School Committee: May 18, 2023

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:23 and we will open at the public hearing on school choice for the 23-24 school year hoping that hearing at 701 I’m going to kick this over to Dr Bucky um yeah I provided the school committee uh memo with my recommendation that we not pursue school choice for next year I think uh with the stability of a financial situation with attending override uh potential that we could be diminishing staff by 33 head count this is not the year for us to pursue and the financial

1:03 differential between the article cost and what you get personal choice destinations

1:15 just feel free to raise your hands um expectations Craig did anybody in the school committee have anything to say

1:29 okay so without further Ado I will call for a motion to approve Dr Bucky’s recommendation to not partake in school choice for the 23-24 school year so moved I’m so moved second um seconded by Allison Taylor discussion and a roll call vote Allison Taylor oh yes Taylor yes yes motion carries four to zero I will close the hearing at 702. and move to the regular business they’re conscious interrupt there’s a

2:14 bit of an echo I don’t know if maybe someone needs to mute okay okay [Music] please send me the laptop out there

2:31 um you could send me a message to unmute yep that would be better and then Frank do you mind turning up the volume a little bit on that

2:44 um yeah a lot of exciting stuff uh in the district this is an exciting time of year celebrations in the year um some good stuff coming out of Desi which is not something that you always get to say Can you remind the public with Dusty is against the department of Elementary and secondary education thank you sir and uh as you all know and you will hear from Principal Bauer a little bit uh later uh about our mtss were Desi has been working with Northwestern universities uh talent development and they’ve come up with a Continuum of services for the other end of the spectrum students who are above grade level and need more rigor and Challenge and so um we have uh we’ll be pursuing that uh

3:31 K-8 next year as you’ll hear from Principal Bowers it takes care of itself at high school because we have business placement and honors uh classes uh K to eight if you’re a student above grade level this is a program that now that we have a strong Core Curriculum in place we can look for opportunities for extension and enrichment Extended Learning opportunities for students and so when people hear the mtss framework they often think of maybe things being watered down but this is an opportunity for students with Advanced skills to be challenged and they’re learning to be extended so I’m going to ask you Julia to pursue that next year K to eight is one of our initiatives and goals could you tell us a little bit about I

4:18 apologize if this is premature about how professionals to this to kind of work with our Educators so that they can give that that differentiated learning for advanced Learners yup um just note from Tom mpsf’s multi-tiered systems of support so it’s meeting the needs of diverse Learners in the classroom students who might need a little extra support as opposed to putting them in a separate classroom or um

4:56 multi-tiered systems to support the idea of meeting the first learning needs of all students in the classroom certainly a professional development will play a huge part in this in bringing in people to be able to work with teachers and the supports that we have in the classroom so how we use tutors and paraprofessionals and the Wind Block that is in place to make sure that if you need support that is being addressed but if you need extension or enrichment those opportunities are presented as well um it’s uh they give a couple case studies and this is in draft form yet it’s not published they’ve asked some pilot districts to join some Roundtable discussions and I put Marblehead Head forward as one of those Marblehead forward as one of those districts that would be participating in that work but I think it’s a great

5:43 opportunity for us that one of the case studies was talking about the student is above grade level could they take the math course in the next grade or be like if they were the fourth grader at village and doing six or eight level math what is to say that you can’t join sixth grade math works now there are probably a lot of logistical considerations but I like the idea yes and we’ve learned a lot from covet as far as you know learning in in different environments I think that’s great it’s something we get Outreach in the public quite often next thing today was Marblehead student athlete Signing Day uh it was really a nice event

6:29 um you can see many names and this isn’t all of our student athletes who want to play Collegiate or university level sport um some are still in the decision-making uh process but it was really nice for me to be able to join our student athletes who can take the skills and abilities that they have in the sport here and extend that into college and university play so I appreciate athletic director saying glovese for sponsoring this event yeah for non-athletics you know are these Juniors that are signing or they’re seniors these are seniors they would have been already

7:14 oh all right so so this is and this is a major uh announcement we have selected a new literacy uh curriculum it will be wit and wisdom um and I think that it’s important to go through the process that we use to get there because I think it establishes a whole standard which we should follow for all curriculum adoptions moving forward um he’s had a Review Committee of 15 I know how much Tom loves a large committee structures we’ve got 15 people teachers coaches and administrators they had 12 meetings over five months um they had six vendors that they considered uh Desi Elementary and secondary education has a curate system that identifies all of the vendors that

8:01 offer a product that is aligned to the Massachusetts state curriculum Frameworks and that they would recommend so uh we had four of those vendors come to Marblehead and present we then send our Educators out to seven districts that are implementing these curricula they did an extensive exploration of the materials whittled it down to two programs Educators in the district piloted lessons from each of the two finalists curricula they then solicited feedback forms from Educators they collected 60 feedback forms and written wisdom was the final selection so our educators will actually uh with wisdom is sending the materials now they will

8:48 leave for the summer with the new literacy curriculum materials in hand so that they’re not arriving in September facing what professional development hit Penny are we doing over the Summers to kind of get a head up because I know we rolled out the new math correct along with the things we heard was you know they really started that professional development two to three days before they started to see students so which really just is not enough time for anybody so what do we have in place to get ahead of that over the summer

9:24 um uh Nan and Julia have targeted some professional development money so we can stipend Educators to be in over the summer to engage in professional learning certainly we can’t have all literacy teachers K to six and to do this but if there were teachers that would like to get a jump on this work we’ll make a professional development dollars

