and again apologize for being a couple minutes late myself i am pleased to announce that the ladies varsity soccer team did win their opening state term and game four to three and now the boys are playing and i am pained to being here as much as i love you all and i know from her frank is helping us to in the back so thank you frank i know he's he's he's got his heart over there as well so would this be a good time since we're on the theme of complimenting who died thursday at age seventy one i'm just wondering if we can do a moment of silence for him it's a great idea  minor correction and on the last page for it think it should stay under where it said mrs adair noted parent feedback was positive regarding the recent professional i think it should say development day so  to meet and that was an example of not necessarily when a new policy comes from having a seat to be recommended but it was an example of a structure of the policy was clear and diana and i met with that policy supplement which is very rewarding  and it was just really helpful to go through this documents and clarify what it what the policy actually says and then go through the we went to the high school handbook to see whether there were areas that could be made a little bit more clearly hymn book to make sure that they d tail with the policy so there's no recommendations coming out this meeting but i just found it really helpful to use a policy subcommittee in different ways other than just if something comes down from on high i mean to say so i just want to thank them i felt very pleased with the meeting because we spent time and did a lot of cross referencing so that the handbook well have the notation of which policy number to go to for  verification so that will be tweaked very nicely don't get minutes complication thank you ladies and all around policy that everybody received the notice from m a s c looks like this requires just some brief policy work to you see there actually is on the agenda for administrative team on wednesday and we're having dan brown our school tourney come in just to make sure that we all fully understand the different nuances of the new discipline why we although it has been reflected this year and in what our schools are doing but sometimes different schools can apply it differently isn't smart as pappa pointed out so just to make sure we're on solid ground with what the new attendance policies are in the state and the regulations having him come to speak to our whole team and just to make sure we're on the same page that we the last half hour meeting in team is actually going to join us so that she can listen to the discussion from the attorney himself from counsel and make sure that if any changes have to made to our policy should already be informed and  why and what the background and context is for that and then we have aaron the principals in the me could also weigh in from a perspective of teaching and learning to show you why we have a little bit of a  some of that we have a short called way for you that they've created so i'll just turn it over  just want to go through some of the highlights of the rollout of student e mail and office three sixty five collaboration tools so the foxboro public schools is proud to partner with microsoft and their educational program  for office three sixty five provides thousands of schools and universities worldwide with student e mail and collaboration tools e mail is required by many web based applications an educational tools that we use today in these tools will allow students and teachers to communicate and collaborate in a safe and secure manner so in accordance with the mask you evaluators technology program evaluation report indicator for recommendations for indicator for create student email accounts with office three sixty five to allow students to the ability to collaborate and work on it simons both at school and home we will be launching these tools at the end of this month the purpose of this program this offerings is to provide students with e mail online productivity tools and collaboration tools in the outcomes will be increased student engagement expanded learning opportunities for students and the expanded school day than the e mail needs tools and collaboration are everywhere but these things happen both here in the schools and at home can happen from mobile devices can happen from computers really expects mander opportunities is part of these tools all students will have outlook web access for email and communicating word microsoft word powerpoint excel and excel survey so these are tools that  common in business in the business world today they're very relevant to what students will be doing in college and in the in the workforce in these are the tools that will be offered to them through the cloud so presented through the web they're available to students on their laptop computers on i pads android devices and students will be offered five licenses through this program for home computing as well it's part of the collaboration tools the one dr students have fifty gigs worth of stored space to store files they can also students can share files with teachers and teachers can share files with be multimedia presentations videos links documents it's also allows students to collaborate on documents with other students and teachers in real time as this is kind of similar to a virtual flash drive so it's everywhere you're connected to the web and can be accessed from old devices from home from anywhere you can get to the internet so levels of access so students five through he will be able to send and receive e mail between teachers in their classmates they'll also be able to send and receive e mail through approved educational sites and domains an example of this would be discovery education is an approved educational same domain that we use here with students they sign up they have accounts they have access to digital content but they will not be able to receive or send sites from any other organization or outside address grids nine through twelve e mail will be open both inside and outside the school environment and all e mail accounts are monitored and filtered for safety so the e mail accounts are a privilege not a right so violation of school policy applies to the use of e mail just like it does within the school day we don't have a survey of additional policies for for  instance email bowling the bulling policy applies whether it's through e mail or in school content of the student's e mail may be reviewed by by teachers by staff it's for and unfiltered for safety and the district will provide and guarantee technical support pertaining to the student's school e mail only again student e mails an extension of the classroom so all of the school rules and policies apply to the use of e mail as they do to students in here in the buildings during the school day digital citizenship students will learn to interact on line in a manner that's consistent with school policies students are responsible for their for their work so although we have technology tools that expand our capabilities and our learning opportunities it's still students responsibility to complete their work and be able to provide it so students may be required to bring copies or printouts or attachments of things as necessary and all students must complete complete assignments regardless of alle ability of their student email as part of the rollout will be providing students with instruction on appropriate online behavior including interacting with other individuals on social media and cyber bullying awareness will be reviewing with them procedures and rules for the for the use of the e mail accounts and providing them with additional instruction on internet safety and digital citizenship second quick fact yes so ninety five percent of teenagers use the the internet it's up to us to teach them how to use technology responsibly so in the digital age everything is so old technology that everything is moving to that we hear this buzz term the cloud of the web and email is becoming just a part of everyday life and it's it's our responsibility to students how to use it down when you're here i think you'll make it so much easier for students to find other kids they're working in a group and which changes class to class you don't have to have to find personal e mail addresses you'll be able to collaborate in different with different groups be able to co write if you're producing a product together in addition to one drive there's also a feature that we're just starting to use called one note which is like an online digital notebook so students would have access to that as well which could carry them forward as well so they would have access to those they took notes this year they have access to that next year if they were looking back if it were science for example so there's so many collaboration tools that make their work more efficiency that we're really looking forward to providing for them ladies that in principle something to it and i just think  it makes learning more efficient right now it's somewhat cumbersome when you have to ask for an hour into the meal you know i did for a student in sixth grade for example they have access to some of the web based applications that are used i world cultures so there's more or that they're doing online with each other talking to each other getting geared for high school and i think that it it really is something that is relevant as well as in gauging  i don't know that they would take advantage of the soccer that they're doing a lot at home when it's raining to extend their learning behind them watching videos and sharing with each other and asking each other questions about the learning so i think it's wonderful and i think giving everything on the one platform makes it so much easier because the number of time students that come in to say i can download right here get a direct go because they're coming in from something that who know something like that and it just doesn't interface well so this is everything i actually have a variety of questions and comments as you might expect but i want the committee to have a chance first but you guys just answered two of my questions one of my question is going to be do you find that many of the students or a reasonable percentage of the students don't have e mail access already and i take it from mrs abrams comments that that is the case for the younger students yes and then my second question is going to be is there a value or what is the value to us creating an additional email account each other much much faster and truthfully e mail accounts are not popular with high school students so with so we some other way that they're trying to make those connections and again let's put this all on the same pla have access to what and in what we're comfortable with and what what seems right so this is definitely a group decision but even some simpler things in the middle school for example if they're involved in clubs and activities it's easy for the teacher find them been a change of plans they don't have to collect personal addresses we don't we encourage or require actually our staff members to only communicate using school e mail accounts and not not from personal accounts so we do expect the same from students now just teaching the students and in terms of being in line with our vision to be members of society in a competitive global economy myrna how to use these tools which are used in the business world collaborating on online using microsoft word track changes for instance to collaboratively work on a document is something they very likely may do in in the business world a technology these are very relevant skills group you know so i think this is a very exciting step forward i'm just curious and i've read about a million times but i haven't committed it to memory but it is our current internet acceptable use policy so efficient or will it need tweaking to cover everything that you explained up there and i mean i know we currently require our students to be you know responsible did a digital citizens that's hard to say because the technology to use policy applies to technologies and technology tools ok it's not limited to certain things we're hearing we give examples but it's really how they behave as a digital citizen regardless of the tool whether it's a social media site whether it's a communication device or whether it's just you know what they're doing when they're typing up something on a school or so i going through my head right now i really don't think so but we'll take a second look at that because we don't want our policies are not so specific to what device or media they're using i just i know that policy came into being a while ago when our technology has evolved so much in is so much more hallway so it's really students are expected to to be responsible digital systems but to act in a way they would act here in school and in during school activities going to throw myself in front of this one first of all do we need should we have or has it been thought of that there would be if necessary information sessions to acclimate the parents to this