so i was just saying it seems like it's been so long since we've been here and in between a couple of big snows and snow storms so we've actually adjusted our agenda to combine agenda items from the meeting that we had to cancel due to inclement weather and to add things to  today so i'm going to try and keep things to the agenda time as best we can and keep things brief as we can so the first opportunity that we have as we do on all of our agendas is an opportunity for citizens to express any be just right if you wish to come please welcome to come we've got a microphone and i will just ask that you state your name and address and then keep it to two to three minutes per topic and if other folks want to speak then we'd also just ask in the interest of time that people were on the cuts that are being made to the elementary music program i understand that they're the other side of that is that there are some benefits being added to the fifth grade but i was just was curious what the conversation was at this level not sure how to best address so we've had a couple of different conversations we're not going to engage in a back and forth at this time due to citizens concerns being the time to express in a school committee to listen but we've had a couple of different conversations around the table prior to this meeting i know that superintendent failon will be making some remarks that will address some of the issues so i guess in the interest of i'm going to say this so clumsily but if you can hold that thought let others who wish to express concerns expressed concerns and then i would anticipate that some of that question will be answered wonderful so my concern has been expressed ok thank you like making these changes without knowing the impact or what the plan is for saturday morning music school is something that really all should be considered together because one affects the other and saturday morning music school is very dear to our community thank you why is this study saying that kids choose to has the option to choose start start instrument already has a higher rate than kids who don't have an option take thank you so clearly this is a topic that is very complex and lest anyone think it was a hasty decision it was not a rushed decision you know but one that evolved over the course of program decisions that occur over a seven year period so i found i appreciate that it is extremely complex and again i've said it before the the challenges and the rewards of living in a community where people feel so passionately about topics i mean we couldn't be more blessed to have such a rich and engaged community rich in terms of the offerings that we have available to our students and the engagement and commitment of families so thank you very much for all this information is very helpful one minor adjustment to the agenda will just be flipping the order of the presentations will have principal spangler go first when we get to that point i am for going to chair person's report other than just to say i'm glad for back to business and the spring has sprung and to just pause for one moment to acknowledge that at least schuster will be ending her term on the school committee in a formal role as sitting at this table we've asked her to continue on as we work our way through contract negotiations and she has agreed to and i have mixed feelings about it and as i said as i left the house well it's sort of my law school committee meeting but i have about twelve more meetings so much now during the next year so it doesn't feel that way but i'll miss these meetings but i think it's great that we'll have people who've got young kids who have many many years ahead of them in the system i've shepherded three through and i'll be always very interested in what's happening in the schools and out to all individuals as well we have a lot of great schools loose that's going on throughout the district burbank had a great geography challenge patriot's malcolm mitchell came to the butler for a reading session with the whole school he gave out his book all three hundred or so students had the book in front of them they did an act of read with a new england patriot who had a super bowl ring who was also an author and really generated a lot of excitement for all the students had butler around reading it was last week we had no school on friday so they had to have it later on and that was a great event that they have been performing arts on march seventh the belmont high school jadzia jazz collective performed at the northeast district festival and earned a gold medal well done to them and the bum one high school jazz collective was one of the select few bands to receive a gold medal at that state finals and they will be performing at the memorial had show in boston the first belmont group to do so so congratulations to on may fourteenth for that exciting day chicago was performed by the high school drama program over eighty students from beaumont high school and director as reflection did a great job last week and so thank you to them are february boosters athletes of the month are paul ramsey belmont high school boys basketball and females were diane kelly so he sang emily duffy in julia sela for girls in to attract four by four  even though this is a small project i wanted to make sure we ran it by the right departments in terms of its ordinances and such and i have been assured by the department that this is ok to do so we take the bruces for the time and effort for sprucing up this sign and getting it ready for spring and even though we will be getting a new building there eventually that sign is going to be out there for a while before that happens so we appreciate that roosters and all the work they do a film on high school reminder that facilitated workshop with frank walker we're going to be asking thirty or so parents to take part in workshops in may four and five we're hoping to have a night where frank can stay late on thursday before and have a joint meeting with the school committee in the belmont high school building committee so please keep your eye out for that invitation for all the parents in the audience this is the exciting work that the belmont high school building committee is doing in conjunction with the schools to generate conversation about the vision of teaching and learning