9:47 Megan I see your hands yeah I think so I guess I’m just curious how this impacts our sixth graders um you know because they what I’ve heard before is that kind of the first year of a new curriculum you’re working out the bugs or you know kind of figuring it out so just sixth graders because they’re gonna be in that transition year and then moving on to then a different curriculum in the seventh grade I’m just curious how how they’re impacted and how you address that I think that you know um this is the first time that we have had a comprehensive literacy curriculum in the district and I did miss speak to somebody today foundations will remain as our phonics uh curriculum but this will replace the Lucy cooking’s writing

10:33 piece and have uh coordinated readings uh curriculum with it and the implementation will impact I don’t think all of our grades the same teachers will be getting professional development this will be a better aligned system and sixth grade moving to seventh grade will be no different next year than it has historically um this is new stuff is there another games oh yes so just it’s new stuff is this funded now through the Beast the sort of thanks to DARPA it’s through darker funding sorry um that is how we were able to fund the Mathematics curriculum for the first two years awesome um but it should be part of our operator

11:19 but you should not have to rely on grant funding I appreciate that but we sort of passed that bridge I mean congratulations on getting this fund through arpa and thank you to the town for the orphan committee for finding this it sounds wonderful hopefully members of the school Community could sign up I might need some help on this so Allison

11:47 I I just had um I I know I asked you about whether this is going to cover foundations is there or replace foundations as well um which I think is just but is there a reason that it’s not fundations inclusive or that we decided to keep foundations or is that something we’ll look to include this potentially next year let me explore that question with Nan and Julia um because with you and I spoke today I thought that it would replace foundations and when I was talking to one of our leaders said no we’re maintaining foundations but let me get you an answer for that okay thank you also I mean I think it’s great that you’ve landed on it so that you know I obviously we need that

12:35 um and then I would just continue to if we I don’t know what the Delta is of what we approved for arva and and what we landed on but if we can use some of that towards the professional development this summer um to get everybody out to speed so everyone’s ready to go that that’s always I think benefits and part of the adoption process is inclusive of professional development of the vendor sending people to the district for requests perfect yeah and then uh kind of a positive announcement uh from the superintendent uh front uh m-a-s-s the superintendents Association is uh coordinating with Educational Tours DF uh to do a

13:21 superintendent not exchange but uh international trip we have superintendents from across the country to the Dominican Republic next year and I have been selected to represent Massachusetts so October 5th to eight next year I’ll be heading into the Dominican Republic representing Marblehead schools and Massachusetts um one of the things that attracted me to apply for this is the focused on stem education and that’s an area of development for our district so I’m looking forward to that opportunity and to be clear this is funded through uh EF and muss this is of no cost that’s awesome congratulations

14:11 oh Megan you’re here yeah I just want to say congratulations John on being selected for that and I can’t wait for you to come back and present all you learn that’s great news

14:23 oh perfect that brings us to accommodations if anybody has a complication

14:30 I would just recommend the literacy adoption committee and the work that Ann and Julia have done that is a huge undertaking and certainly um not everybody will you know you come to consensus on decisions like this it’s never when you get down to two there are things that you like about both and you wish that there could be the hybrid program but I think they did a really set a gold standard so as we get into a curriculum review cycle in this district and social studies next year science the following year unified Arts that they have established a process that they can talk

15:15 periodic updates as the Stussy program on Advanced learning progresses because that is such a topic that we do here here Outreach from the community on thank you and then that kicks it over to Yasin you have someone to introduce yes

15:32 um my name is Kat Piper I am a junior here at mhfs um uh cat’s gonna be the next student representative for the school for the next year Well we look we very much so look forward to working with you and welcome you know the first meeting you have to sing the alma mater so make sure you practice okay go ahead yes luckily for your first meeting Tom will not be there so will you do that so

16:12 so the uh MHS production of Legally Legally Blonde ran April 28th through the 30th they had three sold out shows and they raised over ten thousand dollars as well as I’m sure many of you saw the message from Jennifer Coolidge that was really cool for them say congratulations uh AP tests ran from May 1st to May 12th so glad they’re open

16:42 MHS and that was also a big success between a lot of people show up the hate ends now cattle car visited MHS uh on May 8th and May 9th and other than being the most interesting thing I think I’ve ever seen at the front of the school it uh provided important lessons on the holocausts for sophomores and other NHS students uh the junior prom was May 12th at danversport and from what I heard it was creative hat yes yes um on May 16th and 17th uh grade 10 also at MCAS the junior auction will open tomorrow on May 19th you can bid on items to support the class of 2024. the National Honor Society is hosting a

17:28 blood drive tomorrow May 19th with the American Red Cross from eight to one um it’s not open to the public but we do have many great students and staff who are donating so looking forward to that tomorrow is also the cultural Feast everyone is invited to enjoy music performances food and more it’s five to eight at NHS and tickets are five dollars for students and eight dollars for adults

17:55 um the elections for class officers will be coming shortly on May 22nd 24th and June 2nd for incoming seniors Juniors and sophomores there will also be a girls oh sorry there will be a volleyball tournament on May 21st at 6 p.m in the MHS field house um there will be both a voice and a girls bracket and the event is open to all MHS students spectator tickets are five dollars and all proceeds will go to Heather Walker’s food for Heather charity in support of great cancer um May 23rd is the annual MHS art show reception uh stop by Abbot Hall from 4 to 7 30 to see some great art by MHS students and there will also be drinks the senior class is currently finishing

18:41 up ticket sales for prom and again our prom will be June 6th at the House of Blues in Boston and I also know that baseball had their senior night last night against Peabody and girls lacrosse also have their uh senior night last night against roster we’re at one time the junior auction that information

