on recent years sometimes we don't make a little bit fuss over it but i think it takes actually a lot of guys determination a little bit of work to actually go out and get your signatures and make a difference and come here and put yourself on the line still i was hoping that everybody think it shows that we work pretty hard with our students and achieve good results and even when there's a a blip a decline one year like with our current eighth graders in that seventh grade math score we did bring them back  much to say about we do need to work with our teachers our professional development creating student writing we can say that but that the data is not very informative and we need to do that about twenty five percent of the questions are new each year in their time release tasks so i don't think rigor in those areas has increased we do need to study a little bit more horrible maybe off around why we've seen february so definitely their fifth grade teachers are learning their students in the first couple months and getting information they're doing different assessments so they're learning their strengths in areas that they need to focus their instruction on pretty early in fifth grade irregardless of the caps this is just one picture right one assessment of students abilities so they're they're constantly learning and adjusting their their instruction based on  printed in the newspaper with the percentage of students that storing them with a four distinction three proficiency to firstly proficiency and one substantially below proficiency and again this is given to eighth graders we can't really compare blasters eighth graders throughout their years in science with the kneecaps for this was just this one year so what i put together was to show you where browns river at the subgroups of the tests so for you to look at we can go in and this is this is showing with known names that student numbers represent actual students it's a confidential way we can print out information on students and for subgroups for math this is our current eighth grade you can compare sixth seventh and eighth and reduced lunch and then the yes below that you'll see the score for all the students that do receive free and reduced lunch so you can start seeing the difference in the l h many of the students in the us group receive interventions and if you go look at the yellow for the yes group two point five seven numbers  operations the sixth grade in seventh grade it goes to two point eight six and in eighth grade three fish you can compare the pink you can compare the blue and the white would be in the subgroup of  statistics and problem and you can see that for all students which is our goal that when you look at all students in those categories and i mean score there's progress for them all it's not former students that come from a lower socioeconomic background over time it's been shown that they score lower than students with more possibilities in life these kids in the free reduced lunch category more likely to be third i block and this is our actual work week that we used to play students in our third which just started this past week and there are three different tiers to one in pink would mean that students are at or above proficiency in the variety of assessments that we give we don't wait for the kneecaps blue would mean that they require some intervention slightly they're at risk of falling below grade level and the green indicates their student and individual education so for them if there was a name in the first orange line there that oil over to where you see initials that student is going to be in tears to map intervention for numbers in operations this week with the years our teacher marci a week so we look at righty data the second soon over on the left first trimester i block was in a reading support group second trimester went to an on grade level or advanced math and our educational support team we initiated an intervention plan in december sixth before we got the new schools based on data and teacher observation now reading has some numbers and i you look through the chart recently we found out that the students scored a three on their fifth grade but teachers had concerns before that make up school based on the different interventions and assignments that they had given and the assessments and consistently poor ones and twos in the different assessments that were given so december we put this are looking at the areas that students need extra support and we're getting them with a specialist three days a week or two so that's the work these two papers are the work behind a lot of louis needs extra support and this last piece which means they're at or above grade level this is just you'll see that same kind of starting point over the last three years has started a little lower for each group but you see reading across time for all groups is going up every day every year  below the flip side if you go to the far right hand column twenty seven percent of the kids were before in fifth grade so they were they met the standard with distinction that same number of kids company grave fifty five the ones you know we went from nine to seven you want to allow them to eight so you know in the in fifth grade twenty kids were twenty percent twenty three below the standard coming grade you're down to grader i mean you said there's a lot more subsets in there do you see agree divergences skills i mean i mean some kids are you know are you know are there you know they're getting through the basics of map but then when it comes to the higher concepts you know there's a greater separation if you have any number of groups as a result of that and i can work with you like fractions but now to apply a fraction and to understand that fractions change and the relationship with fractions stay constant but also in a change through skids off you're a better teacher than i am so i think there's a that's a significant difference for kids in the language around math change area program that is tear or grave so you doesn't really matter where you are in terms of your skills there's an appropriate kind of pull for keep you moving forward this came out of the conversations  are you know are the kids in algebra are maintaining retaining the skills that we wanted them to and kids have struggled or also you know they always have repetition of their their math  couple years ago and i think our kids have gotten past that and so there was this bang for the buck so we got a look at that we've increased the map instructional time in the building this and social studies and it has all the same need and so like the air there were an area so that there's a common understanding for our kids you know that that language and literacy difficulties are really really good that we can plug into the best m j to ask you to use a skill and then apply that to that concept so those are more in depth questions that explain describe it and