good evening everybody and welcome to a thursday night edition of the town of foxborough school committee regular meeting this is a meeting that was scheduled for a few days ago but we were snowed out and so we are conducting it tonight thursday february fifth i think not february second right we have an agenda tonight that's a little bit abbreviated and i'm going to do my best to move us right through because i know it's cold and getting colder outside and the roads will get just a little colder so we'll just move through it as quickly as we can but as usual we'll start with any visitors who want to be heard we have some minutes to approve from our last meeting we have an exciting teaching and learning highlight tonight a review of the new facts for a high school engineering course with mr nash and some of his students which we're really excited to hear about we're going to hear an equally exciting mid year technology progress report the community may remember we have a new technology director and we're going to hear from m hire and some of the things he's been working on which we're excited about we'll then take a look at the twenty fifteen district report card an f y fifteen budget update acceptance of a donation and conclude with other matters just before we get the visitors i just want to thank the superintendent for her work over the last several days communicating once again on behalf of the town and in making i think some nice judgments about school closures and school openings and i have actually had a parent out of the blue today commend mrs spinelli for her judgment and i know these things are never easy and we are in a bit of an unprecedented week here as we sit in and and discuss  when i couldn't help but reflect on our conversation last meeting about the calendar and our our choice in our decision to start a little earlier than we perhaps could but then when you see all these days of cancellation piling up maybe we were wise to to do that so i know the majority of the committee was in support of that earlier version that we adopted i also just want to make one comment about the calendar just if i may just well run this little  monologue of mine but one of the things that i think should be spelled out are pointed out again for the community is the nice design that we have a long weekend still around the labor day holiday and i don't know that we emphasize that last meeting when we spoke and we talked about it at some point but just for the public to understand we will start on september the first which is a tuesday but we will have that friday the fourth off and then monday the seventh off so for those who do have labor day plans i think it was a nice design that we built in an extra day off my articulating that right yes there's still be a four day labor day weekend thank you for daily it's well said and in addition  just again for reminders the last day if we were to have no cancellation days would be thursday june sixteenth yes with the possibility of the twenty third being the last day if we had to use all five cancellation days correct so just a just a few reminders and again i think the mother nature has sent us a message about our calendar planning here it's kind of timely with all the snow we've gotten so i know personally i feel comfortable with the  decision made last meeting and thank you again for your continued judgment can't wait for next week storm you know i know more and more opportunities thing with about the number of days that we've taken off and about what's  more snow fell in the seventy period in boston and ever in history but me that could happen again because this is really up in the weather just what you don't know whether science but it is actually caused by global warming the weather experts are telling me so this could continue we don't really know but it certainly has been a just jointed few weeks of school hopefully next week we're in everyday i don't know so again first day of school next year tuesday september first a four day weekend including friday the fourth monday the seventh of september last day of school thursday june sixteenth barring any cancellation days and this is lord nice to see you back we missed you last meeting i know tonight i am thrilled to have mr pat nash here and four of our engineering students if you want to drag up close to the microphone while you get ready so i know mr nash well we'll introduce the students but i certainly don't mind we have current do jack erica snow kiri and as you may know this is as you do know this is our first year of having an engineering course it was something was really important to all of us so i'm going to turn it right over to mr nash very i feel like they're getting a great education from that talking to one of my students today actually so an international student that we just got from foxborough he had the opportunity to tell me that there's nothing like this in any other high school around here he has a lot of friends around here now and he said over overseas he goes there's nothing like this program because it's phenomenal and most of these students that we're seeing are getting into engineering actually most of the ones tonight as well looking to get in engineering so to be able to offer that and we didn't offer it before   it's mostly around them designing their projects or you know brainstorming things of that nature so we have what i call the projects for us so there's a glass about six weeks and then we have explorations which is about one to two weeks between that to have a little bit of break up but we get to go over we bent over mechanical right now we're in civil so we get to go through all different fields which i think it's been a huge opportunity it's very it's very rigorous and  you know they're constantly busy constantly within a projects but i think the big things that take away from this is that they're in a lot of different teams which you don't necessary get to get in the classroom all the time where you're in all different teams working together documentation so this is basically designed like a college course for the first year is the way that it was explained to me which i think is is huge for them for the students that are going on to college friend here are able to step right in know exactly what's going on documentation documentation  is very important right now in the engineering process is what we're really working on and seeing that civil engineering and engineering in general you know is really to go ahead and actually make a difference in the lives of you know the people which i think this right into the project where we had to build our own pinhole camera so basically it's just a light box which means that like no light can get in so when we started the project i went to home depot and just tried to find something that would work and a lot people talk about cardboard like shoe boxes and stuff like that but like cardboard isn't really like tape and we did our like preliminary tests we'd put like a  piece of photo paper inside and then we'd bring outside in the sun and this hold it around for a few minutes and then bring it back inside and develop it in the dark room that we created in one of the empty rooms or  apartment and if it was black or like a dark gray we knew that it was light tight and if it was mostly white then it was so my searching home depot i saw this and i thought this would be perfect so very lengthy process to go through to make the pictures we had to go through a lot of design ideas and think about what would be the best way to set this up so we had it out to figure out the exposure time needed for the camera to be outside and so once we finally were able to test the camera we it was kind of tiring after time because you'd go through and take a picture on it but you would just go through again and again and finally you'd be able to develop some yeah customer wanted it to be easy to build and able to be used by someone with limited dexterity in their hands so it's pretty easy to build because all you do is get one and then  was such a great thing that you weren't told what materials to use you just had to decide what would work better i thought that level of choice was such a an a great challenge and i thought the creative ways that each group had decided on how to get the limited dexterity barrier how to get past that were so different but i think the myth that the construction of the actual pinhole camera had more variety than how people were doing th it was really fascinating and how i was happy to see that so that was that was all challenging thing there were things that look like jewelry boxes there were things that look like strong boxes they were they were just do a lot of this course is in this case they were able to use whatever materials they really wanted me not in the one we're currently using they're limited which can happen on the real world sometimes i look constrained by the tears are constrained by buying financially as well so it kind of gives engineering so our current unit is now civil engineering moving on and our task we had to create was there's a region in india where earthquakes are very prominent and our task was to sign a building that was restraints with high cost and centimeters which is scaled down and the force had to be twelve fours and then from there once we the base building we did test to see how much it swayed using the excel rama nerves on the shape of tables see how much the base building would move and then there we compiled our class results to see the average of how much the earthquake affected the building and then from there on out we did a small project one class where we looked around to find different methods used throughout the world of helping reduce the effects of an earthquake on a