19:06 I realized I realized and I cannot I can find out and certain emails

19:14 thank you thank you we will see you once more yes thank you all right that brings us to public comment if there’s any public comment please raise your hand and I will call on you all right going once superintendent report Dr Bucky yeah pleased to introduce a high school principal Bauer to talk about the history of course uh leveling uh in high school you’ll be joined by assistant principal Lindsey Donaldson and I know that the other uh principal Michelle Carlson uh will be joining us remotely uh as income principal Paul um this was originally the an initial focus of principal Bowers

20:01 doctoral studies um so he is well first in this talk and I look forward to his presentation which is really awesome great thank you very much thank you for having my team here um Michelle Carlson is on zoom and um bragging about her she will be Dr Carlson tomorrow she’ll be Rogue and all that tomorrow to the University of New England so she’s off campus celebrating um she had a big hand in this research Miss Donaldson has had a big hand in her perspective as a teacher and as an administrator Christine chakowski or director of School counseling has been huge in this as well as well as Lauren Skelton our uh chair here at the high school special education so a lot of work went into this

20:46 so at the high school we have four levels of course designation we have our advanced placement which as we know is it’s a national test uh curriculum has to be submitted to the College Board to be accepted that matches the rigor of advanced placement we have our honors courses which uh is a rapid Pace challenging curriculum all based and connected to our Massachusetts Frameworks we have our College Prep level which again is connected to the Frameworks but um you know focus on writing problem solving and cell reading and then we also have College Prep level two courses here um that are based on the standards problem solving literacy skills but more pieces of organizational strategies

21:31 management class management strategies built into that as well so with that being said allow the focus that we have been doing is on our College corruption levels our goal as a team as a school is to push all students we want to rise and push and challenge all of our students so that’s why the focus a lot of it has been on our College Prep students so I’ll give you a little bit of History so this isn’t this isn’t something that we’ve made up of Education Forum 1993 as we know came about to increase standards for all the public schools in Massachusetts uh create a sense of accountability obviously we have the MCAS which came about in 1998 but the premise of this is really skills competencies and really a general

22:18 knowledge based on prepare students for future success um before that there really wasn’t the regulation there was leveling before that I’ll go into that in a minute but this this was a huge piece of legislation that was really United to stay and pushing forward to providing an excellent opportunity for all students not just for those those and special levels but for all so this actually ties into a lot of the research data which is to go to the next slide and I just put this up here too because if you there’s quite a bit of data on uh leveling and leveling is nothing new it started really in the 1930s it really was a way to organize and separate based upon perceivability’s achievements as well as

23:04 IQ and and that’s that that premise has been around a lot of the research really stem in the 60s 70s 80s but more importantly in the late 80s and 90s in terms of the research on the impact of leveling and what that does do to students where providing really an experience that might not be equal for all and isn’t equal for all um so I I think um you know the the principles association’s recommendations really are for high achievement is a goal for all students um that we really have moral interpreted to push forward for high standards for all students um and really create a culture by expectations um and and so the research that supports and I won’t read this all to you but you

23:51 can certainly see where the pieces break down when you really drill down to some of the lower levels of courses getting away from the high expectations more for like class Management in areas that really aren’t pushing students forward so the observations that we’ve had over since I’ve been here I arrived in 2016 uh with my team and others is really that if you evaluate and look at our College Prep two level classes there’s disproportionate number of students on IEPs um and disproportionate meaning that our rate at the high school is in the low 20s in terms of students in IEP you would find the amount of IEPs in the cp2 level class upwards of 60 70 80 percent

24:38 which is totally disproportionate and when you get into that scenario really is that a sub separate course and should that be taught really technically by a special educator license as opposed to the general education teacher that was that would be teaching the class um are standing some expectations are they the same I can go back on my teaching experience back in the master of days when I taught honors social studies U.S history but I also had a section of college prep too I tried my best to keep the standards the same but it was a totally different experience with students and and Lindsay can attest to that through her time as a teacher and as well as an administrator and same with Michelle um the other piece too that I think is important is the grouping and scheduling so typically when you have College Prep

25:25 levels Healthcare two levels you have fewer of those classes available for example when we had that in English we would have one section for grade level so that really does a dynamic in your scheduling because if students are assigned to cp2 and you have one of those classes really limits the options for that particular cohort of students for other courses double that up if you have a cp2 math that they’re in a cp2 science and a cp2 which we don’t have social studies but we used to have World Language so now you’re really creating a cluster of almost a sub separate group that is traveling together so are they really benefiting from a dynamic uh very experience that all students would enjoy the high school the other piece too that um really comes into play is when you

26:10 get into scheduling those classes typically are smaller for understandably but what does that do particularly now when you’re getting the Dynamics of you know finances and scheduling your personnel right so the next slide thank you so a handy dandy graphic just to show you the trajectory that we’ve been on here at the high school and an elimination of cp2 is if you look at English you know Math Science Social Studies World Language they had cp2 classes we’ve slowly evolved in elimination for example English was eliminated the last year for cp2 levels math we’re rolling this out next year we’re the Freshman level it’s a two-year rollout the freshman

26:56 Algebra 1 cp2 will be eliminated and in science the biology cp2 will be eliminated in social studies there are no cp2 there haven’t been uh there haven’t had they have not had that level they can talk to that a little bit more if you’d like absolutely um when I first started as a teacher in for a context I did work for 12 years before a Salinas position this year um I came into the social studies department and there were no levels at all um there was cp1 and AP the second year uh RnB teacher Robert Culper was introducing a gradual plan to um having honors a cp1 and then an AP level so to differentiate slightly but he never

27:43 um and the department never introduced a cp2 there was never a perceived need for it um instead the department really focused on differentiation and creating those scaffolds that allowed um people who would normally be sorted into a cp2 class where instead of the cp1 classes to succeed and stay well with their peers um and I think that the work that we’ve been doing in mtss we have a teacher training coming up on Monday which is very exciting but the work we’ve been doing in ntss does create different avenues for the students to access the instruction without changing or decreasing the standard that we are asking them to achieve and and I think that that was really important for social studies to have that kind of