time be king of fat fingering house words and getting locked out of something that we already have and then this this student or my child will say well i can't get in or i can't get at it and i don't money's already involved in this that we've committed but are there any long term costs that we see at a very high level might need to look out for the school committee and then my third question is is there adaptive software for students with special needs or limitations that might need to be or do we know how we're going to implement those i imagine that's already been captured and in the planning so you know car short and long term a parent like me who stares at a screen with a blank look at its face and you know this if you will the five percent of students that might need special things so so to answer your questions in terms of parent information center parent information sessions we've actually time to the rollout of student e mail to coincide with parent conferences one of the things we're hoping to do is to start getting information out t parents in terms of internet safety in digital citizenship because it is a partnership with home in terms of costs this partnership with microsoft is is a program which is extended to students at no cost in terms of the the online internet tools and collaboration tools so there are at a high level the costs are minimized at a lower level there are some costs involved with you know  of oversight in filtering and things like that but it's it's very minimal and then in terms of assess ability one of the things that microsoft has is very strong at is providing built in assess ability to screen readers text to speech low vision experience some things that are all built there they're built in to the office three sixty five but they're also available on all school computer computers  and we consider this kind of regular at accommodation so those are available to all students regardless of disability thank you very very other comments or questions and the job well done there now and i've got one common question short my last one promise so in my line of work when we hear schools talk about anytime anywhere learning they're usually talking about a device not a set of programs and competencies so i give you credit for that a lot of school districts very famous school dresses like los angeles have spent literally a billion dollars on giving every kid a device and not giving any thought to the curriculum usage or anything like that and those programs fail now there is my list programs film this is the site where the question is that they usually don't have a professional development component here's the device for every kid one to one any time anywhere learning good luck i'm sure you guys have thought through this but can you just comment thoughts about how you train teachers for this short so the two of the professional development activities we've held this year have had sessions relating to both office three sixty five to get teachers for fission and using the tools for both educational business continuity and and for instructional purposes and then in our last session we started to talk to teachers about the rol student e mail and how they'll support students whether it's providing instruction on internet safety or assisting students with learning the officer sixty five and then two we have the i school advocates program that we're just starting this year in terms of it's our students that we find already profession in these technologies and pick up on these technologies very quickly working with students to to work with staff  provide the teachers with the extra support that they need some people get it one some people need to so what they're doing yeah is you have a three sixty five form to provide poorly could utilize that they're close to everybody but they have to know how to use the one drink in order to get that so it's it's an ongoing embedded professional development that's when they're in the context of a regular introduction of technologists around these activities so it it it's definitely it's been great and in as we've discussed it's in bedded into this so we've actually built a lot of our the principals right alongside in this commitment to technology so whatever you're doing to drag them along with work i think it's more like we just follow them and stop them  presentation with you or they may switch just to using one driver might know so they'll be interesting to see but i think this is this is an opportunity for us to provide the same platform in the same tools to everybody's down stream your students so that we're all learning in the same environment i think it will just be much more productive and efficient so looking forward to seeing what teachers can do what i know some of them are ready to do that but as as they pointed out if you want to the professional development should be using yourself and you just want a few tips as to how to get your students  what our tech integration special so for i think having a systemic approach makes a lot of sense you know i would agree with that the systemic approach but i think steve made a good point about peer involvement too when you said moto i know parents can set up their own ad model counts i get notices from my children's teachers about you know extra credit projects and this and that and it is important particularly i think that the grades five through way that parents feel to ask their children the right questions and i like that teachers will be able to very easily find their students and communicate with them but particularly in middle school at the lower grades it is helpful to be able to support your child in their education and ask the right questions and say did you understand or have you done what mrs so and so asked you to do in the e mail she sent you so i don't know how that plays how that where the parent component comes in there because we do like to check up on them once in a while but but that's just something that was one thing i was thinking about so it was at moto it's very do this or some of the nuances of it as we get it rolled out but we're pretty much ready to go on great to refer thank you good discussion song well i'm not i'm not calling my husband after this he doesn't know how long the meeting goes far so i can these are the high schools that responded to me in a timely fashion and i reached out to the entire league but most of the athletic directors were very right that day that i did that were very responsive just understanding the amount of athletes who participate in spring  track and after reviewing that and looking at the numbers and the ratios you know i would be asking to have one just now coach for both boys and girls to have a shared coach for the boys and girls to be conservative i don't you know that i think that would really put us right in the middle of the rest of the schools and that is what i'm looking for after you know discussion with you know now answer any question that you may have there so maybe just a quick reminder for the public  meeting about what caitlin has given us is a a list of ratios of students to athletes and where other school systems especially in the area of track how many coaches they have for the number of students that typically participate in a broad of track activities so this is you know an issue i think we talked about safety last time and just being able to provide the right cup and i think we was helpful as we talked a lot in caitlin was i thought very informative about how track whether it's winter or spring track is is a little bit different in nature as to some of your sports teams where the groups stay together or at least in the same general area that you've got students on multiple different events requiring different types of coaching actually and especially when they're out running there are some students who do only the events that aren't sure a long distance and they need somebody there so it's just a different it's a different animal than some of the other sports are and as a result we felt that not only the additional supervision but the additional i will say more customized coaching or some of those other events is what we're missing and so our main reason to bring this forward we said look at this in the spring is to create is is to create a better balance when we look at our ratio so these winter track spring girls spring boys with a three and we attach that to this so that you can see up to supreme rates last year in those three areas where our highest ratio of student athletes coaches and curiously enough they are the sports that require more of an array of types of coaching and in different locations so that really stood out for us and that's why we came to with the was the last time and while we're back with more specific information about that so even with the additional spring track coach which i will complicate when i think is a really good compromise what you saw the last meeting it's still a put our ratio of twenty nine soon at least to one coach which is right in the middle of what you see the hop monthly so we're not asking for anything i don't think i'm reasonable right now we're toward the higher end of that range this would put us right in the middle and but would be reasonable in our know again just for public benefit looking at those numbers that you talked about currently with the one coach we averaged forty students to one coach for boys and thirty two students one coach for girls so just for the public listening that's a big responsibility it is and  but do the boys and girls track teams go to the same meets if you're sharing a copy i say do everything to you know it's a very i mean if you've ever been to attract me and even when they the coaches coach they don't specialize just i will only coach boys it's i'm a distance coach in my field coach i'm a jumping coach sprinting coach so they have the boys and girls together and working with them both together so they're very much it together both female males well then i think this is a really practical great compromise and i appreciate this information because it puts it right into context and perspective so thank you for i know i think the athletic directors from around the league who were so responsive to me i really appreciate that and i have to give their athletic director they have seven coaches and they share that seven they have three coaches for the boys three coaches for the girls and then they share seven coach and so they were the ones who really get bad idea that we could share a coach and i think our coaches will find that effective great my salary you know the edition will be thirty three hundred dollars and again i think that we just need to be mindful you can study three hundred here thirty three hundred i mean it all it all multiply so i don't think it's unreasonable given the calculations that you made and where we would fall which would be pretty much center but i think it's also worth noting that there are you know for communities that there ratio is higher yes with with this addition so as always we're trying to kind of you know place foxborough kind of in the middle where we're doing better than sound not doing as well as others but in terms of the resources but still i think it's reasonable that again the safety issues obviously listening so i think it's a nice compromise you know on the you bring up the cost item thirty three hundred dollars incremental to this year's budget but as we know we're running in a good position regarding the budget and have confidence that this will not be incremental to our total budget approved so i know that gives us confidence and any other comments motion to approve past weekend so we look forward to the state meet and hopefully the boys are winning right now or started the game so to nothing to nothing ok i was thinking and they had i don't have the technology yes and our girls field hockey team won their first game out and transitioning to frank who is running the cameras for us tonight because i know he'd rather be over the high school field with mr everson but frank we appreciate you supporting us you got that score update right frank ok continuation of approval of overnight travel you've asked a few questions and i went ahead to find out as much of that information as i could so you do have in the packet the information on the travel company and where they are out of and their address and that they can be found on line except traffic and then i also did put out a survey question and survey monkey and when i did speak to mr elie about it as we went back and forth on it so the one question the question was i would consider this trip as a possibility for my senior with a section for parents to be able to comment or or ask any questions or whatever it might wind up being so as of wednesday you have the totals that are there as of today with the survey being cut off there is just an update in the numbers it is actually at a twenty nine to twenty nine yeses in no time out of a total of fifty eight and there were no other  suggestions or questions out of what was already there that i had also shared with you on this well i don't take twenty nine to twenty