed programming I asked for this to be on the agenda the agendas because I think the case that I'm referring to that I received the calls on it really points to what do we have in the middle school programs what do we have the elementary school the middle school and the high school they

should be similar and I think for too long we've either gotten rid of some we've done this but there's not a nice solid Continuum staffed up appropriately programs across the district and I don't that's my opinion anybody has otherwise please let me know so um you know one of the things that I did early on when I came to Fall River is I was in the classrooms looking in the buildings

talking about what types of programs you have here what do they look like how do they compare to either your different Middle School in this in the district or how does it compare you know vertically going up from different grades and early on it was very clear that there was a lack of consistency so everybody was doing something and some things were similar but a lot of things were

different based on building wise and then when kids uh after eighth grade went to Durfee things were really different Derpy kind of changed their model so I identified early on that we need to really take a look at this because I am not sure if the jerky kind of different model to look at things especially with students that are social emotional or with social emotional disabilities

if that is successful in meeting their needs and they're earning our high school diplomas that are off to colleges then what can we bring down to the Middle School level to support the students there so then we go to Jersey they're set up for Success right and then it goes trickles down like that right now this is why we have the um a programming task force that is kind of going through all of these different

types of programs looking at you know who are the students in there how are they getting referred in there what's the entry what's the exit criteria what do they when they go to the next grade like are they get especially transitional years right so when I leave Spencer Borden and I go to Morton does that look the same or if it's a little bit different how is Spencer Borden preparing the students to go to Morton

and same thing with any Middle School going to Durfee right because I agree with you Mr aguiar that it isn't um consistent and I'm not sure if the current model supports all of the special education students that go from middle schools to high school at Durfee because we're also looking at how many go to RPA how many have you know have to take some time at Stone before they can be successful at Durfee and if that's

the case and again I just don't have enough time in the district to be able to really speak to that and I'm happy to have these guys share because they've been here longer than me but um if that's the case then what needs to be put in place at Durfee so there is more success of those students transitioning um in again if like I said same thing if the Durfee model is successful then we

should be bringing that back down to seventh and 8th grade because if this giving them more access to inclusion is really what our whole goal is we should be bringing that back down there because right now it seems like a little bit of a disconnect in my like so what is it commonly for social emotional in the Middle School in the middle schools um yeah for the most part they are substantially separate classrooms with

limited opportunities for inclusion and again it depends on the the building so um I know like at um some of our middle schools they try to if a student is successful in a certain academic area maybe my strength is math or my strength is reading then they might be able to push into uh you know general education classrooms for those classes right and then they come back to social emotional

in other middle schools it's strictly like um the um unified arts classes that they get to go into it's just really different and it's not about like what I'm learning is that it's not always about the needs of the students we have we're also needing to look at our overall enrollment and classes that are already at Max enrollment so if if we have that classes can't go over 30 and I'm just

making up the number because I can't remember exactly 28 28 but then teachers get State because if they have a couple extra kids or something like that is that how it works they would have to have a paraprofessional okay um classes are already at that in some buildings so it doesn't provide as much opportunity except for inclusion no it doesn't provide as much opportunity for say of substantially separate classroom

a child in a substantially separate classroom in one building to go into inclusion opportunities which at Durfee they have much more experience in inclusion um so I want them to be practicing going into inclusion and getting that success and they should if they can if that's where they can learn the best right they should be going out but sometimes it's a for a variety of reasons

primarily being you know classrooms that are full right to feel back a little more sure so a child with a social and social emotional issue in the middle school is in a substantially separate classroom yes yes in an IEP is called a substantially separate classroom yes so I'm in eighth grade and I've been in a substantially separate classroom with my IEP X golf saying substantially

separate from sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade yeah so now I go to ninth grade what substantially separate social emotional classes do we have at the ninth grade due to the reports that came out we um expanded our bridge program right so there's a couple of different things right that statement was a lot because the bridge program problem wasn't just because we got a report right the bridge used to be this

separate substantially sub separate for social emotional that was disbanded and kids are pushed out into um so their IEP gets changed so their needs change and we just change their ID no if a kid needs a subset replacement we do have have some separate classes we just don't currently have a sub-separate social emotional program yeah so eighth grade we I don't know my numbers I'm just making them up we have

