regular meeting tonight april sixth two thousand and fifteen will begin as always with visitors followed by approval of minutes teaching and learning highlights which will feature our drama club and theater at the high school  presentation update an elementary report cards department of elementary and secondary education coordinated program review report the by county collaborative quarterly update from march two thousand and fifteen the school committee vote through approve the foxboro public school's policy manual and then will take any other matters not just before we begin mr you did inform me about an hour ago that he has a personal  family situation health situation going on so i just want to wish him the best with what he's dealing with so he's not to be able to join us tonight with that we have any visitors who want to be recognized yes yes we do didn't get high to get home and told to do the twenty fourth at two am and leave new jersey toy eight thirty then gotten near new york city at ten o'clock we were had dinner there that i got home so joe when we talked about this we talked about the importance of these overnight travel trips and why they have to be carefully considered i asked you what's like the one or two best things about that trip from your experience and then we'll wrap it up one with the warm weather into i've been dying to go down there and i know so what was the best thing of all the things you saw vernon the air and space museum the capitol perfect message thank you joe do we have any other visitors would like to be recognized at this time the signal moved to approval of minutes regular meeting minutes march sixteenth i had no changes school in drama club and they've been doing some unique things as well that we have an experience i'm just going to turn it over to ok yeah this year we are new advisors to the club and we want to change the general tenor of the club by decide to go for evening practice is usually is after school but as always catches and as catch can with kids all going different directions you know seeing teachers are playing sports so we figured let's try to have it in the evenings and that's worked out pretty well you know we improved continuity in attendance for our practices and it seemed to work out very well for all the kids involved as well he made some late pick ups for the parents of four three by i think they go along with it no problem second we brought in you mentioned he's at this moment touring somewhere in france as an actor so he's really good with the kids as far as directing the plays and getting them involved into the the role that they're playing is done outstanding job directing  preparing both the cast and crew in creating or to salvage auctions i think this year that we took on our fall production was a doll's house by sin is very challenging but it was excellent i thought was well done and the kids really rose to the occasion given the short time in of not knowing each other too that they took some time to understand what where we come from and it worked out very well the third thing goes along with the second play that we did was we decided to participate in the massachusetts educators theater festival that took place  at the end of february in attleboro and i know the mill school had done this before and so we picked up on and kind of continued you know what they were doing and it was really a great experience i mean you have six others high schools there is an all good morning juliet it was a scaled down version and went very well and it was interesting and it's fun but the see the other schools and what they produce and what they bring to the table and just the encouragement you get from all the kids and it's a long da get on to the next round because there are is a state wide term an earth festival i should say not term it but we're looking forward to trying to do this next year again and maybe having success with it as far as moving on to the next round and the kids are really encouraged by this is well we have a young group we have a dedicated group and we really think we're going to do some fun things in the coming years we're not done this year yet though we still have a couple of vents going on kids are trying to raise some money right now selling chocolates would surprisingly there's no problem selling charters to kids in school right go the idea is they're going to use this money to set up a murder mystery dinner theater may twenty ninth from sixty eight and right here the high school and by directed by the calendar  the student production would help out with that but again something a little different and something that hopefully create some interest in within the community and lastly we'll make some connections with the middle schools kids are coming up to the ice for the see what we're trying to do here and  get them involved in what we're doing so we have a day for that set aside some time in june time is running out but again i think things are really going very well this year it's been a great experience beginning to know you stage so this is basically over with we can understand where we're useful thing to know but they're also learning basis feels like they're running their own fundraisers we show up and say oh well let's listen to what it is that you're doing that sounds like a solid plan you've already got this figure out they're making steps forward and figure out budgeting and the practical aspects of running a theater near you to get your club in a high school right theater some white house i think it's nice to see them and i was not i personally was not here for the dolls house i was doing cheerleading but i know that during the day i didn't learn a good morning juliet i feel like jerry definitely taught us a lot not just in acting and i definitely learned a lot about acting this year but also just sort of how to do a bunch of stuff i know i know that's not very specific and kind of random on next year this year was trying to get things your feet you know under us and now we want to reach out to the community large community of oxbow that more and there's more parents involved as well a number of program getting donations for sets and prospered so that the kids can make that connection the community but also give back and show some pride in what we're doing here in the community to try to make it something that people want to see you know this is a fun thing to do and it's really you know it's it's you know the energies levels there and then you you get through it and four days of the vacation here for you know five hours a day sometimes getting ready for that show and then a world at the end of february so i was very proud of what we've done this year and really looking forward to go i attended both i thought both productions were excellent thank you and i think one of our next goal should be to get more this year and being part of like watching the drama club grow and being part of the behind the scenes and making decisions like i got to pick the play i got to do i'm directing it now it's not something that every high school student can say they're doing in their high school career you know i'm being it being in charge of a group of kids and being in charge of like the acting for this next play it's really like my project and along with my friends there's a point who's helping me out a lot and it's also you learn so much about  behind the scenes so you learn a lot organization in running like how to lead people and how to like clarify things and also i'm excited to see like what i learn for myself i love acting which is  i won't be acting the next play because i direct directing it but i'm excited to see where that takes my acting career coming from a different side and having to like see that like see what can prove acting wise now that's probably to help me when i act the next place but i think also the way the drama has changed it's more focused and kind of centered and like learning how to act and learning the art and i think especially going on this years the festival us a lot in respect to seeing those seven other plays and watching great productions and on top