discussing the options that we have in front of us as that initial discussion that will get us ready for the order project manager in the design architect the belmont high school building committee will have its first night meeting on april sixth which is next thursday at seven p at the the senior center that will be televised but folks who can't make it this will be the first meeting where we want to introduce the full committee on camera and we look forward to folks coming in through asking questions and getting answers and getting a quick update alo who is the head of the belmont high school building committee will be my guest on belmont schools now which is the cable show that we do quarterly so we can again get the word out about this space issues that we have the challenges that we have and the building program which is coming down the road from the town of goma i met with all the afterschool coordinators last week of all the programs that represent our elementary and the general just to ship best practices and discuss some of the challenges that they have our challenges for space in a romans are similar to their challenges with space in rome and it was a great meeting each group was represented by the director what we decided was to kind pull together some of our best practices and share them amongst ourselves and maybe quote it a little bit with the principals to see if we can support their work and their programming after school there are a huge part of our program to provide a great function and a great service to our to our parents and guardians and families and that that's the first time that they ever had a full meeting with each other in the room at the same time so we look forward to working with them as well i would like to thank the foundation for belmont education on march eighteenth they had the twenty fourth annual event to raise funds for the government public schools and they had a model of the second bridge in the middle of this huge room that looked like it was it was real it was huge it was amazing they had couches and created this reception with a great energy and a great vibe that was well attended in truly a great time by all who attended the food was great the company was great and the fund raising i think was great we haven't heard what the tally is we have a meeting on thursday with that group thursday night but we can't think the foundation for belmont education a for not only that night and gaining a lot of good you know vibe and energy from that event but their work all year long i incredible and it goes right into the classrooms that our students attend so thank you very very much to all involved but the f b i and thats it oh i wanted to talk about the music program i apologize you have in your packets the documents that were referred to earlier in public speak we did want to make sure that everybody had the questions and the deep data and requested from the group that we  and myself that meeting was held on march thirteenth we would go over some of the issues that they have present that to us in the document outlined and one of the biggest issues of my that i took away from that conversation was that we could have communicated better with that said we decided to send out a k twelve communication which went out this morning prior to that we had only sent out to our elementary parents because we were thinking that it was impacting that next group of folks coming up so we did send  k twelve e mail of today we did also agree that we would look into all the questions that they had and over time answer those questions and move that work forward and they want to make sure that the issue is in your hands so you could review it as it was important information as suggested tonight for you to consider i really urge everybody to look at the e mail that was sent out today it looks like this for us to dorian and also click on the presentation that he didn't for the school committee  this work was generated by an annual curriculum review process that we conduct for each one of our departments english math wellness music and through that process where outside observers commit and give us feedback as a district who are in these positions in other towns that that data and that feedback isn't collected and analyzed by but are told to staff and the recommendations that we're moving forward in the program that where we're moving forward into next year is a direct result of that work that body of work over time and in the feedback in the direction of the teachers themselves who work in the music program in audio i believe that  are a lot of questions that we have and there was a dialogue i think last about a half with the parents had to come that day and i believe that the program that will moving forward is better for children it's better for the music program work for the whole that students can get more music and a high quality experience during the school day i think one of the concerns that i heard walking away from my meeting with the parents is that then that puts at rest the saturday program because that's where students to get that supplemental music experience and i believe that i was very open to looking at sounding music as this program rolls out to see how that can be reinvented if that can be reinvented in a way that can provide another function or or another way of being a great experience for students and families there's no plan for what that will look like at this point are the do not say that there was one he will work on that as he gets through the next section of taking care of the the school day and school programming issues first and  i think when we look at an eighteen percent retention rating grade three going into grade four trying to widen that number and have more students participate in music every day is very very important and from an equity standpoint when we have only eighteen percent of our students moving forward and if we can do anything to increase that number i think that's good for kids i also think that from an equity standpoint for families that can that will be in school every day and get that experience in school who might not be able to attend saturday music program but that's a big piece of ensuring that all of our students have access to that kind of programming and in our toes firm in his belief that the