The Fall River Instructional Subcommittee convened on Monday, August 5th, 2024, with Mr. Das and Ms. Lar present. The subcommittee discussed and voted on the referral of three contracts to the full committee: Renaissance, Ignite, and Elevation. All three motions to refer passed unanimously among the present members.
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today's Monday August 5th 2024 are convened for an instructional subcommittee uh Deb can I please get a roll call Mr Das here lar here Perera FL please I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you open meeting law pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an
0:38audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those pres present and are teed acknowledged and permissible uh is there citizens in court all thank you okay we will start with discussions uh this is a discussion in vote to refer Renaissance uh renewal
1:06contract uh Dr Curley if you want to startop or whoever you sure um so at the I'll I'll start and then I'll likely hand it over but um at the full committee meeting uh we were referred back to subcommittee I think that there were some um there were maybe were some general questions around the fact that um the backup um which remains it says illuminate ucation whereas the contract
1:32was for Renaissance there was a buyout situation so the products are still um illuminate DNA illuminate edge of climber but there was a buyout so the parent company is in is Renaissance um and that's where the contract um how the contract is titled we have um we basically used two of their products illuminate DNA and illuminate edge of climber DNA we've been working with for um 3 years already and we originally had
2:00edge of climber at the same time that contract was deferred for a year um U I will say we didn't realize at first that we um what a what a lift it was going to be to get illuminated DNA off the ground and we had Ed um the edge of climber paused for long enough that we raised our hand and said can we just start this next year and so we did that um so I
2:22know that there was a request for some usage data um and uh Miss Lewis our um coordinator for um data assess does have some of that to share perfect um so 463 teacher users um in just the last month of school um there were there have been 432,000 student assessments created in this program um 5.7 million student assessment responses because as you probably know this program took the
3:00place of AET for all of our district bench marking so that's what happened this year all of that got rolled over we had a goal of ela and math and it just it went far beyond that it it's just the right thing to do for teachers and kids um so um we gave 1.3 th000 online assessments so you know that's per student times all of our so it's it's pretty
3:32well um in the fiber of how we do business with assessment now um and then on the flip side the edge of Climer side the real value will come in this year cuz now we have that Year's worth of data to be pulling in and really trying to drill down what students are doing well which students are struggling is there commonalities we were looking today at the admin Institute you know
3:58third graders have time com to school on Mondays and that's the kind of data poll that you can quickly do um so I don't want to go well I just I mean may I yes but I just remember uh he first hearing of this and it was just very easy to pull the data is is that accurate and it's a lot of data that you can get from this specific ver right not only can you
4:22get sort of the overall score but they can the teachers can pull by standard they can pull by what we call domains so you know fractions um and and you can compare that over multiple assessments longitudinally over time which that used to take hours and hours and hours to do right so who who's pulling the data you just said the teachers right the teachers have the ability to sometime sometimes they'll
4:46ask for a little bit of help but um for the most part they have the teachers the department heads the directors everybody everybody has their hands at the school level um you can actually uh like you know a student profile so you can go and select a whole history of Assessments um so that's helpful for a meeting you know if you're having a meeting with a family member you can look at get that whole
5:09profile for a child and one of the things I would add um is that when we first started looking at at um illuminate we we didn't even realize it at the time it was um during like while we were closed for Co that spring um I was looking at it in terms of a data platform found out when I was making some inquiries um that Dr La Liberty was actually looking at in terms of a
5:33Science assessment platform um and that's how these two pieces came together um where we where we purchased those um item Banks as well but during that time we did a little um we were trying to do some research about the value of it and um Mrs Kennedy and I each we we pulled some data we kind of we tried to look at like if we were doing some kind of profiling of a
5:56student for some kind of larger meeting what would that look like and we were pulling from three or four different platforms for a single student um pulling the you know attendance data conduct data any kind ofal NOS academic data and it was taken between six and 8 hours to pull that data into something that we could use for you know analysis and discussion at the table and here I'm
6:23not going to say like oh it's one click and it's done but what we can do is build out you know we're we're building out um dashboards so all of that data that we've identified as like these are the data points that are important for kids we can build that out so that you can pull up that Dash you mean by you're building the dashboards yeah and so that's the kind of thing we weren't able