building and then we presented to the class we all wrote down the different ideas and then we compiled as a class what we thought would be the best methods to help strengthen the buildings or reduce the effect of the earthquake and then we broke back off into our groups we all tried oh a method we sought to methods and two groups each did the same method for consistency to see if the results were consistent throughout make sure we didn't make  error and then that was our second building we built and then we got group results again of which methods were the best and what we are now is the third building which we were under strains and we had to build what we thought would be the best method to reduce an earthquake and we're still building now but there's a lot of different types of bracing for a potential warm through the center of the building and a lot of groups chose all the different methods that would be interesting c o they w and the restraints were it said the height we only had three sizes of beams small medium an orange and we also had a cost restraint of seven hundred thousand you know maybe you want a shorter building but with sturdier beans or a taller building with lester to be also with the pendulum the mass damper on we would put washers on to i'm kind of slow the swaying of the building down and each washer cost like fifteen thousand dollars so those were really expensive but they worked extremely well so he also figuring out how effective you want the building to be and how cost effective do you want to be so we're still working out details but says my group shows mass damper  is now trying to generate a base where it actually the building levitates off of the shaker table building so as it shakes the bill that actually is levitates that's being used in china so they i didn't even know that existed which is huge for them to go out and find that research and then they bring it back in and then they want to try it so i think that's huge one thing that i really see on this one is a lot of students like love love this build and they really want to have this in their building but they realize going back to the real life constraints that i really really want this but it's not about me it's about my customer and i think that's a huge thing for them to be able to realize you know out in the real world we know this is a get to do what we want but we need to make sure that we propose the best plan so they're also going to do a  their experience have been so just so you guys know the class breakdown we have six females currently out of forty eight students so that's one thing we're working with the university of texas amused very very supportive throughout this program  me able to work with one hundred twenty seven different teachers throughout the united states in this program as well so i made a conference a lot of them as well as you know the university of texas engineers and also their teachers there so you know their big push right kind of like getting thrown into like a period like not knowing what to do is have like work through your problems which i think is a great experience for like someone who doesn't know what they want to do and like you get to like real world  of being an engineer in my mind but i haven't really had any experience with that so having this course has really nice because it goes through the different types of engineering so i've got to like see which ones i'd like and it's different because it's very hands on so it's a really fun class to be able to go to something different each day so it's just you've learned a lot to work with others to compromise because a lot of times you won't have the same ideas as someone but you have to work together and merge your ideas which is a good skill and once that's exactly because we never knew which ones were going to work and the only way to find out was to test it so you know twenty thirty minutes into testing something we realize it doesn't work we can't get that time back  hopefully now that we we've worked through those things next year though they will be a problem but through it all it's it's been really enjoyable working with different people each each building has been really nice definitely a challenge at times because sometimes people don't really have the same mindset as you going into things or the same work ethic which has been a problem but at the same time it's it's hands on experience it's one of the experience it's going to happen so i think it's it's been great to great training before we go into college and then really start getting into some serious engineering  building whatever your project is think that it's good to realise for was students because it's nearing it's also both i guess there's some writing and planning a lot of group work which is good because other classes and far shows school get exposed to the group work as much but here in all the projects we do with a new study group members every project we always have to work through absent group members and they don't tell you when they're going to be absent if they have certain data on their computer  or stuff like that the mines but it's really good to warn how to compromise with people take some of their ideas and you know maybe cite for us me yours and religious or and how to effectively work with group so so if people are watching at home and you don't have the handout they've already had a first unit which is an overview of teamwork and norms and how people work together exploration designing for customers which i was such a good point and then realized was part of this is that doesn't always matter what you want it's what you're supposed to deliver that's great so that was your first unit well second unit the third was a team challenge discovering design which is multi disciplinary the first two and then you know for exploration understanding data which is chemical engineering you're just now finishing year five which is designing with data civil engineering and then to be experienced is unit six a team challenge in reverse engineering which is mechanical and another one in programming electrical and software one in systems engineering which is multi disciplinary and one in control systems which is electrical and software engineering so this is exactly what we hope for that you would get to experience the different disciplines within engineering because one of your points was you know what type you might know where you want to do something with engineering and problem solving but you don't know exactly what that means until you get called so i think this is really such a great idea to have you experience the different facets of it to see which you like i'll be happy you know i know mr nash said there were forty eight students but that's two sections of this you don't yes think yes it p class as well so it's a great mix because what one student might accelerate at or you know excel at on one project you know he doesn't excel as well in the next project he needs help from somebody to get that so you know just because you get one project as these guys can can kind of tell you doesn't mean you're going to be really strong in the next and you might have to take a different role in the group which is a huge experience to be able to you know say you know this is your strong point you know you're going to take the lead on this one you know i need some more information from you  so i think really coming up in this second semester going to see a lot more that we're with the programming you know the robotics and things like that some people really have a background in that in that class and then some students don't i think that's really are really going to see why we need some some specialists in this now to help the other groups out but it's nice that you know all all different students that i have in throughout the levels you know they can excel in this course you know at some point or another or they're learning from somebody else so it's nice to have that whole group rather than you know the honor she is going through all honors students and i think it's great for them to be able to interact with others too because they all have great ideas and great ideas that they come up with that you know i wish i was as creative as it is a lot of these kids tell you the truth so i'm learning just as much from them as they are for me if not more from from it from my perspective i feel like from these guys which is huge so yes it definitely means it's two classes twenty four so rigidly we're hoping for a one class you know we're going to bump up about that  so once you know you got the phone call for to you were like hey you know this is this is awesome so and then it's great yeah and the university of texas is really pumped about is about what we're doing here too so i am constantly on conference calls thank you for taking the stand and bringing this new curriculum offering to foxborough high school and i know it took some personal time as you mentioned over the summer so thank you i think we have one more common than thank the students i was curious he said  their you know is there a females in the minority and what do the home guide or provide resources for you more support about how to market this more to the to the females in  taught this course you know i had idea about what engineering was but now like i realized i had no idea and i think to expose the exposure of it and playing the seed and the ideas and that is really going to help out with both the recruiting for this class but  so they've created videos which working with we actually have you know engineers working with not electric that are coming to speak to us so they've been they've been very supportive of us and yeah and then then basically my own task of you know creating programs to