all of our kids got come in this 700 kids that go to the school right freshman or whatever 600. we have 20 kids that have a social emotional IEP for substantially separate classroom so they go to ninth grade where do they go and who changes their IEP so the past few years we have not had that many students that have come to us um sure we do when we have a class set up for that

so describe what that looks like so a student would come in start their day in based on whatever the grid says whatever the determination is there's a Behavior Support class we're kind of building this back because we see the need they may spend one period in there with them probably more power support as they move to English and math and science but they're not going to be in one room all day to help

treat that transition into the real world okay it would be hard for a kid in 18 years old if they just spent one day at one the whole day in one room I understand so what would they what would they be called what would their IEP be called their IEP stays the same because it's still substantially separate classrooms but it's the program again we're trying to we're re-looking at the

names of all of our programs to based on skills and you know all of this so it's it's what I think that you call it just it's just a room right it's their room that they go in and out of but they don't they're not in a specialized program per se if I understand how Durfee works it because it could be kids with different disabilities in there not just social emotional kids I understand right I

think I don't want to believe with a point I think the point is that we are trying to fix it right again yeah but for years I've been saying this is a similar type of thing at these meetings and it's getting real tiring to have the same conversation with parents that says this is what's happening so it's getting real tiring so that's my frustration level is based on that not because of

Any personalities yeah but what I would like to request without the names is any student in the last two years that had a substantially separate IEP for a social emotional class and a copy of that IEP versus the 9th grade IEP without the names sure and it doesn't say social emotional program so the any IEP let's just take a middle school program it'll say substantially separate classroom Talbot Middle School Morton

Middle School so the the what would identify the needs of the student the skills would be that grid right so you'll see that but it doesn't mean that again the way that Durfee does it I again I'm still learning too so I understand the question the thoughts whatever um it's still a classroom where it's outside of the general education setting because there aren't any typical students in there okay my only request

is to get the information yeah however you get it yeah the principles of each School in the Middle School know exactly who was in the social emotional classes yeah the last two years we should know as supervisors directors team chairs yourself or whatever everybody should know exactly what the identified number of kids is and all I'm asking for is to say what we can talk about us yeah yeah

not the kid's name because it's not what I'm looking for and what we changed it to in the high school that's and it may say the same thing it's just what I want you to understand right it may say the same thing I may not but those will be should have been transitioned because whatever it says but um just want to check it just be sure that as we're going with with putting stuff in IEPs

that we actually have implemented yeah I agree because we say absolutely this is what it sounds good and we get a parent to sign off I don't want just a check and a balance on it I hope that it comes out that everything's great personally well we still are looking at our program yes so even if the IEPs are written properly and again we're you know having no meetings with families when we move

students in and out of those types of programs yes but the overall programs themselves which is what we're doing Mr objects you have a question so what did we do with those kids in the last few years you're saying like for the last four or five years we haven't had an SEL program at Durfee so the kids coming from the middle school they were in an SEL classroom sub separate SEL classroom over at Talbot we are

transitioning over to Durfee they still need us some separate classroom they can't really transition into you know the the Gen Ed setting where did those kids go they still had a sub separate classroom with a special ed teacher para support identified based on the grid whatever the time they need in there so maybe they needed their grid said 100 minutes of reading and they were identified

maybe they needed more support and reading or maybe they like whatever the grid said we did provide those Services based on the grid not so that's what we're reading not as a program it's not isolated into a classroom all day and I guess if a student comes to you um Becca with with Reading Writing and math Services all in a secret what would that look like a lot of our kids yeah

they would get that much time so maybe the reading service has happened in English and it happened in history and science and the writing happened and depending on how many minutes were in the grid and if it said sub separate that's what they got with a special ed teacher in those classes in one room that traveled they do go to different rooms we want our sub separate science kids to go to

the science lab I want them to be in a science lab like the gender population so from English to science they go they move to a different room so are they traveling as a cohort not always with not all kids need the same thing everybody's on a different level yeah no I'm just trying to wrap my brain around so it's it's different because we're so big I don't we don't have to cohort kids

because they have the opportunity to if they're good in math they get to go out for math Services they go out for math but we have that capability because we have all the levels to talk about Middle School similarly we're actually departmentalized so they may travel as an individual cohort but there are Force um I'll give you you know customer school for example there are four substantially separate language-based