nine is bad i don't think it had to be overwhelmingly favorable to me i read that is at least half of the population or roughly half of the population would value that potentially as an offering and i view it as an a offering of the school systems in some of the knows we're not some no one answered you know they just say yes or no without saying why you're giving an indication to some of the nos were already going on the music or we've already got a trick play and some words no but we would have considered it however we've already got a tripling and or no i think it's expensive or no it's just not something that our family would do so even the comments were were kind of back and forth just depending upon what had happened to the there were a couple of suggestions of other places to visit while there but and so that was a nice little thought that was there as well comments they thank you for this information you require that and i guess it's all in how you look at it so bruce your perspective about fifty percent said yes fifty percent said no they weren't interested so i'm just going to go back to what my concerns were at the last meeting which was the lack of educational value on there and my thoughts really remain the same i know one of the things that was discussed was the issue of the value of finding a bonding experience which absolutely is important but i think that there's other ways to meet that bonding experience and i know that the seniors have the on like graduation party i know in the past they had a black and white dance a while ago and i know they have seen it and so i guess i'm wondering if there could be a way for the students along with their advisors to increase those bonding experiences during the senior week and really collectively figure out a way to maybe create more memories here in foxborough or somewhere in the near vicinity because i don't want to diminish the value of a bonding experience by any  means so that those would be my recommendations i think that you know the cost is you know is just another factor i'm sure of for some families certainly to me sixteen hundred to seven hundred fifty dollars and that is depending upon airfare is is very costly so but i think that the true the true concern of mine is the educational value of this so those are i thought that at least on this very first one i would take myself as a chaperone it's based on thirty a minimum of thirty students to go and that would be for three chaperones so i pretty much have three people who have shown an interest that are out there without even going out far just oh my goodness sign me up and so i thought that my part would be i would go down as a chaperone martin not a part of that piece of it but yes a chaperone thank you i'd be very happy to do that thank you steve  spelling i love travel i think everybody should travel it's it's terrific i wonder if it could be put off to the summer i'm not against the trip at all i think as a parent  again personally i just couldn't swing a sixteen hundred dollar trip if i was putting a sixteen hundred or in the air it's going to be two thousand when you step foot in pocket money in a kid's in a queue for the kid to go is there any surety this organization has to make sure we don't was any money as we don't do as we as we go to to deposit money towards the trip but that's for the logistics i guess so the administration if if we go forward i would vote to have this but i really think it would be better off in the summer to kate's point kids point and i just don't feel like it's something that was screaming to have to have the students have but see the world i'm all for it if families can afford it that's fine i just think it's a really cost prohibitive number for a lot of people but i wouldn't i would vote for it if the board wants to go forward especially to make sure that it's in the bubble of the administration safety insurance all those things so i guess i'm going back to my ad time days at twenty nine twenty nine a no but if we're at fifty fifty then then we have a horse race here so however it goes is fine with me i would vote in the affirmative to have it but i think it should be put off in the summer and would like to see some surety is that the money protected while we build up the payments this is actually a great discussion because i think we all represent different interests and ideas and if emotions put on the table here at some point no mention see how we vote and you know we don't always have to vote five zero either so right so i think dana first said that he's going to bring this forward and i've also been thinking about it not just as superintendent but as a parent and i don't seems like something really new i certainly respect the idea that it doesn't have as much educational value as all the other trips that we spons whether it's just spain or france or london or the music trips which are multiple i mean those who are the sponsors a lot of trips so i don't see the liability for this any different from any of the others or the safety security you you as a committee are the sponsor out of the country i mean for four that i know of that i can think of off the top i had trips with students or school sponsored that that leave the country so to me florida seemed not as much of a worry to be honest as students getting on an airplane going somewhere and so that's that's where i was coming from i also saw this from a perspective of you know there are some students who excel at some things whether be music whether it be a world language whether it be an interest in theater and they have the opportunity just as this one would be where you know any family travel travel is expensive whether school sponsor families plan or a family idea you have to decide if that's something you as a family want to invest in and i don't think that makes it any different from a family deciding whether they want to be cation or letting a student go with another family as sometimes happens that another family invites them but they're going to pay their own flight so i don't view that as any every family is to make their own decision which i completely respect as to whether this is that they feel it's reasonable for the fields fordable if it's something that they want to sponsor i totally get that but from a parent perspective i know this feels really knew that you're used to the trips that you approve typically  that feel comfortable and familiar but this is not a new idea to fox my school so my children that old they both went on school sponsored tours they didn't go in either of the exchanges they didn't go in the theater  had to go on to be interrupted but our son went on a tour i think it was the junior actually of london paris and it was a tour sponsored by a tour company other high schools were in the same group and i believe he met his junior prom date actually on the tour from another high school in massachusetts so you know that was something we decided both both of our children had to put in some of their money from babysitting or whatever if they wanted to go so families i think can have those discussions with a tour company during a vacation is exactly like it was except neither one more florida so i've had our two children participated using some of their own money which we said that's the deal and some of ours to go out of the country w school sponsored chaperones and i would say both are some of the most memorable memories that they have of high school and so i think as a parent that is something a family decides and as an individual decision i don't think whether you know people think it's affordable and it is a family decision and people look at that differently but i don't buy from a parent perspective we did used to have these kinds of tours sponsored by the school where we opened it up so it's not as new is it might feel it just hasn't existed in the past few years but we do sponsor all kinds of other things where kids are leaving the country in leaving our town with chaperones from the high school we've had pretty good success  think that for the kids who don't excel in some things that we already provide that in your wall trips this this is an opportunity for them where they wouldn't be the students going on the exchange or they wouldn't be the students going on the banter because they're not a member of the b or the my poor they might be where they might be but i think this opens up that idea of a school sponsored trip to students who don't fit in the in the things that you are a part of all because you've already sponsored it's an opportunity it is an opportunity and i don't feel personally that i want to judge some opportunities different than others and i you know we've had great success taking kids places and bringing them back so the more i've thought about this actually and even since your last discussion i know the  goes it's fine but i actually have grown more comfortable with it the more i think about it that's just me i mean this is during a vacation and i think people have a right to choose how they want to spend their vacations but some of them now those came through even though you think it's a neck to neck way similar nose came through they already have travel plans for that time during vacation so people are already making their own travel plans this is an opportunity for a family could not go on maybe two members of the family could not go but one of the family could it would create an opportunity to you know for perhaps some extended family members to give a small graduation gift towards this i mean there are all kinds of nice family things that could come out of that which allows one person to travel because that they can afford  than one person travel so i will definitely a vote for him in the affirmative at this point to make a motion i'd like to make a motion that that we accept this because they need to work on it now  and i only see one one company making one pitch and please don't think i'm working against you in this because i'm not ok but if if i was if i was going to do this and it's a  point and into deb's point to you know if i took advantage of this up to the first question to ask is how can i get it cheaper and how can i get more bang for my buck and why not liberty tours and acme tours or you know whatever they don't offer  working with middleborough for at least the last ten years and they also helped to facilitate as i had noticed as i had noted here or did facilitate the massachusetts delegation for the national student council conference last summer they're very very flexible this is not a packaged program this was what do you want to do one hundred want to do it and you know do you want this with that do you want to make sure lunches are covered or would you rather have this happen and so they've been very very flexible the good news that i'm really hoping for is that southwest hasn't which has been one of the airlines that had been utilized quite a bit in the past they have not yet expanded out through april that's going to be happening in the next three weeks or will be opening their calendar up so again with the if this is approved with  parent might very very quickly in a deposit down i'm hoping that that negotiation is going to take place with a better price on airline this is on the high side because we want to make sure that we could cover all and they've been very flexible with with anything that i have asked them for so my hope is that this number will go down if anything but i wanted people to be aware in case it didn't that this is what we would be looking out for and i just like that the last mean you you mentioned that all the food is covered yes which i think is really important because that speaks to the out of pocket money you said would be on top because it really just talking souvenir money it is the airport i'd like going back to all the students meals are provided for i feel i feel like that's a good feature that you that you demanded that i think makes it easier to travel with groups so we have a motion of a proof and a second player further discussion go ahead i'm going to have to have a just i guess the one thing that i would just kind of i think it's kind of an interesting thought is that i know you spoke a lot about things that happened in the past for some reason those things ceased and and this district stopped doing that i'm not sure of the reasons for it so this is something foreign exchange program be it the other programs that we have so i would just caution maybe the committee just to think about that but i know we're under a time  some time constraints i will be voting against this but obviously majority rules i think we raise a fair question katie it does beg the question why did we stop if we had one point over that why do we do it why do we drive a sports team because the interest at that time is no longer there now if we don't get thirty students this will not fly i mean a child might have some institutional history writing why do any institutional history and why some of those things yes i actually did do the tureen with students to to italy and then that became an exchange program and with a couple of years i also did a ski trip with students