write for you know power point system like that so i've been creating myself as well to get into you know for the female students as well coming up with the course recommendations coming up so we're trying to get it from three different ways and you know we're hoping to see an increase in that as well as you know to get to get the word out so hopefully we'll see a balance i think when we first started we thought six was good because we had only about what we're going to twelve we like a one of sex you know i think a lot of girls might be worried that about that minority problem but i think i can't speak for sam but i think both of us  feel pretty comfortable in the class that you know we're treated the same land they don't i the boys don't trist differently and that's also i think that girls are just scared of because when you think of engineering a lot is boys dominated and so  girls don't really think they have as much of opportunity as boys but they really do and i think they should progress and it's really good field for us right now because so many places are looking to get more girls so i know for colleges i've been sought out by a lot of colleges with them knowing from p s eighty's and s a t s what i'm interested in so again this year it's not going to run in a really so they're going to skip the show the that's too bad you're going to see a great opportunity to showcase these young people here i know foxboro is really well represented but i know our eighth grade students who went to the t so you had a lengthy report in your package and what we wanted to do this evening was to go through that but really had the highlights so we have a few slides that are here the first thing that we were going to focus on was the technology plan as you know it was developed in two thousand and thirteen and that plan with the goals of the action steps in benchmarks that correspond with that particular plan are all related to our vision and just to go back to focus on that for just a moment that it really is to promote those skills that you heard even with our students just here actually creativity the critical thinking the communication the collaboration we just saw an excellent example of that and with technology it's not about the device it's about what we're doing in classrooms so to provide those authentic learning experiences really is what it's all about so i think you'll see as we go through this pla a lot has happened a lot of it really exciting things are going on and will continue to be ongoing and we feel really good about what we've accomplished since the plan was put into place so just as a reminder we had taken our goals from the national technology education technology plan so we're going to look at those five goals and then just really highlight progress today not go through every one of the action steps or benchmarks that you have in your report but just focus on some  really big ideas that are there so that first goal was that all learners will have engaging in empowering learning experiences both in and out of school and those that will prepare them to be active creative knowledgeable and ethical participants in our global network society so again this plan the intent here was to outline what our action steps were and what we were doing that was necessary to meet those so a lot has happened here and  making sure that we have these engaging learning experiences for students increase access to to the web based interactive learning platforms and the opportunities for virtual learning looking into those opportunities for students by having this increased access that aaron's going to talk a little bit about we now have really the opportunity to explore this more so the other focus that we've what came out within our technology evaluation report that we'll talk about at the end of this really is digital citizenship and what we're already doing we're doing a lot of digital citizenship within the technology curriculum but even more so and then to update our curriculum across all content areas where it's focusing on technology integration and what we're doing to empower learning by using technology so it's been quite a busy year in terms of recruiting infrastructure in improving access for students assessing curriculum and assessing instructional technology supports one of the things that that it sees me to be substantial impact this year is refining our policies and our protocols around internet content filtering in access as well as upgrading our internet access band with we have created them with from a fifty meg shared connection a fifty megabytes your connection to a five hundred megabyte connection this year go to really focused on s s men and how we're leveraging technology to measure what matters using assessment data so as an example here and auditive assessment systems we looked at what are the different technology platforms that we use for instance galileo is an assessment system that we have in place where we build the assessments there to the students take this assessment and l a and math on line we also have some other platforms that we've looked at and is another one as well as some other many other different ones and we want to make sure that there's not an overlap and that we're really leveraging what we have to the fullest potential that it has so that's taken place another piece is the interactive whiteboards software because of the interactive whiteboards that we have in place we've really had three different pieces of software that have been running on those because they've not been agnostic so we're piloting different software platforms because now we have the opportunity to where it is agnostic meaning we can have different pieces of hardware and use the same software which will really impact our professional development and the support that able we're to provide teachers instead of a teacher saying well i have this particular software or i have smart software and then really the support piece makes it more difficult from the technical side as well as from the instructional professional development piece  strategic plan that's in place this year really called for strategies to address the twenty first century skills through technology so again the collaboration those four cs and so forth so there's a lot as well talk about with office three sixty five that you've heard that have provided those opportunities for us and for students and then really to better define what the expectations for student technology proficiency is and looking toward the international standards the technology standards that is the standards which were formally the nets the national education technology standards and then our data warehouse pearson inform how were we taking the data that we have analyzing that and really use that to drive the instruction in the content that's taking place in the classroom so we currently have twenty two teachers across the district participating in an evaluation of interactive soft software and teaching platforms as dr burgess mentioned this this will allow us to standardize our national development efforts and our training and also we increase hardware like cycles so hardware and technology is these these changing over so quickly and so rapidly that it's it's very difficult to keep  we standardize on software that's hardware like gnostic that allows the increase the hardware lifecycle to be less dependent on the hardware and hardware specific training is well as is getting into providing opportunities to be more student focused in terms of our instruction having students engaged in the interactive technology so not necessarily the teacher at the board of getting students involved as well inform the data warehouse trying to drive assessment data down into the hands of teachers where instructional decisions are made and in trying to really really refined how quickly we can get that information back into into those teachers han journey can you give us an example of our using data to inform instruction at any level at this point maybe not maybe not all the way down to the classroom teacher but can you give us an example where we are in that journey sure sure is far specifics classroom assessments that take place through the galileo online assessment that is all funneled into inform all of our own writing assessments that we create rubrics for we're able to go in and put that information just from even our own writing pieces that are a which is our developmental reading assessment so really assessing reading comprehension and fluency the information from that so it's it's all formative assessments that's also  cas data that's in there too we're able to download all of that information and then say ok let's look at a classroom if i have my classroom of students and look at where they fall with and cass and compare that at the same time with our local assessments so we have multiple pieces of data it's not just looking at one piece and we can see for trends and patterns within our classroom is that a particular area within which arts are particular standard even within math we put all of our even basic facts fluency assessments are going with in this data warehouse so another piece where it impacts not just the classroom is through our teacher assistance teams which are our problem solving teams who if we have a struggling student they take this information they project it with then one of the tag teacher's assistant meetings and look at where have they been is there a drop off because we also have longitudinal data in can look back over time so we can see is it just this year is it a pattern from the year before and then it gives us the ability to also assign interventions and track students and monitor their progress over time the last piece and then i'll throw it over