Good evening. I'm calling the organizational meeting of the Arlington School Committee to order Today is Thursday, April 14th April 2022 it is 622 p.m. I'm Paul Schlickman president pro tem of the committee My job is to run the organizational meeting Permit me to confirm that all members and persons Anticipated on the agenda a president can hear me when I call your name Please answer in the affirmative noting that many of the folks here are in person as we are hybrid Mr. Thielman is Good dr. Allison ampy here Mr. Cardin here Is Morgan mr. Heiner here dr. Holman here dr. McNeil here mr. Mason He's in the building Ms. Elmer here a ea reps if Ferrante is not here student rep Amy Chalaria hi Amy Tonight hi Tonight's meeting is the Arlington School Committee is being conducted in a hybrid model on February 15th 2022 governor Baker signed into law a new section of law Extending certain COVID-19 related measures the new law chapter 22 of the acts of 22 includes an extension until July 15th of The remote meeting provisions of the governor's March 12th 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law The governor's order which is referenced with the agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely Remotely or as a hybrid 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 first The meeting is being conducted via zoom it is being recorded and is being simultaneously broadcast on a Cmi Person's wishing to join the meeting by zoom may find information how to do so on the town's website Persons participating by zoom are reminded they may be visible to others And that if you wish to participate you are 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 Who do not provide comment and those persons are required to identify themselves? Both zoom participants and persons watching on a Cmi can follow the posted agenda materials Also found on the town's website using the novus agenda platform and finally each vote tonight will be taken By roll call And let me find the agenda Which I had open a second ago And now I'm required by policy be edl to read the land acknowledgment the Arlington school committee shall We acknowledge that the town of Arlington is located in the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe the tribe of indigenous peoples From whom the colony province and Commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today And now we'll entertain nominations for the office of chair mr. Hainer. I nominate Miss accent for chair of the Allenton school committee for 22 23 school year So your second here a second any further nominations Hearing none Roll call vote Mr. Sealman Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes, mr. Cardin. Yes, Ms. Morgan Mr. Heiner yes, dr Right and Ms. Exton. Yes, and and I vote in the affirmative it is seven nothing vote congratulations We now entertain nomination election for the office of vice chair Mr. Heiner I Nominate mr. Slickman for vice chair for the Arlington school committee for the year 22 23 You have a second second Do I hear any other nominations? Vice chair Dr. Allison Ampe is my nominated do I have a second second Okay, do I have any other nominations? Hearing none. I'll deem up nominations to be closed We'll offer dr. Allison Ampe and myself both an opportunity to make a brief statement dr. Allison ampe. I Have been looking to be vice chair since last year when I set up when I signed up for secretary Looking ahead at that time. I saw the year 22 23 and then the chair year 23 24 isn't especially important Three things in specific were the things I was really thinking about first. I thought that Ms. Exton being new in her third year as school committee and New to Governing the entire body might appreciate back up if she so wished and I was wanted to be there and prepared to do that Second I wanted to give our superintendent dr. Homan Support in her third year as superintendent and Third Next year there is a lot of work that the vice chair is going to need to be doing in terms of Conversations work with long-range planning Working with the town Towards figuring out how we're going to fund both town and schools in the years to come and this is something Which I have been I've devoted the past year thinking about and I'm ready to take the next steps in terms of Having those conversations I did not realize at the time I had Put my name in for vice chair that my esteemed friend and colleague mr. Schuchman was going to put his name in also I mean no disrespect. I am Continuing a course that I had set forth a year ago And I still it's when I feel very very strongly and it's only Because of this that I would ever Think to try not to inadvertently step on someone's toes, so thank you Thank you. I will make a statement As long as I've been a resident of the town of Arlington We have rotated chairs on this committee the select board has a different but similar procedure in which they rotate chairs This was our policy until about ten years ago And the reason why the policy changed was that we had a contentious five to two committee there were lots of difficulties with that committee and That resulted in having a members of the two-member minority Leading his chairs of the committee from which they had no support. That was the reason for Making an adjustment to the policy nonetheless we have continued with this Custom ever since this will be the first time in Over 30 years that this committee will have deviate from the custom of rotating the chair The reason why this is important for the committee is that it eliminates divisiveness that eliminates Politicking it means eliminates inside politics by which we have people Organizing for the purpose of becoming chair That's not a healthy situation for a committee and we have fortunately been able to Avoid that problem. We have all worked together as members of this committee In the 324 school year all six members of the committee will have served after my last term of chair So in the normal rotation, this would be my opportunity to lead Nobody in this committee is spectacular enough to be a Permanent chair. Nobody on this committee is Somebody I we wouldn't have confidence in it as a chair In that circumstance, I would urge my fellow members of this committee to observe the tradition and not go down the road to contested chairs every year by following the Tradition that we have had in the past Any you any other Discussion mr. Hainer I Came on the committee 11 years ago. I was an outlier at the time I was welcomed by all the members at that time and I think it was three years later. I became the chair with all the support I think everything that dr. Abbey's was talking about is to be considered But I also have faith in all the members of this committee both the new members on the committee have had the support of the other Members at all times whenever a question was asked People have been there to support and if they didn't have the answer they directed somebody there The norms that we will be sharing in a couple of minutes I think exemplifies this camaraderie the support of each other and I support the idea of continuing rotating the chairs on a regular basis we It works it. It's not broken. Thank you Any other debate or discussion? Hearing none a roll call Ms. Exton And I'm choosing a person yes, okay dr. Allison Ampe mr. Thielman Dr. Allison Ampe myself mr. Cardin abstain Ms. Morgan mr. Hainer mr. Schlickman And and I vote for myself. We have a 3-3 vote with that. I will Declare the office of vice chair vacant As we have failed to elect one Do I hear nominations to the office of secretary? I nominate Yes, I nominate mr. Thielman Do I have a second second? Do I have any other nominations? Hearing none All in favor of mr. Thielman is secretary Ms. Exton yes, mr. Mr. Thielman Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes, mr. Cardin. Yes Ms. Morgan mr. Hainer yes, and I vote in the affirmative Yes might I suggest that we leave this Issued for the night and Revisited at some time during the year. I'd ask the new chair to consider that going forward. I think we need to do that I'd unless Anyone would like to make a motion to reconsider The vote I'd see no point in repeating if I may yes I I think we need some time to think it and Just at some time the chair Bring it back and think it out. Thank you Motion adjourned. No, we have the we have two other motions before us Actually three other things just a sec go ahead I thought that if we had a failed if any member failed to receive the majority that we were supposed to Solicit nominations again. I see no point in going through. We have a failed vote if we would if anyone would like to make a motion to Revisit go ahead. I guess I would I would ask if any of the people that have voted Would she consider changing their vote? I Am I won't I will declare I'm not going to change my vote I would ask if any of the people who voted would explain their rationale. I Rule that out of order We've disposed of the vote we can Bring this back up later. I've declared it vacant and and unless there's somebody who was wishes to change their vote By indicating that so right now I'll just declare it vacant and we'll move on vote to approve committee and liaison assignments the newly elected chairs provided us with a list of proposed assignments so move Motioned by mr. Heiner second by second mr. Cardin Any comments or debate? Hearing none. Ms. Exton. Yes, mr. Thielman Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes Mr. Cardin. Yes, Ms. Morgan Mr. Heiner. Yes, and the and I vote in the affirmative. That's a seven-nothing vote. That is unanimous Vote on the authorization of chair in alternate to sign Pay payroll warrant I need a motion to authorize both the chair and the chair of the warrant Committee Which would be mr. Heiner to be authorized to sign the payroll warrant so move Do I have a second? Second Okay, motion by mr. Heiner second by mr. Cardin Roll call vote. Ms. Exton. Yes, mr. Thielman Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes, mr. Cardin. Yes, Ms. Morgan Mr. Heiner. Yes, and the chair votes in the affirmative and And now per policy BDA dash e standards and norms of the year Arlington school committee By Policy the newly elected chair shall read this allowed to the committee and solicit our signatures Which are attached to an email To a docusign document so we get everybody Thank you We the Arlington school committee acknowledged that a school committee meeting is a meeting of school committee members that is held in Public and not a public meeting and that we will make every effort to ensure that meetings are effective and efficient to that end We acknowledge the importance of subcommittees and we and the superintendent agree to utilize them to focus on specific topics in depth And to prepare for presentation deliberation and possible action by the school committee We the Arlington school committee set forth these standards and norms that we will all commit to abide by as individuals and as a committee one represent the needs and interests of all students in the districts to Exercise leadership in vision planning policy making evaluation and advocacy on behalf of the students and district Not in managing the day-to-day operations of the district Three conduct our business through a set agenda emerge emerging items will be addressed in subsequent meetings Through agenda items for provide full disclosure Each member will provide input encouragement express concerns and positions rather than withhold information from other members When a committee member feels that there has not been full disclosure an objective process for revisiting the issue will be used Five maintain an open environment where each member is empowered to freely express opinions concerns and ideas Committee members will work together to clarify and restate discussions in order to strive for full understanding Six keep an open mind and accept that they can change their opinions by recognizing that they are not locked into their initial stated positions Seven make decisions on information and not on personalities Committee members will act with the best information available at the time considering data the superintendents recommendations proposals and suggestions Committee members will strive to make the best decision at the time Eight debate the issues not one another the committee will engage in critical thinking Expecting all committee members to freely offer differing points of view as part of the discussion prior to making a board decision nine Not take unilateral action a committee members authority is derived only through a majority decision of the committee acting as a Whole during an open public meeting 10 attend meetings well prepared to discuss issues on the agenda and be prepared to make decisions Striving for efficient decision-making 11 strive to have no surprises for the committee or superintendent all members will receive the same information on all topics in a timely manner 12 strive to reach decisions by consensus discuss with respect Disagree without acrimony When consensus is not possible all members will publicly abide by the majority decision 13 Understand and respect the chain of command as it concerns rules and responsibilities and direct others to do the same 14 review and revise our standards and norms as needed as part of the committee's self-evaluation Thank you very much. We have now concluded the business of the organizational meeting I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Hainer. So move Looking for a second second move by mr. Hainer seconded by mr. Cardin roll call. Ms. Exton. Yes, mr. Thielman Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes Mr. Cardin. Yes, Ms. Morgan Mr. Hainer. Yes, and I vote in the affirmative. It is a 7-0 vote. We are adjourned and I will now pass the The gavel on to our newly elected chair. Ms. Exton. Congratulations Good evening, I'm calling to order the meeting of the Arlington school committee on Thursday, April 14th 2022 I'm Liz Exton the newly elected chair Mr. Slickman did our Remote meeting script so we don't need to do that any more so the next thing or the first thing on our agenda is public comment I'm going to read a little bit about public participation before Inviting our community members to have signed up for members of the public who wish to address the committee There will be 20 minutes of public comment depending on the number of people who sign up time allotments may be reduced But will not exceed three minutes each One of my committee members will be the timer and will give the speaker a signal when they have 30 seconds left If the number of people who sign up exceeds what can be done in 20 minutes The number of speakers may be capped and will be invited to speak based on the time stamp of their email to Ms. Diggins the school committee respectfully requests Participants of the public to utilize their camera if possible While speaking and to adhere to the public comment policy be EDH that requires Participants to provide their name and address Speakers may offer such objective Criticisms of the school operations and programs as concern them But in public session the committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel Nor against any member of the school community Except for the school committee or the superintendent in their capacity as the operational leader of Arlington Public Schools The public is reminded that the school committee does not hold jurisdiction over the performance of school personnel other than the superintendent Additionally, the committee will not hear anything that might identify and or infringe upon a student's privacy by name or incident If you would like to sign up to speak Please email ediggins at Arlington dot k12 dot ma dot us by 12 noon on the date of the meeting We have six people signed up for public