6:44to do when the data was being you know we had anet at the time we were using um a different platform for the data warehousing we were using Asin so that we can pull have all that and attendance data and um it just wasn't an efficient use of time and so the efficiency that's built into this um is I think where we'll really see um gains the and especially we're talking about like it's
7:10not just about a death planning it's not just about pulling the profile it really is it really does allow for educators small groups of Educators to pull data for individual students or student groups and it's informing instruction they're bringing that to their planning um coaches and Department chairs are supplying that during planning and that's that's where we're seeing the biggest benefit right thank you any
7:33questions yes that's a quick question two questions so the 463 users um well I guess let me back up so this illuminate just specifically for the entire district for the high school for the entire District so we have 463 teacher users I heard that correct so those I I'm assuming that these are people who have authored so the the beautiful part about this is I created the grade 8 Benchmark you as the
8:03grade8 teacher you just have to administer it it's so I'm I I'd have to dig into that but that seems low if it's counting people who are using assessments right right so um so do you believe it's being used to a full potential I think that every I'll say that every single platform that we have is a work in progress I think it's bigger than the 463 um that Miss Lewis identified
8:31because we do have we do have people like now someone like Miss Lewis who is building something districtwide where every eighth grader is taking that same assessment but then individual schools are building some internal assessments for formatives individual teachers might be developing something in the form of you know an exit ticket or some kind of assessment at the end of a week or a
8:51unit or whatever it is um so do I think it's we continue to build it out but we are from the very beginning in our work with the company um they have complimented us and I know that companies can do this all the time but we've had enough discussions with them that um have told us that our implementation right up from the start was more advanced than what was happening in other districts just
9:19because we had some folks who were dedicated to it who were becoming experts in it um and then doing the training within the district we didn't always have to depend on um large trainings where we were bringing him a trainer we could go out to individual schools small groups and things like that in that usage like the teachers who are using this platform show like how many minutes does it show like what
9:39they're doing with that does it show like a lot of usage or is just showing that they're logging into the system and that's all we can track so so students use this where we are using it really consistently that students use illuminated in order to take an assessment teachers can then go into there and look at the data or myself principal let's say at tal that last
10:00year I was able to say I want to look at all e8th grade ELA for the whole year I guess it depends on what your research so I could filter by teacher and I I I want to just like that 463 are not the viewers they're the Creator they're pulling the data no they're creating so for instance I I didn't create anything in there but I would be as a user as a principal constantly
10:27looking at the data saying all right let me look at how Ela did across let me look at sixth grade ELA whereas maybe Steph Kennedy or someone else or a department head in my building might be going in and saying all right I'm going to create this 10 question assessment so they would be coming I think off of that 400 but myself or a teacher who is just pulling the student data to look at and
10:49say how did my class do right the teacher can literally look at their whole class all the classes they teach um I could look across the building and really get a good comparison for and carve out and say oh multilingual Learners I can see what they need here right versus maybe students with disabilities versus you know aggregate students so you can filter in many different ways do we have data on how
11:11many students um are being administered Assessments in I mean I think every every single student regularly yeah I know I can only speak right now 5.7 million responses that would be in and 432,000 so it's built in as an expectation when you so let's say you did a a unit for 6 weeks or 8 weeks your benchmark that you'll take your assessment into that unit is going to be done in Lum and that's standard across
11:38the board and then that data will be brought up during planning meetings with the instructional lead um supporting teachers and making sense about data and action plan and then much like we see with our state assessments it's not all machine scored some of it is machine scored but teachers have to go in there and correct open response questions sa questions things that are final two questions do
12:02we have any similar that's being used right now for like assessing data no this is it and I mean I think the one thing I would add is that at one point we were using um you know one platform to do the assessments we were using what we were using AET um which was you know a few hundred, um to do just math and Ela then we were building Assessments in a separate platform um and then