to aaron is that it's a huge piece for us with district determine measures which is a new piece of the end of our system from the department of ed where we not we're looking at student growth so we're able to use our own data warehouse take all of that information put it in a format that's meaningful to us and then look at that over time and kind of one stop shopping so we're fully implemented to answer your question with all of the assessment we continue to build it and we're looking at things now such as in wellness the different fitness pieces in assessments that they do how do we want to build that into the system and look at how we're building it in so we can track that over time even and you can look at physical fitness data from the time that they enter until they graduate so they're making their own personal goals technology to improve that process like you're just describing and you know you kind of wonder where they find time in the day to do all of this because i mean it's just it's a lot more professional development just last week so here's an example of we spent a lot of time looking at student work in calibrating the scoring of that work and the data that's there and so now teachers are asking how can i pull data and look at it this way how can i leverage it that way so we've him put it all of the information and continue to build it now the questions are i want to look at it in this particular way how do we do that so we're learning the different types of reports that we can run and that will be continue an ongoing professional development but we're using it through professional development days as w you know i just and this is so exciting i just am sitting here thinking about six years ago when we were working on the first strategic plan and trying to wrap our brains around when do we have this can we even do this and now the fact that we are doing it and doing it so well is just amazing it is because that was one of the most daunting when we were looking at that first year teacher plan many years ago yes because remember when i first when we first started talking about it we were actually waiting for the departed solution which was promised and supposed to come and then we eventually gave up on that and went on our own quest and i give them all the credit for this because it's been a two year project for us at least in it does allow us to look at both our big data and small data right down to the individual student level and they are using it that way so it's really what we hope for and it really helps it'll be ongoing training use of it more and more sophisticated use of it but it really allows us to get down to the science of teaching you know the art of teaching is is most important but the science of teaching is is also equally important so without this type of data warehouse system you really you know we had we had a lot of data we always said we've had a lot of data for seven years now but we have it all in different places and you really can't make sense of it or have it work together to tell the story if it's not all in the same place at districts and this in this way i'm just curious because i just feel like some i mean i don't think everyone has one big umbrella data warehouse like we do because we have been lucky to have the support and the financial backing to go ahead and do that and so for some districts i think that's the barrier so i think some do but it's certainly not universal what you to speak to the incident in terms of from my experience in terms of the work we do around assessment data where we're ahead of most districts in  report there's a lot of overlap because of the purpose and intent of that particular study so looking at gold three really it's teaching it's preparing and connecting our teams through technology was students and connecting them to different  resources content and learning experiences that's going to inspire more effective teaching for all learners so a lot of the strategies here the action steps really went back to how when we enter grading technology within our curriculum what does that look like in the classroom what are the expectations for technology to fast forward for a moment out of the technology evaluation report that was a really big piece that came out of that what what are the expectations for technology use in classrooms by teachers of course it can come down to devices but it's not just about the device it's what we are doing with the tools that we have in classrooms so what does that  with our curriculum and then again professional development to support the use as technology is always changing and at the same time how we're using the technology to really impact student learning for better outcomes so the graduate courses that we're offering the ongoing workshops back in the fall we offered which was originally a technology literacy course that was offered to the department of add at the microsoft institute we brought that course on site we had twenty teachers take that course back in the fall that really focused on integrating technology in ways that engage students in thinking about the learning and the purpose and how it was used to integrate within their curriculum our technology integration specialists it's been wonderful having two of them this year and with the budget going forward hopefully that will be able to move to three the support that they're able to revive to teachers to really impact their instruction in a way that maybe they hadn't thought of and really is a is a huge piece for us and then again going back to those expectations through the technology standards the is the standards for students and again we have those for teachers we have those for administrators and we have those for coaches so coaches being in the sense of our technology integration specialists looking at what they're doing to help support the instruction in the classroom and a lot of work has been done here because honestly the technology steering committee in the last couple of years the focus has been what what is the expectation for technology we continue to purse purchase and spend money in areas of whether it's interactive whiteboards or document cameras or the response systems and it's about how we're using that so the conversations in expectations can vary because again you're looking at the professional development support as well as the equity of having those different devices in classrooms so you need both but it where the rubber meets the road it's about what you doing your instruction it's not the device so what are the expectations so these are general expectations just to give you an idea that first of all technology it's planned and it's purposeful it's not using it for the sake of using an interactive whiteboard so how are we engaging students with content how are we using the technology so that is used mostly by students it's not going to do us any good if the technology the classroom is constantly used by the teachers and it's not in the hands of students how we using it to really push the higher order thinking skills this isn't this is the application those that when we think about bloom's taxonomy which is something in education not at the lower level and very literal kinds of things but really the higher level skills how are we using it for collaboration we go back to the office three sixty five that platform is really allowing us to leverage collaboration and really new ways by providing student e mail accounts to our middle and high school students but at the same time we can leverage the collaboration in different ways with elementary even though they do not have e mail accounts and that we're using the technology to construct and build knowledge is not a matter of using the device just to consume and to take that information is how we're creating building new knowledge and taking that further so a framework to help kind of take that and look at it in a classroom perspective is the c m or model that we're using and dr point to door is a researcher and this is his model and this is what we're using to frame curriculum technology integration so instead of going through and explaining all of the different levels within this because of the time that we have we wanted to just show you a very brief three minute video that will explain this model and at the same time give you an example of what this looks like in today's classrooms decision in our budget this year and i think this is timely as it were just to prove the budget a day soon and the public will be weighing in on this this review tonight and showing us what you've done with our technology plan and how important the resources are to support the plan support what we're doing and this position is certainly going to do that because right now we have two for the the whole district and this one will allow us to have one in each level elementary middle and high school and if we want our teachers to continue to you know apply and use this technology then we need assistance for them we need you know support for them because they're their teaching and there's so many things that are changing and so i just i just want to make that comment because i think it's really really it's really important this is so impressive it's the presentation you're giving and again it doesn't come without having real people helping us go about creating this technology in the classroom to just wanted to be totally agree i think that that human support yes the actual supreme for what they're doing every day is really critical to everything we do but no more technology changes so fast and that you can't just say here's our vision here's our technology expectations and here's the same or model to guide how you're planning the use of technology this does so much going on that we