comment this evening Dr. Allison it be can you be my time or please? And we have three here in the chamber, and then we have three on zoom our first speaker tonight is in a Good evening school committee members I'm a long-time parent at this point and also the chair for CPAC I'm speaking on on behalf of the HGI committee Where in I was a active participant, and I want to say that we did some Really good work, and I feel that not only is the school ready to do this But the teachers who have led this charge are absolutely ready to do this So I say that heterogeneous should be a go on top of which as as Chair for CPAC, I'd also like to state that we are in full support of Allison Elmer in this new role that I think you're voting on leader today So I wanted to just state that out in public Thank you very much. Thank you Our next speaker is Julie's Elmer Which said it might be over zoom Julie's Elmer. Are you here? Okay, well we can go to the next person and then come back Rachel Turkington Good evening Arlington school committee My name is Rachel Turkington, and I'm a parent of a seventh grade student at Otteson and a first grade student at bracket I am also a middle school math coach in Waltham public schools And I have served as a K to 12 math director and taught middle school math for a total of 17 years I have extensive experience helping teachers Successfully differentiate to meet the needs of students in a heterogeneous class. I have also conducted research And analyzed an abundance of data about the negative effects that tracking has on students. I Am here tonight to support the pilot of the heterogeneous classes in ninth grade ELA. I Believe that creating a heterogeneous class in ninth grade ELA is one step in the direction of creating more equitable outcomes for our students Decades of research have repeatedly shown that tracking which is placing students into leveled classes is Harmful to students enrolled in the lower track and it provides no significant advantage to the higher-track students Tracking is in an inequitable practice that disproportionately harms our students with learning disabilities Our low-income students our Latinx students and our black students Even when students are allowed to choose their class the lower-track class is overrepresented with the aforementioned student groups Students who are placed in the lower track often experience feeling less confident in their abilities as a learner and are often given less demanding work The combination of feeling less capable and receiving less demanding work Results in lower achievement and can affect how a student sees themselves as a learner for their entire educational experience Instead of lowering the self-esteem and expectations for our most vulnerable students We have the opportunity to set high expectations coupled with high support for all of our students Learning in a heterogeneous classroom can enhance the learning experience for all students even our highest achieving students The teaching and curriculum in a heterogeneous classroom is not watered down The curriculum that is used embodies the grade level standards rigor and high expectations The teacher plans supports and scaffolds to ensure that every student can reach the goal of the lesson While also planning more complex tasks to ensure that students who are ready for more are challenged This model of instruction is called universal design for learning and all students benefit from getting extra support when they need it An extra challenge when they need it The majority of teachers are trained to teach in this way in their teacher preparation programs from kindergarten teachers to AP teachers As every class will contain students with varied needs and therefore every teacher must differentiate regardless of the level of the class After listening to some of the ninth grade ELA teachers Reading the proposal and listening to principal Janger. I am fully confident that this team will deliver I can finish yeah I am fully confident that this team will deliver a high quality curriculum with the appropriate support and challenge within a heterogeneous class In conclusion I think heterogeneous classes give students an opportunity to learn with and from students of different cultural backgrounds different learning styles and life experiences Learning in a more diverse classroom helps students value the perspectives and contributions of people who are different from themselves If our community cares about creating a more We have a lot of speakers, so I'm going to stop you. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you Claire Abbott who I think is on zoom Miss Diggins Yes Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you on the topic of heterogeneous grouping Arlington high school My name is Claire Abbott and while I co-signed a letter of support with many other parents detailing the myriad of reasons We believe this is the right thing to do both academically and morally. I'm here tonight On behalf of my three children who will be running through the halls of many Arlington schools for the next 12 years If you've seen them, you've noticed my fifth grade sons Really tall stature his ready smile his happy go lucky attitude But you might have also seen him hide his head in his hands during class avoiding conversation Perhaps you got a glimpse of my third graders purple hair when he dashed by you on the basketball court Or you saw him chewing his lip and anxiety during the spelling test and some of you might be lucky to know my kindergartner Our effort doesn't smile as she skipped by you so proud of learning how to read this year These three kids are more different than they are similar and the proposal before you tonight To create heterogeneous classes in ninth grade ELA courses will ensure that each of them has the same opportunity Had the same access to experience rich standards aligned engaging instruction No leveling no tracking but rather inclusive and dynamic classes where teachers can intentionally make connections to and Build upon students knowledge when engaging around the same rich texts or critical thinking questions Students diverse and cultural linguistic backgrounds become assets to the classroom community and to the learning process They build one another's knowledge and awareness while preparing one another to become more engaged in active citizens And when it comes to academic achievement Arlington's teachers know how to help students thrive This model will make it easier not harder for teachers to provide engaging standards aligned instruction to every student by providing teachers with additional common planning time and giving them the Flexibility to adapt and adjust in the moment to meet the learning needs of each student Students will also be empowered to take charge of their own learning trajectory with the ability to choose honors level learning expectations All within a richer and more dynamic classroom environment Finally, it is not insignificant that this pilot would launch in our English language arts department Literacy has and always will be the foundation of a thriving community as Koichiro Matsura wrote quote Literacy is inseparable from opportunity and opportunity is inseparable from freedom The freedom promised by literacy is both freedom from Both freedom from ignorant suppression of poverty and it is freedom to to do new things to make choices and to learn I encourage Arlington Arlington to embrace this opportunity to do new things to make choices and to learn for my three kids And forever Thank you Our next speaker is Sarah Barton We can thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening I'm a Pierce parent and also the CPAC co-chair. My name is Sarah Barton I'm speaking in support of heterogeneous groupings Before you vote on the pilot tonight I want you to think about the message that APS would be sending to students if ninth grade English continues to be tracked To the students tracked to college prep We're telling them before they even set foot in the high school or know what an honors class feels like That we don't think they're capable of achieving at the same level as the majority of their peers Or we know that they are capable But maybe they need a co-taught model or some other accommodation that's not available at the honors level right now So we're telling them as a school system As a community that we're unwilling to put in the time effort and resources necessary to give them access to the most challenging content and What are we telling our honors students? That because they possess a specific academic skill set and they hail statistically speaking from traditionally supported demographics That they have no need of their peers perspectives That their growth and development as learners is predicated on excluding underrepresented voices These ideas are not the ideals of our community nor are they of benefit to our students They urge you to approve the pilot proposal so that we may begin the work of disrupting unconscious bias and structural racism ableism and So that our traditionally marginalized students see what they can accomplish Rather than what they cannot and our brightest students are freed from the constraints that block them from the valuable contributions of all of their peers the research supports this move the teachers support this move and so do I And much like my co-chair for the CPAC I would also like to put my support behind the new position of assistant superintendent of schools for student services As you'll be hearing at an upcoming meeting from our recent CPAC parents survey A major struggle that parents have is to get consistent communication and accurate information between and among departments And I really feel that this reorganization has the potential if done well and with sufficient resources to Break open some of those silos and foster a more coordinated approach Thank you Thank you Our next speaker is Ramona Nichols Can we do speaker view on this so we can better see the speaker? Just have to see people in the squares from this distance Well, yeah Ramona if you're in the attendees, can you raise your hand she had to go some In a vehicle now Good evening chair X and dr. Holman and members of the school committee I'm here to share my support for the heterogeneous grouping initiative pilot proposed for all ninth grade ELA As a parent of a black a Black child elementary age in Arlington public schools I've recognized the challenges with respect to teacher bias and the pigeonholing of children that starts in an early age Studies have shown that teacher expectations do not merely Focus I'm sorry Not merely forecast student outcomes, but they also influence those outcomes by becoming self-fulfilling prophecies Systems and policies that would put all students on the same footing in terms of how teacher expectations are formed Would be helpful to narrow those attainment gaps When I first heard about this plan Admittedly my thinking was this should be started at the elementary school Level and I was worried about the watering down of high school curriculum perhaps unintentionally Disadvantaging some of the communities that we're seeking to support Everyone here has a different personal frame of reference in mind is that of a black child who was bussed to better schools in Whites of urban neighborhoods to access a more challenging curriculum than my neighborhood districts provided Leveled education benefited me perfectly personally and allowed for significant academic success that I don't believe I would have achieved had I stated my neighborhood schools Many black and Latinx students coming to this district are also looking for and expecting the ability to choose More challenging courses that will ultimately allow them to be successful in their studies behind high school I was surprised to see that minority students were not electing these courses in Arlington and while I don't know why that is the case I think we need to take a multidirectional systemic Action in addressing those disparities This should start at the elementary level and there needs to be continuous dialogue about educator bias and real work on shifting the mindset and educator expectations around advancing Educators to provide a more multi-tiered approach to education Within a classroom There's a noticeable gap in our ability to differentiate in all levels in a PS And I believe our educators need more training and experience in that regard that said Or by each student can gain footing as a freshman then choose honors and or AP curriculum intense to tell 12th grade Makes a lot of sense. I've taken a curious perspective with respect to this proposal I've asked me questions videos Proposals FAQ and asked questions of Arlington public schools leadership about the plan This has helped me to clarify some of my own misperceptions about what was being asked I was not aware that there are no fundamental differences in the curriculum the text and in the honors versus the A level courses There's only a difference in the student experience and instruction This was shocking to me And I do believe the tracking students early in their high high school career in such a way does not facilitate choice I appreciate the thoughtfulness that has gone into this asking students what they want and the educators what they're committed to doing Even attempting is extremely important to me if the educators want and the students want to try this I think it's on us to allow for this pilot to take place and let them try Many of the concerns I've heard and it goes we're gonna need you to wrap up these We just need to ensure we also need to ensure that we have the salaries training To make this teaching model successful And there's no single action that will help Arlington and this is just one step towards working towards strategic strategic goal of making Arlington public schools An equitable inclusive district. Thank you Thank you. Hey, Julie Zellmer Is she in this? Okay Say because you've already seen what I've written So I'm a fan of metaphors and when I think about The way in which we're trying to imagine and recognize what we're trying to do here. I think for 9th grade English It reminds me of a climbing wall And if you think about a climbing wall, there's a lot of different ways up There's different paths. There's angled paths. There's straight up There's all kinds of ways you can get up. Everyone's going to get to the top Some people might go straight up some people might go diagonally some people might have a disability They're still strapped in the teachers got them But they're all going to get to the top. It's not a race It's about intelligence. It's about It's not it's about skill. It's about learning. It's about practicing and failing and maybe falling but the bullies got you That's what I want you to think about when you're thinking about how we're going to scaffold for the students in the same class They should be in the same class There should be on the same climbing wall. That's all I have to say Thank you We had two other speakers who requested to speak but our current policy is that Speakers need to request to speak with Miss Diggins by noon So I think in the interest of being consistent where that's going to conclude our public comment Our next item is our AHS student representative to the school committee Amy Shalaru, are you here Amy? She was here too. I don't know She may not may not have heard you Amy. I don't see her as a What we can go on and come back. Do you see her in the in the list Miss Diggins? She was here Type her name in the search bar Okay So our next item on the agenda is the 2022 virtual influencer award and highlights from the K-12 library programs this year Dr. McNeil Thank you very much. So to introduce the library team and Stacy Kitzis who was the recipient of that award We have our Director