of that be going on like a whole day trip to the choosy before and spending the whole saturday there it really means connected to drama club you know you spend like several several several hours with these people you know there's no way that you can't you know fall in love with all that and really grow as a family i think having that outside trip really connected us as a club and really of slow fire relationship together so i think that was a great addition to this year not not competition but festival is that while there is a certain amount of competition there it's mostly about us just all of the schools getting together and seeing how other schools do things how what have the schools are doing with their drama programs and i feel like that's the best thing i took out of it is that though it though we are kind of against each other and we do we do sort of competes to be the best it's also mostly about learning from each other and gaining experience from each other sort of growing off each other and was very supportive and i agree with i think while there was like the aspect i could argue with katie of the competition and trying to you stand up on top of everyone and like be the best i think you know obviously it was the first time in my life where i'd been surrounded by probably one hundred something kids with the same passion of drama you know our drama club has never been like several members like we've always been a small community inside the school which we're trying to grow now but being surrounded by all these kids and all these parents and all the teachers who supported those kids and directed the plays who had such a passion for drama you know like i know in our show like people laugh they're out you know you stood up for people you clap to encourage them and even one the other schools moved on like you weren't like oh we like we lost whatever it's more like i'm so happy to see that your production has moved on and on top of that like i remember the announced the winners it's about the twelve hours we spent together as a collective community growing and forming friendships and meeting people who have the same passion and love for drama as you get something that's what i took away from that experience i have a question for our advisors could you comment a little bit on your role versus mr craig's role and and maybe the contributions he's making as a new member to our team sure i see myself as kind of behind the scenes a they need to be done  can be done with jerry being more overt director with it with the with the stage itself not knowing people in the school community and their connection to him so he needs you know when we open something and we get there we understand who runs the lights who runs that sound so i  was that facilitator for him but you know on top of that i'm looking at the advertising i'm looking at the budgets i'm looking at you know how can we get more people in here so that's my role right now we're trying to figure that out as we go forward but he's de at the end of it you know so we help each other out and i don't speak for mr charnock with she does a great job with technical elements of our staging as well but i think they split up into three distinct roles though we all help each other out charity handles primarily working with the actors on their craft and i've been working primarily with the technical crew on be ok this is how we use a hammer and this is how we use a saw and what do you want the set to look like because if you don't know what you want it to look like there's no point picking up the hammer to start with and do we want to have this huge idea for this enormous set or should we pick and choose one of the three things that are the most important and getting supplies and the kind of thing to help the technical aspects of things as well actually i actually like the sound of that division of labor with near with jared who has variants acting you know coming in and working with the students  jim you you know managing a lot of the production you have or sight which is so important you know and then as you say the technical aspects and teaching you guys may not know this i don't know if the superintendence had a chance to talk about it but drama and the arts in general but  drama program specifically is something that we've been talking about for a number of years we have a very rich program k through eight yes and that's a great feeder system and we're not capturing enough of that yet it's right in my opinion so yeah you know that we've got parent musical spring news forty five students about ten parents working in the background building sets right running the sound right the show was this weekend the shrek junior right and i'd encourage you to go visit and talk to mrs canfield i was just there watching i've got a son who's actually both sons my high school son dry spot like my younger son's in the show when you talk about outreach you know advertising you have raising money they do a really nice job we have so i think the role you guys are playing appears really really important you know we maintain that continuity and get a pipeline of kids you know miguel you might go chat with some of them too and tell me about some of the neat opportunities you get when you come to the high school i have it's a great idea i think that's the middle school is where i sorry you know i didn't start acting ties in eighth grade if mr gallo if it wasn't for joining that club and having him i wouldn't be here right now the job so i think starting to middle school encouraging them to join the club and continue their passion for drama i think it's a great idea and i think that the as you know the drama club is separate from the production but that's my katie has had her experience in in the middle in high school festivals but i think i'm so thrilled with what you've all done  discussed in and we have discussed we do this to the high school students obviously taking on a ship of learning the craft and this is really bent about writing a craft both about acting and play production and everything that goes into it and that's what a high school program should be and i thrilled to see that so many decisions were in the student's hands because that's where it belongs at the secondary at the high school level and i couldn't be happier and i look forward to the second rebuilding but i thought the true programs are outstanding the two plays and about how we can work together for the benefit of our students in this case it's a newsflash alumni known going to say old partnership which i would say has some wonderful renewed know vice president laura batar clerk heather harding treasurer and they sent me lewis have a sent me a lovely email saying that they are my association had recreated themselves to become more active and were looking for ways they could partner with the schools from there  we discussed that administrative team meeting this wonderful offer and we brainstormed ideas a range of ideas things that could happen in school things that are small things are a large things that could happen elsewhere in the community that we could work together on and  they then met and took over five of the ideas that they like that they want to take on this project at least five actually is several that they wanted to take on and they are overall they sure certainly variety i'm going to turn it over to them because they have this how we ended up here but i just wanted to explain how we ended up here and then the rest of again it's and thanks deb and thanks to the committee members for letting us come here tonight really we just kind of want to come in like you know what we are and what we're trying to do and really just spread the word the original alumni association it was founded by those gentlemen in two thousand and two and they worked hard at fund raising and trying to reach out to people then in two thousand and thirteen jack started to say we kind of come on board and work with us and then it led to what we have here and primarily what we had been focusing on was just getting the word oh the technology that they didn't have back then you know