teachers each of them teaches a Content area so that we can maximize the impact of kids instruction so one teacher teaches English one special teachers math one science one social studies and the groups of up to 12 kids will travel together with paraprofessional support to the different classes they're all taught by special ed teachers it's also grid C Service delivery because it's out

of the General Ed setting but we're trying to build in those transitions to kind of treat it very similarly to how the other ketos are accessing are treated and are accessing classes in you know custom Middle School we want them to be at least if they can't be included for the instruction let's look for that inclusion opportunity in the general million of the school and how they actually interact with

um you know the building I'm looking off because I'm thinking so if if it's just sort of like one home base and that's kind of how I'm kind of hearing it right we've got one sub separate kind of home-based classroom for these kids that are coming in is it all kids that have identified needs in SEL or is it a mix of kids so are you talking about currently or next year currently currently they are

it is based on so they the groupings could have some mix so they have more severe SEL needs in one like they could be mixed but it's all based on so if the grid says 100 minutes of social emotional they may be placed with a student that has more reading um at the same time that could happen next year I've noticed when looking at the grids there are some students that

have more social emotional which is why that over the amount of minutes that are there which is why that extra class was created because their minutes are more than what is currently offered in the four English Math Science and History time I also for now physically all right so this year yeah we'll go with this year this year then they all don't start out at the same level all right so we have a math student who

is so we'd have a 14 year old sub-separate with a 16 year old sub separate at the same level is that accurate No I don't know why no no I mean no no it's not multiple it's not multimed it's weird yeah those are different disabilities might be together as well she was referring not grade level yeah that's why I was off with that so at the middle school level when we look at an

IEP in a grid because we keep saying about the grid the greater grid so if you have a model of a social emotional substantially separate class uh is every minute in that student's day on the grid so not necessarily it depends um every minute in which they require specially designed instruction is so I have some kiddos hanging up for example I use social emotional where super Hands-On

Learners they do really really well with like let's say tech ed they're great in their electives they do okay maybe a bad example because you know but let's just say they don't need specialized support in that area and they're fine we wouldn't write that into the IEP because not it's not a time when they require specialized instruction so in some cases we have kiddos that you probably heard of a few they'll need to

have that need all day right so you'll see 330 instructional minutes in their grid accounted for um some we may have you know they struggle you know seriously with English science social studies let's say talk about a 56 minute period you're looking at that 56 essentially times three so it's about a hundred and sixty two minutes under something like that 160 minutes ish in the grid every

day so you might see 160 minutes thinking these three classes in the social emotional setting whereas that fourth class they do really really well with that's the area of strength and they can be in gen Ed so it's based on me so I guess the point is when they might be doing okay for a little bit of time and when you're in the social emotional IEP that that good time might not last all

year might not last all period you're right so when they have to come back when they have to come back in do they go where yeah so it's it's it's It's Tricky so there'd be a recommend of the team obviously to trigger from that I mean in the classroom basis so like I see what you're saying so there's like a struggle where they need to go back they could go back to a

substantially separate classroom or if you know let's say that teacher has a prep and it's an elective or something like that we do have school adjustment counselors that work closely or social workers with these programs that are accessible we do have paraprofessional support where they could go back to a classroom space or a separate space if I could just jump in for one minute so one

of the things we need to look at when we're looking at our programming right Durfee is scheduling students based on Grit okay assign them to different classrooms middle schools and elementary schools assign them to a program so I'm not if I'm a middle school principal I'm not necessarily looking at your grid to say how many how many hours a day you need to spend here I'm saying you need a

substantially separate placement this is our social emotional program you go there and then when you you demonstrate that you're successful you want to try a larger class setting you have a strength in a certain academic area then we make that shift to go into a different setting so you see the difference on how durfee's doing it versus Middle School and that's a disconnect right because it

looks makes this student's day look very different and again we need to look at is it successful and if it's successful we need to start looking at how do we bring some consistency down to middle school or if that's not successful how do we build in more time for specialized programming at a high school level oh yeah that's where we need to be in Middle School the grid but I put in our

