Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting with the alley to the school committee on Thursday, November 18, 2021. I'm Bill Hain of the chair. For me to permit me to confirm that all members of persons anticipated on the agenda, our president can hear me when I call your name please respond in the affirmative. This accident. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Armative. Dr. Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Ms. Morgan. Yes. Dr. Holman. Yes. Mr. Spiegel. Not with us right at the moment. Mr. Mason. Yeah. Ms. Elmer. Here. And I would like to welcome the Allington Education Association representative, Sir Ferranti and the student representative, Morgan Carmody.  It doesn't need tonight. Okay, great. Tonight's meeting of the Allington or the Allington School Committee is being conducted remotely, consistent with an act signed into law on June 16, 2021 that extends certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency. The act includes an extension until April 1, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The Governor's order, which is referenced with agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting, allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, permit me to offer a few notes. This meeting is being conducted via zoom and is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI persons wishing to join the meeting by zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others and that if they wish to participate, you're asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. All participants are advised that people may be listening to do not provide comment and those persons may not require to identify themselves. Both zoom participants of persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials, also found on the town's website using the novice agenda platform. At this time, we, I'm going to read a statement dealing with public participation comment from members of the public wish to address the committee there will be 30 minutes of public comment depending on the number of people who sign up time allotments maybe reduced but will not exceed three minutes each. The number of people who sign up exceeds what can be done in 30 minutes the number of speakers will be kept and will be invited to speak based on the time stamp of their emails to the students. The school committee respectfully request participants of the public to utilize their camera, if possible, while speaking and to adhere to the public comment policy BEDH that requires participants to provide the name and address. We offer such objective criticisms of the school operations and the programs is concerned. But in public session the committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel are against any member of the school community, except the school committee are the superintendent in the capacity as the operational leader of the public schools. Additionally, the committee will not hear anything that might identify or infringe upon a student's privacy by name or incident. If you would like to sign up to speak please email e diggins at allington.k12.ma.us by 12 noon on the day of the meeting. We have two people that have signed up. The first one is Rachel Austro. Hello. Yeah, my name is Rachel Austro I live at 20 stone road. I'm going to speak in support of principal Michael Hannah and assistant principal Aaron spinnies presentation that they'll be making later this evening about improvement plans for Stratton school. As they're going sure going to be highlighting in their comments, despite endless creative solutions from the amazing leadership of Stratton. Stratton is really reaching the limitations of their physical footprint in space. Now I have a first grader and a third grader at Stratton. I'd like to focus my comments, particularly on the students in the Stratton SLC and how I think that they are being disproportionately impacted by these space constraints. So, Stratton has a very large percentage of the special education students within Arlington. The program at Stratton serves a large number of autistic students who with what are classified as higher needs who do require smaller class sizes and lower sensory stimulation in order to learn. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid this year reducing the overall SLC classroom space by one third. So that immediately impacts those students abilities to benefit from a cost smaller class space as well as a lower sensory space. Additionally, as as you'll learn in the presentation more I'm sure other service spaces within the building such as occupational classes are full to bursting. There's nowhere right now really for any Stratton student to feel like they can take a break. And that would pertain to students in the general ed classrooms as well as students in the supportive learning center. There are wonderful spaces that really could be utilized just for a student who needs to take a break and work on some self regulation by exiting the classroom and moving to a quiet space or simply not available anymore. And again, as I said, every creative solution and opportunity that faculty and administration have been able to take has already been made including significant sacrifices to their administrative working spaces. Again, these things are impacting both of my children and really all of the children and staff at Stratton but I really want to emphasize what a distressing situation this is for the students in the SLC. And finally, I want to highlight that the playground at Stratton as many, if not all know is in disrepair did fail inspection and most of the playground equipment has not been able to use be used yet this year. Now it is supposedly first for rebuild but I would request that the school committee consider budgeting funds in addition to what the parks department is going to be able to provide in their budget because this playground is an urgent need. We have a population of students who is not able to have space to find relief or to reach their learning goals through an appropriate space within the building simply because of these intense physical space constraints and now they also are not able to use the playground equipment that many of them rely on for more than just fun but also for taking those important sensory breaks that they really need in order to come back into the building and achieve their learning goals. So again, I really hope that the school committee is able to support you Michael and Aaron when they present that school improvement plan and really consider the unique and high needs population at Stratton. When we do get to that portion of the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Brenda Marley. Hi, thank you. I'm also here to speak on behalf and in support of Stratton school improvement plan I'm part of the student council and oh sorry 44 Dixon Ave. I'm part of student council excuse me school council for Stratton. And I of course I just want to thank take the time to thank the school committee for everything they've done that you've done in the past 18 months, and forgetting our children back into schools and where they should be. And although what's normally even part of a school improvement plan is is in dire need of attention and that's our space needs now is the time that we need to actually be on par with the rest of the schools, you know last year. So that art at home, we were happy to at least have art at home is as messy as that may have been but, but this year one of the examples of the space needs is that art is either in a cart on a cart in classrooms, or it's in the cafeteria. And that makes it so that they, they can't necessarily do all the things that normally would in the art classroom and it's a, it's a shame that, you know, things, we haven't been in that art classroom basically since the pandemic began. And so that's one of the constraints and, and when you see, you know I've been volunteering in the school and you do see a lot of kids and a lot of movement, and one of the things that I asked my own child today. And I know that it's affecting staff as well Mr. Hannah will talk about that but is the constant kind of moving of classrooms even this year and you just as a kid may learn that okay I thought third grade was up here and now, you know, it's down here this year or or who knows where it is. So that's one of the things, and to know that the space concerns aren't because the needs aren't because due to pandemic and having to stay apart, it's, it's something that's been going on and coming up for a while so I just want to talk about the support of actually rectifying this hopefully sooner than later if we, if I had my way I would, I would start to, you know, do things, even this year. And it's just something that the kids, the kids deserve to have the, the equal opportunities that other school children to in their schools and as well as outside and again I think the school for coming together with the town to try to address the playground issues as well so thank you for your time we're just hoping for the best for our kids now that they're back in school full time. Thank you. The Heidi School Improvement Plan. Kate Peretz. Good evening. I'm Kate Parris I'm the principal at Hardy Elementary. And I am joined this evening by Peggy Setsulis our assistant principal. I'm here briefly full time this year in the AP role. And we are very happy to be here tonight to present a few slides on our school improvement plan. And so I think that Peggy can present. Just tickets can she share the screen. There you go. There we go. All right, thanks very much. So the first thing that I'd really like to tell everyone is that this is my fourth year at Hardy and since I've begun. We really have been working on goals that are really quite focused on equity inclusion, and really creating a safe and supportive environment for all of our students, and really looking towards as everyone is creating an environment in which we can achieve very high levels for all of our students. And so there's an agenda for us for this evening, which will go back a little bit to the next slide Peggy, an introduction to Hardy will go over some Hardy wins and Hardy challenges. We're going to talk about our priorities for 2021 and 2022, some key initiatives and action steps and talk about some resources that we need to support success and then leave some time for questions. Next slide please. So Hardy Hardy is actually a learning community that has about 412 students now during the course of the pandemic our enrollment did go down. And so but we do have 412 students right now in grades K through five with approximately 60 staff members. We have 23 sections and this year we were very excited to welcome a new supported Learning Center, a K through to classroom school C C that moved from the bracket school. We are a proud member of the medical community, and we have a really unbelievably, unbelievably supportive and active PTO parent teacher organization, our school council, and our dig our diversity and inclusion group. So we've done we've been in building project mode, the entire time, and we'll talk about that a little bit as we go some really wonderful and exciting additions to our Hardy space. Next slide. Another work with our students our faculty and families has really been one of the most wonderful and rewarding things that we've worked on over the last three years. You'll see in the center that Hardy H with the hand mind and heart. And so this is something that's been a part of Hardy from the very beginning. So here's hand mind and heart. Here we train hand mind and heart for the common good are carved into the front of our Hardy building in stone 1925. And so there have been other words that have been used to describe Hardy over the years but with work together with the students and the faculty and the families we have recommitted to this. And so we've gone, we've spent quite a lot of time working with our students talking about what are the words that we use to describe Hardy. And then we've discovered that the kids came up with words that were very consistently positive and supportive and inclusive. And one of them you see right here in pictures of our murals that have been painted on the walls with a wonderful visiting artist brand body clan over the past couple of years and here you see kind respectful and inclusive along with hand mind and heart. So we are continuing to work on our commitment to our school values and vision. And talking about our building projects we have in the past few years added, as you know, in addition to the Hardy school, six beautiful new classrooms, a playground on Lake playground on Chandler Street which opened this fall and is been very well used by the school and the community. Since it's opening it's a lot of fun. And, of course, our diversity, equity and inclusion work, but moving on to the next slide we do have challenges. And so one of the easiest ways to really talk about it is using standardized assessments like the MCAS data. And so I think something that a lot of schools have been talking about are the trends that they're seeing in this data. And looking from 2019 to 2021. We discovered that through the course of pandemic that there were some things that we noticed but it was actually much more helpful for us to look at the data from 2017 through to 2021 and really think about what we were seeing so these colors represent categories, different groups of students within our school. Asian, black, Hispanic, multi race and white. And as you look at the bar graphs over time. We see that there's not a lot of movement, and that we definitely see that there has been a gap in opportunity in our opinion for many of our students and that we need to do some really hard work to make sure that everyone is achieving at the levels at which we think they should. So next slide. This is just another way to look at this. Well, the MCAS is not the be all and end all I and we'll talk a little bit more about the kinds of assessments that we do in school. I think that it's very clear that this is an area that we need to pay more attention, even more attention than we have in the last few years. I think that we have in our school improvement plan have actually been over time since I started so this is not the beginning of goals but