 Good evening. Welcome to tonight's Arlington School Committee meeting. Today's date is Thursday, September 26, 2013, and it's 6.30 p.m. My name is Judson Pierce. I'm the Chair of the Spine Committee. I'd like to once again take a page out of our former Chair, Joe Currow's playbook, and offer a remembrance, a reflection, and a recognition. First, I'd like to take a moment to remember Barbara Webber. We were of Arlington. She passed away on September 16. Barbara was a longtime employee of the Arlington Public Schools. She was married to Lawrence, and the mother of Scott, and his wife, Maureen, Ellen, and her husband, Christopher, Maureen, and her husband, Jim. Catherine, who works as a teaching assistant at the Odyssey. Barbara was also the beloved grandmother of Cameron, Margaret, Patrick, Lauren, and Sean. Barbara's tenure here teaching at the Pierce Elementary, and teaching at Jermaine Lawrence, and serving as the Title I Director, and most recently handling science and English language arts at the Odyssey. She was a devoted member of St. Agnes's Parish. It may her memory be for a blessing, and may we have a moment of silence. Thank you. For my reflection, I'd like to talk briefly about the month of September. It's here, but just for a little bit longer. I love this month, in part because it's my birthday month. Me too. Me too. And my wedding anniversary. Congratulations. My wedding anniversary in September. I should have said that. Oh. I'll be turning 41 tomorrow. I'd like to make the most of that. Congratulations. I'll be recognizing a better half. But I love this month for, especially why we here in New England love this month. We have many things that other states and other parts of this country do not share. Our schools start in September, generally. The red socks pushing their way towards the playoffs. And last but not least, the weather and the beauty of this place this time of year. Unbelievable colors. Many of them reminiscent of the colors of the new Thompson school, actually, inside and out. One of my favorite singer songwriters is James Taylor. He wrote a song entitled September Grass. He reflects on memories of September in that song that are relived with the cycle of the season once he takes time to breathe and take it all in. In his song, there's whimsy and cheer. And here are some of the lyrics. I'm not going to say. Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today. And you know, I can see summertime slipping away. A few more geese are gone. A few more leaves turning red. But the grass is as soft as a feather in a feather bed. So I'll be king and you'll be queen. Our kingdom's going to be this little patch of green. Won't you lie down here right now on the September grass? At our last meeting, I asked all of us to remember that this new school year brings hope and opportunity and challenge. It's a chance to look back, review what we've accomplished last year, and where we need to go this year and the years ahead. Some of that today will be discussed with the introductory review of the MCAS results and the letter from the NEASC group. And we'll have more details to come in meetings. But what this month and what James Taylor's lyrics tell me is how important it is for us periodically to think about our past while cherishing our present and lying down on September grass. Because it won't be around for another year. As a recognition, I'd like to, I was going to say, I'd like to again welcome our student rep. She might be a little bit late. I'd like to welcome Mr. Thielman who just walked in. Good to be here. And our first two guests of the evening. Our new high school principal, Matthew Janger, is with us tonight. As well as our new athletics director, Melissa Dugalecki. If you wouldn't mind coming to the table, both of you join us. And I know some of us are meeting for the first time. I just want to, I know that the conversation with Dr. Janger could go on a long time, but I want to let you know that he graciously agreed to come tonight, though Audison Open House is occurring at the same time and his son is there and he needs to scoot at some point. I had to get special permission. Some of us are ashamed of ourselves. There's a couple others here tonight like that. I didn't have prepared remarks, which wouldn't stop me from speaking off the cuff. Certainly not as articulately as your opening statements. I think I actually have met just about everyone here. It's been a great start to the year. It's been a real, someone once described starting a principal ship is drinking from a fire hose. And I will say another joke people make as they talk about how you don't want to be doing the last job. And there are things that I have expectations for myself of when I come to this job. And I would say it's all good, but it's coming awfully fast. There's an awful lot of it, but it's been really very exciting. I mean, the team of people I get to work with administratively, most of being one of those, but also everybody else, really stepping up and doing really interesting things and helping me to understand the school. Faculty are excited and exciting. We started already, I mean, I came in with a goal to do nothing or to do as little as possible because there's so much already going on. We had already identified that we wanted to be working on an assessment. The whole question of the year being how do we know students are really learning what it is they really need to know. And I keep reminding people there are two pieces to that. We need to be clear on what it is they really need to know. And we then need to ask the question of how do we know that they're learning it. Because if you do either one in it, in isolation, you end up in a very uncomfortable place in schools. And I think there's been a lot of history of that in the current political reforms. There'll be a huge effort on measuring what can be measured without attention to making sure we know what it is we need to know or there'll be a lot of attention to discussing what everyone needs to know without much attention to whether or not kids are actually getting what it is we're working on. So I think it's really important that we're doing both, but that's a big task. The evaluation system is another big task and somewhat stress producing for teachers and administrators. But as we've gone around and talked to groups, big and small, I think when you sit down with the teachers and say what this is really about is a commitment with an