to innsbruck and that morphed itself into again an exchange program couldn't do them all so it wound up becoming something different i think probably not speaking for you because to recommit have been one year  derica became a substitute it was the gulf war that people became very upset they didn't want our students travelling all over to europe so to keep the enthusiasm and the cultural awareness of the spanish speaking country i went forward with the idea there were responses and we lent costa rica i think we've had good discussion and i know we've had several people join the audience who are here for a future topic and when we respectful their time i don't want to cut the short is in motion and it's been second there's motions aren't enough there's further discussion i know joe you're in favor of the trip right  this year you'll have an opportunity i think go down the road and if so i'll just offer my quick to sense that maybe we can vote i was concerned initially and i think we're all conservative in nature but i do over time i guess i feel the way the superintendent does i see this as an opportunity i don't know how it could be better controlled beyond the principle going in calling this a school event and holding the students to school standards superintendents in favor of it i don't know as a parent whether my kids would participate or not but i think irrelevant i think the point is it's another opportunity we can offer to our school kids so i know personally i would vote for it but that's just my two cents and for the discussion i don't need to hear anything all those in favor of the nitty gritty of what what it entails ok i'll do a very quick intro last spring a group of teachers had come forward to enhance what teachers and the staff in general the faculty if they could take a look at our attendance policy for attendance procedures and what we do regarding and how we do with students particularly seniors as they start to roll into their on the end of their senior year and do i really need this class don't i need this class but also just attendance in general and so with absolute yes go with it they formed a faculty representative group and christine take it from there there were representatives from department including our guidance and it came out loud and clear that we needed a change to the current attendance policy the current tenants policy i was on that original committee with richard pearson and with pledge that's how long it's been so i think it's it's definitely time that we get something that fits our needs so that's what we did we pulled from other pub from other attendance policies for neighboring schools to kind of find out what they had never buddy brought to the table what they liked what they didn't like and and it was it was a great meeting and this is what we've got the people at home can see what they have the packets of could you just summarize a little bit about what's the change and the change the current policy right now is fourteen absences per school year for a full year course and that was designed to encompass all absences there were no there's no delineation between excused and on excused you had fourteen ounces to do with what you wanted and beyond that then you may be in jeopardy of losing credit for a class it has evolved into excused and on excused with doctors notes and fourteen personal days and that's how a lot of the kids are looking at it so it has created a little bit of a  disruption especially with the seniors that they're marking off their days knowing how many they have left to spend so that you out loud and clear that we really needed something a little bit more structure so we came up with that you stayed home but it was not excused absence five per term and then when it hits the sixth on excused absence then what goes into effect is not loss of credit but in and grade and so if after the student finishes let's say term one gets six on excused absences on their report card will show up and meaning that they did not abide by the attends policy then they have an opportunity to buy back that grade second term and if they abide by the intense policy their original grade is reinstated if they don't then they get a fifty nine failure due to the temperance so they have it if they don't meet if they  and stands for no grade so are you saying then one turned they had the six they get the end the second term they have to be five or under yes and as long as they stay within the excuse and again we're not talking total absences we're talking about excused yes a an excuse so i'm just curious how and you probably don't have this information you know what's the percentage of the student population that this applies to in the sense that we're having students that are having an excused absences then are we really understanding what those unexcused absences are because as you know you know students come in with a lot of social emotional issues sometimes that in impact their ability to learn or impact their ability to be in the classroom so how are those kinds of issues being addressed as well so one what's the what's the number of students if this is really affecting  you know what are we going to do for that other group of a population of students who we know may not have the m d know to give you but we know they are struggling in some fashion and if they're going to be so black and white that you know we're we're not going to be addressing that you know population of students that are having a hard time with that that that that are struggling in the classroom and therefore are not go there were coming we're well aware of those kids that are struggling here and that's certainly not this attends policy would certainly not be held against them you know the goal is to get them to come to school so right know we're well aware of that and that's that was not our intention i think what we really needed was we just really needed some more structure for the average kid who says oh but i have six days left so i'm going to be absent one day a week for the next six weeks and  are so there was a because we have to do that as a part of the process as well but in that conversation with two students there is well as faculty in town and parents everybody really felt the same  way and our discussion of it included a person who sat on the committee who is also in school council stated absolutely not those students that we know that are struggling they don't have that said we're going home and more never going to see a doctors at all we're never going to see any of the above truly we're pretty much on top of those students that there could be a one that falls through the cracks but i really doubt the guidance does a great job with that and our teachers are well aware and i believe they support teams i think really work toward that  if somebody came forward and just did the you know i got i've never told anybody this but we would certainly be responding to them as well with it this is going to impact not a high number of students at all but i think really interim what i was hearing both from christine and members of the committee was it's really to get our students to change their behaviors they need to be responsible for work yes you have sick days it doesn't mean that you use them all up you know they shouldn't be used for those purposes and whatnot a better place to start from here and that's why although it has excused absences and it doesn't say administrative approval that's where that would come in we know from guidance that there's something else that's going on in no it is not all that black and white we just wanted to give some examples of what would be considered you know we know that in some cases there are religious aspects we may no mind of with the know coming in but we're aware of your students you know the student may be out for three days with the flu and if we are definitely aware of that that may have we well fall into doesn't have the doctors well but was home i know there were years when the you know the physicians were saying don't even bring him in this is just going to this you know when they need to be out so it's taking that into account for being very mindful again of it our other concerns was that the paperwork was a nightmare for the secretary who handled the attendance paperwork and so there's got to be a better way to really implement an attendance policy that really fits what we need now when i  i find it very very fair what i like about it is the red damped of possibility that you have built in and you you know that there will be some students who push the envelope but it also there it is you want to change that it teaches them the responsibility of themselves rightly nights of meaning class absolutely i think this you know i have a couple questions the old policy has a process for no to vacation and i just didn't see anything like that in the new policy i understand the paperwork issue i'm not trying to get an extra layer but  know we you know if you have a few warthe adonis deployments or doctor's appointments and they're kind of random times and it just so happens that your kid has missed algebra five times but not five days of school those notes will come in so you know if you're looking whether about the notification piece and it does say in here that it is a student's responsibility to keep track of those apps and so those however were also hoping that maybe at some point power school should be able to send out some sort of an automated warning yeah i'd like the idea of having some kind of warning in there i'm sitting here and i know my son's only absences for an orthodontist appointment he missed your class miss relevant repeated yeah you know five days a term right i know but i but i really i do hesitate that if we have to start sending out warnings every two or three you know i would like to see her in some way to to automatically go to  our school though so i mean i checked stocker as we talked about when i check these names but not everybody dies in my the question was regarding it the letter said you plan to pilot this what does that mean is it going to go into a fact and this through an e mail blast of all of this information going out to parents certainly they can respond back to answer questions so we start at the beginning of the second semester so it's two terms everybody kind of falls into  see if there is anything that we need to do to adjust before closing the a book with that major change coming next year and to him book i do know and i don't do this but i know there are parents who do plan vacations outside of the school vacation time and i think that they may already have things play and they may not be happy with this change for that reason would we make accommodations for that given that there was no notice prior to the school don't if that's if that's the case and it does affect the student then they won't have any trouble in the fourth quarter in reading correct that grade so i say let's let's see what we uncover and that's i think it's great to try the second half of the year and see what kinks so i'm going to go out in a limb and say we probably won't have an automated parent notification until after this year we see how it works with the glitches are and then we can certainly explore that over the summer you know saying say they're going to raise is a good point i mean because you know you have the cubans are planned and you know that we at least if you know the beginning of the year the kids now write hey i can't go i can't be absent this many times all right you know i need to be concerned about that so and then parents are and are aware of it and so i think we need to have some flexibility i'm hoping i'm going to say i'm going to go on another one i hope periods of high school students are planning vacations during the school year because it's really hard for high school student to manage that i never mind a first grader yeah but especially in high school i think it's a it's a disadvantage to your children who really have you know that that's really exciting producing different make up that much work so i certainly hope parents i don't think we're going to run into that big problem but i could be proven wrong and i would just say that we've never penalize to student for a decision that a parent has made that's good to know and so on and can i also just  that the official calendar that year was a committee vote on that they should take the end date with the five snow days seriously in terms of what our actual official school year is don't go away before the final possible but that's absolutely true and if we having more than five that will not be held against anyone at all because that's not the official no no and we accommodate but so i would love to entertain a motion i'd like to make a motion that we challenges were what the positives were with how many students are affected yeah but i'm already monitoring that very carefully throughout and just before you do take that vote for when you come in with the change in attendance on attendance policy we do have phones very closely and teachers are reporting to us so it will be finding that mechanism by which we can get up to parents