28:28 environment for students to learn yeah tremendous coming in and World Language the elimination of cp2 Spanish in 2017-18 that actually was driven by the department of the World Language department and they’ve created a introduction and Global program which basically stretched out the cp2 into a college prep level for those who may not have taken language at all when they first arrived or maybe the soccer field yes so far so I just want to make sure I understand this we started ultimately with four cohorts from AP on or cq1 cp2 this and the idea here is that you had one selected population in cp2 that

29:14 ultimately was disproportionately on IEPs they were clustered to some degree sort of traveling from one cp2 class to another Etc and the idea is by blending cp1 and cp2 you enrich the experience for the cp2 kids in a way that they aren’t going to have in a substantially separate sort of cohort right right and so um do we have metrics that evaluate the impact on the overall Blended c key track now like do you have enough data that could see that mean test scores and median test scores are different the same because I would say that sort of a criticism for the public would be well you know we’re sort of averaging down you know kids are in cp1

30:00 by bringing cp2 in I’m not saying I agree with that statement but I’ve heard it so I was just curious how you could address that so we do have some data and we’re diving into that deeper and I’ll tell you the one area to me that’s the most important uh on the the data piece of elevating is the fact that we’ve had students that have bumped up the culture one they’ve left some college prep two levels before them so I think you’re raising the bottom up and the the top piece are still pushing further as well so I think that is hugely important as we’re looking at I think it’d be really good for the as you guys make progress and gather more data to share that I think to alleviate some of that I think they’re probably just without data people have concerns and I think if you

30:45 have the data to share that in a way that can place those concerns and I will do that I’ll come back because as I presented in the previous one one of the benefits of coming out of code if you remember I I talked about the achievement Gap starting to narrow it was some hidden data within the MCAS which would support this uh quite a bit so I’ll provide that in the future yeah I’m not trying to make busy work for you but I think it is a concern until you know June 30th so we’ll see so I I think with that that’s great though no seriously yeah and I think honestly which really was the interest piece and and again this is about unique but really looking at the achievement cap and like how can we shorten the achievement Gap as Dr Bucky said too with the mtss piece it’s not about it’s actually about adding more opportunities

31:31 the top layer so to speak to that a little bit I I want to clarify any chatter in the community as well as any confusion anybody here may have including myself is there a plan to do away with um no absolutely not okay there’s no plans we are keeping all of our honors levels and that’s why I’m not I want to emphatically weigh in with that there is no opportunity that all of this is leading to loss of honors classes so there is no plan there is absolutely no plan on that in fact we’ve worked hard about and some debt I could present too is trying to raise the ceiling for all

32:19 and if you look at our AP test data we have very high numbers of AP test takers I believe more so than NASA which is bigger School Thanos what’s that smaller kids here but that’s the point that we require D requiring to take the AP test yeah right right but we’ve worked really hard to create more opportunities as we are trying to push up that that actually helps all and I’ll give you the more data on that so so one more just point on this Dr Bauer is you know for people my age yes we remember growing up and substantially separate type cohorts right right and so that’s all we sort of knew and so I I know you had one slide on sort of what

33:05 the latest and greatest is on overall data and how the system you know it’s that’s sort of the old school way of doing things right is that sort of the message here substantially separate you could say that yes and I’ll show you I just want to make sure there are some students the fairness required that in that is all learners there are students that really do need that but but philosophically I just want to make sure because it was relatively you know so I think the cut the narrative there was zero zero plan there’s never been any discussion about anything else but raising the bottom up and that’s the working for the CPT we’re a little late to the game but I have a slide this is not the latest race and I

33:51 think in the slide uh yeah that’s going to make that point so it’s a lot to digest and I would just suggest that you guys maybe provide a little bit of a steady diet of advanced sure period of time to educate the public because it is a narrative that like people my age again we remember things differently so this chart’s great because it puts to bed

34:12 that’s that’s exactly right and and honestly um you know that piece is important that we have opportunities and we can talk more about that but that’s where we’re at I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done to get here so if you break it down in terms of I’ll just go quickly through this we’ve already talked about you know four levels where we have three levels in two years just gonna move the Freshman we thought starting with the freshmen at the base of pushing them through was the smart thing to do the same thing with math

34:46 uh and English we’ve already done away with that level uh of cp2 so we’re now in year two with just three levels uh social studies did not have a cp2 level World Language um so the last slide I think the last two are important so I I like I said I’m very interested in this and with the work that we do with the conference Beverly High School we did away with cp2 in 2010. we had a huge initiative and did away with it we provided a lot of PD for differentiation and co-teaching we developed a lot of co-teaching at Beverly High School swamps did 2014 um they brought co-teaching in uh masconomic Tom at the end of this year there’ll be no more cp2 I just talked to

35:33 the principal uh sogus and Peabody uh other schools that I have friends and know around the area and there’s research Manchester Essex they have cp2 uh Westward which is high performing their focus is on dcap which is the district accommodation plan uh Wellesley Dover Sherborne West and Winchester all high performing districts that so that that should end that narrative that we’re doing away with the high levels because we want to push ourselves to be high performing as we are one thing I I would love to distract it work towards increasing its co-teaching 100 next slide please

36:12 well I think one of the things that is important when you look at the district accommodation plan right and that that’s actually by law all districts have this we’ve done a lot of work on that but just looking at base level accommodations in every class for all students so if a student is struggling what can you do as a teacher to provide some support in that class to just basically level the playing field right um differentiation mtss as we mentioned uh we have a training for some of our teachers and that’s sparked from the elimination of cp2 and math and science you know they said well how can we support our Educators and Lawrence Skelton who’s our chair of special education here is coordinated that that will start on Monday for a group of teachers and the following Monday so co-teaching is another interest in that