of digital learning Roshmi Pimperkar So I'm going to hand it over to her so she can begin the presentation and so that we can celebrate Miss Kitzis It's it's disabled. I need somebody to enable it. We are working on that right now Thank you Roshmi I like your background Try to share right now Still no Stacy. Can you send me the the presentation? I have it, don't I? Once you introduce You're gonna have to unpin her unpin Vertical bar but you can unpin her All the way to the left There's a vertical bar you can see the little bit of the presentation down down down go to the letter e in slide For everyone see the everyone up up up up up See where says everyone in the middle of her screen there No, but okay Does that mean the people on zoom can see this slides? Yeah, they're not seeing this no But we can look here which one do you see Stacy can you advance your slides? Okay, we can go back to Roshmi you can do the introduction and then Stacy you can start To begin with we just want to Take a quick second to wish you all a very happy reading as we celebrate the school library month with me tonight our Stacy kids is our wonderful Arlington High School Librarian Liz Fitzgerald and Jennifer Lachlan who's our K8 who are K8 librarians And we are very delighted to announce that this week with your support We added a new K8 librarian Renee Nicole's Formerly the library paraprofessional at Pierce who's currently completing her library certification at Salem State University She's unable to join us tonight, but is very grateful for the school committee's ongoing support of the library department Now I'll turn it over to our wonderful high school librarian miss Stacy Kitzis Who was recently recognized by the Massachusetts School Library Association as the? 2022 virtual influencer or her complete Transformation of the high school library Library website and library of course Hardy's congratulations Stacy and on to you Thank you, Roshmi, and thank you everybody for joining us tonight I am so excited to share our Arlington High School library online with you with a quick walkthrough of our website So I'm going to start with some of the design principles that we use to make the new site more accessible more user-friendly and more visually appealing First we really wanted to streamline access to the site and thanks to our friends in IT a new memorable URL provides quick and simplified entry We also chose a color palette to use throughout the site inspired by our school colors And we use student-centered language throughout for example instead of search the catalog we say find books Visual icons provide a clean modern look and make it easy to give direction so we can say click on the picture of the target We also have library news and quick links to our most commonly used outside resources on the streamlined homepage And finally the new Google sites is mobile device friendly and we are working on adding alt text to images to make it more accessible for screen readers Of course the pandemic has absolutely driven home the need for an online presence I like to tell students the library is open 24 hours a day on the web So turning to some of the content on the site users can search the catalog for books But they can also search visually by genre and if they need more help deciding what to read We have an online community of student and staff book reviews called HS reads together As well as an online form where they can answer a series of questions and we write back with at least three book recommendations from our collection The website is also the launchpad for Sora our online e-book and audiobook collection And then for research and instruction we provide pages for specific class assignments lists of database as well as general subject guides So a user can come in looking for help research in current events working on their math fair project finding our culinary arts digital collection and so on The AHS research handbook was rewritten as a dynamic website in 2015 with representation from math, science, English, history and special education departments And this year it was substantially updated as a companion website Each step of the research process has guiding questions, technology, tooltips and deeper instruction This is a form for article requests through interlibrary loan. I like to tell students if we don't have it we can probably get it for you Besides students are other audiences of course teachers and we wanted to showcase what's possible with some exemplars of library collaboration This is also their one-stop shop to book classes request technology loans use our streaming video platform and so on And then it was really important to us that the website helps students engage with the library program Whether they're physically in our space or not and to provide some sense of continuity as the physical spaces is in flux in these years So students can sign up to come to the library directly from the website on their own devices They can share book reviews suggest books learn about our student clubs like the student library advisory committee and the intergenerational book club You can visit the historic yearbook collection Which is the collaboration of AHS students and robin's library through a massachusetts digitization grant And you can actually click through this picture and and most other images in this slideshow to learn more and visit the yearbooks And then our new library news page provides a running feed of book displays activities events instructional tidbits and more So thank you so much for the opportunity to share our AHS library online with you And then we're going to shift gears and and turn to some of the department's highlights for the year And I will start with our top three for Arlington high school Which are our website as you've seen Our big move and the chance really to like reconnect in person So we moved from the the um the the old library, which is being being taken to bits as we speak To a temporary location in the space known as old hall in december And that required significant weeding and reorganization and has come together really nicely into a functional and pleasant space that students really do enjoy And we're back in person with classes clubs lots of opportunities for collaboration with student groups We're launching wellness wednesday activities to promote social emotional learning through an aef grant and we have a great core of student volunteers And with that I will turn it over to my ka librarian colleagues who will share with us more about our elementary middle and district-wide activities The professional library staff have been active in collaborations with many district stakeholder groups including students district staff building staff and more uh The professional library staff collaborates and co-teaches on research introduces our databases And works on projects like reading without walls and the rainbow of us projects at dalin Which leverage books to have meaningful conversations about identity and culture Here liz engages down second graders in a rich conversation about identity race and black history month Liz and jennifer met in the fall with middle school history teachers to present a self-paced library research training Including our new databases and many other tools and services Available from library staff stacey. I think the slide is fine. Thank you The entire library team of our paraprofessionals and our professional staff Promotes a culture of reading learning and positive identity development The pto's and paraprofessionals have been again able to hold in-person book fairs this year much to the delight of families and students next We regularly share information with and book suggestions with district staff About social events and about current events and socially relevant topics. These slideshows often include cultural observations heritage months and history months Great. Hi, everybody. I'm liz pipsuero one of the k librarians. Thank you, jennifer and stacey Um, so our paraprofessionals and pto's arranged author visits at many of the schools this year And these author visits engage students and ignite enthusiasm for reading and writing That carries over into their classrooms The investment And effort put into updating library collections and making online content collections available Is really paying off so students and teachers are excited to use our many databases and tools And every month, uh, Arlington public school users access almost 10 000 items online While print circulation has risen by 59 percent Since school year 19 the year before the district began reinvesting in its k8 libraries Our libraries are exciting spaces Supporting the research reading and curiosity of students and staff The paraprofessionals promote new books Encourage student knowledge and awareness through read alouds Circulate and shelve books create exciting displays and share interactive activities for students And with the addition of renais and one new hire in the fall We will have one certified librarian for every two or three elementary and middle schools Library staff will be able to focus on individual school needs and continue to build relationships with teachers students And of course the school community And so on behalf of the entire library team Thank you for inviting us to join you tonight And we really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you as well as your continued support. Thank you Uh, any questions or comments from the committee? Mr. Hader? When I came on board, uh school committee 11 years ago We had no certified librarians in the district. We quickly got one at the high school And the new librarians and paraprofessionals are probably just recently. I want to thank you all for doing a phenomenal job Dr. Allison ampe Thank you very much for this presentation. It's been great. Um, I had one question Which is I just wonder what the ebooks are being read on is it on the students phones? Do we have Electronic readers. Do we need electronic readers? Um, I just want to wonder about access for all students. Thank you The device the majority of elementary students are accessing it on school devices both the iPads in k2 And the chromebooks in grades three through five And as you mentioned equity is a concern Which is why we make those devices available to students over breaks and the summer So that it does not create a digital divide situation as students get older They tend to do more Accessing through personal devices, but they all they still have access to a school chromebook Which can you don't which can access any of the materials on sore? Great. Thank you very much Yeah, if I may also congratulate you on this excellent performance. I mean, uh Mr. Hader came on to the committee after we made the cuts in 2004 I think historically you have to know that In 2004 governor romney cut state aid to local districts by 20 percent And we had a failed override that year resulting in Uh, a slew of cuts and one of the things we made was Just absolutely heartbreaking Was to lose our elementary librarians totally gone because of budget considerations I'm glad we're back and uh, you're you're like a phoenix rising out of the ashes to build a really beautiful program And and I hope that we have the support of the community so we can keep on keeping on. Thank you Yep, dr. Oman. Um, I just want to say thank you to the library team This is one of the most dynamic and exciting teams that I have the pleasure of working with every day And um as a former leader of libraries in one of my former roles I just have so much immense respect for and have learned so much about what librarians do having never been one But being a frequenter of them from the time I was very young Um This group really moves mountains in the name of making sure that excellent books are in the hands of every child So thank you all for everything you do and for the wonderful presentation We're very lucky to have this team and very glad that it's growing sure I would like to thank the team for a wonderful and dynamic presentation and the Amount of information that you have provided to our teachers have been invaluable and uh, especially as as we have these very um exciting dei goals and One of our goals is make sure that we want our students to see themselves in the materials And be able to have a window to the world so they can understand what their place is In the general society. So thank you for all that you do And uh, once again, you just make me very proud Uh, mr. Thielman or miss morgan. I Miss morgan you can call out if you can't you I think Okay, all right. I saw a hand on the zoom screen. Did somebody want to respond No, um, I'll just echo um the thanks and appreciation that my colleagues have given um about this time last year You gave a presentation um About elementary school libraries and diversifying the books and I you know, I'm thrilled that we've been able to add more Elementary librarians since that time And I am excited to see this program continue to grow. So thank you all very much Okay Next on our agenda Is the heterogeneous grouping initiative proposal and possible vote. Uh, so Dr. Holman is going to say some words and I know there are some other people here to speak to that just so the committee knows my um Plan because this is the first time that this proposal has been presented at a full school committee meeting We'll do a round with questions and then a second round if there are comments that people would like to make After dr. Holman and her team make their presentation Miss diggins. I'm going to send over to you the uh usb for the clicker So that you can plug it into the presentation. I can just pass it down And while miss diggins pulls up the slides So that I can present them. I have a few words I'd like to say and then I'll start the presentation and then hand it off to dr. Janger So since the fall of 2020 before I began in my role as superintendent of schools I have been following conversations about leveling and heterogeneous grouping in arlington specifically at arlington high school Like many neighboring communities including several districts in the middle sex league APS teachers staff families and students have been thinking about the equity implications of our current leveling and tracking practices I said in my interview with the school committee in november of 2020 And I believe today that any conversations about leveling practices should be community conversations I have endeavored to work with administrators teachers families and students To ensure that such conversations would both occur and inform our efforts to move this work forward I'd like to begin this evening by acknowledging that conversations and decisions linked to disrupting structural inequity are never easy They are always fraught with questions about the allocation of our most precious resources when it comes to our children time money and opportunity As we enter into another discussion on this topic I want to highlight a few things that I believe provide important context to conversations about how we place students in classes with their peers First instructional equity is not a zero-sum game By this I mean well designed instruction does not give to one student at the expense of another We have students in our schools who have internalized explicit and implicit messages about their academic ability That some achieve and some simply can't These are problems of the system and provide us with a reason to address and repair that system Students who require support time or a different approach vector to learning should not be penalized for their learning needs By being segregated from their peers To do so disservices them And it disservices their peers Second access to rigorous and challenging material increases student engagement I challenge the notion that there are unmotivated