have to really make sure we're there to support the people as well so that's exactly why is it is quite timely for us to have that third person and even an example here is just so we've been talking a lot through these different examples in staff meetings and one of the grade levels it was working with third grade teachers and they were talking about a particular example of how do you take it to the next level how do you where it's not just substitution and then one of the teachers said well i did this and another teacher said i don't know how to do that they said oh darlene who's the technology integration specialist for elementary she showed me how to do that and it was great and went on really singing her praises so then the other teacher let's have a come to one of our grade level meetings so that's how it starts we're really leveraging teacher leadership and that's within the plan as well that it's having that resource to your point and finally you actually will be meeting both of them at the next committee meeting at the end of this month we've we've talked about a plan of the talk a little bit about goal for so all students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it so we're in the process currently of reading one hundred thirty new mobile devices that will be deployed at the high school in the middle school these devices will allow us to be more flexible and agile and provide students with one to one computing opportunities also allow us to gain some experience with one to one computing and to develop more thoughtfully of a plan moving forward around how that might be implemented and what it may be what it may look like this is the technology we continue to improve access to assisted technology through universal design whether that activating text to speech features or screen readers functionality on the equipment that we  have to prove access for first our student population with learning disabilities to our our curriculum developing into point emerging technologies we've talked a lot about office three sixty five in the use the online collaboration tools and tools like video conferencing to provide virtual field trips for students and in experiences to access critical element and content device management we've been very busy over the past couple of months working on device management implementing a microsoft software called system center configuration for a manager and casper these are device management solutions that allow us to more easily deploy software and hardware as we we bring it into the district it also allows us to ensure equal access for students so we can monitor the use of expensive applications and it can allow us to more quickly readily deploy those to be used so if there's expensive graphic design software that's unsolved in a graphic arts studio for instance but students may like to use that in the media center it will allow us to to deploy that software to remove a license or it's not being used to  used again equitable access you know evaluating how technologies of being deployed where it's being deployed and making sure that students have access to the technology in the software the th s we've been working to establish a more defined protocols around bring your own device and improving access to wireless network infrastructure and extending our resources to students that are looking to bring in a device an internet access is has been an incredible improvement made there in terms of increasing access and it appears again obviously an infrastructure but i think i'm really glad you asked the detail questions of peace and form because that whole idea of data storage management has been one of our two biggest problems that we worked hard on but the other biggest problem that i think i want to make sure the point is hit home and i actually wrote it down toward mobile to say it our most serious problem prior to now really has been that lack of access which was due to either  being with limitations or it was heavy content filtering that just wasn't working for students or teachers and that problem was something that came to light almost weekly in different ways and different schools levels and different classes with different  different students it was a constantly nagging problem and i have to say it's completely gone away it is completely gone away this year because of the work that you've done on on the b and with and on the the new  policies and procedures for content filtering that really puts the responsibility on teachers and students as everything else is worth whatever you decide to hand out in class so what students decide to do or not do you know in in terms of the choices and i can't say enough that how serious that issue was for us and help quickly it has disappeared thank you where you have to have your infrastructure able to handle everything you want to do before you can move forward can you spend just another minute go just a little bit deeper the bring your own device status you you made the comment just now that we're working on policy where are we on that so it's from your perspective so we have some loosely defined policies around bring your own device students are allowed to bring their device there are a lot to access our our network middle school high school just high school is so there's there's different policies some of them it depends on the class they're in the policies of the teacher but both in the middle school to high school students are bringing devices we're seeing over two hundred devices a day that are low being locked on between the middle school high school that are  d devices so so when you talk about want to formalize policies what are some of the things you're grappling with or what what what's the next step in your mind is that there's a trying to get uniformity across usage in classrooms or trying to really be able to deliver tools to to students that decide to bring their own device that we would have we would extend through our own equipment whether it's too exhausting software delivery or access to office three sixty five office to access to our software so when they when they come to the school building they can access our band with they utilize our content filtering and our and our safety equipment for inner virus and things like that but then we can also allow them to access graphic design software that we may use in one of our graphic arts studios she had her sketching geometry sketch pad so how can we deliver resources to students that we would as as we would if it was our own two eyes is the one last question on this so is this an area that you know six months further down the road you feel like you could come back and say here's what i think we should do or do you think this is just an always evolving kind of a subject or how do you how do you think y i think i think it's always as technology is but i think we we've laid some ground work in term of infrastructure to ready ourselves to make some decisions in terms of formalizing a philosophy around thank you i think as we've discussed here are our philosophy is you know not to rush ahead and not lay the foundation or be prepared for the support so our next step that aaron mentioned the rolling out of the one hundred thirty new mobile devices which are in sets of sixteen i think that mobile to the mobile are our next step we feel because students who want to bring their own device are bringing their own device but we feel our next step is to offer a one to one learning experience at times not all day long we're not ready for that yet you know not all day long in every class we expect a student to be in the individual device but to have the flexibility using those mobile devices to have every student experience in the middle high school experience a one to one have a one to one experience when it's appropriate so they can start learning what how that happens and what they do and how it can help and how it can enhance learning and then maybe will be ready for the next step which is you know but a one to one environment eventually throughout the day but we definitely take those interim steps to give our students experience and it's an important topic because you know as parents what we see is the change on the in the bus behavior right used to be they get on the bus and they talk to each other now they get on the bus and they'll pull up their phone as you well know and they're all doing this on the bus ride and some of that which is fine hopefully we can direct how they use it but when they then get to school and they are told put in a locker or put away or you know if that's how they want to learn then obviously we should enable that to the extent we feel is appropriate they they don't have to put it in a locker anymore so that's what's changed so soon to have a device that when you use a device can use device unless it's not appropriate for what the teachers do in the class at the time and you know it depends it's like any it's like any classroom environment depending on what they're doing the day during the day you might need a pencil you might need a pen you might need a device you might need paper you might not even need the above a group so i think that that those judgments like anything else in teaching and learning have to be made by the teacher in cooperation with the students but they they don't have to shut their device in the locker as they did previously all they want it's not to be an item anymore thank you again we talk to an increase internet access from not only that it's the network infrastructure and in layman's terms we talk about local area network and wide area network so all of our classrooms are connected within a within the building and then all of our schools are connected within the district so we talk about our local area network