37:00 ultimately will be my dissertation uh we have over 20 classes here at the high school cool teaching um and very proud of the fact that we that in a lot of ways is the answer when you’re bringing this together right combining a general education teacher in a special education teacher together it’s easier said than done you just I don’t want to go into this because I can talk about it all night but it takes time to develop relationships and there’s a lot of money several models but that in itself allows for that differentiation and certainly individual attention and it benefits the top level students in those classes as well because now you can provide specialized attention to some of the top

37:46 to the bottom into the middle we’ve developed RTI which is response to intervention courses uh for extra support and we developed that upgrade of that and all this leads to more inclusive educational environment right I think people get nervous when you say take something away we’re actually pushing the bar higher yeah project-based assessments was a goal that we had this year uh where teachers were to do one I’m very proud to report that we are in great shape and I’m really proud of our teachers for that and really moving to standards focus on our scope and sequence so we can provide um based upon the standards that we’re teaching to and create more information

38:31 yes so uh just trying to think through with skepticism you know the model of co-teaching especially in the CP level I’m assuming that your code 20 code talk classes are all of the CP levels high school that’s correct okay so one could say well um when you have this environment be uh you know fully integrated classroom inclusive classroom Etc you know you could have disruption in the classroom that could take away from uh children who

39:09 do you hear do you have data from parent complaints from I’m glad you asked that because that is one of the big reasons that you do this because students rise to levels of expectations we need a high level expectations smooth rise you break up those cohorts right and you and you create that type of a classroom environment we don’t have and that that to me is very important with the co-teaching for that piece you go into a c and I taught those classes it was a challenge it was a lot of work but you don’t find that in the code talk classes with two Educators so I just want to make sure that I totally buy you on the intent so it’s all great yeah it’s just the actual you know implementation and I I just

39:54 want to make sure that if the public has real concerns about that they bring it forth to the building leadership because what I’m hearing from you is that may be a sort of rumor but it’s not occurring in these classrooms no and I’d like to sell some because she co-taught for many years very strong team um the special education teacher here at the school and um what we did discover in those classes is lack of Engagement leads to misbehavior and when you’re trying to teach students who are at different levels the same way from a single Source One teacher it can be really challenging to teach in a way that engages everyone even though they

40:40 are all at a different level and accessing the curriculum at different speeds with a co-teacher you can engage all students because you can you can have one teacher that’s kind of pushing into the students that need a little bit more attention one teacher that’s doing pull out work with the students and then you can have a group of students that are really just sort of self-motivated and are just cruising with both teamers checking in on them so it really isn’t an exaggeration to say that maybe real problems become less pronounced in co-talk classes because it is it’s not that the students are misbehaving because they want to misbehave lack of Engagement leads to a speaker with two teachers it is easier to engage suits which has been really successful so and good night so I appreciate it I just get excited about the code teaching

41:25 I can’t over it like I’m defending my dissertation already my my limited research because obviously you guys are much more well versed on this The Limited research that I’ve seen shows that the really the Hallmark of a successful mtss model really is implementing the co-top model in conjunction with smaller class sizes because if you’re going to teach you know multiple levels in one group you can only do it to so many students correct it’s your point it’s like an ad the uh um but no you bring up another Point too again not to get into weeds and such but we’re very careful with scheduling to make sure those code talk classes aren’t

42:11 just primarily students on IEPs we really try hard to make sure it’s a blunt class and that’s so important for that composition I think that’s a a really good point that we try to if we air on the side we’d rather run larger honors classes than cultural Plus

42:31 because having taught and I think Lindsay would say this Dan would say this Julia would attest to this that you can have a class of 24 that is a dream and a class of 14 that is a nightmare based exactly what Dan is saying on the composition the the mixture of the group so yes ideally you would have smaller classes but it doesn’t always mean that the mixture no but you can only someone who’s who thrives on quantity sometimes not qualities if I can add to Dr Bucky’s point because what happens when you have some college prep to levels and some not it creates some so you can get a composition of a class of that 14 that might have a

43:17 higher percentage of students who may struggle than that 24 it just kind of lends itself to create those bumps that’s the scheduling piece of fewer sections so like when you have a cp2 those are often Singletons and those students have to be in that section so then it drives them in tracking and our table managers you know you call it tiered systems to support now instead of tracking yeah no I just want to make sure that you know the general assumption is is not that we can have fewer sections and pack these chunk full of glasses kids that you know if we really are giving the multi-tiered level of supports that we’re setting our

44:02 faculty and our students up for Success that everyone needs can reasonably be met in that structure

44:10 um and again data as we go through this transition project process is really great not just for the school committee to understand it and um Embrace this with the community absolutely and honors lunch is remaining honors one always all right thanks I I’ve moved the AP lunch too

44:34 yeah no it’s fine I don’t necessarily have a question I just want to say thank you Dan to your to you and your team for doing this presentation I think you know I might be I’ve been kind of on the special ed side for so long and this is exactly the type of thing that we’ve been talking about and that the research shows um in terms of achievement for all our students right and so similar to you I could talk about it forever I think you got you’ve done a great job explaining and answering the questions but I just want to thank you so much for this the differentiation in the classroom and the co-teaching model is really where we’re going to see a huge difference and that supports all of our students and that’s the most important thing to improve the achievement for all students so thank you