then or look at a graph get them you can gauge more on the activity of talking about something that needs to change with regular time with staffing those pieces so that we can support a lot of the great ideas that are going on and if it needs to be any other if there is any other continuing education or o right who primarily words kate and she goes into classrooms and works directly with teachers and students on their practice and how to implement better concept based math programs so that all kids can so they're able to extend his thinking and so that really breaks here that comes up and says well have you ever thought about this they can say well you know that's a really good idea no i didn't but have you ever thought about this and so it's a it's doing to rest by that seem like they were more general across your whole curriculum is there something about the guy in the program that need ok it's always a little more difficult for facilities because ours aren't cut and dry but we had a meeting this evening in which the high school has approach us about replacing the gym floor and the bleachers and looking at funding sources for these the committee is bringing to us a seconded motion that are supporting this project so that it can be done this summer and that hopefully in the future these sorts of items will be dealt with through a budgeting process and not  separated out but the last couple years they've tried to keep a low budget so it comes up they brought us a sheet that explained where our finances stand and at this point there is a fun called to seventy one that has was a bond it sounded like it was about seven years  ago that was for roof replacement and general upgrades in the buildings and there is money that was left in there that would cover about ninety ninety five percent of this particular project which the numbers that we were looking at the quotes that came in we were looking at one hundred in ninety thousand and it said vice that we put a thirty thousand dollars contingency piece to that so we're looking at two hundred nineteen thousand and the bond to seventy one had two hundred thousand dollars there so that would be the source that we are recommending be used for the gym floor and bleachers the capital plan they've been trying to put them in but because of lean budgets they've cut them out so the lesson in this is that for facilities you really do have to put it in the budget and go for one hundred percent there was discussion about putting this off for year and putting it into next year's budget but the committee is bringing it as a second motion to do the work that they do that there's no other projects that are asking for the roofs here at the high school they are looking at something in the realm of nine hundred thousand to one point two million i believe those numbers they gave us tonight but that is just the high school grounds before we leave this subject i do think it's important to emphasize that at least for me this this is an extraordinary situation that i hope we won't repeat that will learn from it's been they have been hard budgeting cycles to put this to me should as a general practice i think only be making capital expenditures for projects that we should be able to anticipate pursuant to a plan and we should set our priorities within that plan long and budget that and my hope is that in the future the only capital expenditures we're bringing on an extraordinary basis are basically things that are relatively an anticipated either something that just happened quickly or something that happened more quickly than we anticipated so my hope is that in the budgeting process in the future we learn from this and we just say ok we're going to confront these in the budgeting process we either can't afford them or we can't afford them but we're not going to try and address them in a piecemeal fashion outside of the budgeting process i understand how this one happened and why now it makes sense to do it but i also hope facilities that i read through it and i'm not sure about the interpretation i didn't see it and say yes or no ok and how probably use of facilities will also end up coming up through the policy for revamping as well but it is worth everyone thinking about again the message that we send well we teach the kids i mean that's part of this and also the big thing here is that teachers they come to a function of the school are still perceived under this others policy may be perceived as being in the capacity as a teacher and therefore they're about allowed to do it by alcohol ok so those are the other key things that you know one has to think about because teachers are part of our community and often they and they would like to have it we grow more accessible i guess so right now how it works is you can go and use the weight room as long as there is a teacher working out and i'm not in there  that teachers during their free use would go to the weight room to supervise students working and if we could find a teacher that was free there's a certain period that possibly we did i don't know maybe you give someone some we are deep into hiring we have several math positions are learning that position the counselor position and we have four or five faculty who are having babies in the next year so we're hiring hiring for those so it's very it's very busy right now is the time where we've received our numbers for our classes and we're determining sections and this is where the i p piece that you just mentioned allison comes in i had five students come and meet with me these are juniors who will be seniors next year and they have exceeded what we can offer them in math they are taking calculus a high school calculus has two parts a b and b c and you can take it if it placement exam and get college credit and they have not only have they exceeded a b but they have done part of the b c and we do have an arrangement with essex high school where students can take classes there and they can come here and in the past we've exercised a b c calculus there and the students have come from essex to take latin here so these students are they they want math they want and these are brilliant young men and women and the reason why sharing this with you because is because you get into this conundrum right now where i have to decide which teachers teach which sections and we have limited resources and i just want to let you know that i'm going to try to make this work with the f t e's that we have and have one teacher teach a very advanced class to the young men and women and there's a couple areas we have a number of students who want to take chemistry too and the spanish and a p art and there that i know that little bit below what that class limit is and i'm going to go ahead and do that because it will serve the students needs so i'm just letting you know and it's very exciting but i don't know if anyone has any questions about that and yes so just what is what is