obligation, but a commitment on the part of administrators to actually be in your classes and have conversations with you and learn more about what it is you're doing so that we can work better together as a faculty, that really kind of lowers the temperature. The reality is there's a lot of concern about what happens if I do wrong, but the vast majority of teachers are not in that boat. So for the vast majority of teachers, it's an opportunity for them to teach me what they do and for me to give them an idea of kind of where we want to move all together. And so that's been really productive. I've made a commitment, which I'm hoping I can keep, to getting in and doing an observation with every single teacher. That's 100 observations. I've got three, which puts me ahead of a lot of people, but the hard part is doing the observation so much as getting the teacher in then and having the formal conversation. That becomes a big scheduling project. But we have the calendar and we're going to get going on it pretty quickly. Then the last piece, which isn't something really coming from the outside, but from an impetus that we have, is the question of the building, which I understand that we are committed to putting in a statement of interest in the middle of this year. And what I wanted to talk to the faculty about is one, we have a necessity that we say to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, what is going on, why we instructionally need the new building. That's not a hard case to make. But more importantly, we need to talk about where we want to go, what kind of a building we want to get, so that we end up with a building we want. When we started this conversation, someone delivered to my office, the 25 year old plans for the high school that they proposed to build 25 years ago that we didn't get. It's a beautiful building. If we had it, we would love it in many ways, but it is not the building we would want today. And so if you think back 25 years when they designed this beautiful building, we'd be happier if we had it, but it would still not be the building we want. And so we want to think 10, 20, 50 years into the future, because this building is going to be a major commitment for this whole community. It's going to shape the whole community of Arlington. So we want to really think about what is the instruction we want so that when we get the building, it fits. At the same time, you have a challenge in a high performing district like this, which is getting faculty to really feel the impetus to make the effort to really change instruction in a deep way. People are already getting good effects, good impacts. And so how do you get that conversation to take place? One of the exciting things about the building project is immediately when people started listing off all the things they would want to see in the building, a sort of wish list that sort of started naturally as part of the conversation, when you looked at that list, there was actually a vision of instruction that you could take from that inductively, deductively actually, you could take from that, which was of instruction that was collaborative, infused with technology, embedded in actual practice and context in the community, not just in the classroom, flexible to meet a variety of student needs. And it's not instruction that we are entirely able to do, or that we entirely know how to do well now. But it is something that people are interested in doing the people we're thinking forward want to do. And so that's an exciting conversation. So those are the big efforts that we want to do this year. It's a first year for a teacher, for me. People have just come off of two years of NASC, which I have ambivalences about as a process. I've just come out of three years of NASC in my previous school. And one of the challenges of NASC is that at its best, that's a reflective process of strategic planning and getting outside feedback. But unfortunately, I think there are elements of that process that have become about implementing a model that NASC has in their head and doesn't fit with that same process. You can't really implement someone else's model and do reflective practice and strategic planning at the same time. So NASC is wonderful in that they agree with us that we need a new building for instructional reasons. And you're going to see the letter this afternoon. And so that's a good validation to the community that we're not just complaining that it really is something that we should expect to do, something that would be a standard nationally in the state with other places. But at the same time, I think it's helpful to step back from broad strategic planning to realize we already have some direction. And what we really need to do is work on, at this point, having some effective changes. The pieces that we're already doing, I think, are going to move us in the direction the state wants us to go, that the community wants us to go moving towards the standards that are being adopted nationally. What I think is also then really important, and I just met with our faculty senate, who I believe have just unilaterally renamed themselves the faculty advisory council, because they're not really elected anymore. They're sort of self identified. So we're going to let anyone who wants to be a member, but just have that as an ongoing conversation. And what they'd really like to see is efforts that are focused on getting stuff done that's going to make life better for teachers and have a positive impact on instruction. That's what teachers want to do. And so we talked about making it small and effective as opposed to trying to do the broad strategic plan. I think if you do that for a couple of years as a new principal, especially when there's already a plan in place on the part of the state, and the district as a whole, you actually start to make progress and really make changes as opposed to I'm a big fan of strategic planning, I spend a lot of energy on it. But you can spend an awful lot of time getting back to the starting line when you're just trying to gather up. And they've already gone through that process of reflection. So I think that's what we want to move going forward. I guess that's enough of my unprepared remarks. If anyone has any questions, go ahead. I'll ask you one question. When you were doing the tours of a meeting with the parents at that night, one of the things that you said that interested a lot of our high school students was the idea