45:24 um and just another piece of this is as we really tease out the details of our plan for success and the financial implications of that um will want to really track how where that growth in the Coachella model can be because again there are dollar amount drivers to that and it’s important for our community to know why we’re looking for these Investments and how these Investments benefit our student body it’s important to show the efficacy of this effort so that you can understand and sustain the program the various administrations for sure

46:21 High School it’s accepted this afternoon um and I’ll announce that our next meeting um that person is sharing with their District they’re moving on but uh currently a Dean students and assistant principal and has served as a building principal in two former districts uh emerged the leading candidate of 35 applicants which was really nice to see for the assistant principal and was the unanimous choice of the selection committee I got wonderful feedback from the team leads in high school so we’re excited about that we’ve also made an offer to an HR Manager this week coming with extensive background and uh resources

47:07 in schools and talents so kind of a Michelle Cresta understanding both sides that that is a tall label to put on

47:17 all right thank you um that brings us to the school Community Communications discussion items I’m going to kick this over to Tom to choose from policy thanks sure so we held a policy committee meeting last Friday with Sarah gold and myself and Dr Bucky we opened up with the approval of minutes from the prior meeting and then had a general discussion on the policy review schedule that we had set forth in the the committee this year as you may remember it’s a three-year cycle where we take a chunk year one another chunk year two and another chunk year three I brought forth to the policy committee that there’ll be a new school committee seated after June 20th and I thought it would be important for that school

48:03 committee to really look at especially the eye policies India policies which really govern pedagogy sort of teaching and learning and curriculum and really comes back to the whole National debate around curriculum parents rights to know Etc it really hasn’t affected our district in in a major way as of today but I think the committee would be well served to re-examine its own policies and really understand how it will engage with the public if it does come forward in my sense it probably will at some point and I think I would charge you Sarah as the chairperson when you see your new Committee in June when you have your retreat in July you really put some real

48:49 thought around sort of policy discussion in this area and how the committee would uh would deal with that with your with your new school committee members in attendance everyone will have their own views and touch on things but I think it would serve the district really well to deal with that so our committee subcommittee recommends we pull forth year three to year two which shot year two to year three so that would be the cycle going into the new school committee uh starting in July

49:27 exactly that so that adds this community as these discussions come to each Community School committees can be ahead of that and can really be prepared for those conversations you got it okay and then we had a second reading of uh vedh which governs the public comment at school committee meeting so if you remember our last school committee meeting you brought forth uh some recommendations this committee sent us back to do some work in adopting the new Mass C sort of policy and then insert the language which you see highlighted here which we cross-reference our own school committee or our own School District uh policy on how to address complaints basically if the public comes forth with complaints

50:14 about uh teachers or Etc there is already a channel in which to address that and that comments in school today should not be used to air specific grievances like that

50:31 so I would I would actually recommend that um we take a motion and vote on this tonight yes um I move that we accept uh policy EDH as amended for the adoption second second uh discussion I just had a quick question it says in here under number one the public comment section should not exceed 15 minutes has that always been in there did I just miss it previously um I don’t believe that it was limited prior was it it wasn’t so the 15 is is a recommendation for Massachusetts food catching and

51:17 catching and catching and um and I do believe that all this is also to the discretion of the chair so if there was you know a very important topic as well at my assumption would be it would it be the public would be allowed to speak but I do um my concern with that would be we have always let people speak who want to speak and I would be hesitant to to cut off people I mean short in each person’s chance or length but I’d be hesitant to say to people our 15 minutes are up so you may not speak yeah I think we just have to really adhere to the time limit um because we don’t necessarily always

52:04 do that either Alice in your hand Lacy

52:10 yeah I just wanted I think I answered what I said I just wanted to make sure that we don’t um inhibit people from speaking particularly when we have things like budgetary discussions and that sort of thing that are heated uh or can be heated that we we don’t cut that too short I don’t think that we have run up against this at least not in in my tenure yet um and maybe we won’t but I think that is mindful as long as we know you know that through the chair we have the opportunity to extend that for extenuating circumstances I think is important to note so people don’t think they will get cut off or they are I I think it’s frustrating having been on the other side if I was to get cut off and I thought I had a point that hadn’t

52:56 been made already um I would say that that’s that’s more of a [Music]

53:05 two other mechanisms through parliamentary procedure either through the chair or through emotion in a second in a prevailing vote to accept that so these things happen every few years where we like for instance I’ll you know when Gary closed we had a full house I think in a nightclub you would either to the chair or do it or stay in motion in a second to let that happen um but on a general night I think that this is sufficient no I also would encourage the public to provide written commentary preceding school committee meetings I think it’s really helpful when we hear from the public through email because it does give us a general sense and flavor of the community even if they can’t attend a school community meeting and we can reflect those through the

53:52 chair of the committee members and public comments um Tom can you speak to if any of the verbiage that was added was cleared through legal and for this policy my main reason for that being that this did just go through the higher courts in the state and there was some rulings that really came down on this stuff so I want to make sure we’re in accordance to those roles so this language was clear to Legal all right no perfect all right sounds good any other questions concerns then I will call for a roll call vote Megan Taylor yes Allison Taylor yes Sarah Fox yes motion carries four to zero

54:39 back to town okay so uh similarly there are some additional policies Through Math C which are being cleaned up these were in the uh School advisory Council and school Improvement plan in particular so uh certain portions of each policy has been rescinded and collapsed into the uh the sort of parent bdfa School advisory Council policy so it’s no longer three pieces which make up one policy it’s one policy under bdca um one thing I you know we did have some discussion about the role of a school advisory Council and um I think it was unclear whether or not school committee members should be part