the policy for kids in any content who run out of courses at the high school to take courses are you being received mix or anything like that we provide them with that and usually it's one student or two students and for those of you who don't know the legislature is working on what's called dual enrollment what that means is high school students can get college credit and so every single student can take a class at one of the remote state colleges for i think fifteen dollars or some small amount maybe it's free and then after that we would we would pay for it but because there are more there's a critical mass it just makes sense to do it in house and the benefit for us is we have to if we have a teacher who does this and does this in several areas or several teachers doing it then it allows our teachers to become certified for that dual enrollment and it's a huge benefit for our high school market it puts a notch in the cap of the faculty here to be able to say hey we can offer college credit for students we can share resources but but what we will see this is next year when we do our report our class some of our class sizes you know you have a class of five that's going to throw our average a little down but that's that's where that's coming up as i said there is will set the guidelines which will give us the numbers and that you know obviously we can improve or whatever and certainly as general say as dual enrollment thing opens up a lot of possibilities so it's very exciting but through team you know searching through the internet or whatever you know evidence of my clients in the state or don't know that i don't know to georgia and all the finance committee because they really think this is representative of a lot of the hard work to build into that many and piece of that they really believe has made a big difference is the flyer that goes out to people and i have a lot i have a lot of people say they are really helpful for me to understand and a lot of they can't get out and go home too our meetings and the budget informational meetings i think that really made a big difference need to get better and then making those adjustments for next year the second part of my report is our committee assignments so i'm going to pass these are really pretty easy to helped how we measured you know the students and the actual increase so you mean it was it was a general statement i just wanted sure how we evaluate that and if there's a way to be a little bit more  committee voted itself to disband he was told that since it was conceived constituted from a executive committee motion that it would executive committee motion to dissolve it it seems like it was my opinion that your testimony d to and it was that and i say this and i will say this publicly to the board that i do think it's important for mom school districts to have flexibility and the ability to merge if they want to and that was the discussion that we had that meeting that we should have be able to have a coalition of the willing and not be punitive to two districts that don't want to but those that do to set up a structure where they can and what i share is the way the law is structured rate now you cannot do that it's impossible but the way it was struck was just here so i just want to having mergers and house committee was especially interested in hearing from not just in the east but other districts that had tried to vote on mergers and why not of them had passed up until that time since that time one has passed in the southern part of the state which was the first one and so the education committee because they wanted to see mergers happen as they say invited not just  negativity and i you know i really recommend people take a look at the draft for legislation and retest so you understand what the intent is and the way i read it the way i understand it is that for school districts not necessarily action in east maybe it's north country maybe it's wind but they will now have some flexibility if they want to to merge that they get within the law and that's the way i read it but those that do not want to participate i do not see anything punitive in there that i can read or that i've been able to identify that's my opinion but that's the people local people that was the whole point of that one fifty three last year we were there and said look the local school boards tried to see what works for them and this was just the expansion of the exactly th this i think there are a lot of people who feel that this is something that's being rammed down our throats and her longer some of the old guard i guess i'm one of those we don't like that and that's to let people who want to work together and work together and they really talk about all different kinds of configurations and other school boards that i've met with talk of the places in the state we're talking about it desire to do all kinds of configurations to save their school and to make themselves more efficient and to avoid being forced to the people who are very serious about it you would say that is the governor and the education really from both the senate and h think happened in the committee and then i asked them did you read the did you go down and listen to the tape or read the transcript and the answer is no they haven't and that doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong about what happened there but it doesn't mean that probably what's driving this more than anything else is some of the strong emotions that attach to the last debate i think it's absolutely legitimate for people who feel strongly that the current laws should not be changed they should they should advocate that position i also think it's absolutely legitimate that people who believe that there need to be changes in the law should advocate that position and that's what the that's what the state legislature is supposed to ultimately ultimately produces some resolution for all of us all of us and i think it's of whom do feel frustrated that there wasn't a merger to take place and let's talk about the substance and i think that's really and have a civil debate about i think that's the best way to go  forward i haven't yet seen the basis to fault the messengers and i know some people in our communities are fault centers and i think it would be we would be better served to simply keep talking about the substance and there's legitimate grounds for disagreeing but that should be and i'll just bet i mean i think part of the press tradition here is that there was a right and i think that people in my community it's very clear and i think i'm sure it's the same we had to vote the  so what we did was talk about we talked about well what's another alternative that would because we didn't think that was very good the reasons that wasn't very good were that not the tax incentives third of the tax incentives was all boards reaffirmation or lack of affirmation of pursuing it is a very appropriate to