students who will slow the pace or diminish the level of rigor in the classroom Instead the opposite is true Students who otherwise did not have access to their peers and assignments in honors level classes will rise to the occasion And actively contribute to a strong classroom atmosphere This is an investment in giving all students the opportunity to explore and experience high expectations I would ask our community members to consider times when you've been most motivated to learn something new For me, this rarely happens when the task at hand is easy We are most motivated when we are challenged and humans are programmed to be lifelong social learners We are also most challenged when we're surrounded by people who understand and address problems differently from ourselves And when there's no one right answer and no single way to address a problem or an issue All students deserve an opportunity to access instruction that meets these criteria Finally equity work is best done when individuals and organizations move together towards a common goal I have experienced this in my own work and I know it to be true My first district improvement goal for this school year approved by the school committee this fall Was to build a collaborative and equity focused leadership culture The proposal before you tonight allocates one of our most precious resources Time for ahs teachers to do exactly that Our teachers know that all of their students are capable of high level thinking They want to pursue on level classes that hold all students accountable and to high expectations They are engaged and motivated by the challenge of building supportive universally designed classrooms What we have in this proposal is an opportunity to eliminate a structure that exacerbates inequity In order to introduce a new structure that has the potential to significantly improve practice Instruction and collaboration for ninth grade students and teachers at Arlington high school In my entry plan report, I wrote that collegiality and mutual respect are necessary preconditions for challenging conversations about equity and access This proposal is an example of our teacher's eagerness to have those conversations The proposal before you tonight is the result of over a year of thoughtful conversation and feedback from Arlington families teachers and students We acknowledge that the experiences some families and students have had with heterogeneous grouping at Arlington high school in the past Were not positive ones This proposal is not the same as the proposal presented in the spring of 2021 in several ways First this proposal is designed to address concerns raised about previous heterogeneous grouping experiences by members of the Arlington community Many of whom we have heard This proposal was developed in conversation with students families and teachers This proposal introduces structural supports for teachers including lower class sizes and time for collaboration and common planning This proposal is intentionally very limited in its scope Giving us a small and protected space to iterate on and improve new practices And this proposal is rigorous in its articulation of data sources qualitative and quantitative That we can collect and triangulate in order to assess the success of the initiative And finally this proposal is supported by many members of our community Including several parents ahs english teachers and teachers in other departments the Arlington human rights commission and the special education parent advisory council We do not claim to have done this work perfectly And we do not assume that our plan will be successful without focused and sustained effort attention and accountability We have learned a lot about families and students concerns throughout this process And we're committing committed to continuing to learn as we move forward I'm looking forward to tonight's discussion and we will go ahead and get started with the presentation Let's dig into the shared slides Share please is it shared for the folks on zoom because it doesn't It's not shared for the folks on zoom They're saying they can't Jeff you can't you can't see it. Can you sorry So we need to share it on that computer No, no, no, no, no share the slides There you go. Can you hit the present button, please? It's a slideshow on the uh, I think she can't see it. She can't get to it Yellow yellow rectangle underneath the slideshow. Sorry. No, that's thank you Okay, mr. Thielman you can see it now. Yes good, okay, so Tonight's presentation. I'm going to open with a little bit of district context quickly and then I will turn it over to dr. Janger So I have shared this slide with the cia subcommittee As well and I want to emphasize that we realize and I just stated that this is a systemic challenge It's something that we need to address at multiple levels of the system And something that we are committed to addressing at multiple levels of the system So what this slide is showing? And I believe it's fine What this slide is showing is that from grade three to grade eight and there are yeah, it's fine From grade three to grade eight. We have achievement gaps. Um, these gaps are lagging indicators They're not leading in other words This is what happens when we have opportunity gaps in the system or areas where students struggle to access Instruction that is rigorous in order to show that they are meeting grade level standards So this begins at grade three. We recognize that it moves through our system. Importantly, we begin the practice of structured leveling As early as grade six and we begin to see outcomes decreased for all student groups At middle school and so that's not necessarily a causative statement like structural leveling Is the reason why we begin to see these trends shift But it is a reason for us to pay very close attention To what happens at the secondary level to increasing rigor at the secondary level to thinking about what barriers to access might exist At the secondary level, but importantly this starts even younger than that As we've heard in public comment We also need to look at our inclusive structures at the elementary level and make sure that we're not pulling students out of core instructional time In ways that reduces their access to some of the same opportunities that will impact them later on So we are doing this at the district level We can talk about those initiatives at later dates. We don't need to dwell on them now But a few of them are listed on this slide and in the materials that you have for today And I would like to hand it over to dr. Janger and dr. Janger. I can drive the slide to just tell me when you want me to move forward So we've gone over a lot of this song We've gone over a lot of this material before so the piece of me was not entirely sure of Which things to discuss as we went through this because we've presented this a number of times to the community But just to back up for a second. I think it's important to remember as we go into this Where how we started this process and we didn't start this process just this spring or just just last spring or just this fall The process of moving towards inclusion the process of thinking about how our curriculum offered equal High level opportunities to all of our students began For me at least nine years ago because that's the long I've been here But I really began even before then So we have been going through the process of eliminating eliminating Levels within the system. So right now we have only ap honors advanced Which is college preparatory and then curriculum b We built co-taughts over the last six years So that general education curriculum b classes were eliminated so that all students in general education classes Even if they were on IEPs We're participating in the regular classes with their classmates and go and working towards a college preparatory curriculum So that model is something that we've been moving on going forward This conversation was really launched in some ways by an opportunity Which was that as our teachers have been reviewing and aligning the curriculum To make sure that the college preparatory classes. That's curriculum a and the honors classes. That's curriculum h We're having the same standards the same experiences the same high level curriculum They more and more began to feel that it was going to be much more Effective and possible and appropriate for those students to all be taught together and that was a feeling across English history Science as well as our math department. Although the process is more complicated in many of those departments So that began this conversation. So this fall we um pulled together after a Um a presentation to the curriculum instruction accountability and assessment committee a representative committee of parents students teachers Administrators and community members to do a deep dive into our data the research the practices And to think about what it was we could do to try to address the issue And i'll talk in the next slide about what the problems that we were trying to address were But we went through that process of developing that our goal was to have a consensus decision So the group met until we were able to agree on the proposal and remember a consensus decision Doesn't necessarily mean that everybody gets what they want But that everybody agrees that they're going to put that presentation together that they can live with what is there um and The reasons why this started Was because we have ample evidence that students in our schools have different experiences They have different opportunities offered to them. They have different expectations offered to them they have different Messages given to them about their potential And we see that that iterates over time. So it leads to gaps that have widened by the time they get to high school But at the same time in arlington The overall level of capacity of all of our students arriving in high school is still very high And all of our students what we see is are perfectly capable of doing high level college preparatory curriculum With adequate support um And so when you look at those disproportionate participation rates, you know, what where do we see that in levels? We see that in disproportionate rates in terms of honors level work Um by iap by race iap status the ll status socioeconomic status We see inconsistent classroom experiences when we survey students when we interview students We find that our students of color Our low ss students our ll students our students with iap's Experience differences in terms of rigorous expectations from their teachers their Impression of that in terms of their relationships with teachers in terms of their sense of belonging in the school And so those things align the levels that we're seeing as well as the experiences of those students um So what can we do? How does this address that? So most importantly before I even go into sort of the technical aspects Is is the simple point which is that we have highly expert teachers who get very good outcomes right And the teachers believe That this is in the best interest of all students They would not do this if they didn't think they could do it And they would not do this if they didn't think it would be better for students And they are asking for the opportunity to try We are not asking to There's many conversations and we get excited about the enormous potential For structurally revising this the school and if we build expertise we will work towards that But what we are talking about right now is giving eighth grade students the opportunity To come to high school and experience honors level classes To make a choice about whether or not they want to experience honors level What they want to do the honors level work and to be with their classmates in at least one content area And we expect that to have a wide range of positive impacts not just on those students, but on all students We see in arlington An epidemic of student stress and anxiety Part of that becomes from the values that we inculcate in them We want students to have high levels of achievement But we don't want their levels of achievement to be about who we think they are We don't want to be telling students you're an honor student or you're an a student We want to be telling them that you're a student who care about Who's today doing honors level work or a level work and we value that equally in both And by separating them we give a message that that's not the case So what are we looking to do? In the current model This gives access to higher level tasks for ninth grade english students for everybody It also gives access to a more diverse classroom for everybody And we believe we say this all the time that the diversity of our community is its strength So it's important that we give students the opportunity to experience that full diversity of experiences We know That putting students in a more inclusive environments builds motivation and engagement for all students. There's ample evidence of that In addition, we're bringing more resources to the table. So dedicated additional common planning time And i'm going to explain it here. There'll be a slide later that talks about it So one of the questions was how does co-teaching work? I mean, how does common planning time work? So the plan is to give the teachers in each of the teams You all know what the teams are A common planning time. So one of their periods. They'll will be their prep period Now that's not giving them additional time, right? They would have four periods during the course of the week when they're both When they're all free for their prep time But teachers by contract get five preps a week We're going to give them an additional prep To make sure that that can be designated to doing work on this To be honest, we think that the teachers will make good use of the time whether we ask them to or not But I know they'll certainly value and make good use of the additional time We're planning on having small class sizes Capping the average class size at 20. There will be some variants But also by grouping them in these pods of three And pre-scheduling that it will smooth out the enrollment across all of those classes And one of the things that we've talked about that has actually also enabled this is sort of the later conversation Is because you're going to have these six teaching teams It suddenly becomes possible to do something we've wanted to do for years, which is to run Community building and equity training with all of the freshman classes because we can do that in six Waves of retreat days. We have a model for DEI training that we've done with ideas as well as Voices United And we really feel like that's going to help those groups of three to four classes Build a sense of spirit and build the norms and culture that will help them Take advantage of and really benefit from the more diverse classroom So the plan we've talked about before So English 9 ELA will be heterogeneously grouped By that we mean homogeneously grouped, which is that we will put everybody together in the same classes We will distribute them across the 18 to 19 sections Students will then within the class make their choice about whether they are going to do Honors level work or advanced level work in the classroom They'll have a decision point around three to four weeks in the first semester And then they'll be able to change their decision in the second semester if they want to do that All students to be clear though will have access to that work and to those expectations throughout the entire year So their transcripts and their gpa way will reflect the chosen level And what that means is that actually what will go on the transcript next year Will look exactly the same as what goes on the transcript this year It will say you took honors level freshman english or a level freshman english So again as we've explained three sections or four for each of those six periods Four of those teams as we've explained will include a co-taught section And we are going to have there's conversations in our planning About how we can take advantage of the team model to be more flexible within our co-teaching model But the basic idea is that there will be a special educator assigned to one of those groups of classes And specifically to one of those sections for our co-taughts right now We have three sections of co-taught in ninth grade We're adding an additional one which will actually help us to spread the students out and give them more opportunity The common planning time i've already explained And and this is the most important in terms of the conversation and we have a one of our english teachers here to talk about that later That what we want to make sure is that honors level work Is about the students doing higher level work So the difference would be in terms of the level of complexity of their writing assignments The level of complexity of the tasks that they're doing and how student how teachers differentiate that is something We're pretty good at already and miss basso will explain this in a little bit Next slide This is deb I think she's online miss perry are you there? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes Okay, thank you Getting together to talk about the work that we do is part of the regular routine that occurs in the english department We have put now into our practice for the purposes of this hgi proposal um A few times that it will be dedicated specifically not just not just to look at the work that we've done Through the eyes that we usually have but through the eyes Of how we might want to adapt or change The work that we do in order to be as effective as we can in heterogeneous classes um So we have two different Two different circumstances where this is going to happen. The first is a day in may It'll be a full day where all teachers who will be teaching ninth grade will meet We'll spend the first half of the day reviewing what we did this year. We've added we added a new title We want to talk with each other about how that went When a look at areas that will need to be changed modified Things that went well Trading information that we gained individually around the work that we've done um The second half of the day will be spent Thinking about what we need to do in the summer to plan in order to make this new project as As productive as effective as possible So we will be thinking about The common assessments that we have we'll be thinking about the titles that we've been using We'll be thinking about the the support materials that we use Um to help kids look further and deeper into various topics that we discover so in may We will do a sort of a personal and a group review Of how the year went And things that we might want to think about changing and then developing an agenda for the summer In the summer, we're going to meet for a week Um, and we've listed here some of the things That that we'll probably be doing Um, we can refine the scope of the curriculum Which simply means taking a look at what we're asking for what are the rubrics? What are the activities? What are our assessments and expectations? um The idea of setting expectations is going to take some thinking and take some time We have really high expectations now and I expect we'll be adding to those and modifying them in various ways um reviewing and implementing concepts of differentiation Um, these are things that we all do And we may want to make more specific we want to incorporate them into the lessons that were that we are writing and The use of shared formative assessments. We already have a lot Of assessments that we do in common around the various books that we teach. We have a common final exam We'll look at those things to see If we need to add to them if we need to change them And how we might best think about assessment, which I think is going to be one of our One of our best set of discussions around how this will work In terms of the assessments that we have and the assessments that we want to construct And the assessments that will be make the most sense for the work that we'll be doing um I think the last item on the slide is something that we've talked about With the school committee before But I think it's really important because it sometimes doesn't get talked about and that is the idea of explicitly teaching cooperative and independent learning skills to diverse groups of students and Those are things that we know how to do and that we will build into the work that we do in our English curriculum I'd like to introduce lisa basso next who is going to talk for a minute about One lesson that she's constructed that builds in Some Diversity in terms of the expectations for students. I we had a slide, but I don't see it here. I think Liza why don't you go ahead and start talking and we'll find it Great. Good evening. Thank you all very much for giving me the opportunity to share my work with you I'm an English teacher at the high school this year. I teach two sections of a level ninth grade english In the past I've taught honors level as well as the heterogeneous version last year So tonight I wanted to just share one assignment that I created that incorporates differentiation And it comes at the end of a unit that is centered around the idea of decision making So over the course of the unit we talk about decision making in our own lives the factors that influence our decisions And we read a number of texts that circle around similar themes The core text is romeo and juliet. So the final assignment that I shared Was an essay assignment where students need to pick out one decision made by a character in romeo and juliet And kind of think about how it speaks to a larger purpose or message on the part of shakespeare and the play So all students have this task have this same prompt But there is an additional honors component Which challenges students to synthesize a second text that we read during the course of the unit To kind of talk about how these two texts communicate with one another Whether it's adding to the argument made by shakespeare or challenging it So this offers students the opportunity to There we are. Okay, so you can see the component and the prompt here So yeah, I'd give students the opportunity to Practice this higher level thinking skill of synthesis by bringing in another text that we read During the course of the school year. So in addition to this prompt and the differentiation built within it I also include a graphic organizer for all students along with this prompt that breaks down each part of the writing process Which makes the task accessible to all different levels Of learners. We also have several days of in-class Workshopping peer editing as well as one-on-one conferences with me so that I can meet with individual students where they are Talk through their essays and what they think that they need to work on So those are the main things that I wanted to share. You can take a look at the prompt and the honors component And yeah, unless there are questions, I'll pass it back to dr. Janger. Thank you all very much So actually this is something that kind of gets me excited as and sort of full disclosure When I taught English in high school, I taught ninth grade had originally grouped English That is not why we are doing this that is not where this came from But it was in fact my favorite teacher class to teach And one of the things that would really excites me about this Is that there were years when I did this as part of a teaching team And so part of where this teaching team idea came from Was two sets of concerns One was this question about how do we differentiate For the students and how do we give the students the teachers Flexibility to support students so building these teaching teams of three to four sections Gives the teachers opportunities to collaborate and to do regrouping and to think about How they're able to support the students in different ways um, and then second It addresses a lot of the questions that folks had about the consistency of experiences across the classes Because the teachers working together on common activities and common Common standards Assist them with more aligning their practices and what's going on in the class So right now, let's be clear our teachers have done a lot of work on aligning the curriculum They have shared digital resources. They have assignments. They have shared rubrics They have shared content within this class that they use on both at both levels And they use across their classes They have monthly department and plc meetings where they work to coordinate that and if they're lucky They have sporadic opportunities to meet with each other during their prep times during an x block Or at other times they may carve out of their day What's different here is that by making it so that we have three or four sections and potentially a special educator And a common prep time They now have protected additional collaborative time with colleagues To work on those shared digital resources to align the times when they use them to think about how they're going to use them in common They have the ability potentially to regroup or to reorganize the example of these community building activities Allows us to meet together with three classes at the same time to build a community within those classes And there are times when a teacher may want to pull out a smaller group of students to work on something And have some other group work on a larger set of things It gives you and this the last piece I think is one of the most important It gives them the ability to develop shared understandings to use those assessments in common to grade them To look at them together the english teachers do that But they do that maybe once or twice a year now when they can carve out a period in order to do it Um, they can look at their grading policies. They can look at the common sequence One of the things we've talked about is if you look across the set of core texts in the english department There's a need to shuffle because we don't have enough books necessarily So they go through a sequence of skills in the same order, but not necessarily a sequence of texts One of the things that we'll plan as part of the planning process Is to take some of those core texts and to work on those in the same order at the same time Which tells me we'll have to buy some more books Because you'll need if you're going to have 360 kids doing Persepolis all at the same time We probably only have a hundred copies right now and we'll need to buy Enough so that that can be a common activity and that's incredibly powerful It's incredibly powerful in terms of teachers talking about it kids talking about it And then being able to do common work and common assignments Deb did you want to take this one? It says Deb or Matt under it Yes, I would Right now teachers do need normal planning time As they can So I think the opportunity to be able to to discuss what's going on Coming out of the summer meeting where the planning will have happened the overall planning will have happened then to be able to sit down Purposefully to talk about if the things we've planned are working and if they're not then how can we change them? The opportunity to do what Matthew said a minute ago around Having organized time to to share papers and look at those and and talk about grading and how it's working And what are the things we're looking for? Those are those are really really Time-consuming and important procedures, which this common planning time is going to help us do So when Um This slide talks about structure the specific blocks will be designed For common planning and then they'll have access to their colleagues during regular planning periods as well as for additional meetings It's important to know that there's an absolute time and that will augment the sort of Opportunities at lunch and the opportunities After school and the other times when when people tend to get together and want to talk about things But knowing that there's an actual time you can sit down and say hey What happened with this in your class? What what are you learning? What do you know? What were the problems? What are the successes? Did you do it a different way? Those are the kinds of questions that are constant? In a teacher's mind and often you only have your own mind to give the answer So being able knowing being able to know that you'll be able to talk with someone else about something that you've planned together Is is um invaluable um The list here of things that that might happen One of the things that we never get to do is peer observation because there's never everyone's teaching at the same time So having freer blocks Or free blocks when other people might be teaching is a terrific opportunity for people To sort of say to learn how someone else is Interpreting a potential lesson or trying it out or seeing what kids are doing or possibly even helping out a teacher Who wants another person in the room? For whatever whatever the process or the lesson might be Collaborative grading I've mentioned And then refining and for the developing targeted focus areas for the for each quarter That's that goes on now. We have always taken time to do it And to know that we have more More time that's that's being acknowledged for us. I think will be Well received and very valuable I think we've said it all I think Matthew said much of it I want to sort of share what our plan is for Reporting back to the community on how things are going We would do updates to the school committee and include on a full update to the community In october january and may we would slay Presentations to the school committee at that time and also develop reports that we would send out to the full community on how the initiative is going We would have teachers report on in those presentations What their experiences have been in the classroom some of the things they're learning what they're doing in common planning time and How some of that is going from their perspectives We would report as an administration on the available data that we have like survey results student grades Results from common planning as a common assessment student participation and honors Parent and student feedback we would plan on getting Feedback both from the parents and from the students as part of our progress reporting In order to assess the pilot's success We would look at data indicators from the original proposal that we listed And also ongoing formative assessments in various areas that are specific to content in ninth grade english And a lot of folks have asked, you know, what are the indicators of success with regards to the numbers that you're looking at We are looking at And for closing achievement gaps For the subgroups that i have talked about and that we've talked about our students who have ips Our students who come from Homes that may not have as much advantage our students who are english learners We are looking for gaps to close We are looking for a closing experiential gaps on surveys We have significant evidence that tells us that some of our students experience school Very differently as dr. Janger said from other students. We want to see those gaps closing And we're looking for improving outcomes for all groups of students all students We want to see all of those lines go up. Um, this is not About improving outcomes only for some groups of kids. This is about improving outcomes for all groups of students And so those things need to happen in order for anything to move forward We have also extended our timeline for potential expansion of this pilot We've been asked on both sides of things, you know, what what is