55:26 of that school advisory Council I think the discussion the policy committee was that school community members should not be part School advisory councils these are independent councils uh working with building leadership which would then forward recommendations to through the administration to the school committee so um I’ll stop there and see if there’s any comments on the first reading here the school advisory Council let me just add a little flavor here if I could that this looks intimidating but what they’ve done is taken five policies or pieces of policies and merge them into the two so it’s cool all right and then um Vera talks about any of the things that this talks about are not

56:13 counter product or counter anything that in the Ed Reform Act that established these School advisory council’s correct and they’re all in line with the committee makeups that are outlined okay so I do think that again my advice to the school committee as you look forward to a new committee seated after June is if you think about the adoption of educational polls within buildings and you think about how that matches into overall Frameworks and curriculum Etc you just want to make sure there’s you know sort of you don’t have one set of goals going here and then a discussion around you know curriculums going a different place so to make sure there’s good communication I don’t know how you do that but something you may want to think about in those discussions As you

56:58 move forward do you have an experience at math school that was successful uh I do not um I think what I would say is we for example the parent advisory committee which was similar to the school advisor Council here uh had signature Authority on the student handbook which was uh you know it was definitive here it talks about developing the student handbook in collaboration with building leadership and it wasn’t the signatory for the actual policy itself to him the school committee here as a group that’s because of an element of that which I can’t remember wearing evidence only because that one elements can change within it so that was my experience we did discuss

57:44 that it was a little bit different here but again my experience was a little bit dated now so all right all right thank you um so similarly we talked about the school Improvement plan again collapsing multiple policies into one overarching school Improvement plan um again were there any comments from the committee on this first reading no oh I shouldn’t say no I just had a question more than anything um John do we typically vote on the school Improvement plans or are they just a presentation I believe you voted to vote of approval okay that’s what I thought too so in the I guess it’s not clear in the policy which is why I asked the question it

58:31 just says that the super unless I’m if I’m looking at the right thing so that’s always questionable but under the bdfa slash e that one which was in the folder is that the right one yes okay so at the end the very last paragraph says the superintendent approves it uh maybe it’s the one again oh maybe it’s not in the last paragraph but it doesn’t say that the school committee votes on it just as the school committee reviews it so do we think as a matter of practice we should or as Merit policy we should it’s a question for me

59:11 um I we can certainly I think upon your recommendation take that up um into policy subcommittee okay um because if we’re doing it in practice anyway we might as well codify it as policy yeah but I also think there’s specific timelines in here that speaks to you have you having it in your hands July 1 and then bringing it forward to the committee and then how does that match up with budgeting and everything else we’re talking about yep again probably something good for your summer Retreat to talk about themselves

59:44 okay and then the last um policy that was uh brought forth was development and dissemination procedures um this is policy chachc I know stay with me people this is incredibly gripping uh copy here uh but this is a relatively short policy here they wanted to see if there’s any comments from the committee

1:00:13 I don’t have any initial comments at this point no I’m gonna seem pretty cool back to policy for a second reading and bring it back to us okay um so I did have one other comment so thank you for the homework Dr bucket noted in your small Choice our assignment for the policy committee to review policy jfbb Juliet Fox bravo bravo so I appreciate that homework design I really do and we’ll make sure we return that in space to you thank you over here over here back to me um Workshop D I was waiting I am still I’m not going to poke at anybody it’s just particular I still didn’t have

1:01:01 everybody’s dates so I’m giving till 3 P.M tomorrow if so anybody has not gotten me dates to give me dates and then I’m assigning a date um I am looking at the week of June 5th right now unless what I get the dates tomorrow that is not working but um that brings us to budget planning and discussion again this is just a standard item between now and oh um

1:01:40 I have completed my self-assessment should I yeah to everybody um if I recall incorrectly formatting for some reason

1:01:52 it’s most tech savvy so if you can make sure that you send that to us via email as well as the Dropbox that would be great thank you um all right so budget we’re we’re right now just moving our way towards uh from town meeting to the election vote um I think that we’ll be I’ll be talking with Dr Bucky about putting out an FAQ to the community we want to make sure that everybody in the community understands and feels that all their questions have been answered um so anyone listening if you have any more questions feel free Dr Bucky always makes himself available to the community um all the school committee members have also done a really good job with that as

1:02:38 well and I see Megan your hand sorry I feel like I’ve put my hand up a lot today I apologize um for slowing us down but I’m just wondering if as uh with our committee or Dr Bucky will be doing you know q a sessions across the board like with um you know schools or ptos or whatever we’ve done that historically and I just want to make sure that we get as much information out to the public as possible in as many different forms yes Dr Bucky has been in touch with the lead of the central Council and it’s made himself available to go to nhto I um another set of compute Community engagements that we’re looking at right now and I would like us also if there’s

1:03:25 an application community that holds just a general question and answer evening if people have some more information and we tried to kind of I I know Dr Bucky had reached out and I had also reached out to try to connect with the town to do that um I think right now there’s more of an appetite for you know just scheduling her for whatever reasons for the schools to answer our side of the questions and do an FAQ um and put that out um on our own and then if there’s at any point um an appetite to do that together we’re also happy to do that I’ve been very happy with um Dr Bucky’s availability to to answer people’s questions and just make himself available to that process Sarah and I are also going we’ve been asked to go

1:04:10 I’m a member I’ll be a rotary but Sarah has been invited and we’ll do a presentation to them that’s great so if there are other community Civic groups that would like me or Sarah or whatever they’d come and present yeah and I’m working with a few preschools to kind of sometimes that group the demographic who is it in the schools yet um is interested in what’s happening here but would like some more information so I’m making myself available to those as well I was just going to say I know there’s three uh non-committee members who are running for the two seats uh for a school committee in June I would just like to make this committee available to any of those candidates to really you know and I’ve been very pleased that all four candidates have stated publicly they’re in support