it's kind of like our back roads in our or our streets and then our when is our highways and our arse the are streets the routes and connecting our buildings so we've done a lot of work around this to to increase access to internet bandwidth and to local resources whether it's application servers or or our data warehouse we've increased our lance beads from ten one hundred to one gig ten gig and our our wind speed connecting our building to ten gig so that that doesn't enable us to continue to move forward with things like b y o d and the deployment of new technology and software redesigning process and structure to take advantage of the power of technology this is something we've been talking about quite a bit in terms of our use of data but but also efficiencies whether it's being able to be agile in the deployment of software where it's needed and hardware were it's needed but also going green through things like server consolidation and virtualization just this year along we've been able to consolidate approximately twenty software to do things like power management to recognize when a computer is is inactive and to be able to shut that down due to reckon i schedules and intice a paper when computers might be use so the system can can analyze and learn when computers are being used and when they're not being used so they can put them in a in a standby safe to answer power and at the end of the day to to reduce power consumption by by putting machines into standby or  hibernate or shutting them down and we talked about the expansion of our technology integration specialists we can have all the technology in the world in terms of devices and software but it's the support of our integration specialists which help us progress through those through the levels of c m or and in get teachers on forward with using technology and helping them create lessons that are more student centered involving  the use of technology for students and i'm glad we get to come back to data management staffing so we we didn't crease from one point five to two point zero f t e but we are able to do things and we're starting to do things like analyze the way that our systems are used are being used trying to get to a more distributed data system where the data is in the hands of the end users whether it's arkell staff whether it's curriculum leaders and right down into the hands teachers so we talked about interactive technologies we've talked about mobile devices we've talked about you it would be right down to informal assessment so our interactive whiteboards software student is comprehending or are mastering a concept or may need some more instruction so the technology program evaluation report was the report that came from our a valuation study of ourselves last year that was really the three step research study to look to see how we're leveraging the technology we have within the district are we maximizing it for everything that it has to offer and then to really look at how we're using our technology as a tool for teaching and learning in order to to impact student achievement so that program evaluation that research study that we did was really measuring against these four criteria looking at students skills and outcomes teachers skills administration district policy and then our infrastructure so there's a lot of parallels back to the technology play end and you'll see that within as i go quickly through these different pieces here so just to go to that first one student skills and outcomes the claims that we saw that came out of that research say they and again that was the qualitative and quantitative data that was walking through every single learning space last year looking at what technology we had how it was being used surveys that went out to students teachers and parents focus groups that took place with students teachers and parents all of that information compiled to support these particular outcomes in the claims so as an example on the students skills and outcomes we saw that the technology that we had to support our objectives despite the growing technology it really was not being leveraged to the potential that it could be so what did we need to do in order to leverage technology more and to make sure that there was more consistency taking place across the district so a set of recommendations came out and the progress towards the recommendations are highlighted here it goes back to again what are the expectations and standards those looking at the professional development that we're providing that is technology driven and that we're supporting teachers in the use of the devices in the technology in the software that we have and have spent money on to be quite honest looking at the access to whether it's the content  we are talking about a little bit ago looking at the application of skills that it's embedded within our curriculum going back to that example in the c m o model that you saw the interactive whiteboards software having as a common platform so that again the support can be there more consistently going back to that equitable access from wireless connections to where there's anytime anywhere access to digital citizenship we found that through that study that we were doing we're doing a good job with that but we need to continue technology changing different challenges present themselves as technology is being used by students and how we're addressing that so that's continued in it's continued especially with the focus of providing email to students and the collaboration from looking at what a good digital citizen and how is it to be a good collab parader when you're using these particular tools so all of these particular pieces are the big ideas of where that focus is been so i think you can see some of the parallels from the technology plan the second indicator looking at the teacher skills the claims here that really came loud and clear with the expectations and the consistency so we've been as we've looked at the c m i model really using that to frame our conversations so we have a common vocabulary and we can look at tele technology integration under the same philosophy and how is it going to maximize student outcomes so having a framework to frame our own expectations we're at the beginning of that journey so we have that common language we're going to be we've been in development we've had it with k twelve inside our company that we contract with right now a very comprehensive professional development survey that to assess technology professional development needs because they do vary and they vary by level whether it's elementary middle and high and to have data from that that's going to really help us drive professional development not just next year but in the next coming years the technology integration specialists we've talked a lot about them tonight and the support to provide for teachers to really help us with the consistency in the integration throughout all of the curriculum areas and then it's embedded within our curriculum so how are we taking what we're already teaching and taking it to the next level so we are maximizing the engagement of students and the outcomes the third indicator here with administration and district policy really looking at what is our vision and that's very clearly stated in our technology plan so we were evaluating herself against this plan to see where in steps are we have a strong vision for technology i think you've seen and heard from tonight as well as other things that hopefully your own children of experience and parents at home  seeing different improvements that we're putting more into how we're using the technology and then again going back to that consistent platform with office three sixty five and then it's going to be able to provide other opportunities outside the classroom as an example students will have a license for office three sixty five is teachers by us having the license within the district so if they didn't have microsoft office at home they're now going to have copies of office three sixty five and it's cross platform so whether that's on their i pad or their desktop they'll have those those copies through their e mail account they can manage them where they're installed they can sell them  things listed here that we've talked about some of them that the techie tech to that he's very fluent in and that's not my wheel house but i think that you can really see that marriage between the the infrastructure piece and what it's allowing us to do in the classroom that we really were we had the barriers before and it's opened up so a lot of that really is i think it's in support of the technology plan absolutely and it's it's it's really about improving teaching and learning and in allowing for both teachers and students to have the tools they need to be successful  terms of wireless access and some things that we've we've talked about we're on schedule hopefully by the end of february they will have one hundred percent of the introduction spaces the high school middle school will have wireless coverage and then for the start of next year september to have one hundred percent of the instruction spaces throughout the district have wireless and good network connectivity again just quickly we can have increased internet internet bandwidth we've increased our local area network connection to the in our wide area connection speeds to support the y o t in one to one computing initiatives and really expanded the use of technology for communication with students in collaboration with teachers and with with families you know using tools like office or sixty five an e mail or moto and other collaboration communication tool parents to question on the communication theme have you and this is a little bit off the teaching and learning