twitter and facebook and all that  stuff so and then we kind of thought are right now we have a little money we have little bit of a base of people so where do we go from here and that's when we reached out to you so our mission and not ours but the mission of the association is pretty much to support the from school system in maintaining its high level of academic excellence present effet of the association are directed towards enriching the academic experience the present and future students at all grade levels pretty much we're willing to help wherever it's needed using foxboro high alum so we are a little different than a group like faces which is more you know grant oriented teachers come they look for stuff we although we will fund all the projects that we take on there's no cost to the school but we're looking more to t and then we kind of thought well ok what do they need help with and so that's what kind of led us to devon and some of the things that we came up with in the general terms were like mentoring program speaker training practice interview sessions after school clubs sponsorship experiences you know we do have some alum that live across the country and i can't help but if you have student that it's help getting to a cheerleading competition or something that i could sponsor someone so yeah i mean so we're trying to put together a whole database so that any teacher or any school that thinks of something we need we'll do our best to try to fill it by reaching out to our alumni base some of the things we're actually working on right now after our meeting with deb we're forming a chess club establishing a homework help center at the library maybe one day a week where much we can providing some additional coverage at this media center so they can stay open later during the day and pretty much just developing a database of our alumni and what skills or talents are we you know whatever they can share kind of if you enjoyed your time foxborough heigho fox for schools now it's time to pay back one of the most recent things that we also started doing was i was actually working with michelle gardner on a seventh grade math program where we agreed to kind of be parent partners from for some of the parents that don't really understand all the technology the kids use nowadays between  yeah between it mono and connected in a system and some of the parents can't really help the kids at home cause they just don't get it so you know we said all right we'll go and we'll really learn how to do this and then we'll reach out to those parents and go to their house either when the always has all of the old you know books that are carried out every year by the the latter article committee and alum struck by their believe there are going to be more and better opportunities for people to stop by and sign up t i just think it's great i think it's great when people want to roll up their sleeves and get involved and if the speaker series is something we've been talking about and it's just great of be great to have people who graduated from fox schools come back and talk about what they're doing and if you're keeping a database then there's something if we need somebody who is an aeronautical engineer to come and talk or could even skate with a classroom at this point if they live in california that's great and i know we have people who produce movies and and all kinds of alumni with various talents and i think this is wonderful and it's something we've been asking for parent volunteers but this is a great resource i think for the community and an excellent way to give back and the other the other ideas you have hero are also great i was actually picking up my son at two thirty and i saw them shutting the lights off in the media center and i was thinking about this like see if we just had a couple people who c all them it really came out of us meeting with death and saying ok can you go back and ask what would be most beneficial we want to for stuff that nobody needs or nobody wants we really want to offer things that it needed sell you know that's kind of what we've been focusing on  they think the most difficult type of help to get is the physical labor we're building your time and that certainly is most challenging for us so i can be more excited and i really look forward to some of the things we can do together so we're to start tonight by getting the word out about all of the efforts they're doing and i'm going to start working on the library contact tomorrow and then we'll we'll keep it going i think they have such great energy and if we could just ride that tale for a little bit that would be great some of the names involved like michel more an awful lot i go yeah and now i go freeman and harding dear donahoe and i mean you guys are just what you're doing is really great and what i was sitting here thinking you're going through is how do we make this you know how do we really make sure this gets taken to do it well but no i mean how do we make sure we take advantage of your services one of the thoughts and you know how to do it better than i but for example connecting them with guidance and some of the guidance work that goes on at the different grade levels is that something that potentially could well i think i'm going to be cautious because we are yes public meeting we brainstorm we thought with the ten best ideas that we had and they certainly picked up on that i would be very cautious about that idea because  confidentiality so that wasn't on our list but so you know so many things i think that they are i think that the projects they are going to take on will will be a great start and who knows what but will think about for next year but i'm not i'm   heretofore has been me reaching out to any contacts i have who would be willing to give a half day of their time but if you thought that might be something that the alumni association or members of the alumni association would participate in that's coming up in june i would love for you to poll your alumni and see who would be willing to give a half day to talk about what they do and of course the high school has occur weirdoes well that's the another one of the for us to do i mean our facebook page reaches over four hundred people l that and now she can put requests for i mean i don't know how much we responsibly get but it can't hurt to put something on the right i think it's june fifth as the middle school is career day ok and if anyone is interested in sharing of their experiences just have them contact me a caring community yes they do everything they do with a lot of heart that's why we know it really they're not going to fall because they're doing it it's ok update on elementary report cards because someone turned this over some have i allison mellow and you silly arcade eight curriculum directors join her they've been talking and thinking with along with our other ministries and our faculty about the elementary for card long time very thorough early and carefully and so they're here to give you an update on where we are with me for bringing in a little bit of head's up as to what's coming ok so with the standard space report card there is a lot it at the elementary level and we came back in two thousand and twelve because of the new frameworks that came out in two thousand and eleven in math and english language arts there were a number of changes significantly in math and at that time we felt as though we could not wait to move forward so we came at that point and really increased the number of standards from four or five in math to if one scene in that area just much more thorough reporting and so for those  at home to just to remember that the purpose of a report card is really to communicate progress of a child in the skills that we expect them to learn at a particular grade level and off on to areas so with the standards being much more robust if you will we want to make sure that we're doing a good job of reporting that information we felt as though we could wait with the other areas and plus there were some uncertainty in the areas of science and then even with social studies even though the curriculum