goals that are being continued on. And so I think that we are seeing some positive things within our school community and the work we're doing in school, and the work on that goals and we'll get into more detail with that later. And that kind of helps you to see that when you look at the MCAS it's really that 500 mark that you're thinking about wanting to be above that 500 in order to be meeting or exceeding expectations and below that mark is really not something that we want to see that's where we need improvement and there's quite a difference there. Before we go on to the next slide though, I shared this data, and this presentation and been working on this with our faculty, and also with our families but and receiving feedback but when I did this with our faculty, we really did talk about some of the other challenges that we're looking from this point forward, our struggle for us now, and they have to do with staffing. And they also have to do with the social emotional needs of most all of our community at this point in time and that's something that we're really paying a lot of attention to right now, and working on collaboratively with district administrators with faculty with families, and really thinking about how we can put plans in place that are going to help us to achieve academic goals because we're really paying attention to the whole child. Next slide please. Melissa is going to unmute herself and she's going to tell us a little bit about one of the things that has become a focus for us in the last few years MTSS. Thank you Kate, and one of the ways that we are paying attention and responding is through MTSS MTSS is a multi tiered system of support that takes a proactive approach and identifying students with academic social emotional and or behavioral needs. And MTSS model affords us the opportunity to respond to a student, to the student need quickly and efficiently. And it is a way that we have this integrated instruction model where we collect the data, assess the student need and then provide the interventions, kind, almost in real time, without much lag. Early assessment and intervention for students can help them catch up with their peers sooner. Some of the key components include ongoing data collection and continual assessment, which is part of this process. Universal screening of all students kindergarten screening is an example of this that we do early in the school year. We conduct formative assessments in areas of reading, math, social emotional functioning, and we use tools such as the dibbles the I ready, the mental health screener cellis and panorama. And these are examples of assessments, which through gathering the data and really analyzing the data we can then intervene and create small groups, small reading groups, small graph math groups, and small social work groups as well. MTSS involves tiers of interventions that can be amplified and or adjusted in response to levels of need. As a faculty, we continue to commit ourselves to responsive classroom and tools of the mind as approaches to learning school wide. We recognize that the first to 10 weeks of school this year are critical and these approaches are well integrated into our system. As responsive classroom and tools of the mind are primarily classroom based approaches we are expanding our reach by incorporating PBIS or the positive behavior interventions and support to the greater school environment, which includes teaching common expectations in the shared spaces around the building, along with a common language for all of our staff and students. And of course, a big part of MTSS includes parent involvement and partnership. So our school priorities for this year are well laid out in the school improvement plan and are bulleted here. We continue to have a very strong focus on our early literacy skill instruction and assessment in K through three and so this is our measurement for early literacy development. Different assessments which can be made more formative so meaning not like the MCAS at all that you get well after the test has been given. But in the moment with our students looking at student work and meeting together as teachers to make decisions on next steps for instruction based on those assessments those screeners in kindergarten and well in first and second and third grade but it has been rolled out to all K through three those dibbles reading assessments. And so but also those multi tiered systems of supports like Peggy just talked about, but really also looking at the structure in which we think about student need and the kinds of interventions that need to be put in place when we go beyond that tier one instruction that basic instruction for everyone in the classroom. And that's our students support team SST and really thinking and working together as educators to see that that system is really supporting the progress of our students who need that extra tier two or tier three support and how we get there and how those interventions are done equitably, and in a way that it really is meant to target student need an individual level. The other thing that I really want to share is this collaboration between our school and our parent groups, and really making the work of school council be more expressly the work of our dig equity and inclusion work, and really spending some time working with those volunteers that we see on a regular basis to put together some sessions in which we actively recruit and raise the voices of those families that we don't see at every PTO meeting or every school council meeting. So with our PTO thinking about the ways that we celebrate our diverse identities through celebration and through enrichment activities for students and families. And there are many grants that are out there that we're working on writing and our PTO is helping with that right now, in order to have, hopefully, fingers crossed, a mass cultural council grant in order to have a poet in just as we have had an artist in residence painting murals at hearty in years past. So next slide. And so this is maybe a little bit small but it really is just the more specific ways in which we're thinking about key initiatives and action steps and the measurement of those things. And so, as we said, in literacy using those more formative assessments, thinking about very specific curriculum that teaches explicitly phonics from K through three which is happening in all of the schools. And then also that work that we're doing with school culture which Peggy I'll let you jump in one more time to talk about that. Again, part of our school culture is to be working with the PBIS Academy, and this is great work that's made possible by the Master Department of elementary and secondary education. We'll be rolling out our new behavior matrix that the students and the faculty and even parents have looked at, and that is also part of our PBIS system. We're also going to expand the implementation of the second step curriculum in grades two, four and five, which is an evidence based curriculum that targets skill instruction in areas such as relationship building and self awareness. We're going to develop more culturally responsive teaching practices and this is through our work with adaptive X, which is also grant work supported by desi. We will continue to grow our hearty school culture team and use the team as teacher leaders to share their learning during faculty meetings and other planning times. And we want to raise the rate of participation of family members and our shared decision making process with the help of PTO school council and the dig committee members. As we do this work with a continued focus on equity. Before we open it up for questions. I also want to say just again a thank you to all of our teachers and family members who gave us feedback on the school improvement plan and the thinking about the things that we need to continue to focus on. It's too much to be able to include in this presentation and there's so much more that we would love to be able to say about hearty. We love our school we love the work that we're doing. It has been a challenging start to this whole year. And I think that we need to really be able to work together to address those challenges and to work on really making sure that we're creating that safe inclusive positive space for our kids. So I think that we have the ability to do that. And I really am very thankful for everyone who is working together to get us, you know, got us through a little bit of a bumpy start at the beginning of the school year with COVID. But we continue to have ups and downs but a lot more ups than downs. So, thank you everyone for listening. And if you have any questions. Are there any questions. Mr slickman. More more a comment and a question. I mean, you have a problem here in that you have a member of the school committee who spent 19 years, whose job was to read through a couple of dozen school improvement plans critique them. Assist schools in terms of making them better and aligning them to district goals so I probably have a more critical eye on this, just based on my experience than anybody else in the district. I appreciate what you're doing. I think that you're doing things that are important. And all I want to do right now is offer a couple of suggestions. Because this is the first time you've done this so that you'll have this in mind when you do this school improvement plan. Next year you'll have the experience and sort of be able to reflect upon it. And the impression I had from reading the school improvement plan is a fairly generic thing and it was rather full. My opinion is less is more and I think that there's you're trying to do too much within the plan. That's it's okay to be ambitious but I think the real other thing that I'd like to say is that the plan itself feels a bit generic. The things you're doing are things that all good schools would be doing and should be doing. And doesn't really, to me, give me a flavor of what's different about what you're doing at the hearty verses, and the other school in the district. So that if you're making a plan, tracking it from need statement to the action plan to the desired outcomes with a lot less stuff, and a little bit of thread of reasoning of why you're doing something for example. We're going to be working on math discourse this year reason why is when we looked at the MCAS scores last year. We noticed our constructive response scores were less than our selective response scores and we thought that indicated that we needed to focus more on on discourse. That's not what I'm saying is your score but I'm just using that as an example. But I think it's a good first plan. I'm glad it's here. I wish you much success. I'm glad you're doing these things but for the for next year. I would like to see it a little tighter and more connected to to to the school. So it doesn't feel so generic. Thank you. Thank you. Are any other members. Dr happy. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. It was helpful. One thing I wondered about is so I'm hearing from some parents that they're concerned about the amount of testing in terms of all the assessments and stuff and I understand that those are helpful and necessary for figuring out if kids need additional help. I'm also wondering are the assessments themselves something that help the student learn you so it's not just a test which is in is only useful for the data that's given but do the kids learn something from the text or or I guess I'm thinking more of reading but are they is is the test. I mean is the assessment useful in ways other than just the data. So useful directly to the student. Well, so I think that if we're talking about something like the dibbles we're talking about something that is very much both focused on phonics. I'm thinking about those early foundational skills and knowing where children are so that we can move forward from that. So if you were to listen to one of those assessments it might seem. It's not like the DRA, which is another piece that we use which is more reading a passage and answering questions like might seem more familiar. So I think that there are much more about that phonics ability level and working from there. So I don't know if that helps to answer that question. But it's really more just a listening and a sharing of what students know so that teachers can take that information and make decisions about lesson planning from there. I'm thinking it might be helpful to communicate that out to the parents so that they understand you when the kid comes home each day saying oh I had another test on stuff so that the parents know. Oh they're trying to figure out if my child needs extra help or if they're doing, you know, doing well and things like that so they don't feel like it's just another test that's just for data that's collected and stored somewhere and never used. Thank you. I see what you're saying. And so that's really why we wanted to spend the time to talk about MTSS and what we mean by that, because it really is about screening universally. So it's really thinking so these kinds of screeners happen with all of the children. They're very quick. And so it really is not something that interrupts the day too terribly for the child. When we're talking about something like the dibbles. But it is, you know, I do hear that from families when they're talking about assessment there being a lot of assessment. And that is true, especially in the beginning when we need to find that baseline if we really are going to use a measurement. I think that that really is an important thing to do, especially when we're talking about equity and providing equal access to all to the types of interventions that we need to put in place. So that's just part of the story but I feel like that feedback is good feedback for us always is to make sure that everyone understands what it is that we're doing in school. I think that's part of why we want to have listening sessions and really get more of our family members to the table to be a part of the conversation and a part of the decision making that goes on at school. Thank you. Anyone else. Miss accident. Thank you. Thank you very much for this presentation I have a comment to piggyback on Dr Allison empty and then I have a question. I think one of the things that we've been