higher quality instruction will yield more interest and more enjoy and then more students moving forward so we see the start as a cut to the district's program we did not reduce any allocation of funding for this we believe that it is an enhanced meant to the program moving forward and it may be something that will be looked at now as that's not how we've always done it and this changes concerning which i respect and in value that opinion but hopefully in two or three as we walk through this process that will be in and has been and something that's better for music and better for students to participate so i value the work that the music department has done i value the work that i was done i truly asked that those folks who have concerns about this proposal in this process moving forward direct their e mails write to me i think are do as it's had every single email in the last two weeks and i would refer to let him nuggets of the work of exploring once at a music school could look like and begin the work with this team in and finish some of this work that's ongoing and i will gladly answer any question and answer every of all that's provided to me over the next two weeks or the forward to making this program work and i think that to be very very clear music is the brand that shines and the system it is a very very highly regarded highly valued program this is a music town people come here for music and there's nothing that we want to do that reduces that that reputation or that quality experience and despite the disagreements of parts of this proposal i believe that this just proposal actually  written please email me and i will gladly e mail back and connect with you by phone or by email or in person whenever you choose so i hope that it's every question and again i urge everybody to read this and also for a look at the full presentation that was given by  held next year and whether or not the attendance next year warrants having it will be part of what we evaluate and determine next year and then between now and next year i think will be great to determine if we don't think there's going to be numbers because we know that the way they were setting up having t and class during school and having more time to be in that regard that the teachers will take a look at how can they use that time that time is available to school the teachers are ready to go and maybe that could be done we will more creatively so that is not planned right  now and i have to stress that this is this is a school program that we want to address all of our children during the school day who we know come to school every day and in from an equity standpoint we think that that's that's the best thing that we can do is make sure that we capture everybody to escape the school day and i also want to point out when we talk about equity that this also remedies the fact that in fifth grade students would have to sit really not engage for half an hour twice a week in a fifth grade class while their while their classmates who did pay for beer and went out and had been and came back so there's another equity piece that i think is valuable to say a lot of this and and this is a public school and i feel strongly about that aspect that that's not driving this whole piece of th quotes really driving this is a higher quality program with smaller class sizes that will hopefully generate more students who want to come back and stay with music over time through middle school through high school so there is no exact way for this right now i have one question which actually might be better spent hours but people have asked said to me well you know everybody it's well known that the kids benefit from starting music early and starting music young you know and here we're saying that you know kids are not ready developmentally in third grade can you sort of explain that tension i might possibly incomplete understanding is that music in general is extremely beneficial for younger kids but some instruments are more accessible than others so i don't think are going to stand in front of me that it's not something that students would take to at that young age we're just going from the data that shows that  students so following up with it the next year and i just as there are i think that that christian rate speaks to the fact that when we do have students in their grade who sign up the the program is such that i they don't find success some of them do and many of the parents who we have spoken with have had children who have met with success in the program but the attrition rate tells us that many students have not and so by  it's not a question of saying that we don't think that third graders can do music it's a question of saying with our with our current ability to deliver the instruction we feel that it would be better to bring it to fourth grade in fifth grade where we could provide a very a much stronger program that would really help them get off on the right foot with those instruments and furthermore that that students do receive music instruction from kindergarten and that does involve actually instruments as well the students during their general music class have the opportunity to to learn about instruments to play instruments and so it's not that there isn't a music or that there aren't instruments it's just not the instrumental music program as it's currently structured in third grade will be more than six additional classrooms full of kids where did all those kids go well he added five class room teachers want a year starting in two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve school year so it was an incremental change every year we added another track to the next grade level as the famous bible class who are now fifth graders went through the wellington school oh in back back when in two thousand and ten our average overall school class size was twenty two students and it's so right now these are the overall class size averages in each of the grade levels which is an average school wide of twenty four students per class one of the trends which is just a data point that i thought was interesting to point out just three years ago we had a total of thirty five  students with eight of them who are still receiving ongoing supports as f t l students and only fourteen languages were spoken at the wellington