is is still a little bit dated if you will but there's been some new developments that have come up especially through our curriculum work with our society social studies review so to date we have a report card committee that's led by the three of us and it involves teachers from every grade level through fourth grade from different schools so if we have a first grade teacher that's representing and at the i go we wanted to make sure that the other first grade teacher was so that way that we have representation from all three schools an equal we have reading specialist special education and then pete regan is our principal represent to tive on the committee as well so we've been looking at the areas of science and social studies to begin with really looking at what are the most important skills for students to learn at a particular grade level and what are our expectations and i will turn that part over to allison in just a minute but we wanted to make sure that we started with an area that was not as robust as say english language arts because there's so much more within the new framework that's there with implement the taishan of the common core state standards that are embedded within the massachusetts curriculum framework so we started working on really teasing out those standards and looking at what are the the power standards if you will and are going to be continuing with that work but we're also looking at the marking symbols so for instance looking at what is the expectation of meeting expectation or progressing toward the particular standard and then looking at the reporting period currently we have four quarters that we were quite out of the elementary level and looking at trimesters and the reason for moving to try master's there's a lot of reasons and we're going to speak to that a little bit too and the biggest piece of that is the number of standards that we're reporting on on the report card making sure that we have the opportunity for students to really demonstrate proficiency and all of the assessments you hear a lot about the assessments that we do whether it's our baseline and benchmarks whether it's state assessments all of our informal assessments that we do by providing more opportunity for a longer period of time you're able to get a better picture of students to where you could correct from a parent's standpoint as well as from a teacher standpoint keeping our conferences and the progress reports that we are ready to do at the same time that extending from a forty five day essentially period of time to a sixty day period of time is providing a little bit more opportunity to really kind of correct anything that we see early on by having conversations with parents and have an opportunity for a student to demonstrate their proficiency by giving a little bit longer of a window we having parent information nights once we have this in june and we'll be coming back forward with that report card at that time but we wanted to really kind of set the stage at this point of where we are with the standards so and the the science and social studies piece of in talking about the science curriculum reviews taking place right now as we were speak to that a minute sure you'll be seeing me in a few weeks once we finish our science reviews that we could tell you all about it one of the big catalysts for a science review has been the drafting of the revised standards so you may have heard of the next generation science standards those were proposed nationally and then massachusetts took those and use them as a guide to draft their own version of the standard so that we you know we like to tweak things and make them our own in massachusetts and personalize them they're not formally adopted yet but we expect them to be formally adopted they actually moved up the date so it should be next month it opens right public review yes as opposed to be in the fall i spent a lot of time on the phone with the department trying to nail them down because there's implications for us in the district so i was excited about the opportunity and the teachers were excited about the opportunity to revise the science piece of the report card because it under represents the changes we talked to you about in the last few years we have changed our approach to science in the elementary schools it's very hands on it's very and now we're really upping the engineering and design because that's one of the big pieces in the new standards so that will come out of the review as well so we looked at that we wanted to get away from reporting on a report card to say very general things and the work of the committee there was a lot of discussion and looking at how other districts report and thinking about we want to report on well we study rocks and minerals during this quarter and we study vertebrates in this quarter and we realize that certainly wasn't a good way to go with standards change and we want to talk about the big skills in the big ideas of science and so how do you use your observation skills how do you collect data how do you report on things and analyze how do you formulate an experiment and we want those skills to grow here only over time so that sort of the work that the committee has been doing and i'm really impressed with the draft that the teachers it really has come from the teachers that they have come up with so far and i think they are most excited because they have wanted changes to the report card they have wanted to try master they were a longer time to collect data and they certainly want to give parents the best idea that they can about how their students are doing in school and when you have more exact language or more precise language on the report card that helps for such studies it gives an opportunity through the review last year we had millions looked at identifying one of the core standards what's most important for students to know you know well moving on to the next grade level as well as content literacy skills argument writing how does that all work  t teachers are very happy about revisions that are being made on the draft that we are working on now i think with the standards alone the conversations that are taking place of really what is most important and what is something that can be sustained over time and not just the rocks and minerals really looking at those big ideas in college and career ready this and making sure that whatever path that there is that coherency as we go through the grades and then looking at things even as simple as for instance right now we report on something on the just attendance we look at attendance and we look at hardee's but teachers have talked about when children are dismissed from school that is just as important because they're missing they can be dismissed earlier in the day we need to look at that we've become very accustomed to looking at all kinds of data and those are the kinds of conversations that are coming up if a child is being dismissed multiple times they're missing that instruction so that's another piece that we want to have on there to be able to provide that information to parents so it really is looking at a much more thorough picture to provide that information so we have that partnership more so we can make sure that wherever we see areas we can have more time to address that really create a much better picture and it also with trimesters two it allows children and teachers to have more time to be acclimated within the classroom and to spend more time on direct instruction verse as having all of these reporting periods where you're still going to have all of the communication that's there but have a little bit more time to correct any pieces that you feel as though in november when you're meeting at conferences we still have a couple more weeks before the reporting period ends so if there's something that we need to really work to make sure a child is where they need to be and we know that they can be there we just need that additional support that partnership we can get there one of the really cool things that's come out of the  work that teachers have done and we know this but it really