your vision for this? Where is this going and we don't have an answer to that question yet? We have ideas we have had other versions of this proposal that are larger We have ways we can think about expanding this out through ninth grade For a supportive experience into the high school before you choose a pathway through the high school And maybe into more level classes Or we have ideas that take this up through english where you might have a ap for all or honors for all English in a particular content area We don't know what the next steps in this will be. We need to take the time to do the work and assess it so We would want to assess the impact of the pilot over a couple of years We would limit adjustments to the model to ninth grade la for the following year Which gives us some time to adjust our approach In a subsequent year to analyze additional data To address any inconsistent messaging about honors level courses as students enter ahs We've heard that the messaging around honors courses at eighth grade Varies and that that comes from lots of different sources And so we know we need to address that and that's something that we can look at doing for next year I've learned a lot and watching that process go forward and that's a district level issue that I know that we need to think about And this would also give us time to Develop a more comprehensive vision for the future of leveling and pathways to college At arlington high school and time to hear from the community on that So we've also provided you with some sample questions from the culture and climate survey That show what the classroom level survey can look like It's very focused on rigorous expectations and classroom experience in a particular class And our plan would be to do that survey this spring to give us a baseline In some ninth grade classes and then to do it again Periodically throughout the year so that we could see if any of those indicators are improving from students experience this year into future years And I believe that that is my last slide So with that we will take any questions and I know you have a couple of students with you who may want to speak to it You have to talk into the mic. Yeah Hi, my name is lillian mclown and i'm a jane a junior at hs I've come here today in support of the heterogeneous grouping proposal And the way I see it heterogeneous classes have many benefits for all students By giving students the opportunity to experience these heterogeneous classes We allow them to understand what is expected of them before they make a decision on what level to take and give them a chance to understand um The expectations encouraging them to challenge themselves further as a student of a a ps I've experienced the divide leveling has formed where students begin equating their intelligence and capabilities With what classes they take There are students that I had thought transferred because I hadn't seen them since middle school By leveling classes and keeping them separate We are creating a divide where students don't get to know each other based solely on the classes they take By placing a level and h level classes in the same room For everyone, um, we open up further discussion between students regardless of what class they decide to take um, this promotes students Challenging themselves further and by taking by doing this. We foster student relations across class levels on top of that leveling further disadvantages already disadvantage Students and I see this as the first step towards equity for all students and breaking down the divide that leveling leveling creates Throughout my discussions with students teachers at our school teachers at schools who have already implemented heterogeneous learning And research we have looked into in the study group I have decided that I believe the hgi proposal for ninth grade english is the right thing for students Regardless of the level of class they want to take with benefits for all Thank you Hi, my name is hannah markels. I'm a junior at aHS and I'm also here to support the heterogeneous grouping initiative um, I've been working on the pre the hgi initiative group the group of parents students teachers staff, um to Discuss this initiative and see what if aHS wants to support it and I say that our group has come to consensus that that is a Yes, and that's a group Um of people that many of them came into this process not supporting the initiative and through research Their minds have been changed. Um, and when I first heard of this initiative, I wasn't sure if I supported it either Um, because I just didn't have enough of the information. Um, and after going through that research myself, um, I believe the Really powerful aspect of this beyond the data because I'm assuming you've all seen the data many times now. Um is the idea of uniting aHS There's as lily said there's kids I haven't seen since elementary school because of the different classes we've been put in the clusters and omas and obviously There has to be some we can't put every kid in the same room for every class that'd be impossible um, but heterogeneous classes would really allow for this furtherness of the, um Diversity equity inclusion that we talk about and that we put at the forefront of aHS's mission. Um, and So This is a pilot. This is a test. Um, but I think if we really want to claim that um diversity equity and inclusion Is the forefront of Aps as a whole as well as Arlington high school. Um, this initiative is essential to that. So thank you for your time Can I move down? Mr. Hayner? No questions at this time Mr. Cardin, uh, I have a bunch, but I want to take up too much time. So Stop me if you want I guess miss perry's been here that I think the longest of anyone I don't know if she's she's on can Did curriculum a and honors at ever at any point in your career here ever have different curriculum? We can stop sharing Can you hear I don't think we can hear we can hear you. Yes Yes, it did. Um, when I first got here, there were five levels. Um, and the they were very distinctly different Okay, so so we've made a huge progress in the leveling to begin with So just want to make that point. I think it's a surprise to a lot of people That the curriculum is the same in both honors and curriculum a um, but I'll try to stick to questions What are eighth grade teachers like a new eighth grade teacher? What are they told about how to give recommendations? I don't know if you can enter that miss perry for for an el a teacher How are they told to give recommendations and for eighth grade students? Let me start by saying that um As you know parent teachers make recommendations and parents Choose often what they they talk with teachers, but they they have the option to choose what they want We usually talk about the The capacity of a student to either Write write well write in a in a in a sort of reasonably strong way And work habits in general those are two of the major things that teachers talk about um, they used to talk a lot about you know Students getting ready for high school work and we sort of changed that that language um And That I guess what I can say to you is that the the numbers of students For each level have changed dramatically in the last five years I don't know if this is part of your question, but we it used to be that there were many more students in level a And and fewer students in honors and that came to an equal point a couple of years ago And now it's the opposite. We have many more kids signing up for honors and fewer for level a And I think it it I'm not sure that the teachers Are recommending that way. I'm pretty confident that they're not. I think that there's some movement on the part of parents to Put kids in levels that way Great. Thank you So one question that a lot of parents have had Uh That that hasn't been answered is is if someone could give an example of how you how you would differentiate instruction We've heard several times about how you differentiate the work assignments the prompts again tonight. We had an A very specific example of a prompt But using that example that prompt requires honors students to synthesize Two different works. How do you teach those students to synthesize two different works in a heterogeneous class? I'm not sure if I want to put it thoroughly on the spot. I could be the best to speak to that Yeah, can you all hear me? Mm-hmm Um, so those other texts that they're pulling from in that final essay We've all read them and analyzed them together over the course of the unit So not in a formal writing way, but in a discussion based analysis way We've talked about how we can bring those ideas from shakespeare and another author together So we're practicing the skill of synthesis through discussion through smaller writing assignments So they're prepared to take that next step So you're teaching everybody how to do synthesis, but you're only asking the honors students to do it on the assignment Yes in a formal structured written way that would be more of a skill for an ap language and composition student Can I jump in also that? Anybody can anybody could take advantage of that honors prompt? So one of the ways that's tends to work is it's there And so if a student wants to wants to add that or include that in in the piece of writing You know go for it. It's so it's not exclusive It's it's an it's there as an additive kind of thing So one of the things to realize about the structure of an english class right is that there are All kinds of different groupings and conduits in terms of activities So students doing individual writing Are individually conferencing with teachers getting individual feedback So while one teacher may be student may be doing something fairly concrete Another student on the same content may be doing something much more sophisticated with more transfer and more level of inspection Then you've also got Independent reading activities so students are doing different some of the supplementary texts differently You've got groups sometimes that are within level sometimes cross level In terms of the understanding. So there's all these different ways in which students are accessing it And then one of the things about I mean even the current curriculum But one of the things about heterogeneous grouping Is that all students are being exposed to the concept right the idea of synthesis across texts The difference is the level of sophistication and independence So an honors level student is expected at this point to have learned to be able to do this independently Whereas the a level students may still be doing this in a coached or scaffolded model So that's why one of them would do it on the exam, but the other one would have that as an option Okay, um now again on the class size We're a little bit vague about the average is can we commit to a cap of 22? Or something can there be a committed cap that we will not go over by section size or by average by section size I mean, I don't think we're going to have sections more than 22. So sure I'm happy to commit to that. Great. I mean what we will do is look across them If we have an average the plan is not to let the average get above 20 And so if there's not an average if there's an average of 20 The range will be between 18 and 22 naturally and if something weird happens, we're going to fix it anyway Okay, and then just back to the consensus of the hgi because there was a committee chat that one of the participants went to who Indicated that she wasn't part of the consensus. She dissented or she wanted to dissent So are you not aware that there was a dissenter or? So I saw that note in the chat. I don't know who that person was I know that we had How many after the initial proposal came out? I think we had three or four subsequent meetings in which we Discussed and discussed and discussed Everyone in those meetings at the final meeting Was agreed that we had consensus we then sent out the proposal to everyone On the committee and asked if anybody wanted to leave their name off And nobody told us that they wanted to leave their name off Okay You know All right. Thank you Thank you. Uh, I'd like to focus on the teachers involved in the project Uh, how many teachers do we have involved in the pilot next year? So we haven't finished scheduling, but Dead actually dead may have seven or eight. Go ahead dad I think it'll be eight, but I'm not finished scheduling so it'll be around it'll be around eight roughly Is that that's including the co-teachings special ed people? It would be additional too Okay, that would be additional so we'd have eight people who are normally teaching Grade nine english is part of their load in the project So my assumption is is these folks who are in the project have all Volunteered to do this and they want to be in this ninth grade program Dad can you speak to that? I know you've been polling people multiple yeah, and I um When scheduling happens and I can't quite finish it because we don't exactly know where we're going with this Um, I sit down with teachers and say these are the this is where what I'm scheduling for if there were someone who I mean everyone I've talked to and I think I've talked to all I'm not going to say it is everyone But I'm fairly confident. I've talked to all the potential ninth grade teachers And they're all very excited about doing this and they're willing and happy to do it Um, and and I and if there were someone who wasn't I don't think I would schedule them for ninth grade english And in your and in your professional opinion, they're capable of doing this and doing this well I have There's no doubt in my mind. So let me try to reframe this a little so that What we're looking to do in ninth grade is similar to what a literacy teacher on the elementary level is doing in terms of taking a heterogeneous group and grouping them like Uh Based on assignments they're giving in their reading level at the time I think more realistically we're doing what we already do in 12th grade english classes. Um, and we do it in other classes as I mean we do it in ninth grade. We do it in 10th grade now because You we have mixes we mix students up in groups Regardless of the level is there's constant sort of Reassessment of what's going on. There are constant new questions. There's there's a There's variability in all of all of what we do um, and so This is not particularly a different kind of approach even though it's being called something different So essentially instead of having two groups of kids you these honors kids and a level kids that we can differentiate you've got a classroom of 20 and no more than 22 kids With 20 and no more than 22 different sets of skills interest and abilities Yes, that's true And you're meeting and you're meeting the individual needs as best as you can for all of them And that's what teachers do kind of most of the time anyway Exactly and In the context of teachers who are experiencing uh, who are experiencing teaching honors And can deliver an honors curriculum within this context Yes Okay, so we've got a bunch of teachers who want to do this And a supportive administration And so I think that this is something that I I can't see saying no to you If it's the desire of these teachers to run this program I think that's what we should be doing. Thank you Just to clarify this is questions, right? No, okay So my questions have already been answered by both the revised proposal And as presented tonight And mr. Cardin brought up one of my questions Mr. Theoman Thank you very much I guess so I get a couple of questions. We talk about The way we're going to assess the pilot Closing the academic achievement gap closing the experiential gaps improving outcomes What are the benchmarks we have now for them? I would say the benchmarks we have now for that are our historical trends and data We also have the benchmarks that come