Plus in middle school so the in my mind in the Middle School you have home base you have program stuff I'm safe with Sarah she's my home base I can always get back to her no matter what I'm feeling anxiety whatever it is home base I can go back but then I can go to your class when I'm doing well and I can go like I get the right that's I think the

Missing Link at the high school in my opinion because in the old days we used to have that and I remember being very successful those type of programs did exactly what you just said when the student could go out they went out this and that we can say oh this program or the whatever reports the fact of the matter is is kids that have those type of needs need that type of program and

my personal opinion that's why I don't see it happen right and we need to look at the data that says what happens when our middle school students go to high school from a substantially separate classroom and even if it's a different type of it's a substantially separate classroom they go up there what is the success rate with them being able to maintain themselves after the in the um current

way things are scheduled and earn their credits and get their high school diploma get on track that's like the data that we need to see and I don't have that yeah the only I don't want to believe this point I think we made the point the only thing that bothers me is that we shouldn't need to recreate that data now we should have had this data over the years we've if the data isn't here right now

for us to say we know what this model of students was in each of those units and how they've been successful in that we don't have that information good better and different that tells me that we haven't been even looking at it or maybe I'm wrong but maybe it was out there but otherwise you have it in your hands she had it in her hands like so it doesn't appear that we've

manage it and my My worry is that I think that we've done some things in this district with changing IEPs based on what we have at the school not based on the kids needs I've been saying that for for years of the stone school how that got filled up as a day placement I've said it in the RPA you know minutes of meetings you can go back and look at

them we just got to look at it I think you're on the right track Mrs Ponce I think there's an electric wanting to look at it all and come up with the continuity plan Continuum of services so I think you're on it but I just hope you understand some of the frustration when we get those calls it's like are you kidding me again so I I just need to clarify uh elementary and middle school

students who are assigned to sub separate classrooms they are assigned to sub separate programs a principal doesn't decide who's assigned and who isn't assigned it's based on the team meeting and based on IEP so they can assign they can schedule kids and how they're going to schedule kids but kids that are assigned to a social emotional or language based or whatever that is based on their IEP based on a team

meeting and it's district assignments that no one has the can arbitrarily at no principle can arbitrarily say hey they're going to go into the SEL classroom they can't do it because legally we can't do it correct no idea I 100 get it yeah but the problem with that is you forgot to say the high school yep so that same thing you just said exists in the high school level it exists at Stone school it exists that

IPA so that's the IEP drives that same thing so that's why I asked for the information because we should have that data what are they looking at and when what it what is different I have cases that people have already explained to me that I continually try to to help and that that's not happening so we're not doing it we just prove that today that we're not doing it we just proved today that we have social

emotional classrooms at the middle school level that a student gets whether it's on the grid or not they get X services or X Program and that when they go to the next grade it's not there so that means either we should change the IEPs in eighth grade to make sure it identifies the program or more specifics to what those services are going to be for the entire day or is it like a loophole that when you

get to ninth grade oh we can only follow the grid so we're covered that's my concern any other questions well I think the reality is is that we do follow we have to follow the grid but we're not naming it in the in the elementary of the Middle School IEPs that we're putting the kids into a sub separate program maybe that's the thing that has to change some separate program as a whole so some separate

language-based program this you know Johnny is going into a sub-separate language-based program and will receive x amount of minutes per content area in the grid to identify that we don't necessarily identify that on the placement page but we might identify it but in the end one or the key evaluation results section of the IP we do typically identify the program the student is in within the IEP but when

it's not necessarily stated on the on the placement right and so when you have a family who's calling and saying my kids IEP changed what they're what they're hearing I don't know that that information is clearly communicated to a family so a kid's in a sub-separate language-based classroom they've been in a sub separate language-based classroom since you know first grade that's where

they've thrived and now we're going to go over the high school and there is no sub separate language based program you're still going to get the same type of services but there's no sub separate language-based program so I think that's part of where that disconnect comes from because families don't always understand that right I wouldn't understand that I think there's a lot of conversation at

this table going like how does that even happen and I also that does make their day they look very different because if they're not able to go out even though it says x amount of minutes they may be getting more minutes in that sub-separate program because there isn't room for them to go out which is a whole other issue that I'm not touching right now but taking all that information in and I'm