has run into focus that the content literacy standards and the argument writing that ties into social studies l a math we have to make an argument math and science so it's really helped us see that our data can be very flexible when we're collecting on kids we can look at them through that lens in different content areas and report on it that's been great for them to see times like very thoughtful work comments from the committee or the superintendent think i think to expect that parents if you're watching should expect that the committee is going to recommend that move to try master's and it does it might sound a little unusual and just you know but it sank in wait for the parent night it is it has become more the norm in quite common in other districts that you for the at least ten years no object to for elementary students to move toward trimester approach so it might feel new to you but it is actually not that new in the industry and we feel this is the right time for us to move we don't always you know be the first ones out there but it really is time for that and so we do expect that to come out with the report card you'll see that format and they will certainly do is as there are job educating the parents about the whys in the in the behind this would be from we measure progress of the elementary to gives us more time to measure the progress accurately but it just you know i mean anything that feels sometimes like a change from what we experience might feel a little bit of that's why we're here tonight actually one of the reasons so that people can start thinking about it and get used to it not feel it's really that big it's only a matter of few weeks let's face it so this gives the students plenty of time as he pointed out plenty of time to actually acquire the concepts and apply them in the apply the skills and then also have the teacher do good classroom susman to be able to report accurately so when you talk when you shop in short windows it doesn't happen to quite the thorough extent that we're going for i mean i think it sounds like a great idea tr esters and i mean i know you just said it's only a few weeks but that's it can be huge it when you're talking about you know six and seventy year old kids a few weeks can make a huge different things click and they can progress and just get a concept that they might not have you know in november at you by the end of december they've nailed it and i think it sounds like a great idea when you bring the actual revised report card back will you bring one of the old ones and one of the new ones  does it's the before and after you're right it really makes a statement but i think to your point where there's such a difference in the in the couple of weeks at that age as a parent thinking about my own children if i can have the heads up from the teacher and parent teacher conferences to know that they're in there they're on the i would much rather have a couple more weeks to really work with my child to shore up those skills so that way they're able to truly demonstrate what they're capable great it really was a tremendous advantage for students and parents alike understanding where their child is a little bit more and the teachers certainly thought it was a better system so we both have experience of the trimesters and i think they're absolutely right in the direction they're going to be recommending and look forward to seeing their report cards because when they say that we were reporting to generally that i think you know we are in some cases so it might say demonstrates you know at position of science content or concepts and then and what are the other areas that that the child needs to work on so it doesn't really say much it's just general general science and general social studies i think they both suffer from the same problem which is not enough specificity in the current report card so obviously too young k through four to start thinking about careers and and where kids will have a strong aptitude but i think just in that theme i think anytime we can provide more information about where our students do well and where they schedule i think a little bit differently as well but no this is just elementary because they do they have professional i'm not an expert in how the other districts do it joe but i have a related question joe as i was thinking do we have a similar requirement at the middle and high school to get more specific on competencies and mastery of competencies or not necessarily the one of the differences that middle and high is where you can go online and look you know regularly grades in those kinds of things you can see more specific along the way whether it's homework whether it's just regular you know assignments or testing quizzes not standard so right standards to look at were not in the report card i write that ad i just who knows yeah what they want to speak and although we're not going to be recommending a change in the kindergarten reporter that report twice a year we are revising the standards and making those more  people and instead of making you read the entire report and deciding what to make of it as we did five years ago when we were six eight so six years ago when we have to share our you know it's  conductor most was here what we found helpful was to revive you with a summary of all the different criteria that were reviewed by the department of education and then provide you with a summary of the areas that they pointed out that they would like  reflective and have outside people of it what we do and then give consideration to those recommendations so ok so just for those at home that might not understand what a coordinated program review it's really the accountability system of the department of elementary and secondary education and it looks at what we should be doing as a school system going back to the ed reform of one nine hundred ninety three and really looking at promoting student achievement and high standards for all students so as part of that process back in the spring we went through a self assessment where we had to look at all of the criteria for special education civil rights english language learners and title one was a separate piece but we looked at that and really reflected as debbie said what is it that we were really doing well and we had to make sure that we were meeting all of the criteria that was there we provided a great amount of documentation and then in early november we met with them to get an idea of when they became when they came on site  number of interviews in the schedule and what that would look like so the week of november seventeenth they visited for the entire week and during that time again looking at overall compliance of all of the education requirements they needed to make sure that they triangulated their data so that they were looking at quantitative data the data that comes to magically to the apartment of that and then also the qualitative piece through interviews through observations and at that time they interview ten administrators thirty nine teaching and to support staff folks across the district of parents from representing english language learners our special ed pac and then anyone from the general public had the opportunity as well to contact the department of and provide any information  any questions that they would like to they conducted a record review of thirty five special education folders that were randomly selected and out of our twenty students they selected ten randomly of our yellow records to look at those and they sent out parents surveys over fifty of them to special education parents and ten to english language learner parents and then they observed through the spaces in all of our buildings eighteen instructional spaces during their visit at the end of that week and all of those interviews and observations they had an exit interview with myself sandra and debbie to kind of give us an idea of what their thoughts were based on all of the  activities and at that time they shared some of the comments from staff with us and i thought it was really important to kind of share some of those comments you know