and three years later we have a forty eight percent increase in which increases the level of complexity in the everyday classroom experience and those are important things to just be thinking about and the data point is just one data point there's other data points that are also impacting the class instruction and complexity that happens in all of our schools ok so part b is an update on some of the school initiatives that are going on in wellington and as superintendent failon knows and assistant superintendent darrius knows it's very hard for principals to actually talk about one thing  very very hard and so i'm going to talk about one goal and some of the things that we're doing around that one goal with a deeper dive on one of the initiatives ok i'm still going to stay within my timeframe  so in our school improvement plan our first goal has been to further student social and emotional competence by explicitly focusing on the first goal of the new social and emotional learning standards those are the standards that as a school district we adopted from the state of illinois actually and that learning standard is to develop self awareness and self management skills to achieve school and life success k for so we've been working on concepts explicitly throughout the school in specialist classrooms in the library in the support teams like in small group because we know the research that does it of students only see it as something that's happening inside their classroom they never actually use it outside their classroom and so that that's been a big step that we took this year to make sure that all of our specialists are really well informed about the scope and sequence what second graders are learning in the month of march versus kindergartners so they can reinforce those skills and concepts during their art lesson or during the cafeteria discussions providing family with education through links to the curriculum which a lot of people find very helpful and also through our newsletters we provide a thorough orientation for all of our new staff the sounds like why wouldn't you do that but it's actually a very important step whether it's a classroom teacher or a professional aide to make sure that those folks all know one understand what is this explicit curriculum what are we teaching children at all the various grades and what is their role in making sure that those concepts are infused throughout the daily experience of students at wellington and then last this year we started some tier two support for students in two grade levels and second and third grade we have students who need some extra time in practicing some of the second step skills so they're in smaller groups situations where they might be doing some role modeling they might be doing some role playing they might be reinforcing some of the skills by hearing the lesson again and we're finding that that here to support is really helping some of our students who are who are just needing more practice in attaining some of the skills we also have been fanning out our work in the r children in second third and fourth graders grades we taught their teachers how to use a works and were raising awareness in this area and k one i'd love to talk more about that but i'm just going to keep on going growth denton we share a real story isn't examples from colleagues about how they are using growth mindset in their personal and professional lives this is a really important thing for teachers to do because once they start really seeing in their standing how something as powerful as having a growth mindset impacts them personally it's even more important to see how it looks when children are applying that same concept we also have other ways that we are developing staff and student recently hence as part of the social and emotional competence j a we have a connections program where vulnerable students have an adult at the school who is connected to them and it's not their classroom teacher they know and that they're students for thing as they make connections with that student least four times a month we know the research that children who have and know that someone deeply cares about them at school have higher and they perform better and they have higher achievement in life quality we have we are implementing a sore academy which is afterschool program for some fourth graders we have started a concept called fine dining day at the wellington which i'll tell gives young children an opportunity to experience something in a school setting with with their entire cohort of peers in a really safe and wonderful ways so you can see mr mcmahon our music teacher we rolled her baby grand piano into the middle of the cafeteria and well he is there on top of you know our boys and girls wore they were able to wear what they interpreted as being fine and it was so well received by the children i mean literally every child asked me as they exited the cafeteria when are we doing this again and we already have three community members signed up to come and do fine dining a day again we're doing once a month for the rest of this is a picture of a staff event you know teachers in a giant school the opportunities to connect and to develop that strong sense of purpose because that's what it's all about and so well liked and we really mindfully try to put together resilience activities for teachers and staff to so one of our parents is a yoga expert daughter lesson and she is volunteer time at the wellington many days and has provided our teachers and staff members with wonderful yoga so this is the initiative that i'm going to do a little bit more of a deeper dive for you on our primary focus for this school year's professional development that started in august that continued on into september and has continued forward for this school year is really using literature as a way to deepen our students social and emotional competence so it's nothing earth shattering it's nationally mindfully thinking about literature as a way to deal with and a child's understanding of their own social and being more socially competent to do this we read an inspiration article which i have provided to you in your packet it's called literature makes you smarter and nicer by paul murphy and this article was so inspiring to me i shared it with my staff because it basically