just sitting with it for a moment um but I think that's where that disconnect comes like oh but Johnny was in this classroom all day from eight to three Thirty and now off they go we actually separate program but now the children are traveling so but typically it seems that seems to segue from elementary schools Middle School the kids are traveling in cohorts from subject it's like not at every school

but not in every school actually it looks different right I think the reason why not at every school is because of the actual size of the program for instance at Doran I'll give you that example I have one Middle School social emotional classroom one that's it so like it's hard for me to say rotate between all of these features when I have one for that grade level right and it's just it's the size of the building

and you know what I mean it's the location of the program something we are shifting for next year because that's a whole other conversation as well exactly so we we do try to like think about those things and shift some things around um but it also depends on true numbers of programs any school space space and capacity it needs building place a factor you know what I mean it depends

on there's a myriad of other things but what we're trying to do and we're trying to get away from we used to have historically a social emotional class in each Middle School a language-based classes in each Middle School We Had Each one multi-grade right it was multi-grade and it was kind of its own Island in departmentalizing and making this bigger what we're trying to do is get kids together for Content areas

traveling and building some more of those experiences so a it's just it's a very complex process and sorry you hit the nail on the head I think when you said you know that's another conversation we can't have right now that's there's a lot of games there's a lot of things that tie together but this one looks different communicating that to Families how it changes how we do we need to make make sure they understand

when their child is going into Middle School when their child is going into High School how it's going to change so that they feel more short they have a better understanding I agree we absolutely need to to do a better job at communicating that with family I would argue that we have to do a better job of understanding that too because even within these conversations it's everybody knows exactly what they're

talking about but the information is coming out very differently and so it's not getting communicated clearly so if we can't communicate that clearly even amongst ourselves then how do we expect that to get communicated to families right we can't and then that it does look like we're changing the kids IEP to fit our needs which we can't do because that is wholly illegal but that's

exactly what that looks and sounds like right and this is how we end up with complaints and you know then we start peeling back players and there's all kinds of issues so you know I don't I think we're right in saying it looks like we're changing the IEP even though technically we're not but again because people don't have that understanding of really what that is supposed to look like or what something really means

you know the understanding is yeah we're changing the IP to fit what we need right we need to make sure that we truly have what we say we have right a Continuum of services from K through 12.

yeah and people everybody from from our staff to the kids know exactly absolutely what it is that's happening why it's happening and what that is going to look like at each level of Education Pre-K kids are going to look different than our high schoolers right and they need to I was going to say I hope so I don't know all the other questions have you met three-year-olds okay thank you for the info so I just

want to just clarify though I'm giving you guys might like to see two years of IEPs from social emotional kids that have gone to Durfee the IEP itself redacted the names obviously and then the placement for 8th graders and I think that'll be just telling to us to either dispel what some people say or no so thank you for the info 305 is the we're going to school that's just part I

think this one for me yeah absolutely I know that this is the alternative special ed Alternatives um Ed committee certainly we wanted to just make sure we're not ignoring uh our pa um I think that it's going to Warrant that this group reconvene and have a meeting just to discuss the work that's being done down there I just wanted to say that um Dr B has been we've been meeting with the team she's been down

there working with the leadership team we actually have had individual meetings and and have some coming up looking at their data looking at what's in place CeCe came in and did a an assessment on May 11th we're just getting that report on uh Miss Obin chain was on jury duty so we haven't unpacked that report we're going to unpack it with um leadership team over at RPA look at you know the

strengths as well as the areas to the opportunity for growth and recommendations and we will be meeting with this team and going over what that exactly says what our plan is and how do we address it and how do we strengthen the supports in moving forward with RPA we've had I don't know if you want me to add anything but certainly we've had some good conversations and certainly we

we know that it's worth to be done and I think that we're moving I think that I have faith in you to do the right things with that and I don't I didn't want it to be that we're not talking about it right exactly we're aware of it but we need to give you a new team some time to get some things in order and then we'll have a meeting we'll probably be meeting

over the summer by inclusion specifically for that and at the same time so yeah and then Early Childhood is also part of this now which we talked about having some meetings to prepare for for meetings as well so that hasn't been forgotten uh increase next to yourself any new business so I'm holding my RPA questions because I had a list of them yes okay and we also will discuss the RPA Credit Recovery Etc yes

thank you have a great night everyone