hearing from parents is more specifically about the I ready and that depending on how quickly a student reads or how quickly they're able to solve a math problem. They complete it in a different amount of time and so I think some families felt like their students were spending an entire day on I ready where other students who work at a different pace might have finished more quickly so I maybe may not be representing this as an empty was coming but that's just something that I've heard whereas the Divils, at least that in kindergarten that I'm familiar with is timed and so it's a pretty rapid screener. I'm not familiar with it for example in third grade I don't know if it takes longer but I feel like these things are not. They make up days and days of time and I think they're pretty valuable to educators and to the intervention that you are all trying to provide. My question is about the second step curriculum and I'm wondering who is. Implementing that because I'm just really sensitive right now to the demands on teachers and if that's sort of feeling like an added need for them to be implementing maybe someone else is doing it, but I just, if you could share a little bit about what that looks like. And so, second step are actually lessons right so when we talk about responsive classroom. Again, we are very committed to the responsive classroom approach. But it's not a lesson that that people can follow in order to teach social skills. And I think more than anything through our ace block times and our meetings with teachers at the beginning of the year. What they saw and what they would like you to hear very much is the scope social skills need to be taught, and that they're really seeing that that's something that the students need, especially after the disjointed, you know, a couple of years that they've had. And so the teachers that the way the program is written is that it is a series of lessons that go through the whole school year and follow the different social skill development areas. And so we've been really thinking the most about self awareness and relationship building. And so, while we want to be able to support the classrooms with that instruction, at least at hearty. It's the teachers who are doing that and taking that on. And so you're absolutely right the time is a stress and I think that this is something that we feel is incredibly important for our kids right now. And the teachers would tell you if they were here so I will speak for them to say that our ideas of how we're going to move students forward and be able to narrow that opportunity gap that we see is only going to happen if we support the classrooms with schedule that makes sense for them the time to do the work that we're saying is important. And this is something that we've been talking about as administrators and as educators, and really thinking about how we are going to address that as the school year moves on, because it is very critically important. We don't have enough time to teach. And so we have to help them to find that balance and to do the thing that they do best. Take care of our kids. So at hearty, the answer to the question is our teachers are the primary instructors, but they are also supported by building administrators social workers and others will join in as the year goes on. I hope that it's helpful for them and doesn't feel like a burden to the work that they're that they're doing because I know that the teachers right now are feeling really stressed about the amount of things they're being asked to do. Thank you, Mr. Heiner. Morgan. Thank you. So I, I'm one of those sip readers where my eyes go down into the right. So I look for the target at the end of each. I sort of, I read the objective and then I, I move down and look at the target and I think what is tricky for me in this step is I see, like for looking at objective one around a target around the eyes and then the I ready, I assume you, you're close to having that target at this point, I assume they've mostly taken the I ready so you've got something there which is great. I'm not really clear on how a target would be the creation of baseline data on hearties SST and how our ace blog data meetings can be used to support equity in the cured intervention process and in student support. So I guess is that sort of like looking at how ace block can be used like I'm not I'm not really sure what that means and how that's like, like that's the target that we're moving towards so I guess I was wondering if somebody could tell me a little bit more about that one. And then for the, for the final for the third for the equity in school culture objective, the target was comparison data from teachers students and families through the use of panorama. So is that what you're saying there is that you're going to look to see improvement in the panorama survey, if so, what are you looking to have improved specifically. You know, what would you need to have to feel as though that data was reflective and appropriate to be using. So I guess if you could talk a little bit more about those two targets that might help me better understand sort of where we're going here. Certainly. So I will, I'll talk about the equity work that we want to do with families, first, because that is left purposefully a bit open with our community members because we want to be able to make a lot of these decisions together about the way that we're focusing so it's it's written in part to leave that room for us to be able to do that collaborative work together with our school council members with our dig members with our PTO members and hopefully with more variety of voices coming to the table as we go through the year. We don't want to be making those decisions in isolation, you know, and, and I really think that it adds a lot of value when we leave the time to make room for, you know, diverse opinion and perspective, even when it comes to setting targets so we haven't completed that work yet but we will keep adding to this as we go. The same is true for things like the Divils and all of that work is that those those assessments are done. But we need the time to be able to sit down at the table like our ace meetings to really be able to make those final determinations about that target that we're setting. So I know maybe it feels hard not to have the targets at the beginning but I feel like, like it's okay especially right now to give ourselves time to figure out what is reasonable expectation. As far as SST the student support team is concerned. You know the history of that is that it's a team that every school needs to have. And that there are like a hugely vastly different ways that people go about doing that work in schools. And it should be a little bit more consistent right because again we're talking about equity work so when a teacher decides to bring to the student support team a student in the past historically it's come from this place of. Okay, I'm a teacher I work in isolation in my classroom with X many students, and these are the students that I feel I need to bring to this general education team which it is a function of general education. To be able to talk to other teachers about the interventions that I think need to be put in place and historically it was academic but now I think we all know that it's social emotional and behavioral as well. But our schools aren't really functioning that way I don't want Hardy to function that way Hardy needs to function as teams of people who are working together to do that and so that we are seeing that the students who are coming to that level to that SST are able to be the students to see across the grade across the school that need to be brought to that level based on data. And that's where ace comes in is that that's the time that we have to meet as administrators and teachers together, along with coaches, along with social workers, along with special educators, along with EL teachers, all of these people need to come together to be able to make these determinations. So it's not exactly the system that's in place right now. It's like when we put ace in place, we were making a huge amount of progress and creating those teams and creating that space and the ways in which we work together, and it was starting to help us see that groups of people could talk about the children that would go to that next step to that tier two or to that tier three. And then unfortunately we all know that school shut down and we didn't have that time together last year and now we're getting back into that time this year. So the first step really needs to be to explore the process together through the ace through the SST time and see how we can make those improvements across the board. I hope that answered the question a little bit. It did. Yeah, I mean I think it's just, you know, for me, I, I'm looking for like, you know, a sort of, like, way past like a, a lighthouse towards sort of where we're going right like what's what's the target, what are we looking for. I appreciate that that that work is is ongoing and I appreciate the collaborative approach, certainly I think, you know, the timing of these, you know, this is a sip for this school year right so we're here in November. And so it's like, okay, but like at some point we need to be like really clear with the directionality here and where we're going to say yes this was, this was successful or this was, you know, mostly successful or you know when we come back to to evaluate how these pieces were, you know, done or used or implemented. You know at some point, there needs to be more sort of certainty and clarity around around, you know those pieces but I appreciate that it's a work in progress. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other members. Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate the time. And thank you Peggy. Yes, Mr. Hannah, you're up next. Hi there. Thanks very much to the committee for this opportunity to present stratton school improvement plan I'm Michael Hannah principal stratton school and I'm joined by Aaron spinning the assistant principal. We're really glad to have this chance to talk to all of you into the public about where our efforts are focused this year. I also want to thank Dr. Holman for her leadership and having ongoing conversations with the whole administrative team anchored to the school improvement plans. It's been a really helpful way to continue and have a quick reference for conversations around school improvement. And I know the team is is grateful to have that kind of anchoring element to conversations in the beginning of her time leading the district. I also like Kate and her team at hearty I want to thank our faculty at stratton school. For all of the things that you're not going to be hearing about tonight. It's just a million minutes every day of these unbelievably committed educators who have kept their professionalism and their commitment and their collaboration and their sense of humor. All through this really demanding period and I can't say enough about them and I'm so privileged to work with all of them. And I also want to reiterate something else that Kate said that we're tied closely in our improvement efforts to the district goals that focus on achievement for all. And seek to ensure equity of achievement across our school and across disciplines. So it's going to share my deck as well one moment. Sorry about that. So a similar agenda will just do a quick check in and a sketch of stratton school especially for those families who are watching tonight who are new to the district. We'll talk about some terminology that we often use than some of our PD with faculty, the things that that glow right now and the things that are growing. We'll emphasize those focus areas and what we have outlined as key initiatives and action steps, and also make mention of resources to support the success of these goals, and I look forward to your questions and answers at the end. Again, it's just really a demographic sketch of the increased enrollment. And I do want to pause on this. I think that what's important to remember is that last year we had an additional general education section. And second grade, and the impact of that section joining stratton school was not felt, because we had the space, due to hybrid programming to absorb that additional section without much fuss but in returning this year we've really returned with new general education classrooms, compared to where we were in 1920. So that demographic has also included a large increase in our English language learners. We have in stratton school or title one school and have an economically diverse population. As was mentioned in another context we have the largest substantially separate special education program. And that includes a very large paraprofessional cohort, and very proud to be my 10th year of leadership at stratton school along with miss spinny's third year. I wanted to make mention of accountability data on MCAS which of course is not the same as many other views of of MCAS but looking at the last time, criterion reference target percentages were made we made a large growth from 18 to 19 with a 60% overall criterion reference target growth so that was according to the state substantial progress towards our goals which we're really proud of digging down into MCAS data for the latest administration seem to have plateaued or maybe as the aggregate grown a little bit in our achievement. But we'll talk more in particular around the discipline of mathematics. And we're really proud to as the schools and onto public schools to have a really authentic pervasive impactful implementation of the responsive classroom approach. And an emphasis on the language that's used with children both verbal and nonverbal is a is a top priority and front burner for all of us at stratton school and I wanted to highlight. I also just did the openness and the commitment of stratton faculty to instructional coaching. There is a large number of mentor teachers on the stratton faculty, and there's also a very rich and open collaboration with all of our instructional coaches I think that they would say that stratton is a place where they find a lot of purchase, and we're so glad to have them and so proud of my faculty for for being willing to connect in that way. I was so appreciative for