and as we said we're hoping for automation at some point which is coming but i would just chime in one more time and again our school stocker but i might add i would encourage parents to check out our school every day and if they find there is a mistake i my own son was marked absent from a study hall the other day that i know it was the end it was been taking care of but just in case there is a someone comes late to class and you know mrs attendance that we need to follow up on these things to help out as much as she can all those in f time for all of our visitors to look at that who are here so thank you to the committee for that it's very interesting to sit here and watch people feel and our audience portion of we take our academic achievement very seriously i continue to be part of the fact that we have multiple measures of how we define success as a student they work on this really hard they work great together as a team i'll turn over to me to introduce everyone although you need to move a little bit farther forward all of you and i specially want to complement the team in the me for using our new collaboration tools to get the report done so i'll turn over to you on that know it but conference to the method that you achieve the report this year not just the details let me let me intercepted on the way over the baby yes just to comment on something you just said which is we are very economical with focused in a shorter time as i've been on the committee  hasn't always been like that we're not to this degree anyway so i want to thank you for your continued leadership in the space and i know it's important to all five members of the committee and all the parents so thank you for what you do right so we d department head this year so we welcome her for english and miss laurie white for the guidance department she wasn't listed on the agenda and that was my mistake she definitely was that she was going to be here she couldn't stay and we  frequently and then miss elssler mellow and silly as well we're going to start off with some of the general information that was in your packet and i have that up on the screen actually i need to take that people thank you very much and we're just going to kind of screw you know the document to scroll down as we talk a little bit this evening but we do have multiple measures and there was a lot of conversation when we met together as a group face to face about some of the data points because we do have so many other assessments and what are some things that we wanted to see about even adding that would be relevant so one of the things that you'll see is a c t data in addition to s a t data and then next year this is going to look very different because of us piloting the park so there's going to be a lot of information that will be new next year when we look at the data that's here we're in the interim piece of our goal so as you know from last year and cas does not have three year goals but many of our other data pieces do so what we're going to do this evening is talk about the analysis piece that they've done with all of the teachers to really dig into the different baseline and benchmarks as well as him cast and what they really see as highlights talk about current initiatives that are taking place and really talk more about some of the specific ongoing improvement efforts that are taking place across the district and within departments and i think that as you listen carefully you'll hear of things like really increased emphasis on collaboration between regulated patient and special education and looking at all of our populations of students so in speaking about populations of students if you look here at the introduction we have two thousand seven hundred forty six students in foxborough and then i'd have numbers listed eight hundred sixty seven at the high school eight hundred fifty at the her and three hundred forty one at the borough four hundred and i go in two hundred sixty eight at taylor we currently have twenty english language learners out of those twenty students we have nine different languages that are spoken arabic being the highest percentage of students there and our e teacher works in all five schools with all twenty of those students as far as looking at a budget i think we've talked a lot about a good value for your dollar in foxborough or below the state average as far as her p expenditure the information that we're able to receive from the department of that is always a year behind so f y thirteen is thirteen thousand seven hundred seventy five dollars compared to the state per people expenditure fourteen thousand twenty one when we look at some of our more general statistics looking at our number of students that are eligible for free and reduced lunch that's stayed very consistent over the last three years if you look at those numbers right here we're at sixteen and three quarters percent district wide if you look across the five schools pretty consistent i think the herne is where you see that two percent increase each year that  that's really more of the fluctuation that you see these numbers are based on actual percent of students so if you were to look at the department of that as an example and their census data you would see a lower number because of it's done every year by census this is our actual numbers from our food service department to give you a more clear picture when we look at our special education population is stayed very consistent were good about two percent below the state average as far a special education population and i think that that really is contributed to when you heard about building base support teams and looking at our students and really the support mechanisms that are in place within all of our schools to have that consistency over the last several years so that's kind of a general big picture of our population we're going to talk more as far as the impasse and then all of the other different measurements that we use we decided to talk to the high school first so we're going to have that conversation and talk about math and the l a and and things such as a c t s eighty continuing ad and then afterwards we'll move to the  frankly hard work that there was and out of the department as worked incredibly hard we have tried to focus more on writing skills and critical thinking skills and bringing those into the classroom making sure that we are each doing that and making sure that we are emphasizing those skills within the classroom i think we see that in the results we have started bringing in some argumentative  research writing to kind of connect with the common core acquirements so we should hopefully see the same sorts of results when we start doing the park exam this year we have worked with the special ed department so that we can make sure that all of our classes are working on the same skills and that we have all of the students who have been identified as possible risk of failure on the m cats are targeted and have and receive very good preparation for them this year we have added almost half of our teachers in the english department have been trained in the john holmes  program so that will usually facilitate the transition from middle school to high school but we've already seen that really take a fact the students are they understand where we're coming from we bring in some of the skills that we're teaching because they've seen them before we have created mastery lists for each grade and so we know exactly what skills we are targeting for every grade so that we know by the end of the year what skills we want each have mastered and so we're kind of focusing on those ratings and critical thinking skills you and just a point and a note here when you see night she channing mentioned ninety eight percent of our students and the ninety six percent you see here when the department of bad reports out those percentages it's all of our students including our out of district so when she says ninety eight percent that's the students that are in our high school so that's why you see the discrepancy but we make sure that we proport all of our students that are out of district as well so that means the students that go to a say a private special education placement that we still own as a as a student in the high school not not people who choose to go to a private school they don't take it right but any of our students who attend an out of district placement disability that we can't  accommodate accommodate here there and cast results full back into our high school even though even if they're not educated here per se because our students so that seems like that would be one  ok so i mean in math you know i think it's a good job in math we've got eighty eight percent of the students again scoring at the proficiency advanced level again above the state average of seventy percent we were very excited sixty two percent of the students got an advanced which is really incredibly high number and we were able to decrease the numbers against that failed were down a percent from last year we had four students overall  so our needs improvement category went up but because we were moving kids in the right direction so we were happy with that and we've been working on formative assessments and really targeting what are the kids you know small increments daily basis the department has done a lot of work on that to really try to target individual skills we just finished an analysis of them cast as sure as a department so we know exactly what we want to watch for as we do the formative assessments and what to work on  also like english we too are working with special ed again and we've tried to target some teacher parents to work together who can learn from whom in terms of a particular lesson  or a practice in the classroom so that we can we can get all of the kids up to that proficient level that of course everybody's goal there so we're sort of steady as she goes at this point small improvements at that that you lower categories but that's what we like to see and you know as always we're working on and moving people out ah so too with your department if it's not half it's close to it for the number of math teachers that have as a whole the writing across the curriculum we're all really working towards that and we can see it in their results that is above and beyond am i willing to bet that the average school system in massachusetts just not require that or challenge that or create the opportunity for their mouth apartment to try to do that well we did it it was great that it was offered here and then a few of us took it and came back to the department really talked about it in another group went out to take it and we really think that to make such a big difference with the open response and getting all of our students to try and use those those are typically an area where students have difficulty they don't like trying to explain their math just they just want to solve it by an equation and those over response questions they do have to do  some explaining and be able to talk about what they're what they're doing and that's coming on park as well so having taken that course has really helped us help them with how do you communicate how you get that information down now i want to know that statistic how many other high schools have a hole almost fifty percent of their math department having taken that some so it originated as a high school program john collins was a high school teacher i  but if there are math but they have your math department take but there are many districts who use on hollins k through twelve so i can't say to that and it's you know i i'm just smiling i'm sorry i have to say because hans program was brought here by me in the late ninety's a long it's been here but for k through eight so i do think that it works as who said to define for students it's a structure about to recognize what's expected in the answer so if it's a type two for example is a correct answer expected and that's very different from some of the other things that they're that they're asked to do sometimes so i just think all it is is a structure so that kids learn kind of a routine nice way to psych out a question and to understand what's required and then it's up to them to bring their concept and skills in love overseeing forward but i think many high schools do use this it's just that we have here so i will give them all the credit because it has not been a requirement here for high school and i really give these people a lot of credit for with thinking because they are the type of people who say gee you know we haven't had my school has been required for high school but if it works for kids we're going to try  that's what i see in them and i want to make sure i on it that because that's that's that's exactly the quality that we look for in people so that's great yeah thanks up i think maybe we have a sinner just a type of thing going in because you know shannon again mentioned critical thinking and you know writing skills and we've taken on a few new initiatives lately as well that have gone you know i think help ourselves and hopefully help the folks in english as well i mean the writing