from the state when it comes to our targets for accountability So they've published targets for our linkedin high school in terms of Uh student growth percentile expectations achievement expectations Their expectation is our expectation for ourselves. We want to meet or exceed The standards that the state sets when they set a target for us, but those are that's just mcast, right? so that's not really going to Be available to us to assess this pilot for another two years, which is part of why we're extending the window for assessment because we wouldn't get the data until So we wouldn't get really get any data on the on the pilot until Two years from now I wouldn't say that because I would say that if you're saying the state's Targets that they set for us on accountability are One of the benchmarks that we would use that would only be for mcast But we also have the benchmark of doing a survey now with our current students who are leveled into our structurally leveled High school and we can compare that that's a benchmark against the survey data that we get next year So we'll have the survey data and we'll have a benchmark for that If we do early assessments that or if we do formative assessments throughout the year We can monitor formative assessments and we'll in the first one we would get a benchmark For how things are going at the start of the year and then we could do additional assessments throughout the year and compare results So we have other options and we also have historical data and trends that we're comparing our success to So if we have a gap that's what it is now And it closes for students on iep's for example if they achieve better as a result of having been in this pilot or if their experience gets better Um, then we can say that we've been successful in some ways. Um, dr. Janker how to stand up too I think mean our primary measures of student progress are grades So we have historical patterns of grades We have historical participation rates in honors level classes We will have the baseline Of the climate and culture surveys that we're going to do this spring and next year And then we will actually also have By next spring Information about whether or not students continue to elect honors in future years in that class and in others um, then we will also have I mean, then there's a number of i think formative assessments and common assessments The teachers will be doing throughout the year that will give us an indicator of where we are going Um, and honestly in many ways, those are the most important but also Some of the hardest to sort of pull out in an analytical way And then And then we will have the MCAS data I would also add that we qualitatively We've been in classrooms and we're going to go be in classrooms to get a sense of what's happening in curriculum a honors and co-taught classes this spring and We will be in classrooms During the school year next year too. So qualitatively that will give us a picture of How instruction is going um being in common planning time observing common planning time and how that is going We'll give us a qualitative sense of how things are going conversations with teachers will as well So we'll we can collect qualitative data Through all those activities and use that to triangulate against all the quantitative things we just named Okay, thank you. The other question I have is several That's a few students that that I know have approached me Uh, or I've run into them in different places and They've told me that they're in upper levels. Uh, heterogeneous classes that they carry the burden of classroom discussions And uh, and they're honors level students when they're in heterogeneous class They carry the burden of classroom discussions. I don't know if that's true, uh, every class But how would you respond to honors students to say that that's what they have to do in there in a heterogeneous class Ms. Perry you look like you were going to respond well, um I think lisa may have some comments on that too, but I taught heterogeneously, um for many many years ninth grade particularly um It was not I mean, I guess i'm not a student and it wasn't then But it was my impression that the discussions were fairly broad and fairly Um comprehensive in terms of people who could who could and did communicate um, I I do think Um, it can change it can vary I suppose But one of the things that we mentioned earlier in in the presentation was Had to do with the idea of teaching students ways of listening ways of contributing ways of learning from and with each other and and it's it's possible that In some classrooms those rules are not laid out and it's also possible that teachers You know are not necessarily always thinking along those lines, but we we're we're now making a concerted effort to construct classrooms where we are We are Where we want everyone's voice to be heard and where we're going to To have structures in place that I think help with that um I I can't argue with what the students said. I don't know and I don't know what subject, but um I guess that's what I would have to say lisa. Is there anything in your experience that would add to that? No, I would just say that having effective discussions is a skill that requires scaffolding and practice So having all students practice in smaller groups Um, and then coming to the larger scale teaching students how to listen effectively and bring other voices into Conversation could be an ongoing goal. Um, and it's also about establishing community. So it does depend on the class I think too Thank you. Um, as a student. I'm also happy to speak on this. I've taken heterogeneous and honors and ap classes at a hs I took heterogeneous english last year and honors bio last year um, and One thing that I noticed was my honors bio class was dead silent when it came into participation and it was one of the only actual, um homogenous classes I was taking at the time because on zoom we Um, we changed the leveling a lot of classes. Um, and it was A semi awful experience to try to like it was It was very difficult to try to encourage discussions when especially in zoom breakout rooms, which is already a hard, um Place to be in but that honors class was very difficult. My heterogeneous english class last year was incredibly active I didn't know who was taking honors or a level credit Um, but I was really surprised over zoom Um, that we were able to have these discussions and there was so much participation um And also regardless of I know this is that's two examples and I'm one person Um, but as I've talked to many of my peers across the high school There are a lot of factors that go into participation um in a class What time of day it is I have an apos history class That's, uh, the block and it is also very silent. It's supposed to be one of the like It's supposed this supposed to be a super group of like of high achieving students And everyone is asleep because it's 9 a.m. And we're high schoolers and we're tired Um, so I think that it's important to acknowledge the fact that it's not necessarily heterogeneous classes that tie into this discussion Um, because I've heard this from people as well, but also I think it's reminded like you're always going to have students in a class that want to speak up more um because they're excited about the material or they are just um More like they're less afraid to speak up in front of their peers. Um, so I wouldn't say that that is a um Like definitive measure to go against heterogeneous class because because I think that's something that's apparent in all classes regardless of level My last question if I may To what extent Did the committee look at all kinds of research, in other words research that was incredible of heterogeneous? so For the most part what we looked at was research that synthesized because there are many many studies Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies of different kinds of unleveled and heterogeneous grouping When you look at the synthesis data in terms of the way research works You would find a study that said We tried a version of heterogeneous grouping or we tried a version of unleveled grouping and it didn't work But the way research works is what it doesn't say is therefore that it says it didn't work because there are these features And when you look at the synthesis across The vast majority of studies found positive impacts for students Who would have been grouped in a lower level and positive an equal or positive impacts for students at the upper level And then they talked about what are the features that make this unsuccessful So it was unsuccessful when you had poor resource support poor teacher support poor teacher training And a curriculum that was not designed and suited to be Delivered heterogeneously which is part of why we're organizing the program that way So One of the questions people have said is you know, did you look at the negative research? And the reality is you can find a study where it didn't go well But in that study they tell you why and that's what you learn from in terms of how we set this up I'll just tell you one funny story. Can I tell this funny story if you search for heterogeneous grouping Arlington, massachusetts You will find a study from 1917 In which they piloted in arlington a leveling practice Different from this actually they called it leveling But actually they regrouped the students almost every month So in the end it was a version of what it is we're talking about now This has been studied for an awfully long time and apparently here Do you think for just four sections of a co-taught class is sufficient to support this I do but if it's not we'll look at more. I think would be the answer We looked at the numbers of students that need co-teaching And normally We would have three so we're adding a fourth in order to keep the number spread out So we build the number of sections in the end Based on the number of students who I've identified needs on their IEPs Miss Morgan, I guess my question is We're still hearing a lot about honor students and non-honor students, which I think is Kind of a shame given the intent of this but Given what the assignments look like I'm curious how we can justify giving students who respond to a slightly different prompt a 0.25 Boost on their GPA as compared to students who don't do that Um, I I don't I don't I don't understand How we can do that and I'm curious How people feel about that and and why we think we can continue to do that So first of all in terms of grading practices because that's what we're talking about there currently are relatively parallel expectations At higher levels one of the things that's going to happen Over the course of the year is that over the course of the planning for this process Is the teachers are going to look at the rubrics and programs and then grade together to say What does this rate against these two different scales and sets of expectations? So it's a little more complicated than just this one more piece of assignments at the same time To be perfectly honest the next thing I would actually talk about in terms of some of our leveling practices is grade weights Grade weights are really problematic In that rather than defining a level of learning they assign a mathematical value to it They actually have generally been shown to discourage students from taking on higher level classes taking on interesting classes taking on a variety of different classes and Colleges don't really care about them Because colleges have so many different sets of waiting practices that what they care about is a transparent transcript and that they then reweight their own grades based on their own practices So but the big thing is You know teachers grade for living teachers assessment of students learning is what they do and the process of developing the rubrics Grading together working together is going to help them to make it clear what the different sets of expectations are I do think miss morgan that the tension that you're raising is one that was discussed by the committee and considered particularly in thinking about different models and so This is one of the future conversations that I think we would need to have as we assess the success or challenges of the pilot And to what dr. Janger said would need to be part of any ongoing conversations about leveling practices at the high school Yeah, I mean it just it seems like you guys had the opportunity here to sort of disrupt the status quo and Yeah, you know you didn't you didn't look at a lot of these other pieces that that seemed like they're really relevant and And problematic so I you know that's that I'll save my feedback I suppose for later, but my question is is still How do you bring a program of studies back before the school committee next year? where You continue to wait ninth grade English separately for students who are receiving honors credit and for students who aren't So I just have two brief questions My first is we received a letter from a number of high school teachers in support of The head of the heterogeneous grouping and I guess I'm just curious how many of What representation and I don't know if you're a part of that but I'm just You know, we hear the teachers are in support of this the teachers in support of this We've received a letter from a number of teachers But I'm wondering If you're feeling comfortable to say how many teachers that represent mr. Perry. Can you speak to this because I know you looked into this for us Yes, I did look into it There are three English teachers who did not sign the letter Um And I think They were for complicated reasons. I'm not sure it was about heterogeneous grouping I think there were other issues around just putting their names on something But I I don't know I wasn't involved in the letter. This is just the feedback that I've gathered um, so I It's a fact but that That three out of I guess 18 or or so people did not um I don't see it necessarily as a as an issue, but it is a fact Talked a lot about the benefits of the of the co-teaching and the shared planning time Would you also agree that? Having a special education teacher on That team while they're going to be in a classroom with one of the teachers is They essentially have All of the English teachers in that Block is that that's what we're calling it have access to that special education teacher and so Would you say that it's going to support and Provide a resource to every teacher on that Team not just the special education teacher that's in that one specific classroom I mean, so what I would say one of the exciting things about co-teaching Is I know from my own experience I think teachers will tell you this that when you really go and work with someone as a specialist on effectively differentiating For students who have different needs and are not neurotypical or don't learn your typical pathways That actually almost invariably improves your instruction for all and so having a special educator doing that work as part of that team Whether they're working in one of the sections or not The differentiation work they're doing is available and the participation in common planning time by that special educator I think is going to really help inclusion for everybody Because you know, there's a small proportion of students who have have Co-teaching on their IEP, but there's a much larger number of students in those classes Who otherwise are receiving support services and even for the most part students who are not on IEP's Benefit from those different pathways for being able to figure out how things work if you may I also give you an example, please We introduced the book Persepolis this year for ninth grade The co-teachers the English and the sped co-teachers Asked for a day to create curriculum for that book Thinking that they might have to it's a graphic novel. We hadn't