talks about in stories in literature you  exposed to all kinds of different ways of thinking different kinds of life different kinds of people different circumstances and by learning about those circumstances through beautifully written stories we become smarter and nicer we start thinking about people in different ways than we might not have thought about them before we've all probably had personal experiences where in till we actually met someone from a particular circumstance or in a particular situation did our hearts get bigger and stronger and knowing about that situation and literature does that free for us it widens our brains in ways that are really profound so during our professional development we had three different outcomes from basically our september professional development that we're still talking about wellington the first thing was we asked our teachers during the tempered professionals of development to design two lessons for each grade level team that takes a literature piece of literature and develops some level of social emotional competence in a way through a lesson where you're reading a particular story and students are beginning to understand a little bit more deeply what these characters might be thinking or  feeling i'll pass it around if you want to take a look at it the other thing we did is we asked our librarian and all of our volunteers in the library to identify about five hundred books that we have at the ellington the second step curriculum has hundreds of titles that go with the curriculum plus we have identified and another several hundred books and we wanted them to all be categorized by the different categories of social competence for example emotion management or empathy and so our team put together an entire call list and portfolio of all of these different books that are in our library and all th i now can just run to the library and do that and i don't have to have a lot of research or time to waste on that and that's really provided our staff with an exceptional resource that we didn't have before   these two slides are in your packet for later mirrors are when a student sees something that's identifiable in the character or story line that they also see in idea of mirrors we read this story surf's up by alexander and after we read the story really asked each south member to take the mir out of their little back there and look the mirror and for thirty seconds which was actually very hard to do with everybody looking in the mirror thirty seconds and really think about what was one thing in that book that you could see in yourself physically culturally linguistically or circumstantially and it was a great way for a person to kind of think about how i could literally go to any book in the library of wellingto pick it up there and read it and think about how is this book for me or is it at all a mere for me does it represent something in me that makes me no matter then we had a lot of discussion with the staff about why reading his many mirrors as possible to all students matters every student should see themself in a book in books in the classroom and so when teachers are picking out books they should be mindfully thinking does this book represent children in my room does it represent our children and how do i  and so that's why we gave everyone a mirror to put next to their desk to think about every time you pick out a book think about whether or not it's a m then the idea of windows we talked about when a student can build upon characters or plot in order to see themselves in a future state learn to be inspired to change windows grow students hearts in other words other people matter and this is a profound understanding that we really need to be thinking about in our culture as far as how we growing students hearts coming back to that inspiration article we have a lot of discussion about why reading as many windows as possible exposing our children to as many different kinds of things is really a great way for students to understand that other people matter other people in other countries other people in my same town with different situations matter just as much as i do and that was a really important component of our discussion in that the purse and what we did was we had everybody we read this book again and we had everybody look through the window this time and think about what were things in this book that inspired you or that you learned about or that made you want to learn more about or think about in a future stat the author of this book kwame alexander actually presented to a reading conference that i went to this summer and he said something really profoundly which is where a lot of this thinking started and that was he said you know it's really not necessarily about being diverse he said it's about thinking diverse and being mindful in that process and making sure that when you select materials for children to read or that you're reading with children that they reflect the children in that are being read to and also that it expands their hearts in their minds and when teachers are thinking about it in that manner favorite book and two because a copy of the book's cover and to write why no book is a mirror or a window for you you could identify yourself by signing it or not and we put them all over the teacher's lounge and we probably had close to eighty in there was pretty amazing so this is in your packet but for those people that didn't get the packet this is a story called the other side this teacher who's a first grade teacher said it was a window for her because every time she reads this book i consciously think of the many people in the world who are not like me that's the kind of mindset we want our educators  this is another book it is called stephanie's ponytail and this teacher said she picked this book because it's a book about a strong independent girl who wants to be different and for her it was a mirror again wide goal and see how it's been so deeply embedded in the daily carcasses of the teachers and the students in the literature in the professional development i actually walked into the fog a question of element with the bag earl this year and i was and i walked in the lake his room going to all the schools there is what's going on out of this place in the cafeteria was full with over eighty