from staff they said they make us work really hard but we also know that we're number one that came directly from the staff and i think that really speaks volumes to we are the expectations are high that they feel very valued at the same time they said that we have very focused principals i don't think that that's any surprise to us based on our principals and our system principals in our schools they said that all that they interviewed were all very positive and very supportive so really the culture in climate within the schools it really spoke to them and what they heard and what they were able to observe they said that all schools really really value children and that's what we're here for it really is we're here for the children and that is a direct quote from that they said that we had a very inclusive environment i think that that's that's what that's what we are and that people are willing to change and they have open minds with programs we've talked about programs especially in special ed and making sure that we're really meeting the needs of our students and that it's not a matter of this is the way we've always done it it's really looking at what is our data say what is all of the information being willing to learn and to grow and that we use data to drive our services and i thought again that really spoke to a lot of the things that we've talked to here at this table so our final report that we received this very long lengthy report out of all of the different criteria that they looked at they would give us a rating as commendable partially implemented if not implemented or implementation in progress and we want to really the goal is to see that we have everything that's implemented and if you end up having a commendable in there that they're the are very few stingy with those to be quite honest spent to even have one is is something to really be proud of and so i'm going to speak to one of them for just a moment so in the area of special ed we had fifty nine criteria that we had to meet those looked at assessment of students let me just say that in civil rights the same criteria groupings were looked at as in special ed so assessment of students student identification and program placement parent community involvement curriculum and instruction student support services faculty staff and administration school facilities program plan and evaluation and so for civil rights it was all of those and then one additional one which was record keeping and funding so as we had to meet all of those different criteria they then came back and said whether we had implemented those or we have partially implemented those in the area of civil rights everything was implemented we didn't have one criteria that was partial or not implemented everything was implemented and then we had a commendable in one particular area and i would just like to read their words on this one because i think that it's really important for people to hear one so this particular criteria was under the responsibilities of the principal so this was all of our principals in our buildings and it was rated as commendable a review of the documents and staff interviews indicated that principals are exceptionally dedicated to promote in general education instructional supports district curriculum accommodation plan the district a curriculum combination play in this when what it what are plans in place for students that are not meeting the standards what are we doing to provide supports to them in the general education curriculum this was made evident through our teacher assistance teams our tat teams t interventions forms and ways that we illustrate and detail the tatt process including peer communication checklist along with specific student intervention plans the forms that tap members are asked to create or skill based they're based on smart goals which means they're specific they're measurable they're achievable they're realistic and they're timely they are created based with current student performance level selection of evidence based interventions and intervention in a fidelity plan and an intervention and what that means is we're very thorough we're not going to let anyone slip through the cracks if someone struggling we look at the data we look at the things that are in place and if we're not having success we put the interventions in there and we document that over time to see how their progress is being monitored over time teachers reported that such a specific district curriculum accommodation process has helped reduce any possible instructional gaps allowing a wider range of general education students to receive instruction and intervention within their general education program along with feeling highly supported by their grade level team and administrators through this thoughtful and rigorous process so that's a lot of information a lot of detail that's there but it really speaks to what teachers and administrators are really doing to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our students and to do that in a general education  curriculum and then providing interventions when necessary in the area of special educational turned out over to to sandra but i really think that one of the things that we see again is is is so positive are very inclusive environment anything that we had where there was only a small handful that are partially implemented it speaks to consistency it really that that's kind of that that the trend that goes through any of those and then there was a new criteria that i think that it's not any it's not any surprise that with it being new and all of the things that go along with it the partial implementation but and you'll hear from santa really it's it's a matter of consistency it's not that it's not in place right right we had only five areas and they really are honest move to one hundred percent consistency and those areas are making sure that we have a history of the students educational progress in general curriculum as part of the assessment process and then the new requirements for students on the autism spectrum making sure that we address the specific areas that they are have needs and such as verbal and nonverbal communication needs social interactions need to be solving  resistance to environmental changes and just name a few also we need to be consistent in providing two copies of the p emplacement page to parents and this is according to the regulations the other area that we need to focus on consistency is writing out the nonparticipation justification statement and that's a statement in the i p that describes why we might be removing a student with special needs from the regular classroom and making sure that we have to come sation at the at the team meeting and family making sure that we really communicate in a very clear way with our parents using that and one form which is the notice of proposed school district action you know giving a summary of what their meeting was about what did we base our decisions on what were the decisions that we came to at that meeting and really what were the next action steps so it's only a few things and i'm really looking forward to meeting with the deal we representative and talking about our action plan which i hope will be next week sanders out a written response that we're required provided just a face to face meeting it's a written response yeah that happens within the next week or so or i'm hoping yes i am in can email communication with them now we're going to try to me before april i thought since there are close to ninety you know visual criteria for just these two areas i have five that we just need to be a little bit more consistent on was was it was crazy and and these ninety it's hard to count them exactly because some say eight hundred eighty eight actually two report that we're still expecting about english learner education and title one those are two other separate areas of review the report comes in separately so just in these two areas alone special education and civil rights there are close to ninety separate criteria that we have to provide written documentation as well as them