of an open campus and looking into it. So I got asked at dinner, when are they going to make the high school and open campus? And I'm curious whether that's something that you're still interested in looking towards? I am. I don't remember saying that, but that would explain why people keep asking me. You know, I think again, I'm trying to understand how the campus works, and then who would be the appropriate people to talk to, and when you have that kind of conversation. Most importantly, to me, I'm not convinced that the community or the school, as it runs right now, would want to have a fully open campus. When you're unassigned, you can come and go as you please. Directed studies are supposed to be instructional time. So in a student's mind, that may be a time I can come and go as I please, but that's not in the mind of the school or the educators. That said, the question I have is when we have large numbers of students during times when they are not particularly supervised and not particularly engaged, would it be easier to control the building and better and more sort of straightforward to let those students earn the privilege to use that time the way they saw fit? So I think you'd have to talk to the school committee about that. We'd have to look at the logistics. We'd have to talk to the police. But I would imagine right now we have senior privileges. We have old hall. We have the directed studies. And so we have little bits and pieces of that. But what I'd like to see is if you've earned the right to leave the school because you demonstrated that you're responsible with your use of that time and you come, let us know when you're leaving. You let us know when you're coming back. I just assume let students go. That's my preference, but I think that's not entirely up to me. I think that's a big conversation. If you're in the school, you're in places that we know you're supposed to be in and you're supervised. So we don't have students moving around. We don't have an awful lot of people to patrol those halls. And if you have demonstrated in those areas or with those freedoms that you are either not getting your work done or not behaving or leaving campus without permission, then you lose those privileges and you're in much more structured areas. So I'd like that to be some sort of a stepped process. The deans and assistant principal and I talked about it a lot and we're sort of looking at how things run there, trying to tighten up things the way they work and try to understand what that would mean from my perspective and their perspective. I'd also say one other piece of that is I've gone to the student council and talked to them about not being a prom committee but being a student council. And I think they're moving in that direction. Melissa's doing similar things with the captain's council. But it's baby steps. So their first step in that is to say, okay, little question, big answer. Their first step was to say, okay, we want to do a pride week. And for us to say, okay, well the goal on this spirit week, homecoming week has to be to develop school culture, school community, to get the school eye care values as something we actually do and live with. And they've taken that on. So the idea there is now they're mission driven, not just having a party. But when I said to them, look, I want you to come to me and say, here's what we think an open campus might look like. Because someone mentioned that. Here's how we think the rules might work in a way that would make the community comfortable, make the administration comfortable and give us the flexibility we want. They sort of glazed over like, we don't have any idea how to do that. But I think by the end of the year they will. Students are pretty quick learners, unlike the rest of us. They're much quicker than we are. So I think it's not something I would see happening this year. But I could see making baby steps towards it in the next year. Thank you. I just wanted to say I wanted to thank you for all the communication. I am a high school parent. So it's been great having all the emails and communication on what's going on in the school. I think that's been really great. And congratulations on a wonderful open house last week. I had had the Niasque letter before I went to that open house and I had read through it. And I, you know, I know that the high school has certain things, but I actually personally had an obstructed view in my son's AP physics class. Couldn't see the teacher. And sat in a chemistry class of 30 students that has 25 desks. So I personally did, you know, kind of experience that and it was very interesting. And, you know, they all actually mentioned it in the open house about the, you know, especially in science. I know that we need some work on the science classroom. So I know that that was, it was interesting to have actually have lived it, not having had actually sat in those classes before. So that was kind of eyeopening for me. So I'm sure it's been eyeopening for you as well as you visit all of these classes. Yes, I just, I mean, I've had three observations. And in just the second one, I was sitting there and the teacher student said, where is such and so in a Latin class and the teacher said it's on the board and the student said, where? And the teacher said it's on the board and then both the students and I went like this. But thank you and welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I have to listen to Melissa a little. She's very good. Good segue there. Melissa, welcome. Sure, thank you. We'd love to hear a little bit about your first month so far and once in life and anything else, any updates or anything you'd like to tell us right now. Sure. Well, thank you for having me and I've really enjoyed my transition here. Can you hear me okay? Yes. My transition here into Arlington, working here a little bit over the summer and then getting in full time. It's been really exciting and finding ways to capitalize on the energy of the students and the coaches and the community has been really gratifying. Some of the things that we're trying to do in athletics, we are really looking at unifying the department. It became clear that there are certain common denominators and constants that were shared in terms of all the teams are passionate and all the teams are working hard. But a lot of the teams were kind of running, you know, running their own programs. So we're trying to bring everyone together. We came up with a slogan