staff that day that early release day and an amazing things were happening so truly appreciative that principal spangler has taken on social muscle learning and had had been doing this work prior to our district initiative and was on the committee that met prior to this work with janice to unpack what does it mean in this town and how can  we conduct this work throughout the district and not just the school and so thank you for this work i know the parents are static about this kind of work and in the music leadership and the students are really happy every day in the staff is really happy it's a big deal only a box of twelve krispy kreme donuts when you can get a box of twenty four hundred maybe because the bigger box has more than half a million calories the budget in the office works stars until everyone gets contest that company might want to get it seems again there in the office and run the next five k race in town you can actually buy the double hundred dozen boxes if you could it would cost around twenty six hundred dollars but it was just a one time thing you can however  in each grade level that consistency in those discussions happen with their curriculum leaders with janet and janice and then they will go to the other three schools so gina doesn't get enough credit for her role in to get back to i think we talk a lot about us you know and how it's being nice and in building empathy and doing all those things but the other part of this is resiliency and talking about making choices and giving students the ability to make choices at young are really building students that are only have empathy and capacity to understand different children outside themselves but it's it's learning how to build a sound self in the confidence of that's a huge deal and so that kind of work is just great stuff and i want to make sure we go for secondary parents and that will be a not high school and that when we have a team of teachers who are going to share stories of sorts your stories at school and things you can do with home they'll be very similar topics for each of the observe classes teachers don't blink they're used to having it in the room or other folks in the room talking about teaching or learning students are engaged parents are volunteering it's a great place to be a parent and a student teacher and so we value your work and thank you evolve and but so what i'm hearing you tonight actually i prepared for it two weeks ago and i think most of it is still true but keep paying attention to it so that our we do have a new and ca students are used to taking this type of test and i don't anticipate that they will they will find it any different from what they did last year it does include what they call legacy and cast which means from the old and cast just the pretty ar just some newly developed and cast items and park items they are the attested design to be delivered over a computer and over the next few years they are and seven eight one is a calculator and one is with one difference in the test administration this year over the last two years is that they went back to making the test on time mean that students can spend as long as they like  i actually felt that the time to test was a better was better for students because i think students tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves to keep working on things when they would be just fine doing it with less time and certainly not all students but we do have some students who tend to spend a long time and i don't feel like it's a healthy experience for them so we'll see how they go because of that when we were figuring out how we were going to administer the test particularly  on the computer tests we decided that we would only give one session a day in the morning not knowing how long the kids would take and not money also not wanting kids to take it's a session in the afternoon principals to make sure that we do infrastructure trials and test out that the systems work and figuring out the principals putting in countless hours to figure out the scheduling and making sure that all students who need a smaller we're going to have fifteen groups of students so if your teen classes call it fifteen and rooms you can test five groups take the test at a time using the labs that we have here in the building each test session then we'll take three days to administer in other words if there's a session one and heal a session two three days of a session one followed by three days of session two followed by a math session one followed by mass action two all together twelve days of computer based testing plus make up days they'll start on april third through april eleventh for english language arts and then may four through fifteen for mathematics serving great core three groups of students one group can test at a time in the lab that we have each test session that will still take three days to administer but with only one group it's you know it's the same as the fifteen days of testing plus make up days so ill april fourth through the twenty fifth and starting april twenty seventh mathematics to may eighth but wait there's more wellington five classes of every grade one group can test at a time each test session will then take five days to administer twenty five days of computer based testing plus make up days april fourth to may third for may fourth the seventeenth for mathematics fourth grade students can take the test at the same time each test session will take one day to administer after five days they're done and they've actually spread them out so they'll do that you know lay and then take a need in part for this for this test but also more importantly for teaching and learning for providing students with experiences that involve using different devices for the many learning things that budget request has been made to the capital committee around this and also looking to our guy realists partners in the foundation and our p t o p t a s and seen you know how we can bring this plan to fruition over the next few years  so that's how those two pieces tie together different ways how did you get how did you get them it's really how did you get that it's so when you start to build a computer based you don't think things will be different for them to build demonstrate their learning and some of it is couldn't terms of