across the curriculum initiative just the it off put in is well established on lab days they're very well prepared now because they've actually taken the guy in to prepare the notebook for the experiment then what and it makes it much easier for them to be reflective once they can all finished experiment start to analyze their data because they've thought about it before him and also we've gone amped up the number of inquiry activities in all science classes try to take some lab experiments from all courses and make them less cookbook make them maybe a little bit more open ended i mean what i'm going to say ok is a box of chemicals have at it but  hints along the way but you know they're thinking much more critically i hope as a result of that where we go into the laboratory and we try to impress upon the students that we don't normally know what's guidance do encourage them but their scores really don't have any content to it that it has more to do with what you guys do so but if you what was so impressed is now up to three hundred and three number of tests in minister last year it was two ninety nine in the age ago it was two fifteen but also the number of students taking classes and if you look at two thousand and eight we had one hundred fifty now we're up to two hundred two hundred thirty eight and all of the college readiness so i think that the more students that can take a p classes the better off they're going to do and statistics statistics show that we increase we've just increased a couple a p classes we students who have the ability to take a p classes encouraging them to take those so we do have an a p potential night every year which goes from the p s a t scores and looks at the students and see who could possibly number of kids taking a p are so dramatically higher than the run rate do you attribute that to anything in particular well we have we so are in need in that we addressed it psychology we had a lot of students who wanted to pursue that and we didn't have the class offering here so we had a teacher so that's the big bump yeah we had a lot of students you do that so that's where that thank you and i think it's going to be again we have the a p and again saw the need and addressed it so that will increase a little bit more potential mike what's so great is we send letters home to the parents and they i guess some of them maybe never even thought of their child maybe is taking an a p class and it really showed them your child can do it they just need to you know follow through on their work and so forth and i think that's increase as well do you think that there one thing though that little concerning is the drop in the percentage of students scoring three or better from eighty six percent twenty thirteen to now seventy four percent right and that choice if they if they may not have been the typical profile student they were shut out of it so now that there really is a mechanism by which of kids want to try it they can and at the time i remember discussing the fact which typically is the trend that as you open up a piece that we have to accept the fact that we see our scores dipping little bit because more kids who we wouldn't let in before take it and that that trend is very true feel to cross high schools high schools that a p is very closed in by invitation only high schools are a p is is wide open you tend to see that trend i think the fact that we didn't see that trental this year was was admirable as i was actually surprised at all these last couple of years we've been doing it that we continue to see a growth in in the percentage of students who scored three a better because that bucked the trend if you will so i'm not surprised that in one year we're seeing us go with the trend you know because i think it's been amazing that we haven't seen a steady downward actually is which is what was predicted in the average score being with more and more kids taking it so i don't i don't look at one year is that as a bad news piece because that's what we expected two to three years ago maybe that because the second time around maybe a little bit well with you but i really don't understand the benefit isn't necessarily that they're going to have a college course that they don't need to take their freshman year but  in fact they're getting prepared in another way so when they actually take the course maybe they wouldn't be doing as well they haven't had that but i think the other data that's kind of interesting there is the number of a p students in two thousand and thirteen one hundred forty but the number of tested ministered to ninety nine which speaks to what you were talking about debbie that there was probably a certain group that took multiple a p classes now we have two hundred thirty eight students and the number of test administered three hundred three is that's actually i'm glad you pointed it out so it appears that last year you had the same students taking probably to a pickaxe age right and now you have more students taking a but most of them taking only one and about half of them only taking the second right so i think that's a really good way of looking at it actually so it definitely shows that the public population as you was different and i do agree with your point about the power of the two is that it's it's for the students that want it to have a college level experience whether the college will come to this credit is neither here or there for some of the kids it's to go to challenge themselves to have that experience of early so they can better prepared for us and hit them like a mack truck when they get to college and i think that for the students who want that experience it's great it's also going to help them get into colleges different colleges as well because those grades come out later so what's important is that the schools are seeing that they're challenging and challenging them and they could be doing well across and me maybe just not do as well on the actual site seems like a win win all around one of the other things too just to add and i've been i don't know if laurie is even prepared to comment on it but when we look at like the students that receive the john adams have a go at him scholarship that's kept at a certain percentage based on the performance on him cast with the coke with scholarship which and gives them the same benefit for the tuition at the state college if they've taken an a p course and performed it allows more students to have the ability to go to and receive that as a scholarship yeah and the other thing is so big increase this year was the copilot i think we get i think we had about sixty last year we had ninety seven this year so our school kids are doing so well on the m k s that we have about one hundred and fifty students are so th eligible for free tuition in state schools in massachusetts out of a class of two hundred thirty so we're doing really really well so that number is increasing in a lot of it is because a hundred fifty out of about one hundred fifty  thirty s are eligible for the state tuition for state school college year because a couple does have the same better plan as the adams and abigail it's just you have to prove yourself in a couple more ways that you have to take a couple a p courses or take the s a t s subject test or do there's a whole list of other things that you can do but you do get the same benefit so that's and that's one thing i know parents might receive the letter at home if doing great and we continue to do really well on all aspects of the s a t s the a c t's a something a little new that we put into the report because we really want to encourage all of our students to take both the s a t s and the a c t's you're going to notice the numbers in the e c tees up here they're a little bit below or just above where the state averages and that's not our goal we want to be higher than the state average but the reason is a lot of students if they do well in the s a t s they like i don't need to take the eighty two and they just move by so usually the kids who decide to take the easy tees are the ones that are struggling with the s a t s and  that's really not the way it should be we really need all of our students to take both and see which test works better for them and then maybe take that one a second time so that's one of our real goals this year is to try to get the students to take both in their junior year  and see where they they fall so lorraine what are we doing to to get that word of ok so in all of our group dance classes where really promoting it and letting them know it's going to be the spring of their junior year so that's when the push is going to be a little bit more so we're going to be sending letters home we're going to be meeting with the students and actually giving them the dates and say i want you to sign up and so what we can do is encourage but we really think that the numbers are going to go up significantly if we get the word out to the parents of the benefit of taking on the a c t's as well as the s a t s we need to get the parents on board because this part of the country our mind is set on s a t s and it has been you there a long time we really need to have them have the switch that both are equal in colleges accept them totally equally in a lot of people don't know that so we have to get the word out to the parents as well as i was going to react had one of those  he does like going to so i'm continuing education again spend about the same the difference is always tends to be the military to be honest with you is every year it's up and down workforce is about the same kids are going to the workforce about the same but some years we just have a lot of students who decide to go into the military another student of the years we just don't so that's when every year that's seems to be the big change you can think of a number of them that set up so it's just every just never now so so that's the difference in that but we still have to add a huge percentage to go into it to a four year college so you know i did something that i thought was exciting and wanted to chair under other but if we're talking about the military right now could i slip in right now we have a student former student nineteen ninety six his name is david hanson he is in the military he and my son have just connected in el paso texas where they are both safe and this david hanson is a doctor and it aviation unit at fort bliss and in two weeks he will be going as a doctor to west africa to help with the ball so people are always proud of former foxborough ireland and of the two of them happened to find to face and talked about the things that you know we were seeing as departments and kind of shared with each other but then it was a matter of we were it wasn't like in the past where we were emailing the document to each other and this is the most dated version or is this and it just it really as our department chairs and i thought that was not uncommon so we don't see you often thank you for what you do at that page eight level not that we have all of it in here so they will give the highlights of where we are within this interim there's a lot of areas where we're already eating our goal which is still another year away and then there's other areas where we are really on track  if the rest of the committee is ok with that just because it just builds on ok where the new yeah i was yeah on the middle school so i'd be great and so if you look at third fourth grade it's been fairly flat with a line of know is that in third grade we actually did have twenty one percent of our students scoring in the advanced category which is a sixty percent increase from last year so that was important to note that  consistent over time this year there was a slight decrease in the fourth grade scores in a slight increase in the seventh grade store scores it we've been working on writing has really been a was our first focus with the new assessments in creating rubrics i could be used in our content areas so the expectations were the same for students so that was that's been a big focus that we worked on from skipping a little bit around this guy where you'd so the rolling average for this year there's a slight increase in every grade level in where we have you there are met our target our benchmark goal for the the two thousand and fifteen are on our way to meeting it  in grades five and six we had implemented readers writers workshop which help is a model that emphasizes giving students it helps build their reading stamina and their reading stamina and increases the amount of reading and writing that you're doing daily so they become more fluent with this year in grade seven eight we're implementing the writers workshop portion as well to improve the stamina of our seventh and seventh and eighth grade students and teachers are really excited about what they're already seeing some of the daily writing the kids are doing it's they're less hesitant when they have a bigger writing process project to work on down to the elementary it's on page  so the next set of data is for the elementary school and going to the mental reading assessment this is a formative assessment we use and it helps us