the deep data dives that Dr Holman and Dr McNeil led us through over the summer. One thing that was apparent that over many years of administration that was a plateauing of math achievement and what struck me spinny and myself or is that there was a if we if we take not meeting expectations and partially meeting as the whole cohort of grade three through five and mathematics that it was 54% of that cohort not meeting. Excuse me not or partially not meeting all together 16% partially mean 38% and then also of that cohort at large 54% 56% of that were students with ed plans. So, we did some initial mining of the data but really, obviously, what's most important are the children in front of us right now. So, in early meetings on our local assessments we seem to see that fact fluency, which which has a big quotation marks around it and our math educators can talk about why that. That's kind of a little bit too quick of a phrase to sum up what that really means but that those challenges are at the foundation of many of our learning struggles for students and mathematics so that is and has been focus and I'll get to that in a moment. I think that you've read in and for the sake of the public to see all of this written here about what impact our physical plant limitations have had on programming. Briefly, the service providers that are connected yes of course to our special education substantially separate program but who also service many children throughout the school. They've been put into a very limited space and we've actually had to reboot that once again. And that's going to happen by tomorrow. I'm hopeful everyone can make some shifts and moves around and we're, you know, reaching out to our facilities people to to get, you know, cubicle dividers down the middle of room so that we can make one room into two. And the English language learning students and just generally non native English speaking students even if they aren't being serviced by our ELL teachers is the second highest in town and as for the elementary schools. We're currently being servicing them in one room. I'm really grateful that Dave Ardido the visual arts directors here tonight. He has been really concerned that we have a very specific and specially designed art classroom that needed to be turned into the music room which then will be turned into a general ed classroom next year, so that none of our visual or performing arts will be in the spaces that they were intended to be. Next year, etc. So I'll wait for questions on that in a little bit. So we have this emphasis on math instruction and PMD is just the local three letter acronym for ace meetings. These once a week times that are so crucial for our general and special education partners to come and look at current levels of students and make adjustments and calibrate what we're doing in response to that data. They have been so rich and so I think they've been great. And in asking the leadership team who designed the agenda with me and their teams, it's been a really flat and collaborative process and we're really proud of what we've done so far I just met with Kathy Simon, the math coach to talk about how we make make even further adjustments this year. But if you know folks who don't work in education could just see this as a team meeting time where we take a look at what it is that we're up to how kids are doing and make adjustments for the next week. We're also meeting on Monday to look over a survey on on learning walks, just a, you know, it's also something similar but a little different that might help the general public understand what this is is a program or an approach called instructional rounds which is, you know, a notion taken from the medical profession where where people walk through and go through rounds of the classroom as a cohort of professionals and witness practice and then meet together afterward to reflect on what they saw, offer critical feedback to the practitioners that they visited. It's a really powerful way to improve practice. And then our coaching cycles led by the instructional coach, Kathy Simon, that is, you know, currently building on relationship building that this is her first year, but she's already begun those more formal coaching cycles with some of our faculty, and we'll look forward to reviewing those and enhancing them as the year goes on. As far as the priorities coming to this meeting this evening to discuss the physical plant issues is is really the first step that's possible that the school council may liaise to other town committees I'm not quite sure how this works to be quite honest. And just just here to let the committee know who've been a committee dedicated to the physical spaces throughout the school, through a really ambitious and fantastic building project in the recent past so I'm really glad to be chatting with you tonight about the current space needs there. Again, these PMD meetings. We have a six week calendar built out. There's all the people who should be there are there after the six weeks we return to the topic and the, the focus area that we had six weeks prior to see if students have indeed grown in the ways that we anticipated and if not to calibrate. Again, we have a learning walk survey results were reviewing on Monday, and we'll have a second semester rotation of folks going through really the only compensation for a lot of this a lot of the that you can you can tell that it's teacher collaboration and design heavy. So, finding the time and space to step away and do that design work so that we can be better teachers. Really, you know, a lot of that is a, you know, if I were to request any resources it would be around the compensation for our substitute teachers just so that we can secure those more frequently. And then of course, whatever the long and short term plans for our physical plant growth would be that the committee would be willing to entertain is really obviously another bracket all together of resources. So again, I want to thank, thank you for this opportunity to talk a little bit about strap school I can do it for much longer but we've got a lot of, a lot of conversation to have this evening so again thanks so much and I look forward to answering any questions that you might have. Thank you Mr. Hannah. Any members of the committee. Mr. Filman. Thanks very much for this report is always Mr. Hannah it's always a good report you always do a good job to us so thanks so much. I was surprised to see the information about facilities and maybe it's because I wasn't paying enough attention to myself I don't know. But the facility subcommittee is going to meet on Monday afternoon to talk about this so I think you're going to get a communication from Dr. Holman, and he'll be there so. But I did not. When I read this I didn't see this coming so I don't know what to tell you but maybe that's on me but so thanks so much for bringing to our attention thanks so much for making this, making us aware of it it is something we have to address I don't know how. It's a short term solution but we'll start talking on Monday. Mr. Slickman. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am not happy with the school improvement plan, and at the end of this process, I'm going to move receipt of the other two, and ask for this one to be revised and brought back. So as this whole discussion about facilities is not within the domain of the school. This is important for us to know this is important for us to act upon, but it is something that belongs in a district plan in a district budget. It is not in the domain of what you'd expect to see in a school improvement plan. School improvement plan needs to be focused on things that are within the control of the folks in the building. The expectation from the state, when they talk about the regulations for the school improvement plans which are required by state law. They talk about measurable annual goals for student achievement, interim benchmarks for school educators and practitioners and interim benchmarks for students, so that the school improvement plan needs to focus solely on things involving what happens within the school that is in the domain of things that the school is able to control so that we have a perceived need and action plan and a desired outcome. I'm very grateful that we're being told about this problem. It is a goal of this district to have equity in terms of facilities and resources across schools. And I have worked in buildings that are tight and have problems with facilities. And these are all very important things for us to, to understand, to advocate for and to make changes in the committee is going to take the seriously I want me to come and take a tour of the building and see what's going on. I'd be very happy to come up and look at it because I don't like what I'm hearing about the space issues you're having and I want to understand them. I can join you in working to do this but it does not belong in the school improvement plan so that's why I'm going to ask for it to be rewritten with only the things that are within the domain of the school outcomes that you control, and we can evaluate the progress of what's going on within your building. I think that this is a very thoughtful plan absent that that problem I have with it, but I just can't live with the plan that doesn't have that takes you outside your building and puts you into a district or a school committee issue. Any other member. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hannah for this. I am also concerned and interested in the space problems but hope to hear more about it both at budget and at facilities. Because it's always something for Arlington where we look at it on a district level not just on a single school level. And I need to have some idea of how that's happening. But one question I had and I'm not sure if this question should be. I'll figure out if this question should be Mr. Hannah or Ms. Elmer. But I'm wondering what the original intent for the SLC program was in terms of number of classrooms was it intended to have three was it intended to have to. I just don't know. Thank you. It's okay with Mr. Hannah I'm going to defer this to Ms. Elmer. So over the last few years, we have had three classrooms. As I mentioned the other meeting, you know, a sub separate classroom can go up to what we say 1211 12 students one teacher one paraprofessionals with the state staffing minimum is we exceed that. As far as our staffing for those programs but the class size can go up to 12 so we have had planned for three classrooms for the last several years. Generally K one, two, three, four or five some years you know we have to switch those around because of the balance of grades or whatnot but typically it's been three classrooms. I guess I mean when it when it was rebuilt. Were we expecting to have two classrooms or three classrooms of SLC. No, we were expecting three when we came back in. Yeah. Thank you. Also, is any other members. Mr. Carden. So just to follow up on the question so what was the plan for this year Miss Elmer was was there. Hope we're hoping that there would be 12 and you know that 24 in the program now so we're hoping that there would be 12 and 12 or lower or what was the plan. I think we have three classrooms available. Dr. Hannah and I, and miss spinny and miss Burke had talked about this at the beginning at the end of last year as they looked at projections in space and you know ideally we would like to continue with three classrooms. Folks have looked at a number of ways in which they can try and organize that I think what Dr. Hannah is referring to is the challenges while maintaining some of the other spaces that the district has committed to I know. There was concerns about art class and whatnot so given some of the commitments that the district has made around spaces that's contributed to these constraints. Okay, so just just for clarity, Mr. Hannah you're switching back to three SLC classes as of as of next Monday. I know we are, we're actually going to try to stretch out into a space that isn't a full classroom to give service delivery space to some of the children who have been part of the second classroom. So I guess the short answer Mr. Cardin would be something like two and a half by moving some other folks around. And this was done, you know, with the collaboration of all the folks in the program just sort of like, you know, keep coming back to build a better mouse trap and also getting to know the students a bit more and realizing where we might be able to stretch out just a little bit. And if folks have a sense of humor about sharing this office with one another, that kind of thing. So, it's not three full classrooms, for sure. Right but you mentioned having 13 students in the classroom in the SLC which is not permitted that's over the limit so. I guess at any given time. Okay, yeah, yeah, there's many. Yeah, go ahead Ms. Elmer I'm sorry. I apologize, I had a switch to my phone because I've been losing my connection on my computer but so at any given time those classes but those configurations of teachers maybe as Mr. Dr. Hannah is referring to moving in and out of spaces some students are included, you know, for a majority of their day in a classroom and whatnot but you know similar to when we discussed footprints for classrooms because it's not a full class size I do think options that Dr. are exploring and looking at you know what we would call half classrooms or you know classrooms that are in the building that are not built you know for 25 students but certainly could still work with you know a max group of 12 but if, as you said if we have the three classrooms we'd be looking at numbers more in line with eight or nine students again given that great distribution in classrooms. Okay, so I mean I'm glad we'll be looking at this at facilities I mean the night when this. We are surprised by this and we heard about issues that Bishop we've heard about issues that bracket. You know we know that Dallas is full. This is the first time we've heard that that Stratton is not just full but so full that you had to switch to SLC classes into one and lose the music room fall in one year without us hearing about I know Miss Morgan does because she's a parent there but the rest of us weren't aware of this so I think that's you know different different leadership at the time, but those are the types of things that we should be hearing about. And in advance so we can figure out and you know whether there's other solutions, either short term or longer term. I think, you know if you, you know, Thompson was built with a lot of space breakout space in mind because that's the new model, but I had kids that I've had kids are bracket and down and there's, they're very every room is full at those schools as well. There's no breakout space. So that's sort of the reality that we're living in, but let's explore this at the district level. There's there is now space bracket because we're moving that SLC out of bracket. They have three kindergartens this year where they typically have had for we have the buffer zones that we can use in the future. So there's lots of different opportunities that we can look at besides the initial comment of adding modules. So hopefully we'll be able to explore that more at facilities. Thank you. Anyone else this time. Thank you, Mr. Hannah. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Morgan, just under the wire. The wire is always set for me, Mr. Heiner, you can extend it. So, Dr. Hannah, I had a question about because these sips this year are being tied to the budget process and we're all kind of learning and you know we're like very trusting in the process and I think the organization is doing a great job of shepherding us all through this and all of us who have done budgeting here for a few years are like a little uncomfortable but we're like hanging in there. So my question is around the the ask on compensation for subs is that for like subs that are like daily subs or building subs or so because I will tell you on the face of it what it looks like to me is that we want to pay our like per diem subs or so that they're highly skilled, highly certified, relatively much more expensive, like educators are out of the classroom so that's kind of a tough sell for me but I guess I'd like to hear more about that from your perspective. I understand, Ms. Morgan, I understand the question. I think that both from personal experience and from research. It's clear that when teachers have time and space to do the design work necessary for really effective teaching that it's worth it. And we often these days are needing to pull folks from different service areas to cover classrooms and sometimes we have, you know, some pretty highly skilled people jumping in grabbing classrooms like myself and this many like to think we're pretty qualified so sometimes it's on us too. But I know what you mean about thinking about, you know, these awesome teachers being out of the classroom. It's kind of like giving a little to get a little. And as long as I design that time carefully and thoughtfully, and you know, this isn't, it's understood that time away from the children has an impact, but if we end up creating way better programming with those two three hours away from the classroom, then I think it's worth it. So that's that's my pitch is a short pitch but I could give a longer one. But that's the thinking is that it is for the kids and the quality of their programming eventually. Okay, thank you. Also, thank you, Mr. Hannah, appreciate it. Mr. Dingman, you're on. So just so I got this, I'm doing the screen share. Everybody can screen share your set all set up for the screen share. Mr. Dingman, before you get going I'm so sorry I just wanted to let the committee know that Miss Finney and I need to join up PTO meeting that's in progress for Stratton school so thanks very much for the opportunity. So I'm having a little bit of trouble I'm just refresh and try again. Dallas Wi-Fi is not in my school improvement plan. However, after tonight. Sorry, I'm just so it's a little pokey over here. Good evening. I will actually why don't I start with my introduction and we'll we'll keep working on this on Fad Dingman the principal at down elementary. This is my eighth year. In the arms and public school district. All at down my home away from home. Karen Krustis was here tonight. She's our assistant principal our full time assistant principal but got pulled out of the panel for some reason. But she is on the sidelines cheering us on. this. So while I'm loading, I hope everybody's had an opportunity to take a look through our school improvement plan. Our school improvement plan every year is a partnership with our district administrative team as we're shaping the goals and values that are going to guide us for the coming year. Working with our teacher teams, as we're thinking about last year, some of the work that we've been doing and the data that we have in front of us. And then also our school council, which is a group, as you probably know, of parents in our community, family members in our community, community members, teachers, and administration. So I want to talk about some wins that we're experiencing at Down, some challenges that we have in front of us, and opportunities, our priorities for the coming school year, and then some key initiatives and action steps that are already underway. Down School this year, we're currently hanging in at 440 students. We've added a little bit to that in the weeks. Thanks to this vaccine availability, we are seeing our students that were in homeschooling coming back to our school. Ms. Carustas was on the phone last week talking with everybody, trying to plan that transition. So we're excited to see that number go up. This is the smallest number of enrollment that we've had at Down since I've been here. So we've seen fluctuation upwards of closer to 500, and we've fluctuated down now. Just I think one of the things that we're keeping an eye on seems to be an outlier, but that's where we are right now. 23 classrooms that also includes our Down Supported Learning Center, two classrooms, a K2 and a 35 for students in our districts. It's one of the many wonderful things about our school. I do want to make sure to point out our partnerships with our PTO, our school council, and really our emerging newer parent group, our DIG, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion group. The activism and involvement of our parents and our family members and caregivers in the community are a really important part of our school and having good relationships with them and listening has always been really valuable for our students. Hey, we persevered through a pandemic, and I think that even though we haven't mentioned that, tonight it's come across in different ways, but I'm really proud of our school district and of our school and our teachers and our students and families every day, especially on a day like today to have such an amazing November day and just sit back and reflect on where we were to where we are is pretty great, and that's everybody, that's the full team. And we as a school, consistently from day one, have made school culture a priority, so I hope that there's elements of that that you see thread through our school improvement plan because that's constantly our work. Again, I'm pointing out our partnerships with our school council and our PTO and also that diversity equity inclusion work has been an important thing in our school. At times it's looked like supporting SEL initiatives, and that's grown over time. We've had SEL and diversity inclusivity work marked in our school improvement plan since 2017, so I very much see this as a continuation that we build on from year to year. I want to point out to the school committee members how important the ACE block has been, that's that block that's been built into our elementary calendar, weekly calendar, where professionals are coming together across the building to talk and plan and look at student work and work with our coaches and work with our special education related service team continues to be very valuable and is becoming inculturated in our school. Coming back out of the experience of last year to have that opportunity every week has been invaluable. We are continuing this year to keep a strong commitment to improving literacy instruction for our students. Not only has so much there's been so much publicity and so much attention to literacy and quality literacy instruction in the last several years we're paying attention to is our belief that literacy is equity. It is very much entwined with equity work students ability to communicate to read to access is important to us and we're so paying attention that I'll talk a little bit more about that as we go. We're you know we one of our sort of at a glance at our notices particularly in ELA as ELA has been a focus in school improvement and curriculum work. We are seeing the aggregate and MCAS scores improved for all groups including our high needs cohort. We look at the aggregate score for high needs it continues to improve you year after year which means that focusing attention through school improvement plan and work on the ground really does change the experience for students. I'm going to talk a little bit about mathematics now particularly after the closure seems to be now something that a newer area for us maybe not newer it's not the right word seem a priority area for us to be paying more attention to for our kids. I'm going to lead with the four areas that are guiding the school improvement plan at down to instructional objectives where we look what we're looking at in equity in school culture and then also in management operations. We have two different instructional objectives and that we're paying close attention to this year. First of all K through three literacy is an important continuation and area of work this year. Not only are we adding new curriculum components in kindergarten first grade second grade third grade we're also using new assessment tools that are helping us be more targeted in our instruction. We're starting in the classroom we're looking at teachers in the classroom we're looking at how to use tools to meet a broader the broader needs of the class but it's also bringing together reading intervention and reading specialist and special educators and instruction in all those settings is starting to look more and more very similar so there's a lot of practice that's being shared and that's exciting. Our second objective is in mathematics and so we're noticing particularly when we're looking at standardized assessments and in the upper grades we have a problem of practice and how all students are performing in their mathematics class and if you're close to the mathematics curriculum and investigations is the name of our curriculum what you know is that participation in your math community is an important part of that experience for kids. The looking at the standards they include both content objectives and also the standards of practice like what it actually looks like to learn math how kids are participating showing flexible ways of learning concepts is are really important and we're going to study that more closely this year because what we're seeing is a trend that we want to be be a part of changing. In equity in school culture you know it's really for us about continuing to demonstrate commitment to the work what that looks like in sort of three different tiers is spending more time to develop some of the curriculum enhancements that we've seen through our social studies curriculum that really look at including more perspectives and diverse perspectives in a curriculum experience partnering with our coaches and making sure that we're able to be more feel more confident in our ability to talk to students about issues like race in the classroom. The we have tools for culturally responsive teaching that we want to study and practice and learn more about through our work together as professionals and also we have this is this is something really important to our community and we want to support the work of our community and being advocates both for each other and for the school and then our last objective areas in management operations we share a similar objective to the district to make sure that we stay in school and that we do it well and that we are coming back together and utilizing our resources to keep our kids in person. Also in our school improvement plan you probably see our work addressing some of the arrival and dismissal concerns that our families have shared with us through different surveys that we've administered the past few years. We've been in partnership now through our school council with the TAC to develop a plan in the safe routes to school entity for the state. We've communicated that to our shared that with our broader community not just the numbers in our school community. We've collected feedback. We've had some success and failures in securing funding but it is a it is a plan that we plan to continue to try to implement. Both what we're finding is challenges that have been presented by enrollment and how that has played out and rippled into the community but also the change of schedule at the Gibbs and middle school have made drop off or excuse me arrival a particular challenge as we're adding about 70 to 75 students and families to our arrival every morning and two buses. So we do have some physical plant challenges that we're working through. I want to take a second and just dive into some data. I'm teased all the time by my staff about my love of data but I do think that I value both my teacher's perspective on what they see in front of them and I believe that we can measure it and follow it too. One of the areas of practices in the school improvement plan that we've been on for a few years now is literacy and experience the early reading skills and experience our kids are are showing us in kindergarten starting in kindergarten and moving through. What we know about what the science tells us is if we are looking at comprehension concerns for our third graders and above we need to move backwards and ensure that early reading skills on those fundamental blocks of learning to read have been secured and so we're at this exciting place where we're we have the tools to be able to do that and we've invested in professional development for our teachers and we're getting much better at targeting instruction in the early grades but I want to take you back to 2019 after we were given this opportunity through grant funding secured by