triangulate that information through their personal interviews and observations when they're on site so it's a lot of work my comments i was just struck a step said that almost ninety criteria these were the five areas that we need to take corrective action and it doesn't seem like it's that i don't wan significant but it's seems like things that make sense that we are capable of doing that we can whip into shape just like that having a second copy of that's what i mean i mean that's exactly so thank you  amazing that there were only five hundred ninety minutes congratulations to the job you're ready for and i just thought that it was it was wonderful to hear them put it in the documentation but to hear them say what we all know with our staff and our students that we have that it really is a wonderful place to be it's a very inclusive and people environment people work really hard and are trying to do the absolute best for kids  foreign secretary education's way of ensuring that we're complying with for acquirements and this particular view is specifically around special ed and i can't believe sanders they went through this list how many things you must feel like they were really crawling into your space but but this was specifically special ed in civil rights right yes do we help me think through do we do a similar analysis or is ace the sort of similar process for academic excellence for rigor of program studies or not with that because this is this is this is their system of compliance review so it's about whether a district complies with laws and regulations policies and procedures which are quite extensive and if you're doing all of these things right i think you do have for example this program play an evaluation this this is pieces of that in all of the reviews but it doesn't cover everything yeah so i guess my question just is does he have an exercise where the deuce do a similar thing they do or if you're a district it's really in trouble and then and that's a different kind of review but none of the typical you know they they don't have one because at i don't even know if they even try to think of me as our accreditation i think about saying you know we have obviously me ask the high school yeah right you know and that that's what i was that's not the department of ed right and that's a separate and then even like with that i'm ready school assessment certification that we went through at the elementary level to become certified as ready it's it's an outside you know group that certify sas but it's not the department of that obviously i'm not looking for ways for them to poke at us but i would you know i would love outside opinion on how we continue to improve all the things they do have a process that's similar to that but as you probably know in the paper holyoke is going into receivership so that they do do that on their own and then select certain districts that are going to put more of a microscope on say probably being so labor intensive as that process is that's what they do they can't possibly review they're not in something no school district and that's why this is only once every five or six years but it's also often enough it  which i'm going to say their answer would probably be that our assessment data serves that purpose i think that's an argument that some people try to could make whether to accept you with any individual agrees with that you know it is certainly all over the place i'm sure but that is their assessment system for the strength because i think we're we're also forgetting that the reason that the at the state assessment system was created in the ninety's was to not to assess individual students at all and it's become that but our what's happening in our by county special education collaborative so this is the quarterly update from march two thousand and fifteen and as you can see that you collectively approved and signed in a recent collaborative agreement because there's all kinds of new regulations around collaboratives and in the last year and that has now been of our bright go mended collaborative retreat agreement has been approved by the board of elementary and secondary education that we have a little increase in in rome and in the by county programs our personal increase is only one this school year so i think we might be up to five more fine let's see they were new website there are expanding and creating some new programs to meet the needs of the students in the multi member districts and they are focusing as you can see on networking for career placement for many of the students that do attend a collaborative program as we are also here at the high school which is another you've heard recently another new focus of a while is to prepare students for transition to college and career and they are doing things like having financial planning and legal planning transition planning for families but long term help for families of students with disability he's good so they are doing a lot of the same work we are at in but definitely geared toward a specialized population that they serve so i think the my county  been a lot of good work happening in the club but if you say the time is you put into the collaborative it's not that it's not it's only two hours a month plus whatever else is required to prepare the materials order to bring the information to you and back so i'm going to say three hours or so it sounds reasonable it is reasonable and it is it is an important membership because on occasion we don't have the right program that fits  particular student with a particular profile or disability and in those cases we do rely on those collaborative programs to be able to serve the student appropriately so it's really an important membership for us so do you think you're focusing on these types of things are the cause of this not only increasing and roma well i don't think it's suddenly increasing is it actually the by county and roman had dipped a little bit in the last few years and so i think there's been a renewed emphasis on similar to what we've been doing with dr and so is taking a real hard look at the programs that are offered recreating them or rebuilding them according that is what is not in the population and there and there are some districts are spending more and more students there it's not you know now are true they could be next year i don't know it really really evolves with the nature of the needs of the students that we serve so they get one hundred ninety four that's going to say within fifteen they do also do takes temporary referrals so we may need a student going to a therapeutic setting for a short period of time for evaluation and they would be hypothetically could attend a by yes and says by the way if you want to you know these these are the ones really you know it's yours is very thorough and they are a new policy on student absences which came as a result of a new law and regulation in the state student conduct and discipline exclusions and exemptions from school attendance so these were i was going to say challenging because they were very needy and how do you change completely your policy to meet a new state law and it's not just a matter of you as a committee want to do business little bit differently so you don't get a sen paragraph and say you need it or don't need it so that's why i think the policies are really important because when push comes to shove it is the policies that we fall back on and rely on and that parents in the community should feel comfortable that we need here too so it is important work thank you and i think one of the most important decisions that the school committee made a few years ago was to get mass in to help as we do and because of that connection they are very faithful monday april thirtieth so it is coming up next week six to eight pm and the theme is peace heat a c peace the world together with languages will be held at fox for high school cafeteria media center again six to eight pm sponsored by the world language department so expect another one derful night there has been a lot going on with the music program so all i know i didn't make it into your