the data collection but it might not be actually so every fall i share with you information about how the state is measuring the district and terms of our accountability determination and as you know we have been level one for a number of years for next year that will remain the same only for the high school for the high school we will have a determination based on our achievement data from the e l a math and science and pass our student growth on the ole in math and dropout graduation rate as we have in the past all other grades we will not receive determination next year they have decided at the state that due to the fact that all students across the state are taking a new test  that provided that the district's a school and districts participation rate is ninety percent or higher which are it's generally is only that you will be  receive no determination and be considered within levels one through three there we know the only determinations will be for districts that have a lower participation rate or are already in receivership in level five or level for those  continue to have their status so we will receive an cas results student school district that will not change they will be made public that will not change  but what will change is we will not receive a determination for next year then the year after twenty eighteen as of a month ago and i assume it hasn't changed the state was working on  packet i have shared how they will what they're talking about now and what was in the executive report of their plan i did not read the seventy five page document but i did read the ten page executive report and some of the things are the same for what will be included and some of the things are different this is for elementary and middle schools it will include the scores on  the math and science of the student growth percentage for math that's the same also access progress and that's also actually part of what they look at now as well and then below that additional measures chronic student absenteeism access to the arts and school climate for school climate as you know about something that we measured this year with our surveys and we'll be sharing information you in coming months they are  the department of elementary secondary education is actually testing some climate survey questions at the end of the cast for the science and cast for grades five and eight this year and high school grade ten  students will be doing some questions that i've seen the samples they look actually very similar to some of the questions that that we used and because in fact they use the same tool as the model of the federal tool i don't know what that will look like in the state says they don't know what that will look like just yet but that is one of the things that that will be included while i'm happy to see that they are evaluating social motional learning in school climate a little anxious to see how that school the only difference is that in addition to the measures of a middle school and elementary school there is graduation and dropout rates as they are currently and then quite a few things down below so in addition to chronic student absenteeism how many grade nine students are passing their courses access have the access to advanced coursework honors in advanced placement classes for example with the access to the arts what's the breadth of the curriculum and school so we will see how this plays out this is slated for twenty eight team which is i think another reason why they have decided to do basically a reset of the baseline there will be a new baseline that will start with the twenty seven team data we will not get a determination from based on the twenty seven thousand data but that will be the new baseline and then they will build up to four years of data so current in the past we've been measured  judged on four years of data and that will continue as they build up but in twenty eighteen build they'll make a determination on two years of data somehow incorporating these pieces into the formula that that is  instruction for our children and the ability to gain more access to technology would be helpful because we could have shorter around times and that's something that the technology plan addresses them via email today we are trying to build a plan that takes into effect what teachers would like to use in the classroom for technology first and foremost to engage children in some better learning  moments than just getting devices to do them tasks that it's important for us to look at this technology challenges one is what the teachers want to use in their classrooms to gauge kids in a different way that can make a  happen in a different way and hits that experience and balance that with needing more devices to actually support this test taking so that seems at times to be kind of a hard balance because you we want the first and foremost to be elementary middle school folks who want to try chrome books with their students because you can share the r t c and they have the keyboard and kids can do writing and share writing and we have had meetings with the f he who is our major sponsor for this kind of  technology support and in saying that the feedback of the teachers is that they they kind of want students to have a differentiated experience so they they would like maybe chrome books or i pads and sets of five so when they have a class where students can have an explosive lesson in a reader's workshop model and then they can go do something and i pad they can go use a chromebook and they can sit with the teacher they can use manipulators or they want times when they want to hold seven thirty so the whole class can do something so it's definitely not a one only device kind of view of what we think is good because in teachers to engage a differentiated model so we are that's what you will see when you read that report is that that's  looking for and that's kind of what we think is our plane moving forward so where we're thankful to have this kind of a blueprint that will help us go to places like war committee or capital committee or to donors like the f anybody else when they say what can you do you think we're really looking for a three year call to get to this point and this is what teachers really could use and if you surveyed it we're going to do some continued focus group