Alison Elmer special education director that she was using to lead improvements with special education instruction. Some of our schools were able to jump in we were one of those schools. What we did is used the Dibble's assessments at that time as a pilot with our kindergarten students and you can see in 2019 this is pretty status quo. Red is not good, green is better, best. What we noticed was as our students were moving through the kindergarten curriculum particularly in the area of literacy high percentages of students were demonstrating at-risk scores and when you see scores like this it is not a student issue it's a curriculum issue and so typically what that means is there's something that we could be doing differently or that we can enhance to change practice to change those results. Looking at the science of reading let us to believe that where that area of growth was in phonics and phonemic awareness what you can see moving from left to right so that's this is a cohort study. When students were presented with phonics curriculum that gap closed very dramatically and at-risk score you know at-risk population from winter of 2019 kindergarteners to a year later a year and change later of first graders having had the foundation's curriculum in first grade closed that risk category to 15.7 percent from 41 percent so about 30 30 percent of our students. On the bottom you can see an important indicator for reading success called nonsense word fluency. It sounds silly but nonsense words require students to decode and that's what we need for our students to be able to efficiently and automatically do over their kindergarten first and second grade year. Following this cohort and this is the most recent group of students who are in second grade we've now universally assessed in second grade. We can see that that you can see their scores have dramatically improved and that at-risk category has decreased. Imagine if we now had seen that group in kindergarten have some of the curriculum experiences that they're about to have this year what that might look like. We believe it's going to make lead to some powerful changes and improve the overall reading profile for our students in the upper grades of third fourth and fifth and beyond right. Thinking about oops I'm sorry I'm going to go back here thinking about mathematics one of the areas that we we're one of the things that we do at the beginning of the year is try to take an equity lens in the data that we're looking at not just how all students are doing but we want to drill down and look at how our subgroups are doing with the support of the math math Matt Coleman our math director my math coach they pulled together a data portrait for us that told a story that needs to be addressed about our high needs students and so high needs populations are a category created by the state that includes students who receive special education services students who have who are non-native speakers and are identified as English language learners these could be students who are part of or have been identified as being low socioeconomic in the low socioeconomic subgroup so it's sorted as a catchall of a larger group of students who individually may not be caught in the in the measures at your school but when you're put together or a concentration can be looked at and what they share is an they share a risk category and you can see now these numbers aren't particularly high we you know we're talking about 12 to 14 kids in each grade level but but we want to see this change we see that we believe that our students should can and should be able to learn without such wide discrepancy so you know our goals this year as it pertains to math is paying very close attention to how these students are performing and participating in their math communities when you have small groups of numbers the benefit is you know them by their name you know their families you know who they are across the school day I feel powerfully that we can make changes to these very quickly by focusing more of our attention on how our students are participating on a daily basis in the mathematics classes and so we're using different survey tools we're using rubrics that have been shared with us and developed through math coaches here to change this portrait and something else that I think is really important to pay attention to is this isn't just our story this is a story that's happening across our schools and beyond this is a story that's happening from third to eighth grade for students who are in the similar category and I know the school committee is going to be talking about entertaining ideas about how courses look and change in the high school and it has to start with us it has to start with us addressing these gaps right now one other just data portrait that I want to put for any around what's driving some of our equity work we are we have we have piloted last year and I guess I use piloted maybe incorrectly we it started to implement we're going to continue to implement a survey called the panorama survey and what's great is it will effectively give us an opportunity to frequently hear from our students from our staff and from our families but in this moment in time where there is a spotlight on our schools and a spotlight on our practice is more important than ever listen to our teachers particularly when it comes to talking about diversity topics like weightlessness and culture and I would even argue gender and sexuality these are very these have become political politicized topics and our teachers are vulnerable and what we heard through these surveys number one is that our students our students are even though we know that we are and we have curriculum that help that he does encourage students to learn about different peoples that that isn't explicit enough for our kids and so we're going to focus on that by learning and understanding our curriculum and working together to make sure that it's explicit for our students and measure that with their voice the other thing that I think is very important is ensuring that our staff has is confident through the support that we give them and the resources that we give them and so you can see in our data even though we saw some some plus and minus and how our staff are feeling about discussing race-related topics and concepts what isn't in here is their anecdotes from this survey and what they what they said loud and clear was we need some resources both in terms of curriculum and support from professional learning and so that is very much thread into our school improvement plan and I'm super been very grateful for the support of the curriculum directors and our director of equity and inclusion who helped in the creation of the school improvement plan and are all on board already meeting with myself and teachers to to make this happen and then here's our here's our family results and you know our families have a degree of confidence and isn't it interesting that they're there they're demonstrating more confidence in our teachers feel I think there's some positives in that but we also know that it's area area that we want to go up so to include a few of the high level just key initiatives and action steps for conversation or what does this actually look like on the ground so I'm already we have done some professional development with our teachers at Dallin on using new new assessment tools to design instruction we plan to continue to do that so we're bringing teachers together we are utilizing both our coaches and consultants to do that work we know that it's really important that we focus on some core curriculum additions for phonemic awareness and phonics all the way up to third grade because what we need to debunk is that students are done learning to read in third grade that's just not true it's not the state is behind us on this the science is behind us on this students in third grade are still learning to read and we need to have curriculum that our teachers can utilize and ensure that happens and then we have new assessment tools in the dibbles which are excellent in a lot of different ways they're quick to administer they're going to be I think in time an easier tool for teachers to use so they can quickly pivot to instruction but we're going to work this year and learning how to operationalize them like how do you take these assessment results group kids and do something really immediately with the tools you have in front of you in mathematics we're really focused on engagement it's an important part of the math curriculum and it does lead to future success and I'd like to now hand it over to Matt Coleman to tell you why I'm not going to do that tonight but Matt has been integral in helping develop these goals he's much better versed in this than me but I'll do my best but part of that is also using work with culturally responsive teaching strategies culturally responsive teaching strategies can be really effective in promoting full participation for full inclusivity in math workshops and that's a tool we're using include an example of that in the school improvement plan members want to take a peek or members in our community want to take a peek and then also our special education team and our math coach are part of their goals this year to work together to understand how math language affects students in that in the classroom in tier one instruction based on their language vulnerabilities and so examples of that are students who are non-native speakers and also students who have identified needs language-based needs it could be as much as dyslexia or other speech and like identified speech and language disorders and in that inequity area of equity and culture the it's really important that we provide professional learning for our teachers in access to professional learning from experts in each other directly related to topics that are more national and global like racial identity development but also directly to the curriculum in the units of study in front of them you know an example of that just this week was having our social studies coaches work with our first grade team to look at some of the units that are newer in first grade around family and community and civics we also have our fourth grade teachers who are working with coaches to pilot new units of study that explore land rights and women's rights as part of the core curriculum for all kids so we're excited about that and I hope I hope that what we see is teachers feeling more confident with the tools that they have we also have we rebuild rebuild meaning we should probably have said rebrand down has had a social emotional learning leadership team for sent for the last six years seven years six years when we look at that group we really feel like our work has been as shifted to be about inclusivity and representation we want to be an identity affirming school and so that group plans to come back together and as part of our artifacts or evidence for the school improvement plan will share some of the work that we do toward on community projects that bring our kids together but also look at themes diverse themes particularly around representation information and then also in part of our plan this year is really supporting affinity spaces for adults and students part of that is our our parents who are who are taking a lead in forming diversity equity inclusion groups for our community but also students in our school we have a rainbow coalition that has grown that's for students we're interested in learning more and feeling supported feelings excuse me connected with other kids who are who are experiencing any questions around gender gender fluidity or want to be allies we also are planning to to engage our fifth graders and community activism this year it has been wonderful a group that I haven't mentioned yet is the Arlington public school library team fully cow they're amazing and they have they are they are thread into all this work and what they bring to the table but they also have experience in leading curriculum with fifth graders in this area that we're going to capitalize on so I want to take some q&a but I just want to say one thing that's really important to me about school improvement planning processes school improvement plan processes raise certain areas of practice up they highlight priorities but they don't they're incomplete you know they can never capture what our teachers do across their school day they they have you know I just just a small example they have an amazing specialist team that we haven't talked about and what they're doing particularly in art and music and in PE have been really rewarding and exciting for our kids and those don't often pop up on a school improvement plan because they're just not as sexy as a ELA or a math goal can I say that in a couple of me I hope I can I hope I was taken okay but I just want to I want to just take a second to first make sure that I that I recognize that their work to us is as important and our process for our school improvement plan is this moves into the goals for all our teachers so we've spent time with this they look at the school improvement plan and think about his teams what their entry points are in their different grade levels so that we you know we're not this isn't just on paper for the school this is part of the work that comes back in those ace meetings and is is checked in on throughout the year on through their professional practices okay that's it thank you um is there anyone uh mr schlickman you have your hand up yeah thank you very much uh this this was an outstanding school improvement plan I find it to be coherent coherent and thoughtful it's a job well done by the way I just want to note that I'm your school committee liaison mr dingman so that if either the pto or the school site council would like me to come to any meetings I'm happy to work it into my schedule thank you very much excellent thank you for anyone else on the sexton thank you I have a comment and a question uh first I just want to say I appreciate you mentioning the librarians and I think that you know we've heard from a number of school improvement plans now about this work on equity and culturally responsive teaching and the value that the librarians and the library team have brought or will bring to that program and and