to find students independent reading level and you can see here that we had  grades one two and four there was a small increase in the number of students meeting the benchmark angry that's ok and three there was a slight dip but it's been pretty consistent next set of data that will take a look at these are writing assessments so grades one and two we are still using our this and so we've had place and we had an increased number of students here meeting being meeting piloted them and then we found out that we didn't like them we need to go back and do some more tweaks to them so this year we have a new set of assessments that we're implementing where teachers are setting all three types of writing and focusing on units of study for that we're actually implementing the writers workshop in grades three and four so they're using the new assessments to help inform their their instructional plex and dad on a baseline inform their instruction and also students again at the end to see where their growth has been and that's that's a really important piece to that you know one of the changes with them fast and park is cass's assesses the writing in four seven and ten it's going to assess writing in every grade on the park so all of this work that they've been doing with the new writing assessments and really looking at the rubrics and assessing all different types of writing is really going to prepare our students that much more so when you write so you may be familiar in the past m p s really only assesses grade level one type so it always was a personal narrative you know maybe something you did on a snow day you know describe something to the snow day so do you when you're saying that the third and fourth grade new assessments that you're tweaking in retrying have a assessing all three types of writing that we expect in those grade level so just for purposes of education can you name w those are narrative informative an opinion slash argument so they'll be doing assessments for each type of us so that when of the when they're assess whether it's proper anything else that they should be they should already know how they do with all three types her team a lot of credit for saying it's not enough to us yes writing one scene you know would fall and spring it's it's important to assess all different types of ready that we expect them to become proficient so that's the new part its argument against its opinion and the lower levels and it transitions to argument and we do it at the end of fifth grade we haven't start writing argument and it's good for teachers to so that they really wanted this so they could see great for the next assessment is this is a letter and letter sound identification in kindergarten and you'll notice that there is an increase in the rolling average so there's three assessments here first they look at let identification of upper case letters lowercase letters and then can they identify the sounds associated with those letters and i just want to point out that if you look at the third we had an increase in all three areas but there was even a bigger increase in the letter sound consistent five program in k through two and i think my first grade teachers have already said to me that there's their students this year see more confident when they're writing that they have the skills to be able to tap out sounds when they're stuck on a word they're taking risks using bit better vocabulary and just more confidence overall so they're really pleased with the results in just in that just one year so we're really excited about some good numbers yeah it's really revised assessments in grades three through eight kindergarten case through to is focused on finding missions last year so this year they're going to start looking at their regularly have started looking at their reading assessments so that we can develop rubrics for expectations for all three types  think about how do we want to assess in those grade levels so that's one focus we're implementing reduce writers workshop in grades three and four because we want to help to build it helps to build students stamina and their fluency was reading in writing it gives them opportunities to instructions very focused and give students lots of opportunities to practice whatever the focus of the instruction was to gain mastery and like i mentioned seventy we're doing the writers workshop as well to build students  stamina with the writing and to really investigate and look at authors craft and how do you how do you craft writing not so much just teaching the grammar mechanics but how do you really make a good quality piece of writing and that works the bradys workshop does that for us because you use a lot need to go ahead and take a look at the close analytical reading we're bringing the judgment based questions into grades actually in grade six through twelve are incorporating those that came out of such a serious review and that's really taking primary source documents and reading closely so we're will be getting some more practice with that instruction in that in the grade levels and then i think i need to work with the lower levels to see how can we start that process now it doesn't have to be primary source documents but just looking at a piece of text how can we begin to have the conversations with students even as young as kindergarten you know how do you replace the really think about how the author uses words to get their message across so that's our direction  i was in that summary after all that day and i can just show it's just so much it goes on there are still you know when you look at these numbers and then to hear you know you you speak to and about everything that you're you know that the teachers are doing to support this  you get more people to your point to be able to access that different approach that you know and we do require the program in the elementary the middle school but it's also allowed in a very high school teachers to explore what role it plays in their lives  they connect with really make quite an impressive team together so i make sure mention that both of you and many of the middle school math and science teachers have taken it as well i've taken a job contracting and just  the work that they've been putting in it's really paying off we've been preparing for the last three years for this transition to the comic or to really do it by just i guess i paid five so this this data represents the first assessment that measures exclusively the revised standards so our instruction has been building towards this for quite some time so to see the outcomes of the changes that we've implemented in the curriculum and the professional development that has gone into it the revisions of the curriculum the different types of tasks that are being in the classroom and to have that kind of data especially when i show this to my fifth grade teachers to see that in two thousand and ten they were at forty nine percent say advanced a profession and now they're all the way up to eighty they were really proud and really excited this is the middle school results in mathematics really impressive and we have some you know a lot of that is attributed to building base structures that we have  to abrams as the principal has had given us more instructional time over the last several years that has paid off we have the support of the math specialist and a model that allows a special education teacher put to participate in the cillit hating you know differentiate instruction with our students so there are a lot of benefits to the middle school structure that really support this that weekly cycle meetings that we have allowed for much more p d it's ongoing we have great conversations constantly updating our assessments and our tasks and so personally for me i was really happy for them the other thing that's really important to note that this reflects is our sixth graders so if you look at the sixth grade trend line that is the red one and the fifth graders also they represent the first of students who have had think math all the way through from the beginning and our seventh grade students had it starting at first in eighth grade starting in second so to see the culmination of that program actually called the former director because she was the one who brought in and congratulated her on these scores because she didn't get to see this until the end but it's really exciting to see when you have a cohesive program what that can do that said doesn't have every standard of the common course so we're getting to a point now where it's a little trickier and we have to figure that out in the coming years moving the top you see our third grade trend line and again we had some really outstanding results in third grade this year and one particular school we had ninety six percent of the students profession in advanced and they were just blown away and that team in particular had really working with last year's data to identify amongst themselves where the strengths and weaknesses were and have a lot more of that collaboration about you know what are you doing so great and how can we all benefit from that so that's the culture that we're trying to cultivate  everyone in our fourth grade i was not credibly surprised that we had a small that was not very very significant depth but that test always is challenging that said we identified some very specific weaknesses in fractions and measurement that we're actually having a full day p d release tomorrow so that we can address them in the curriculum because you can expect an improvement if you don't take an action to sort of change the outcome so teachers have  identified some areas like i just mentioned in the think math where that's not as strong after the math review we had supplemented but we're not all the way there yet so we're going to continue to keep working on how we can improve those scores the teachers are excited about that because they don't want to have to be floundering around trying to find a resource to plug in i gap that they've identified so we'll do that as a team and figure out how we can best bring our instruction up to parse that we can see a trend moving in the right way because every other grade had an increase so we can just pause you for sure as i can i think the point you just made is really important so i just want to repeat it short that a lot of people think about p d s only the days we have released we know we only of you know one left this year people think we missed opportunities but p t for us is job in bed and ongoing so what you just said was that you november third and you've already identified specific weaknesses in the basic program we use because not and there's no perfect program that it's perfectly aligned to everything in any state and that you've identified specifically is this infractions and decimals i think it's actually the measurement fractions of measurement and our meeting tomorrow releasing teachers for a period of time so that you can all work on what needs to be done differently and what what you're going to be able to address using other resources because it may not be in the mean correct that's what you're doing tomorrow so i just want to mention that because that's what people like diane and allison do is that we don't wait we're not complacent get right on it in if we need to release teachers which isn't our favorite thing to do but if we need to to do it early in the year that is addressed in a laser like fashion laser like fashion because i don't think people realize that we do that kind of thing and so i want to make sure i highlight that because that's really going the extra mile to address things in a proactive way so that our next group of students don't say the same thing like yeah we see we need that last year and so i just want to complement them because that is what the the families and people at home we have the f to also understand that when there's a there's something that needs to be worked on this rapid response from administration is rapid recognition and thoughtful recognition from the boots on the ground crew crew but the families have to commit to and i'm including myself there right away like when that when i hear fractions and decimals i'm like oh my god halt i can't believe i have to go back there again right but there's a commitment from home with the caregivers and the community for crying out loud to that that's the week if i if i'm understanding him is it's really number one hits of school committee meetings that i've been sitting number one on your list so far not worked with wish owing the town and this and this broadcast tonight all the things that's going on here and it's not always beautiful and pretty and unicorns and rainbows school math specialist and myself they put together a tremendous compilation of resources for parents to help them understand how to better support their students at home because math is being taught so differently now and there are reasons for that there are reasons that kids can really understand it as opposed to just memorizing an algorithm because understanding it will help them get much further so we would love to see an increase of traffic on our website either