work at the height of discussions there with some of those teachers expressed the desire to have  perfect this is a lot of work our principals and our directors and our teachers and guidance counselors have spent not only the time that you're seeing up there on getting ready for this wide stretch of time they get ready  queuing up time is two weeks before that so this is an issue around whether or not this type of assessment works and and whether it's good for you know how schools work and so we look at it and we we comply and we always take stock in doing things that are in compliance but we do them in the best way we think is pretty for our students to know in our school year so this is new world whether this part of the storm and know there's a spectrum there are some districts that certainly are worse off than we are both in terms of band with and devices and technology people to make it happen then there are some districts that are far better off than we are that have already been doing online testing on a volunteer basis of all of their grades and part of that is is the devices the other part of it is the manpower they probably have integration specialists in all of their schools and more i v staff  who can manage this we are we are making you know trying to empower teachers to know how to do the basic things and that there is someone on call at every school to come in and  except when a kid gets booted off the system or the this shuts down or that doesn't work but that's you know that's going to be that's going to really tax our id staff for the duration of that testing window which means that other folks you know who are not in the testing grades are also impacted because if i put in a ticket because my projector is not working right or you know i have a question some i need some software installed on my computer it might take a little longer to get to it because they're busy you know running testing for a lot of children in a lot of schools so so yes it's the whole range and that's the front of the house so it's the people it's the devices  the ability to be present somewhere and then there's the back of the house or do we have the we have the bandwidth to support two hundred more devices you know so be careful what you wish for so we have to think of this from an infrastructure standpoint and the front of the house standpoint hard the teachers are working hard to adapt and this will be a three year layout that will be working towards moving out in it having a greater capacity and being worked to come to comply with this testing model but we don't want to miss the i'm just thinking about that you know this the kids who have computers that start glitching while they're in the middle of the test and then imagining how that in the x ray or an ability to actually even complete the task and then yes because of how that is factored into the score like that's not going to show well they look at what i think is the right very very we can see if ever you guys get in trouble for saying her and then there's a lot of nation on the list testing more learning you know what pages and fair test and other organizations that just you know have literature and raise questions about this sounds like something like continue to educate ourselves ok so that our last major business item is the vote on school choice so we did not keep right so school choice is a vote that every district has to take to opt in or opt out each year we opt out we do not opt in each year because school choice would mean that we would allow a certain amount of seats available to districts from anywhere in the commonwealth to be able to attend school in belmont and we would be reimbursed for each of those students at a lesser amount than the people expenditure from the state so it's not it in some places  financial gain to district but in some districts where especially in the western half of the state where it roberts is shrinking it's one way that school systems have actually partner together to create higher roman numbers and  been on top of the inventory of the equipment and getting ready for the upcoming year does have some surplus equipment that is outlined in the memo this is i believe the third time this year that he has been in front of us the memo is one page in the ensuing pages our every serial number of every piece of equipment big and small that he would like to take out of the district and declare a surplus this is something that we have to do by policy  we have listed the average age of each one of these devices and how they're no longer useful to the district and by law we have this vote for we need to make available to others to take off for a while for or be self moving into executive session at the end of this meeting you have for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to collective bargaining with union personnel given that a discussion in open session we have a detrimental impact on the school committee's bargaining position sceptic so we've been working on the change for the drafting new language for the calendar policy and i think we're close to presenting something but i think we'll probably meet in the next couple of and weren't committee meets tomorrow evening so nothing to report yet there someone high school building committee just to be have a big meeting on april sixth that we invite folks to we sent out an invitation to everybody in the district today the letter that you would receive today for me looks like this it's from the building committee and we will be going to the a must be a on april third to finalize the hiring of the owner project manager which we're very excited about  work takes place the owner project manager in the building committee will then turn its eyes towards hiring the design architect which we hope to review and do our homework in preparation for june done have those folks on board as the construction and design team to work with the community the administration the teachers and obviously the building a school the belmont a school building to be so worried work here  center which is exactly the part that concerns us because it you know it's it runs adjacent to the school property which i couldn't attend the meeting i understand there's a lot of good discussion and people did give a lot of feedback on the various our pockets from a month ago