to that work that you're doing and I just you know I I want I know we're not talking about sort of what we're having him for but I I just I think I appreciate you highlighting that and I think it's in um the hearty plan but it wasn't mentioned tonight the value of the librarians and I think that you know it's we've won one library and for all the elementary schools and I I think about how much the paraprofessionals um the work that they're doing and the load that they're carrying and in what you're talking about in those goals that you have um so I appreciate that um my question is um about the ace box and you mentioned how how much they're being used and again we've heard that from from the previous school improvement plans and then about how the coaches are coming to that and I guess my question is are are there enough coaches um right now to go around so that when you're having you know an ace block meeting at Dalin is the coach that you need available to be there um yeah or that's a you know yeah that's a fair question right because it it's a we've really invested in grown that but we're still um there's uh I I I want to I want to not that they're making a value statement there are different amounts of numbers of coaches for different areas um so I'll just talk about what I see work works really well um we have one of the one of the areas that was working well as our math coach at our building um and she is able to join in um for sustained uh weeks at a time on a particular area of practice so an example would be fluency fluency has been a kind of a hot topic right now but how do we measure it um how is it affected students um uh as they've progressed you know through the closure and you know so this week for example our math coach finished her second multi-week round with third grade looking at student assessment and measured fluency um we had unexpectedly a teacher that needed to be out and the math coach is so familiar with the curriculum that she's not only able to um pivot quickly and um support a team she can step in a classroom and make sure that the day is prepped and planned um if we have any unexpected you know gaps like that it's just her she's been very nimble in that regard and I feel like it's been a win um and also for coaching it's about relationships and so you know having somebody there to be on the ground and developing relationships by being in the classroom or catching in the hall or having lunch with you and stuff like that has been really successful so I guess you know I would say that's what I see works for us and has worked for us um at the same time I greatly appreciate how our LA coaches are getting in and sitting with grade levels we had them in today in there you know they spend an afternoon and they sit in a base meeting and talk about the new progress reports and the artifacts that we're going to use to grade those new progress reports and then step straight out and goes and coaches a teacher and then plans with the teacher so um it's looking a little different but they're making it work they really are um and we have we have um the SEL coach is housed in our building so I I could say first hand that Laura um Rodriguez has been a great value added um and you know he's going into math classes to talk teachers have you know want to talk with her about like what math anxiety looks like and what we can do about it so um it's really cool I appreciate being in a district that that that where this is supported and at the same time we're you know been pretty clear that we want to improve it and um work on that problem of practice together so I know I kind of dodged dodged a concise answer there Liz but um I see value in what they're doing so that's great thank you I um I appreciate I I have enjoyed hearing about the ace box and how you're using them and I just want to make sure that you have the resources that you need to make them as effective and productive as they can be so thank you yeah is there anyone else waiting a little bit for miss Morgan just make sure is that where's that wire thank you mr digwin uh I would like to say to all the principles that are present I'd like you to pass on our appreciation not only to you to the administrative staff in your buildings but to all the teachers for the phenomenal job they're doing at this time thank you very much uh mr schlegman I move receipt of the hearty and down plans there a second second is there any discussion anyone wish to just talk to homin I would only like some clarity around what the expectation would be surrounding the stratum school improvement plan in the event that we need to do some revision to it and come back to the committee uh my my thinking is this very minor just to delete the aspects that pertain to district issues which is the space just focus uh so it's a quick quick change but it just needs to be done that being said mr schlegman do you feel that there'd be a need for them to have to come back if it's just a matter of eliminating so I could be in the consent agenda it's not a big deal okay but it just doesn't belong there that that yeah I just want to make sure that you understand that it's not a problem problem that needs to the the drags down the plan per se it's just that section really does should not be there because it's not appropriate for school improvement plan so delete it resubmit it if life is good mr filmy did you want to say something well I just wanted to say I'm grateful that it was in the plan because it sparked a good conversation and it's something we need to be aware of so anyone else I'm grateful to hear about it but it just doesn't belong in that document that's all roll call vote uh mr schlegman yes mr cardin yes mr thielman yes uh miss exton yes mr morgan yes dr ampe yes and I vote yes it's unanimous okay um yes mr thielman I move acceptance of the strategy before would you understand this superintendent will make uh appropriate revisions consisting with state requirements is there a second second second for purposes of discussion fine is mr filmy do you want to add any more than what you all said does anyone else wish to dr ampey I'm not sure it's the superintendent who should be changing the school improvement plan um the the issue was that we just voted that it was not an appropriate thing to be in there no we didn't we didn't vote that we just approved the other plans okay we discussed it even though it wasn't part of the motion but we didn't vote anything about stratton so I'm not I think we could accept it um with modifications I would assume by the principal and then with the uh superintendent checking them for us well I think that was the intention of what I said maybe didn't come out right but I don't feel comfortable I don't feel comfortable adopting a motion directing a principal to do anything I just can't I mean it's all I mean the direction is the superintendent take care of it could I suggest that we approve it with the uh necessary adaptations and the superintendent will present it in the consent agenda going forward can we all accept that well roll call alone mr schleckman no mr carden and I'm uncertain what the motion is now sorry the motion is mr philman can you restate it as yeah I can regenerate modify it jeff go ahead move to accept the stratton report with the understanding the superintendent will review and approve revisions consistent with state law great okay I'll I'll approve thanks quote yes make it formal is there a second to that second okay roll call any other discussion roll call vote mr schleckman no mr carden yes yes mr thielman yes this ecston yes dr ampie yes this morgan yes and I vote yes that's six one vote moving on uh approval of job descriptions mr spiegel you've read the floor oh excuse me dr homen thank you um before we turn it over to mr spiegel and talk about some of these job descriptions which I'll open up with and then send over to mr spiegel I just want to say thank you to our spectacular principles for all of the work that they've done on the school improvement plans and they have a very busy day tomorrow so I would also like to let them go get some rest absolutely so thank you all and I appreciate all of the spectacular work you've done in your schools this year it's been a tough year and um you've done an awesome uh been a work with your families and community getting these plans together and sharing them with the committee in the community so have a good night thank you thank you dr homen um now mr spiegel well hold on regard some of the um uh job descriptions with which mr spiegel can explain each of to you uh we have several of them for your approval and we've spoken with budget subcommittee um and cia subcommittee about all of the ones that are before you this evening um and are happy to answer any questions about any of these and I'll turn it over to mr spiegel go ahead mr spiegel we're going to take them one at a time and vote on each one as when we're completed that discussion okay okay that's fine um so the first one is the assistant athletic director and we discussed this in a subcommittee um a couple weeks ago and it really it's a new position for the district we have um the athletic director explained in in subcommittee that it's with the the number of teams we have it's challenging for and he can't be at all games matches meets all the time because there's they're in different locations at the same time so having an assistant who could work um a schedule that would allow them to come in later and stay in the evenings for when there are games and matches um he can cover and the job description is um pretty explains what this person would do this is um we had a recent retirement of an administrative assistant in the athletic department um and for the time being we would not replace that position we would look to hire the assistant athletic director to support the athletic department in um the functions listed in the job description any question from the committee seeing none i will entertain a motion to approve this uh the job description for the assistant athletic director back in through okay we'll call well mrs shlickman yes mr cardin yes mr thielman yes mr exton yes mr morgan yes dr ampie yes and i vote yes okay senior custodial ground position yeah i think mr mason might be a little more familiar with this one um because he has uh worked with i think mr walters to craft this position but it is really focused on the grounds of the of the of the whole district and all the buildings and um really focusing on things where we can get quicker responses to issues that arise with one person being the point person for the those things and i think mr mason may have more information uh just i think you explained it pretty well um there's been a um not that the internal custodians of the buildings would um not focus on grounds work but this role is to be uh supplemental to those roles as well as when there are coverage needs across the district this this role would also provide those uh coverage during those high absence times to reduce overtime that that the district currently is paying custodians bar any questions from the committee i want to take a motion to approve the senior custodial ground position move is there a second second roll call vote mr schlickman yes mr carden yes mr thielman yes mr xston yes mr morgan yes dr ampie yes and i vote yes unanimous vote uh the next position is mental health assessment and outreach specialist yes and uh miss bird um presented at the subcommittee cia subcommittee uh and and dr mcneil about the need for this position last year we had a grant that um allowed for uh some people who worked in in positions um last year to support uh the screener and other initiatives of our director of social emotional learning initiatives in the district and there's still a very strong need for that in the district with um the screeners and coordination among departments um with counseling and social uh social workers and social emotional support and obviously this job description you can see all the duties that they would have they would also be able to provide some you know help cover and um lead groups um where needed and sort of uh supplement the outstanding work our school social workers already do um but it would really it's there's a need um in that department any questions or statements from the committee i will entertain a motion uh for approval of mental health assessment and outreach specialist job description approval and the second second okay uh roll call roll mr schlickman yes mr cardin yes mr thiehlman yes mr zeksten yes mr morgan yes dr ampie yes and i vote yes uh uh certified nursing assistant yeah so this is a position that would work recommended by our director of nursing to work with our nursing team to support pool testing in the district and be able to respond um you know when they if you know respond to positive pools to help help with the uh the by next testing and other testing that needs to happen um work with the pool testing throughout the the schools help the nurses with that the nurses in the the school nurses in our schools are spending a lot of time on pool testing and it would it would assist them in in the district and we do have um a nurse uh sarah lee who is sort of taking the lead in our covet work this year but again this is this wouldn't be a registered nurse so it would be um and you can see the pay rate uh suggested in the job description so it would be a less um less expensive um than hiring another registered nurse but someone who could do a lot of the functions but not that all the functions that a registered nurse could do any questions discussion i'll entertain the motion uh certified nurse assistant position it's the second seeing a second i will roll call vote mr schlickman yes mr coden yes mr thailman yes mr xston yes mr morgan yes dr ampey yes and i vote yes thank you mr spiegel uh superintendent's report dr holman hopefully you can see my screen um good evening members of the school committee and community who are watching at home i'm going to start with um an overview of case rate as i have in the last several meetings in arlington and a bit of an update on where we are relative to the pandemic and our response to it uh case rates per 100k and arlington have risen to above what their levels were in september when we were dealing with