through the elementary math specialist website or through my own website to take advantage of those we've produced videos explaining strategies there are you know websites that we know will support the math in the way that we're teaching it in school so that everybody can be on the same page and a second grade teacher came for last week to want to plan a math night for parents to get in these common assessments allow us to really check in that all the schools are having sort of a similar experience so there is an asterisk next to kindergarten grade one in grade two because we only have the last two years of data available we've we're constantly changing our assessments so that they reflect the rigor of where we're headed with our national assessments state assessments so if you look we're pretty consistent in grades three and four there is a tiny dip in both but i can attribute that i know for sure we have changed the questions to be more parklike so i think we actually were so thrilled with our m cas results and we said our benchmarks that we weren't as fabulous well that makes perfect sense because we've made our of the benchmarks more like what we're going to see on park and cas is not like that so that is the elementary school and if we scroll down that's the media this is the end of year so clay it's an interesting question that you raise the thing math program in terms of how they ask questions is actually very well aligned because they're open ended their critical thinking it's the content standards that are missing that so we've had to fill in some of the content because things shifted level grade and things like that and this is the second year we're using the common core standards in the clinical program in the middle school and how do you read it so that i thank you for saying that because that was one of my things i didn't mention with the middle school data that's reflective of we wanted to see last year how our new program worked and we saw very outstanding results we were very pleased with that so we know in the next math review because that math review we did get a supplement for elementary but we needed middle school and we needed high school so next time it comes up definitely elementary will need it and one other thing i didn't mention is last year for the first time we brought in an outside person an expert mahesh i'm right if you look him up he's very well known in the area we had for our professional development days as debbie mentioned we to five with mahesh and then we had it with five to eight to the five that a double those but we had a consistent message from k through eight and we think that really had a big part in what we saw in our results as well so for us going to educational assistance so if we go to here sorry for flipping today thank you so look at our science science has to be the most frustrating assessment because it's that cumulative assessment and we were with the department of ed person on science last week and i asked and i said can you tell me what it is that other districts are doing that you would see an improvement whereas their model looked like and he said you know i really can't tell you that you have to call and ask them i was really hoping the new science standards are released right now will be adopting them next year that they would go to a grade level specific test because we're going to grade level specific standards but it's going to remain a cumulative assessment which is going challenging for students that being said we have some exciting developments that teachers have been suggesting to sort of address and if for example in fifth grade where we're struggling is in the engineering strand so we have a teacher at the middle school who suggested that we have a stem friday once a month we just had our first one it was how we mean we did they called it a stems day plural and each team had a small mini pumpkin and they had to engineer a tower that would support the pumpkin and that came out of a p t day that we had recently where we went through engineering activities so we want kids to be in a position to experience some things one of the questions they did really poorly on had to do with what tool would you use to tackle this problem different types of screwdrivers they don't have experience with that so we need to find those experiences for them  eighth grade did see an increase that they were proud of they were disappointed that it wasn't more because they worked really hard to get the kids ready doing their teachers didn't open response question every single week for every single student corrected them that night got them back the next day and really tried hard to prepare them so they were pleased to see it go up but again they would have liked a little bit more the learning program that we use to help prepare students continue to use that again this year and i think that what we're going to see come out of the site we have a science review this year so we're really going to be taking a look at our instruction will probably be changing our model at the middle school as a result of the way the new standards are and so stay a young age and then be tested in fifth grade as fifth graders find at least that three years content and probably more than that i mean i wouldn't want that as an adult you know having taken courses over the course of three years and getting the exam in three years so it's really disappointing that they can't figure out a way to do the same as they do for america which is to test him every year with with certain standards it's just disappointing and our eighth graders experience the same thing although i know they they keep great science know what's in the middle school i want to  they and they bring it at the high school level because it's just biology and they can focus and they get there we know they get there and why they'll continue with the high school as it was course specific biology or another thing if we chose it but ye a great students at remember three years from six seven eight our fifth grade students at remember three plus years doesn't seem logical but it's frustrating and the students have never had an exam like that that's cumulative that's really their first experience in fifth grade so by eighth grade at least they kind of know what science exam before right and it is a compass is everything they've learned through fifth grade that's right so it's a challenge but that's certainly not an excuse we want to do better and we know we can do better and we have some things that we're going to put in place and the review will help us to amy well organized as always great job it was great job everybody but thank you you know the support from the committee really helps us do our job so thank you thanks to all the teachers who may be listening at home because they are the ones who do all the work thousand dollars if we add to the one change just made tonight these numbers we actually will be down to about twenty one thousand six hundred dollars positive variance again very very early in the year there's there's while we've accounted for a lot of things with and salary accounts you know one of our biggest swings that happens during the years obviously the teachers are going to turn the leaves or other issues where you are is actually you know financial benefit to the community because season so i will be as i'm not really concerned with our budget this year i think we're in pretty good stead and you know we've still been able to squeeze in a few other small things out of our regular budgets by you know accomplish those which we try to do every year anyways within bill for waiting and being patient for running a tight ship a creative picture of a very much some other matters like why am i looking at you very good dino and guy thank you so i just want to comment that the football team did great on saturday night but i also want to give two thumbs up to the cheerleaders for the real trooper is it was some cold wet rain and also our band who played their hearts out in some really tough weather conditions it's good all around us and speaking of great kids i want to give a heads up because we only have thirty different meetings this week week from today but  our next meeting just for the public to know is a week from tonight not on the seventeenth because that special town meeting so next week is the joint but you forecast me in here with the board selectman that part portion of the meeting will start at seven thirty and bruce and i have been working with them on that agenda but from sept we will start at seven so from seven to seven thirty we'll be bringing you a proposal for the p c c program at stonehill  met today that's called project had a two of project project contemporary temporary competitive gymnasts and it's really a summer program available to students right now there are twenty four member districts on the south shore and we are considering being the twenty fifth to join the p c c family and it provides actually the new update them pretty excited about today is that it's open to students during the summer who are entering grade nine ten or eleven and they actually reside at stonehill during the week and they it's an enrichment challenge program they have an opportunity to courses that choice is a fabulous opportunity for families should they choose and we'll be bringing you that information and we're going to have dr ronn gary hart was there actually retired superintendent oversees the program here to explain it and along with a few graduates not from fox broadly asleep but a few graduates of the program w joining that partnership so that we offer something else to make choose to this is all there's all kinds of creative and high level classes offered so we thought rather than wait that we use the seven to seven thirty times committee i want to make sure i went over there and after the budget forecast we're going to be discussing with words like when are you will the idea of the joint over and over site concept so that's a different kind of things for our schools in especially in our community and one of the things that they are really known for its their healthy futures initiative which encompasses all kinds of things around wallace school nutrition nutrition education we have to research studies that are going on with them for the last five years on how students acquire nutrition education with green post tests in the partnership with bus university that dr gordon when he's been here several years ago we still have that ongoing the funder stop and shop many grants for us in for school gardens will king into for our salad bars our smoothie bars they also do cancer survivor you know wellness things exercise programs so you so much around the concept of healthy futures so very recently they applied were chosen to visit the white house this past thursday october thirtieth and in honor of you know to recognize all the things that are a dozen it's fourteen member communities not just foxboro and  the recognition that they really go above and beyond in a creative way in and they were able to obtain a private tour of the white house kitchen gardens and a schedule tour of the white house and they invited thirteen local people to attend y m c a employees about a dozen children from all the member communities that well of several of the member communities and people who represent their partner so i was honored to be included in that trip it was a one day trip we went down early in the morning and we came back in the afternoon and so representing their partnership with schools there were people there representing partnerships with food service with milford hospital with the franklin food p entry so different people represent their constituen partners and i think it was really great that so many local families and children were included and that was to celebrate the success of their healthy futures initiative so because it's aligned with first lady michelle obama's let's move initiative ideas for our community and for exciting new things for families and for children and that's what the upcoming surprise program will be about at the beginning of december so i just want to thank them it was a long day it was memorable and i just want to compliment them on their recognition for how much they do in their communities right and the good information so much monday seven o'clock i education magazines and i got an article out the business of sports field maintenance i'm going to hand it to bill i'm sure he already knows all of that stuff but it's one person's opinion of how to care for ter fields more read more educated we get and also from mask masters association school committees we've got a request to put a motion or to make a motion to to adopt a motion i should say regarding our approval of mas as eligible i arbitrate are for us in collective bargaining and rather than present that motion tonight if it's ok with the committee i'm going to hand this to our policy subcommittee and ask them just to read this and anyone else got this in the mail  the mask conference this week which a lot of us will be attending at least in part of the poll so a very good educational opportunity for