packet is the massachusetts instrumental in doing that in washington d c or just that's what i thought so saturday april eleventh a symphony hall i can't even keep up i think my answer was what a hectic summer schedule congratulations to today's news release jazz bands from fox with high school now in performances the state finals of the massachusetts jazz educators so sation you know a jazz band festival in framingham recently foxboro jazz lab band and the folks with jazz ensemble who were not gold medals by the judges at the state finals and both of these excellent jazz bands can be heard of the annual f m a jazz fest friday may fifteenth with a special guest artist nationally known trouble player sean jones and there is  centrally ellington high school b and contest finals they are among the fifteen finalists for the top high school jazz pianist in the country this is also the fifteenth time they've been a final so dad and this is the twentieth year celebration it is south fifteen out of twenty thousand sandbags and then the annual mike white a festival congratulations to three hundred fifty students dishes from the her  you haven't already i was actually up at the department today it's not real encouraging of the department meaning part of own hundred secondary education just you know the the the the this the sense of the departments getting so it was interesting i was there for business of course but i just didn't pick up real strong lives from the way they're feeling on the hill  system or and i mean you know the warriors are in the so i guess it's the partners there he has some fun awarded twenty five thousand dollars in grants and among those two groups associated with our high school nine hundred dollars went to the touchdown club to assist with the cost of the turkeys at thanksgiving skip over five hundred dollars to the foxboro high school community warriors to assist in funding the group's meals on wheels program which is fantastic five hundred dollars to the fox pro soccer club to assist in the stablish ing a scholarship fund in the memory of a high school foxboro high school graduate kevin martin twenty five hundred dollars to i go cares which helps provide  financial assistance to the go elementary school field leagues in need not to mention all the other wonderful things they're doing for other community groups but those are directly related to our school sixty and just other unique opportunities that our school students have gotten  as an article about how the marching band played at the patriots fright night there is an article in here about an upcoming event where a lot of community out the heart it so nicely but patriot place is expanding its cultural offerings with an exciting new event featuring local artists on may second patriot place will host its first ever foxboro street painting festival featuring student artwork from foxborough schools and surrounding communities the festival in partnership with the foxboro high school art department will feature local artists of all ages and numerous patriot place activities so it's just fantastic and also they're doing  plug for our department so last year they went to providence to participate in the providence repaint festival right and all of our student artists with so you basically you buy a block and you use chalk to create think about of the old sand castle competition you go you create in that it sort of disappears so this is street painting so they bought a block they wanted award they got wonderful recognition or student artists and they love the event so much they thought of oh why don't we try to do one of the not just rely it has a local dental business he had come forward last summer asking that he's a real lover of the art loves the arts what could he do for the schools in partnership with the arts so we decided to focus on something in the visual arts and we connected him and met with killer crusher our department head and we met my office and he decided to sponsor the street painting festival this is a wonderful public event so he is actually i believe sponsoring two thousand fifteen hundred two thousand dollars worth of the prizes for different categor i think it's at least fifteen hundred dollars and dr long yes and he's been a wonderful supporter of the arts and now a pacific activity so then they wanted a nice public venue so the people at patriot place came forward and said they would be willing to partner because they certainly have the space and they have the public relations people to get people out those people out about a player so i think it will be i think it's one of the best triangular partnerships for that so we're  it people can come with any topic or question that they have so it's really an open forum so it's at the public library six thirty next tuesday people should come and ask whatever they like to talk about we're open any topics the one topic that i will have at the ready if we still have time is our international student program that will move forward with i have lots of news about that but i'm also going to put it on the next agenda for the school committee to let you know where we are all i was going to ask that all we've had a lot going on with that  marketing materials are just about ready we're about to start recruiting for host families just to give you a preview one of our teachers as an opportunity to travel the company this month to go and start recruiting which normally the recruiting is virtual but they have a unique opportunity with an educational agency in china the largest who asked for five messages public high schools to go recruit so we're lucky to get one of the slots so one of our world language department it's going to go and especially going i'm sorry kevin frazier will be going to win in china this month this is my were their vacation haitian yes so just giving up our own time but it would be great so we're really starting with a personal connection with our international student program and  the things so we're just about to pop with that and get really get going so i'm going to put on the agenda for next time i will give you much more detailed description of what's been happening with with the cambridge institute for international education and the mass for tori program  activity on the c m burns community feel how much larger field has gotten by the entire community so i think just about every child in spring sports has had an opportunity to practice out there over the last mean forget about just all the youth teams that have been out there we've been out there it's the strangest baseball practice i ever had last week in the fog of the snow bank under the lights on a football field but it was a baseball practice you got to guess your bases might not have been clearly marked places and by the way there were four other teams on the field at the same time so so that's just our you sports but imagine our high school spring sports if we didn't have the turf field where would they be i mean we are somebody who wouldn't everything is covered this is great music halls damage him no international study i mean right partnership student representatives we just have to  pay to wear blue on friday but you pay to wear a hat and we're all doing it so some of the students got sponsors for us from the students paid to do this the students pay to do so it's like donating money and then you also show your support by going to wear the hat and the staff will as well and we actually have just one team the fox protein that we eat that i register is for so what of all the schools collect will go toward that so i think it's a wonderful way for all of us to to participate in something together thing i forgot thank you and there's a on may second there's a town for a cause i believe at oh a high school right i mean and it's i think five high schools there shouldn't council or whoever they get three people from drink groups of mrs weiss who are here and let the community know that they are investing their time and really appreciate that you guys have come out to contribute and i wish you the best of luck to you and the one of the thing on mays may second is