topic but certainly technology related have you had a chance to poke around our our websites i'm sure you have you know our school district websites and give any thought yet to how we make them a little more of a living document a little less static a little more newsworthy because one of the things i hear in the community is we all here really is communication parents always want communities always looking for more communication more up to date what's going on just as an example of a tangible example the of the band the marching bands opportunity to do the pep rally last week and you know that wasn't something that was well known or you know i think the people who needed to hear about it heard about it but you know if there was a place to put something like that it up if you chance to look at that at all actually just a couple weeks ago in our ministry of team meeting we were discussing a review of the websites and the information that we post how it's posted and again just like our data systems looking more towards a distributed model allowing content area editors so so the most relevant staff and students access to to  post and and at the website so we're looking at content management tools and things like share point for instance part of office three sixty five to allow teachers access to have their own websites so we have  agreed that it doesn't have that ability to have a live event is just a box like the latest news you know that we can so we have been pretty narrow in who has access to the main web page and who can provide updates because you can imagine if it was open access you we don't know when information would be on the internet it could result in not protecting our school district so we've been careful about that but it is something we have talked about it a couple of industry team meetings we talked about it and pretty sure included in this she plan but with all the stuff we've gone in technology it actually has been something that i we've we've discussed but i have not put on the front burner because the so many other things that have bigger priority that to happen first but that's certainly something we've talked about in the air and is working on is just you know in our list of the first fifty priorities in technology i'm going to say is number forty nine i mean the work here that you've presented is excellent you know i know obviously give the other committee members chances to speak as well but this is this is a little bit  and you know it's really good progress it really is so thank you for what you're doing and i just know that you know as you keep doing this when you can get to our website and make it more of a living document i think the content is very good the resources i think college but that's how i'm thinking about it but it just isn't in our list of priorities we actually set it down further because we had to get these other things done in but it is on our radar our our users our community is always hungry for current information so our middle school and our high school they have twitter accounts now so we're like what catching up in different areas i'm not on twitter so like just go on website but i  so far i just wanted to echo what you said bruce i mean this is so impressive so i think the whole presentation and the details and each other and the way it's outlined so that people really can you just provided such a great framework to explain what it is that the district is doing and i you know i think back to when we first talked about technology employed i this is just incredible it's so comprehensive and it was just i think we just unchartered territory we didn't know where we were going we didn't know what we were doing you clearly know what you're doing i mean it's just it's very impressive so thank you for all your hard work ethic go in terms of what dr burgess was saying it really is a partnership between you know technology and instruction and really without the support of the superintendent that this is a super time in the ministry to team a lot of this work wouldn't be possible it's really all coming to catch up on their homework while they were making their way back from the super bowl with their dad but you know having having the ability to check in with their teachers and collaborate with their classmates they didn't miss a beat they missed one day of school and just right back in they also both told me it's funny today they got laptops for christmas and they didn't put microsoft word on the ten got around to the process you know we really need that and now i'm going to go home and say you know what you really have to feel through office three sixty five so i learned something tonight i learned a lot tonight but i learned something that will be helpful in my own student's life so thank you to the stripper porker ok so the district report card we know that that came our strategic plan a number of years ago and has ended up being a great communication tool to the community so the draft that you have in front of you is an update some of the information on the front is strictly logistical we have a new assistant principal at the middle school dr worthy so you see some of that information that's there with our new strategic plan our new objectives from the strategic plan as well as our vision and our mission are outlined there and since it is a new vision and mission i'd like to just highlight that for those that are at home our vision in collaboration with the community the foxboro public schools will provide students with intellectual artistic and character building educational experiences to inspire them to achieve in an ever changing clothes society that's our new vision our new mission the mission of the fox to a public schools guided by its core values is to engage students in a rich diversified education thereby empowering them to challenge themselves that they as they become productive responsible citizens and in order to accomplish that we have news for  we go to regularly as we report out on different things here when you open the document the information that's the same as in the past as the district of new statistical information as well as and technology highlight section at the bottom has morphed a little bit we've consolidated some of the things they stop on the things you heard this evening but one of the pieces that came out of last year's recommendation was to highlight our per pupil expenditure to give a better picture of where we are in comparison to the purpose people expenditure in the state you can see from that graph there that since two thousand and nine in the last five years we've made up ground and  reached the state average for people expenditure in twenty twelve but then in two thousand and thirteen and again this date is a year by because this is what comes from the department of ed and that we are slightly below so it again goes to that good value for a dollar here in foxboro which is also called out in the did you know section a couple of new things that are on the opposite page there is the a p studio art we've continued to at a p courses for students at the high school and one of the really exciting pieces thinking back to the baseline and benchmarks assessments is that we were named to the fifth annual a p honor roll by the college board and that is for increasing access but at the same time having students perform at a high level so we have increased the access to a p courses tremendously but at the same time had the same and higher level of performances of our students and so to be named to the college board on a role that was really exciting for us i think to get the data point we thought was important to the left of the did you know is that between two thousand and thirteen and now we've had a sixty three percent increase in the number of students taking it that i think that's significant  wow and then coupled that with the increase in the how students are doing so so i think that really speaks to three i believe three factors one we're offering more opportunities p the second is that more students believe they can challenge themselves and want to and third that they're better prepared to take on that challenge so i think it's a that's a certainly a great point for us that we want we talk a lot about culture and it's clear that the culture supports students to do that to take on to meet new challenges and and we're helping them to do that so i think that number represents that if more students are really willing to take take the plung even years ago i know my children where they are in school you know specially my older soon there will last taking it was also there was a certain sector of the of the of the of the class that would take it and others that maybe didn't you know meet that those same kinds of you know grades or courses that really maybe didn't try to challenge themselves and now it's just so different from just  the confidence like one of the things that's new in the last couple of years is the a p potential night really reaching out to students and encouraging them because even just if you take one in high school if you're going beyond that's college level courses so then you're going to be taking four or five why not be exposed to one to get that flavor before you leave high school when you're going to be taking at that level four or five friends a master and they do i do want to credit animas papel who came in with that with that philosophy that if we open up we both expand and open up a p opportunities and gives those students a chance that we should let them challenge themselves and we don't you know back in to the traditional times pretty much if you were recommended  philosophy which does open up a lot more opportunity for students individually say anything because it's such a good