the initial delta wave and this is um a mirroring what we're seeing not only in our community but in the county in the state and across the country our school's cases are mirroring the trends that we're seeing everywhere else and i'll speak to this a little bit more in a moment and talk about some of the things that we're doing to make sure we mitigate the impact of this uh i do want to um just thank first though our health and human services department and the aps staff who have participated in and worked extra hours to help make the smashing success of our vaccination clinics a reality we have vaccinated over 1700 arlington children over the last couple of weeks and it has just been an amazing and wonderful place to visit the red gym at arlington high school and see so many happy families and students i don't know that i've ever seen so many young children so excited to get a shot but it has been a really joyful place and um we're very grateful that we were the community in the state who was the first to be the top um to have vaccinations among five to 11 year olds so that was a really big win for us and it's because we have such an incredible town department such a great collaboration with the health and human services department we're very grateful to their efforts um we have had some challenges particularly at Thompson this week with the increase in cases uh we did release Thompson early on Monday because of some concerns about ventilation particularly related to the exhaust the rooms were getting fresh air and filtered air at the rate that we would expect but they weren't exhausting at the rate that we would expect so we did some investigation of that um it can slow the air exchange rates but upon further investigation we found that the rooms were exhausting air just not quite at the rate that we would expect and some of that has to do with the fact that we turn the heat on and when you turn the heat on the system compensates with how much air it is both exhausting and supplying to accommodate the fact that we want to keep the rooms come at a comfortable level so we tweaked a couple of the settings there we cleaned off some sensors that are allowing more air to exhaust from the rooms and everything was ready to go for Tuesday morning and students were back in classes and things are going well while we have seen an uptick in cases in the schools we do not have indication of connected cases that have maybe given us any pause about spread within the schools and so that's the good news we're just seeing that because there's an uptick in the community we're going to see an uptake in the schools that's the reality of the schools they are a mirror of the community I do want to take a moment to really strongly encourage families and parents to have their eligible children vaccinated against COVID-19 we're learning more every day of the pandemic about how this virus spreads and the role of vaccines in protecting our most vulnerable neighbors any considerations for us of the relaxation of any restrictions including masking needs to take into account the health and safety of the entire Arlington community I've spoken extensively with the director of health and human services Christine Bonjorno and we're aligned in our hopes that we actually may be in a position to relax some restrictions on the date that the commissioner has put forward of January 15th however we want to emphasize that case rates have had a significant increase in Arlington over the past two weeks and our families have children across different schools and levels and we all need to do our part to combat the spread of COVID I really want us to be in a position where we can think about relaxing restrictions and we're not going to be able to do that if rates continue to be as high as they are I'm not comfortable recommending optional masking until all of our schools can demonstrate a full vaccination rate of at least 80% with the obvious exception of monotomy pre-K where students are not yet eligible this is not the only metric we would take into consideration cases and positivity rates must be significantly lower in Arlington in order for us myself and Ms Christine Bonjorno to be comfortable recommending any relaxation of requirements and so I ask that families strongly consider having your eligible children vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible and be diligent in taking precautions during the upcoming holiday season I hope everyone will enjoy time with family and that you'll take the precautions that are outlined in our pandemic recovery plan including vaccinating all eligible members of your household prior to any engagement with family or travel wear masks during and after travel test for COVID-19 before returning to school if you travel test again on day five following travel actively monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and use mitigation strategies in public areas while traveling such as masking regardless of your vaccination status as I said earlier our schools are a reflection of the community and this week strong uptick cases is a reflection of the of the uptick happening across Arlington the state the country we're closely monitoring all cases among staff and students the safety protocols and ventilation systems in all of our schools and taking the appropriate measures whenever necessary to ensure the safety of our students and we ask that the Arlington community join us in taking those measures as well and helping us in those efforts I also want to update you on several other things going on in the district as one of our principals mentioned it's part of a school improvement plan we will be doing the panorama survey again this fall December is what we are calling feedback month we will be distributing the panorama survey to all staff students and families we've adjusted the categories for this year to help us assess school climate teacher student relationships sense of belonging rigorous expectations and school safety all of these are categories that were not reflected in the previous survey we've also taken a couple of categories out that were specific to the learning models related to pandemic education last school year we will be using the results in district strategic planning efforts this spring and summer and we have follow-up action planning going on at the building level plan and they're going to be working on their plans for that in January and February so that we can take some quick responsive action to a family share with us and dig in a little deeper to learn more about any categories that may be concerning or raise questions additional questions for us we will plan to share reports from those surveys with the committee and the community once we have completed the surveys. I also want to say congratulations to our fall athletics teams on what was truly a spectacular record baking season we had nine teams compete in seven sports this fall five of them one or tied for the championship in the middle sex league league liberty division and moved on to tournament or sectional competition including boys and girls soccer boys and girls cross country and girls swimming and the boys cross country team is competing in the state tournament this weekend and we wish them a lot of luck field hockey had their best records since joining the middle sex league golf finished third in the league and went on to finish fourth in the division one north sectional tournament their best ever finish in a sectional tournament and girls volleyball qualified for the state tournament the football team has one game left and has a strong competitive season with four wins compared to last year zero win season so they're having a great year this year as well um we had we're going to be having a district wide equity audit which was part of the Esser planning if you recall the proposals for that I will have an rfp which will be posted soon to the town website which I will also share with the committee and the community shortly the audits and fall play us and them and you'll see a picture there of the audits and performers was absolutely fantastic I had the honor of um attending it with my daughter and they the students and performers did a great job in the first live performance that they have done in over two years when it comes to enrollments you have the active enrollment spreadsheet that I've shared with you in previous weeks available to you as well as the October 1 summary report and some projections status updates that you've received from Mr. Mason recently and that he can speak to if you have any questions and that is the conclusion of my update for you today I'm happy to take any questions anyone have any questions that's excellent no no questions just two comments I just want to echo your thanks to the Arlington Health and Human Services for their vaccination clinics they were incredible I spent the morning of the one that was on Saturday and it was just so well run and it was so nice to see APS people there supporting their students getting vaccinated I think it needed feel really good for for those kids so just echoing those things and then the other thing I just wanted to say and I feel like you you have this in your plan but I'm going to say that loud just sharing all of those recommendations about travel with families before next week thank you Dr. Olman Mr. Schlickman I just also want to state that I've heard from a couple of teachers that the district has been very very responsive to issues when ventilation or heat have popped up in the past couple of weeks and I'm very appreciative of the rapid response we're getting thank you credit for that goes to our facilities town facilities team has been right on top of it whenever we've had a concern they've done a great job best on our thanks to them as I'm sure you do already but add add us to the list thank you consent agenda all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee saw requests in which at the event the item will be considered in its normal sequence warrant number two two one zero one the six hundred thirty thousand two hundred fifty three dollars and thirty nine cents minutes regular school committee meeting october 28th 2021 motion to approve is there is there a second second again roll call vote mr. Schlickman yes mr. Cardin yes mr. Filment yes this accident yes mr. Morgan yes dr. Ampe yes and I vote yes subcommittee liaison reports and announcements budget committee budget will be meeting on November November 30th at 145 p.m. by zoom to discuss the enrollment stuff and some other issues that have come before us thank you community relations miss accident nothing to report great young instruction assessment and accountability mr. Cardin we had a brief meeting to go over the SEL position that we approved tonight and that's all for now thanks facilities mr. Filment we meet on monday at 4 p.m. to talk about stratton school policy and procedures mr. Schlickman thank you mr. chairman we will be meeting monday 29th of uh november at 10 a.m. on zoom and the topics will be uh hold on uh file kfd surplus space policies for extended day programs and the proposed file bedl for land acknowledgement thank you hollyton high school building committee mr. Filment moving along and we meet on uh the first tuesday in december i don't have the i think it's the seven mr. Cardin has a question yes um we had discussed previously that we as we got closer to the february move date um getting a briefing uh dr. Homan from dr. Janger about the planning for that transition and how the school would operate following that if is first of all is the february date still on target yeah i mean the dr. Homan can answer obviously but the February day is on target i guess i should have announced there's two forums that we have coming up um and one is with parents to talk about that whole transition do we have data you should be we should get a briefing here as well i think you want a briefing okay uh i said can i can we give can we add that as an agenda item to the next school committee meeting do we have the next school committee meeting we're doing the secondary and the elementary budget and the ea budget am i correct request um a a yes secondary and elementary no because that's part of their school movement plan okay fine okay so there is well we'll you want to talk tomorrow a little bit more about that tomorrow it'll be in it should be in december jeff yeah you just wanted to back to home and can figure it out if you want to do before after the parent form we're going to have i don't know it's up to you okay okay are there any liaison reports at this time any announcements i would like to share with you folks um two things the Rotary Club of allington has an award the highest award is the paul harris award that is given to uh either a member of the clubs or a community member uh that's outstanding and a thousand dollars is given in their name uh to fight polio for the uh foundation uh last thursday the district uh each town was asked each club was asked to uh come up with one hero and allington uh robert robert club of allington uh nominated and it was presented to peter lundstrom who is the person who runs the alternative education program at the high school for students at risk of not graduating uh peter and the people that work with him have done an outstanding job during the pandemic and everything 100 of those students that were eligible for graduation graduated last year which i think is fantastic in anything during the pandemic but his group was something special so i just wanted the community to know what a great job he has done and the committee are there any future agenda items beside the one that was just mentioned saying none uh at this time we will be going into executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or non-union personnel or contract negotiations with union or non-union in which if held in open meeting may be a detrimental effect to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining a litigation in which you're held in open meeting may have a detrimental effect we will not be returning uh to uh the meeting uh roll call vote uh motion to go into executive session don't move is there a second thank you roll call mr schlickman yes mr thielman yes mr coden yes this xton yes this morgan yes dr ampie yes and i vote yes