12:29having to you know we literally couldn't the company couldn't do the work that we needed them so that we could house all of our data in the same place and this is this ends up being like a less expensive and much more efficient way of doing business um and it's something that you know literally every teacher um every student is in the district is is using so um can I just a request that we
12:55refer this that um what you just provided to to people committee like the data sure on the US yeah I'll make a motion to refer to committee second yes yes okay next is the discussion to uh vote and refer ignite contract uh Dr curlyy please sure so um I a question came up kind of in the intern prior to this meeting about didn't we already approve ignite or something to that extent right um and so
13:34we have a couple we have a couple different things going on with Ignite um the first was that we're in we have a second contract for 300 students um 300 first grade students through the One Foundation we then have a contract where we purchased seats for ignite for the coming year for first graders um that we talked about the last subcomittee meeting and then there's a third element
13:57and that's what we were going to talk about today and Mrs keny you can talk a little bit more about it but the original contract that we had the original Grant contract um I call it a money back guarantee where they said that we know this is going to work we've done the research we continue the research this is going to work and if it doesn't we'll continue to work with
14:16students who didn't make progress and so that's where we are in terms of this contract if you want to talk about it yeah that's exactly right so the initial Grant um had the wording up to 1,134 um last year with our 300 seats in first grade we used $750,000 of that money um for the sy23 24 school year in those six schools um when they looked at the data for the 300
14:45students in those six schools they found that there was a group of um of students that they would want to continue the work with um and those students they have certain things certain criteria that that they've met either they started the beginning of last year at the basic alphabet knowledge early kindergarten skills or they had a low progress monitoring rate so every time they finish a protocol or a series of
15:14lessons they progress monitor students and if students had a low progress monitoring rate and they had to keep reteaching those kids qualified because it showed them that kids needed more practice with the skills um a slow progression through the protocols was also an indicator that told them that kids need more practice um or a low fluency rate um their ability to do what theyve been taught automatically was
15:39also another indicator and so um the company has offered to continue tutoring for um about 121 students at the Six Original schools and that would be $198,000 coming out of the initial Grant out of the 1,00 the 1,1 34,000 so it's not it's not an ask for additional money it's just um letting you know that that Grant is still alive and kicking as they work with those additional those
16:15students for an additional year right and is it accurate say we're not paying for anything this is just all grant money this was yeah this was originally approved as a 2-year Grant right and so there was a a a balance of 3 $75,000 left um because the cost was $759 $759,000 last year and so the 198,000 is just coming off of that $375,000 balance that's left which was already proved in last year's you know
16:43when the gr came forward last year I think my only other question was the attendance at 75 so if some of these kids have The Chronic absenteeism and there's really good reasons for whatever it shall be why why don't we like why don't we service the kid that's at 80% uh yeah so there were very few students that actually had a low attendance rate and 75 is the um is the minimum that counts as like students
17:12that qualifies um the our attendance rate was in the '90s um as an aggregate in the 9s and so we had a very high that little T okay uh I think there were maybe two students that we had to substitute out with another child for whatever reason having to do and a lot of that is tied to the fact that this is part of research and they know that if if you have students who
17:38are attending to it less than 75% of the days then the they're not it's not going to be as impactful that would so there if if they have a little disclaimer that says you have to be there for 75% of the time that's what we did partner with Dr brard um the ELA Department partners with Dr brard and um Dr at the time and came up with an attendance plan that was
18:02very specific to this um group of students and also the group of students that were getting MTH joring um and so there was there were steps that were taken to make sure that that didn't have a problem gotta um so for students that um go to second grade they have to um continue on with the program so he might chooses to do um you think it's you think it's fair like there's election since everyone
18:29choosing what students continue on well we selected the students initially based on our data um when they were in the beginning of first grade and so of the pool of students that um we provided to them those are the students that either graduated out or met these qualifications or were on track in a different way than than these students that were selected so they didn't just randomly pick from all of our students
18:55they selected from the students that we had so yeah so essentially any student in a first cohort that didn't make adequate progress let's say according to how they're measuring progress what they're saying is we're going to give them an additional dose in second grade um in order to see if they can you know improve but they're not choosing all the students but some of that is simply