taught it before at this level We weren't sure so they worked together Meanwhile the the other ninth grade English teacher separately had asked for a day as well So what happened was the co-teachers and the the co-teachers together four of them worked And then they joined on another day the ninth grade teachers in general and so the work that they had done Was highly You know important and instructive to the rest of the teachers So in a way what you're asking about is something that we have Actually incorporated into the kind of work that teachers have been doing And it's really really helpful and having more time will only make it A more regular practice All right, so we're gonna Go in a round again With comments so mr. Heiner I'd like to begin off by stating this my opinion and my feelings As a school committee person for 11 years It's our job to hear the public's feelings We are our job to articulate What they have said to us The past three or four months Daily I would get emails and spend a certain amount of time dealing with heterogeneous emails coming in I would say Some days it was 50 50 some days it was 40 60 depending on pro and con The one thing I didn't get Was I didn't get any con emails from students I got a lot of positive emails from students Some of my other Colleagues may have got them from students, but I got none I'm impressed with the two ladies that are here tonight. Thank you I was I'm sorry three. I apologize heard from two My background is an elementary teacher And I was taught in preparation to become an elementary teacher to teach to the student needs Not make the student meet my needs or my lessons So I learned how to differentiate a long time ago. I think it's an important thing I think it's a great thing for secondary I think the idea of having everyone in that room to share their feelings To develop collaboration on concepts I think the brightest student in the world can always gain from a student that has limited abilities Because they might see something different and share that in a conversation To limit that to not have them exposed to that for them to discover that later on in life because they the world Is differentiated the world you don't pick and choose and isolate most people don't put it that way I think one of the fears that I had at the beginning of this Was my past experience on the board of a new program coming in Everyone getting excited about it and then it falling by the way and not being supported I am learning that we have good people at the very top Not to say we didn't at the before but I trust them And I honestly believe that if it isn't working They're going to let us know ahead of time and not let us discover it through an email from a parent that's upset I want to believe that One of my questions I had put down is how Are you going to let us know that was answered in the presentation going through the slides? I still am concerned. I want the support for the staff I don't think we should experiment with our children, but at the same time I think a lot of questions that I've had have been answered I'm willing to try I'm basing that willingness Coming from hearing the students themselves saying that they're in support of it So I will be voting for this. Thank you. Mr. Cardin. Thank you So I mean just respond to mr. Hey one of mr. Henry's comments first so There is other comment from students on social media and in an honest fashion that is different I'll leave it at that. But um, we definitely are hearing from a lot of students Who support this but I think the ones who don't support it are feelings social pressure Not to to openly Comment in a way that may be perceived as racist or Unpopular so I have a lot of thoughts about this but I've said a lot of them at at subcommittee level and and I have a lot of other members to speak Um, so I want to address the concept and the process separately although certainly they're related Since it's difficult to implement the best idea with a flawed process So starting with the concept I mean, I think the idea of heterogeneous grouping can address the disproportionate enrollment of some groups and curriculum a classes And create more inclusive classrooms Although also revising the way students enroll in these classes might may have also had an impact Um While this is part of the process the research has been oversold There's significant research about the detrimental effects of tracking and labeling at lower grade levels But very little at a high school level, particularly where students can choose their own levels there's a lack of evidence of uh, of Of disruptions or problems created by de-leveling and there's a few promising case studies as high schools that have de-leveled But there are actually very few high schools that have undertaken this in a in a Studied manner, uh, that that have produced results Taken to its logical conclusion though The general rationales cited for heterogeneous grouping would lead to the eventual elimination of all honors Removal of ap classes honors band and chorus and even selective varsity sports We need to think carefully about how why and when we need to group everyone together Maybe el a ninth grade is the right place But we need to be careful Despite many questions from the community as I indicated tonight There's been a lack of concrete examples of how instruction will be Differentiated and will make sure that advanced topics are still taught in class and not assigned to independent study Now to the process I've been skeptical about this initiative because it didn't emerge from an equity audit a root cause analysis of the achievement gap Or any any other systematic assessment of of issues in our district It started in an emergency when coveted occurred And the 2021 year was not a success I understand our teachers feel That it was successful From their side of the screens But our own el a mcast data that you show in your presentation Showed that that year the result of that year produced a greater gap In el a mcast between economically disadvantaged increased from 14 percent to 30 percent So I don't know You know, of course that could be from other factors But I don't know how we can consider that year to be a success or the basis for anything So rather than have an open process where we took a full review of the issue We established a closed door stub committee to specifically and this is from the announcement Develop a pilot proposal for how we can move forward There's been very little opportunity for public engagement only minor adjustments have been made to address the concerns that have come in These latest ones are better, but still more this still should be more The forums have seen mostly designed to sell the chosen pilot rather than to have a constructive dialogue So changing something that has been done for decades requires careful planning and communication And I don't believe we can accomplish this over the next five months Particularly the communication and feedback loops necessary to build community confidence in the implementation If you want to take another year to do more rigorous planning To develop the methods that we're going to use to deliver this instruction And come back with a proposal for that then maybe I can support that but I can't support this one tonight. Thank you Mr. Slickman, thank you Back in 2004 we had three major tracks That was the year that we got rid of the librarians. It was the same Crisis that we had when mit romney cut our local aid by 20 At that time we got rid of the middle track And what the proposal was was that all those kids in that middle track the ones who weren't in the high honors We're going to drop down with the kids who were in the lower of the three tracks And we had all sorts of barriers to get up into that honors You had to have like a 92 average and recommendation of the t it was a thicket Of recommendations requirements to get in and it was a very exclusive thing And we said No, as a school committee said no, we can't just drop everybody down If we're going to eliminate that middle track, we've got to eliminate all those non-sequential prerequisites So that if you're taking french 2 of course you need to take french 1 first But if you decide you want to get into honors english 3 And you looked at the requirements Of what you need to be able to do to start it And what you need to be able to do to succeed in it and said yes sign me up You were signed up And we had research to follow that because this was a emergency decision Based on a local aid cut that came through in february and a failed override We just had to make this decision to make it quickly And the we tracked every child whether or not they would have gotten the thicket of recommendations to get into honors Had a lot more kids in honors and guess what? If you were just looking at the classes You couldn't tell the difference between the ones who met the thicket of recommendations and those who didn't And in fact some of the data showed in a couple of classes that the kids who didn't make the recommendations Are performing at a higher level than the ones who were the the high achieving kids who The teachers loved enough to get a recommendation to go into the very high honors class Now my experience as an educator. I've taught high school math And I don't think anybody who's Here is talking about Putting ninth graders in calculus a b This is a very modest proposal involving ninth grade english We are not going to go and and bring this into calculus next year As an elementary teacher and a principal I think I'm going for another little story here In that at the rogers school in lowl massachusetts We were opening up a school and we had four first grade teachers who were all new to teaching first grade All new to the building. They were accomplished teachers in other grades But they volunteered to come into this school because they had a surge in enrollment and all of a sudden they were put together They were four wonderful teachers with four very different sets of abilities and skills as teachers And guess what? They had common planning time. They met at lunch. They spent a lot of time working together and as a principal walking through the classrooms All of a sudden I'd see something was working really well in classroom one being tried in classroom three And having that common planning time What sprouted better teaching In in an environment in which we had kids who were leveled in fontis and penel from levels a through f And the teachers knew all the levels and were working To to move kids all up through that and it worked It was a fantastic year and if we can do that in first grade in lowl massachusetts With good teaching and common planning time and people who want to be together We can do that in arlington massachusetts in ninth grade english with good teachers who want to be together The teachers want to do this And I think that is the biggest recommendation For this project. This isn't us coming down and saying, you know ninth grade teachers You've got to change your ways. We're going to get rid of the honors tracks We're going to put all the kids in one class you we can heterogeneously group them and you know deal with it No, that's not what we're doing. It's the opposite the teachers want to do this And in that context Of the teachers saying that instruction and kid outcomes are going to be better by doing this in ninth grade english I can't see sitting here and saying no I think we have an obligation to stand behind the teachers who want to go and achieve more Who want to see their kids do more and achieve more And say go for it And if it doesn't work it doesn't work we come back and we look at the data and we figure it out But with the enthusiasm of the teachers And and it sounds like we're taking our best teachers and moving to grade nine, which is not usually the case in high school They all sort of float up to the upper grades I think something really special can happen here I'm voting yes Thank you Okay, I want to give some background on my thinking before we take our vote You may note that I don't speak very much about equity not because I don't feel this is important But because I wanted to broaden the topics that are being discussed The heterogeneous grouping initiative has been one of the hottest academic topics that we've What little louder? Oh Yeah, this is where zoom actually works better for me Everyone hit your volume button Um the heterogeneous grouping initiative has been one of the hottest academic topics We've discussed in years We've heard from many many families students and teachers who are pro HCI Many many families and students who are against HCI not not so many students but some Um and many others who shared various concerns many potential benefits and many potential negatives have been cited Behind all of this what I've been hearing from families Especially those of high achievers is a concern about the amount of differentiation in our student's education And the need for improving it Improving differentiation is a conversation. I would like us to be having at all levels, especially our middle schools I'd like us to understand what successful differentiation looks like how to facilitate it And what additional supports our teachers need to effectively implement it You know, what are we not giving them now that they need? The heterogeneous grouping initiative process was flawed in many ways Especially with regards to communication both to us as school committee and to the public By saying it was flawed I am not time trying to denigrate the work that the HCI committee did Nor imply a lack of gratitude for their significant work They've pulled together a lot of useful information in a short time and given us something solid to work with and for this I thank them However, although I feel the process was flawed. I do not feel it was fatally flawed Nor do I feel there has been a given in terms of the outcome Speaking for myself. I was uncertain which way I would vote until the past couple of couple of days Despite spending hours sifting through the material I also know there's been some frustration from various people Perhaps staff regarding why the school committee has had so many questions about the HCI proposal I hope these people can understand that we are hearing from the significant portion of the community Is expressed discomfort with this idea and trying to understand their concerns For my part, I've been both listening to these concerns and trying to figure out how they can be addressed Ultimately, I have decided to vote in favor of the initiative as it is presented to us tonight It has gained several modifications that I needed before I could support it A two-year pilot before consideration of expansion to other subjects Multiple progress reports Ability to address HCI and next year's budget proposal and addressing counseling at OMS regarding levels Additionally, I hope that CIA will be able to weigh in on the survey questions in the metrics for judging success But I don't hold that as a requisite for my vote There are several reasons why I support the HCI proposal There will be clear benefits to our honor students I single this group out because much of the concerns I've heard applies to them These benefits include a closely re-exam curriculum with consistent grading and requirements across classes level grade-wide readily available additional instruction in writing mechanics if mechanics if and when it's needed by these students richer discussions in the classroom And an exposure to all the all the students. I mean, they've already seen them in OMS, but it's different when They're not seeing them as an other, you know right now After OMS There's your classmates, but now they're an other they're either honor, you know They're either in the same class as you or they're a different one And this won'