documented we've iterated it so many times but just two things that have me got an offer any good or not one is the news don't stand out to me the new items because we have so much information here i don't know maybe maybe you prefer to have your top point at the top so that just again it's just a just like observation and the other the other observation is in our table talks about our advanced profession i'm cast results would be more informative perhaps if we fit a different colored bar in there that show the state average meaning of how we compare to the states then to be a little more meaningful because yeah i think as we can see the data but so what right it's ok grade three reading is at sixty five percent good bad or indifferent actually last year when we were doing this track last year we had a little summary  statement but we needed space so we decided not to put in but that's a better way of communicating and you know what that means the of trouble fitting it fitting the legend at the bottom but if you just put a table or a bar and just put along the top that all the yellow bar for the state average or something but it's important because we look at the end caps at so many different levels and longitudinally and you know with the cohorts and i think that for this where you just really want to snap get going next week actually before the events will take a shot we typically do millet out the end of january but because we we had some weather challenges there and if it's just a few days behind so probably it by next week we'll prepare the both mailing and get it know we're adding a additional position at the year hines ward still due to some staffing changes there we actually have only been running with the four so far this year so we're going to at this point capture about twenty two thousand dollars in salaries that we won't be spending up to this point we are obviously still looking for the position to refill it now and what that did do is give us a little bit of more resources along you know aaron's group as far as technology because as they are building through a lot of this infrastructure we're coming up with little one offs that we're missing but still at the end even with some of that with that we've already incurred we're still at one point one thousand nine hundred to the good again a little too early and lucky i think overall as far as you know most of our repairs and stuff i think there's there has been over the last couple years a really concerted effort in again keeping everything up on a regular basis no matter what it is whether there's technology whether it's you know heating systems whatever and as we get you know couple more years into this that really helps to level off our budget so i think really you know we're not getting those peaks anymore of of major issues going on and we're just getting one here one there so i think i'm  very comfortable and i don't see again it's a little too early to try to harvest much of of the other things although we do have a couple there of areas in the teaching side where you know there are some salary things in core programs that that you know didn't happen training wise and have as many people do things that where the weather was evaluations or whatever which will require a little bit of money on that as well so it's going to go on the positive side on the negative side with those type of items this point so again i think we're in pretty good shape that way we i think the staff has been very good i you know they've always they they work it's a real team now which is nice to kind of watch and i've been around the different buildings where there's time to clean up and stuff so actually our staff has our areas that we town been doing a great job because they'll come in after the if the roads clean and then do the final clean up from there for so the next morning we are in great shape and really you know i think over the last couple storms when you look at it the condition of the fronts of the buildings and the access to the buildings have been things that we're finding challenging that need help so thanks particular pete so it's they've been terrific and i think it's just a challenging winter but they they were they've been terrific so thank you  past in the news stations are all starting to talk about it and i think the the and we're in a program and have been for a number of years because of our insurance companies we're basically we actually get credit no financial credit so it's to benefit to us to make sure that operable condition and we check those on a monthly basis i suggest before the big storms came in all those had been just checked so we know there's nothing blocking the drains even though we've gotten a significant amount of snow you also have to realize that this is been very fluffy light snow so if you condense this down if we get a warm day this stuff will condense down to half of its distance right now so yes there's a lot of weight up there the structures of our buildings i are well done as far as the way they are you know the steel and block so i'm going to pretty pretty comfortable with what we have from a structural point of view but again there is virtually nothing we can do is far showing off roofs because with rubber roofs you go up there that you're going to do more damage and have more leaks more problems so i think at this point we're kind of comfort with where we are we're just going to kind of hope that we do get a nice warm day so we can get some melting get some of that off the roof that way exactly so  but other than that i think again they're doing a good job to try to keep the snow away from the buildings in the areas you know again some of the major concerns really are exhaust areas getting blocked up and stuff just like you have on a house obviously we do the exact same thing here we also have a program that we check in for freeze capability and again that's part of the insurance thing so we're going through the building and looking for areas that could freeze if we weren't here a long weekend you know we had very you know harsh temperatures during that weekend and making sure that heating systems are year thirty days as a sixth to notify the selectmen and we make shoes to open it up to fill it would only be about a couple of meetings if we did that or just leave the seat open so people could pull papers to run for the year i was contacted by mr gray who was sitting in for mr broom to select a meeting earlier this week so they're now aware and they've read the paper and they they know and i've also been in touch with mr cutler in the town clerk has informed me it's our decision whether to whether we feel we need an additional person to fill the slot for the short period of time and i had a brief conversation today about whether we think that's necessary certainly the major votes are are past us now and we often don't have a lot of dissension we usually talk things to a point we get to consensus so i personally am not too concerned but but i also haven't finalized my thinking on whether it makes sense from my own personal perspective to fill the seat now or wait till the may elections but i do understand from so that's just just frames of the discussion right but by the time if if we did open it we the time for applicants then interviewing and all that and at most there would be only two meetings left in the school committee at that time decided not to fill it but to leave it they can tell them a meeting and then that's when  might solve it's worked very well by not rushing just to fill it and it saves a lot of her too in time so we have both think about these things and  maybe if you all want to think about it and give me your opinions we can go from there but i'm at this point i'm inclined to agree with that and that sounds like we're pressing on from that but then we have a president for and i actually would be very inclined to suggest that ok know one or two meetings at the most you know when i actually don't i you know could go either way i think it would be great to have another member on the committee and you know more viewpoint more perspective but also as we pointed out it's there's not a lot of time between now and the election actually and i think papers have to be returned to the town clerk by march sixteenth so we may not have even l go i think that's terrific i think it just shows the kind of kids we have here in town i think there were so many great lessons learned from our new england patriots the season particularly the way they did that i will discuss that another time because i actually in the super bowl last meeting which is thank you so much for your so many your nine years of service it's been great working with you that is my only other matter for this evening in honor of you know you the most important and the most important said the last meeting just it's been a wonderful wonderful run and i really just learned so much and been so thankful to be around such wonderful people and i mean this community is you know right here in my heart so i can say i'm not going far no and i am not and perhaps you'll have five time now i mean how many years have we going to be in having a cup of coffee together yeah i know i was thinking about that maybe  yes we will absolutely yes so again thank you so much for your kind words these beautiful flowers are so so far full and i just you know i just been so happy to be a part of this truly you know it's just so happy so going to be watching so don't you know he's i mean i'm not going to be far and i know you guys are all going to just continue doing what you do best thank you can thank you  to to be in public service and will continue i'm sure and you know in the future because i just love it some point so you let us know when you move back to fox