19:20because the students made progress there isn't any reason for them to continue with the intervention in second grade they've they've made the necessary progress and now they're joining their peers and because they don't require the intervention sorry I missed it on here is there like a total number of students that had to um continue the second grade um yes 121 121 and how many um students are in the program three
19:48um do we can we get like a breakdown on like what schools are you know struggling the most think not not not for today specifically we don't have it but for Committee just how many are you asking for how many students at Fons are qualified in this additional dose how many students at Green exact yes exactly exactly it's a pretty big number as like I would say roughly a third of students
20:14have continue on of course we want to get those numbers down so any way we can help those different schools so um I so what what would you need for us in terms of action like a prer so I think think we were actually just having that discussion because I think that it says um refer the ignite contract and so it is the it's the additional seats the contract feed the additional seats that
20:42we would need approv and can we just get a copy of the actual is there an actual contract like with numbers attached we didn't get it here well we have a quote a quote we have the quote that will include okay all right I'll make a motion to refer so a motion to refer the the additional seats for the ignite contract right correct you know just that and so
21:07just a point of clarity if can this show up as a continuation yes contract in the list of contract yes okay so I'm sorry I was to refer the contract the ignite contract uh the additional seat the ignite contract is that the the that's what we need correct and and just to clarify this has nothing to do I remember at the last meeting we're debating whether to send the um additional 10050 to
21:39300 and so and maybe we call them year two seats so that there's not or second grade seats or something like that you're two second grade seats second grade seats
22:08second sorry Mr D yes yes okay so next is a uh a discussion uh to vote for elevation contract Dr curly is that you Mr Roso open on this one yeah so this is um this also is uh a renewal so we've we've worked with elevation um and so this really is a platform to provide professional development um to teachers Miss sarella can you know speak in more detail to it yeah so there's two things
22:49that elevation does for us um if you've been in the district long enough you would know that there's some purple folders that get moved from school to school with all the uh data not data with all of the compliance paperwork for our multilingual Learners that includes their language acquisition team leing notes that includes their access scores the state mandates a list of things that
23:10need to be kept in that folder we have moved those records to a digital platform that is all being housed in our elevation platform that just makes it easier when a student transfers from school to school there's no need to find the purple folder make sure it's following them it's all there um it's also just teachers can complete the workflow directly through the elevation platform so instead of completing an L
23:35meeting on paper or on a Google doc and uploading it there's a workflow they do it um and it's it goes right into the platform it also allows us to Monitor and make sure that those workflows are completed for each student as they need to be every single year additionally as uh Mr aoso mentioned there's also a professional development component every teacher needs to earn 15 pdps regarding English language learner
24:02education in order to renew their license elevation is a provider of that they are allowed through the state of Massachusetts to issue pdps teachers can go in and take um professional development in an asynchronous format on any topic that is relevant to them from biliteracy which helps our dual language teachers to newcomers which helps our teachers who work with newcomers and it
24:28is accessible to every single teacher administrator in the district to have that PD on demand it also provide strategies for students there's a bank of strategies that allows teachers an entry point for scaffolding students up to um achieve their next level of English language proficiency so there's multiple um things that this platform provides to our district is this a Ral yes this is a continuation continuation
24:59um similar to what we're discussing with Renaissance do we have data on the usage so in terms of students every single ESL student in our district has a file and because it's mandated so there has to be a file if you are a multi-lingual learner you must have a file um in there so every ESL student which the number fluctuates around 2,700 is is slightly more slightly fewer at any given moment so all of those
25:26students have a record in there and we are just beginning to track the professional development usage so we will definitely have harder numbers for you on who's earning professional development points through this by the end of this school year when we come up for Renewal again but every student must have a file for for Statewide compliance okay um I'll make a motion to refer to the full
25:52committee great I'd like to add the continuation aspect as well sure just the continuation of the UN contract take Elation I'm sorry elevation just take the when you
26:17ready Mr D yes M lar yes M Perera um any business come forward it Liberty P support Renaissance support I'll entertain a motion move call please Mr D yes yes meeting is thank you very much guys thank