1:04:56 of your right for the schools and for the town but I would like to make us any of us available I’m certainly available to discuss one-on-one you have certain components of that override and why it’s important so again thank you for your support when you’re on the campaign Trail and again we want to give you as much information as possible to make the override successful thank you um so I had to jump back to thank you to Tom I skipped over the consent action and agenda items and I’m very sorry for that so I’m gonna ask for a motion to approve the minutes as well as the schedule of bills under action that’s under action consent action and agenda items that were in everybody’s Dropbox so both

1:05:45 suspended by Megan Taylor um discussions

1:05:53 yes Allison Taylor yes John matters yes Sarah Fox yes motion carry Sports zero and again I apologize for that Miss and thank you Tom for touching it um all right that brings us back to any further discussion on budget planning students kind of covered everything there and subcommittee and liaise on updates Megan I I think the couple of Euro committees have some big events coming up if you want to go over those yeah sure so um just since we were just talking about the budget q a the CPAC will be holding a budget q a with Dr Bucky so that’s scheduled for May 31st at 7 pm and it will be over Zoom so hopefully you know it makes it accessible for as many people as possible

1:06:40 uh also the nominations for the unsung heroes event has is open it’ll be open until June 2nd um there’s actually been a little bit of a change to a plan so it’s not going to be um the live event but the nominations will still go out and the the unsung heroes will still be recognized in June so please make sure you get those nominations in and also yawson’s already mentioned it but um the cultural Feast is this Friday always a great event um the food is always amazing and the performances are you know of from the students are always unbelievable so that is Friday night at the high school

1:07:26 wonderful thank you thank you and sorry sir um we can probably hopefully link that up and it’ll go out in the principal updates and also John’s updates but it’s mhd CPAC which is s-e-a no s-e-p-a-c.com so Marblehead c pot CPAC the nominations form out there but it will go out in all the communications from the school as well thank you very much and that’s a great event uh for virtual event this year

1:07:57 as well as Dr Bucky has been working since Sarah joined us at our last meeting with park and rec or Recreation of parks um there’s two updates there the first one is we have come to the memorandum the final version of the memorandum of understanding um Dr Becky as well as the record Parkside had signed off on this and we I will ask for a motion to approve the updated memorandum of an understanding between school committee and crossover second

1:08:30 Taylor discussion are we happy Dr Becky is happy that’s I’m happy it has been a journey it is and um are the bushes going to get trimmed that grass cut in a reasonable period of time I think that’s the highlighted area well I didn’t see the bushes Landscaping is not part of our membership so we still have a gap on how we address that in a reasonable period of time and is there any resources within the town or the district to address that outside of relying on donations and parents time

1:09:16 I just want to make sure that it was publicly stated so it’s the best we can do is what you’re saying okay yeah yeah and it’s been very collaborative organizations that are don’t have the resources we need to fulfill yes and I do want to point that out you know during that meeting what was how much parking Rec wants to help and provide these things and how much you know we all want this to happen but at the end of the day no one has the staff and the funding to get done okay um Allison I thought we had discussed at one point potentially putting it out to the community uh the local community and local landscapers

1:10:05 okay oh perfect okay maybe they won’t want it with no uh

1:10:15 Allison you got a kid a middle school kid we’ll have him come and pay him sure they’re greater that’s why he’s smart enough to be in this floor I’m sorry give him a driving lawnmower he’ll do whatever you want

1:10:28 um it is something that continues to need to be addressed and continue to be conversation as we move forward and start our next budget season um so further discussion we will so I will call for a vote roll call vote Megan Taylor yes Austin Taylor yes Fairfax motion carries four to zero um I attended the park and rec meeting on Tuesday evening um and at that meeting the discussion of pickle applicable Courts at vets were on the agenda um Mr Matt Fox has been working with park and rec very consistently to figure

1:11:13 out a solution to the noise complaints for the neighbors for pickleball that also ensure student safety in the Avenue of sight lines um an email came through either yesterday evening or today that will be putting everyone’s Dropbox that will be asked to vote on next meeting but just wanted to give you the heads up now um park and rec voters make a formal recommendation to us about a pilot of times to be have those Courts open um to control noise for the neighborhood I’m happy to say that that meeting was very collaborative with representatives from the pickleball Community with the neighborhood as well as park and rec really working together to come up with

1:11:58 a solution that they all agreed on because we own the courts um we will be the ones to to actually set the times but we’re not Reinventing the wheel here it is my belief that they made this recommendation they’ve done the work to work it out with these communities we’ll bring that language forward at the next meeting and ask for approval but I just want to give you a heads up that that may be occurred and that’s what we have uh at that meeting also the discussion of turf fields also came up uh it’s no mystery because we put it in this year as a as a request for our Capital asks to have the chirp and high school redone we’ve known that’s been coming the channel is unable to meet that request this year there is um going to be a

1:12:44 kickoff from boosters to fundraise for those turf fields and there’s also been a request to look at if it a portion of those fields could be arba eligible since it is infrastructure the answer of the entire town it is every uh not just a Porsche that whole thing should be Art Online you just made um John Wales argument for me he was really good John Wales from Lucius was really great and how he articulated it at any given time the majority of this town touches that field whether it’s through the high school Youth Sports Adult Sports on the weekends it really is a community project so I did when I was at Park and Rec the other night I did say say to them if this article request could come jointly for both the

1:13:30 school committee and reckentharp um I think it would be very powerful because what it would speak to is how much a community project this is and not just a school project so um Dr peppy will get continuing those conversations and we’ll keep everyone updated um um alrighty so that brings us to closing business is there any new business nope correspondence um those emails from parking rack will get in your your box before the next go around and that brings us to a German at 8 14. thank you all have a good weekend