of 30 teams, one family. We are Arlington and we've really been pushing that not just because it's a nice slogan, but because it's really our goal for this year. We want the teams to feel as though they're a part of a team. So just as though if they're on maybe the soccer or volleyball team and they contribute to something better, or not better, bigger in their program that a member of the cross-country team or the golf team and the football team that they all together combined to something bigger than their individual program. The coaches have been wonderful, very receptive to that. The student athletes have been really excited about that. Their energy is contagious. We have started at captain's council. As Matthew mentioned, we meet once a week before school and the captains come in right now as I'm transitioning in. I do a lot more listening. Just talking about the history, their experiences, their goals and trying to develop a strong understanding of what does it mean to be a leader? What does it mean to be a captain? That's a role that is a privilege and it's important and it has an opportunity for a large audience and they have the opportunity to set an example to their programs. They've really stepped up. I challenged them to come up with community service projects and all the teams have had some wonderful ideas. I believe field hockey is doing something at the senior center. Cross country will be working with the conservation committee this weekend and we have other teams at town day. So they're all coming up with creative ideas and really, you know, thinking beyond just the athletic field, which has been nice. In addition, we have redone the website, which has been helpful in getting communication out. The captains are charged with putting the score updates in, so it gives them a little bit of accountability and responsibility there. And then it also provides schedules for the families, which has been helpful. You know, other than that, it's really just been getting out to the field, seeing the teams, working with the kids. We had a parent athlete night, parent athlete coach night at the beginning of the year and the attendance was tremendous. I'm trying to think of, you know, it was. It was, it was, you know, we weren't sure what to expect, but, you know, in the red gym, both sides of the bleachers were pretty much built. Yeah. Yeah, there's probably about a thousand people there. No, no. The parent athlete coach is meeting. And it was just a wonderful opportunity to sit with the community and talk about our philosophy. And what we see is the bigger picture. And I talked a lot about the fact that, you know, 100 percent of the student athletes in there, you know, they were athletes. That's why they were there. And that statistically 60 percent of them wanted to play collegiate athletics or had aspirations to do so. But statistically only 2 percent would and less than half a percent would get a scholarship. However, on the positive side, 100 percent, statistically speaking, are more likely to attend a four-year college, more likely to have jobs in a leadership role, more likely to have less of a dropout or less likely to have a dropout rate, less likely to have discipline issues throughout high school. So we set that as the platform to really talk about, if that's, you know, if that's what you're gaining here, why are you more likely to attend a four-year college? Is it because your soccer skills are really good? Probably not. It's probably because of these skills that you're learning. And we talked a lot about communication and accountability and teamwork, which was nice. And I think the athletes and the community were really receptive to it. I shared with them, you know, anyone who might have read, you know, my bio, it highlights my athletic successes. You know, I was fortunate to be a Division I athlete, but I also was cut from my basketball team. And my track coach told me hurdles were not my thing. And I learned as much from those experiences truly as I did from the ones in which I persevered more easily. And similarly, I've coached at the collegiate development level, varsity level, JV level, but I've also coached youth sports and special Olympics. And, you know, I've learned as much from the youth and special Olympic athletes that I did at the collegiate level. And really talking about, no matter what level you're at, it's really just about developing these life skills and building relationships with the athletes and instilling a sense of confidence and pride. So that's really our philosophy. And it's been a nice transition. Before you leave, I'd like to thank both of you for the new sports website. Not a great athlete myself. Well, I know she has to go through you too. So it's, it's exciting. And I would recommend it to the audience as well to take a look at it, especially the calendar. Yes, it's, it's just fantastic. And I don't have to go looking every which way, like I used to find out when the football game is of that nature. So thank you very much. I wanted to commend you because some of what you've been doing with the coaches clearly is, um, is helping them in terms of encouraging younger athletes. A lot of them have gone out their way to make connections with middle schoolers and to spend their time with that. And, and to that end, I wondered if you start looking towards middle school and elementary and things that we might do to bolster our programs at that level and provide our students with those same benefits. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. Um, you know, athletics, it's, we're focused on the high school, but it really is a community and opportunity for the community to come together. And we are hosting a youth night on October 4th for our youth football and cheerleaders. Those athletes will be called onto the field before the game. They're going to be escorted by our high school players. At halftime, the Pop Warner coaches are going to run mini games on the field. So look at it to be under the lights on the turf and kind of get a sense of that excitement. Matthew and I reached out to the elementary school principals to see if any of them had core students that would be brave and willing to come sing the anthem. We just want to find ways to involve the younger levels and we'll be doing a very similar night, running the same way the following week for the youth soccer programs. And as we, you know, work with more youth programs, that's something we'd like to do every season. I've worked with the middle school principal in terms of setting up something in the spring to have an information night. I know that transition from eighth grade to freshman year is very challenging in general. And for a lot of fall athletes, their very first experience at Arlington High School will be on an athletic field. So we want to get out there in May, talk about the process, give them the information, and build that relationship. So baby steps right now, but I agree absolutely, you know, capitalizing on those relationships will be huge. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's been some time with us tonight. We're looking forward to hearing as the year goes on. Great. Thank you so much. And the league provides school committee passes. So I'll give them to Karen and she can put on to them for you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome Siobhan Foley here tonight. Welcome, Siobhan, our AEA rep. And seeing no public participation, why don't we move on to a presentation by Dr. Vody on the June 7, 2000 event. I'd like to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to be on the same level in the program as you did in 2003. Corrected version in September 11. Neasc report. We use the acronym Neasc a lot. But it's just for those people who may be first to hearing this. This stands for the New England Association of schools and colleges. It is the commission on public schools and secondary schools for the accreditation and the process is a this or I should say the cycle is every is every 10 years. And in preparation for the visit, they're usually a two-year self-reflection, a lot of committee work, a lot of paper that's generated, and then we have the visit. And as you are aware, we had the visit last fall. In fact, our first go at that visit was during right around the hurricane time, and so we had to postpone it. Later in March, and we went through, we got a report from the the committee that had been here. That went through a couple of drafts, and that that report has been on our website now since I believe it was been easily March, I think. Karen may be able to correct me on that, but when we've had the final draft of the report sent to us, there was a waiting period that we needed to go through, and then it was posted. But the second phase of this is actually the letter that you get from New England, from the asked, saying whether you're accredited or not, and then outlining the various topics issues that they want you to address in a two-year report. Then there's a five-year report, and then, of course, once you conclude that, you'll be almost ready for the next part of the cycle. So the first letter was issued in early June, and again, similar to the report itself, it goes through a series of drafts and discussions, and that happened over the course of the summer. And in fact, Dr. Janger was involved in at least one or two of those conversations with me. So the letter you have received in your packet, and tomorrow we will actually post it on our website for everyone to see. And as you heard Dr. Janger talking about this, there are certain recommendations they have. But first, let me just begin with the commendations. And I really don't, I'm not planning, believe me, to read all four or five pages of this letter. I don't want to do that. But at the same time, I think it's really important to point out a lot of the commendations that have been made. And if you've had a chance to read the report, which is quite lengthy and by different categories, you know that it's a very thorough look and actually quite complimentary of what's going on in the high school. But they were very impressed with many of the programs and services, and in the letter say they wish to commend the following. And really there's 30 commendations, and they go through some more. But let me just read a couple of them. The identification of a set of values I care embodies in the vast majority of students and professional staff that positively impacts the culture of the school. The identification of learning expectations that are challenging, measurable, address academic, social, and civic competencies. The ongoing development of a common curriculum template through the use of Atlas Rubicon. Teachers who are committed to delivering high quality curriculum to all students. The teacher's emphasis on depth of understanding and application of knowledge through inquiry, problem solving, higher order thinking, authentic learning opportunities both within and outside the school. The incorporation of technology into the curriculum and emphasis on informal, ethical use of technology. The work to create common assessments to validate the alignment of written and taught curriculum by academic departments. The commitment of teachers to high quality instruction. The specific timely and corrective feedback provided by teachers to ensure students revise and improve their work. And there's more that are presented in this letter. There are areas of recommendation. And one of them has a curriculum issue, and Dr. Jenga was alluding to this. They have a several model. And one of their models is to develop a definitive, just one type of school-wide rubric that identify, that addresses 21st century learning expectations. And so that's one thing that they do want us to address a little bit more. We do have a school-wide rubric that is adapted in all departments, in all assignments, in all projects. But anyway, there are some more. But what Dr. Jenga was also alluding to is that as we go through what really become the focus of the recommendations, you will see that it's all about the physical building. There are certainly things that we can address in the short term, but there are lots of things that we cannot address without fully looking at what we're going to do with this building. And I know we've had a lot of discussion here at the table. There's already a committee that's been brought together in the high school, which I met with the other day, to talk about what the process is that we're going to be going forward with. And in fact, by January, according to the letter, we have to give NEASC a written report as to how we are going to address the physical needs of the building that both in their view really become an impediment to the learning that is going on in this building. And in fact, one of the things we even heard when the team was here is just how impressed they were with the quality of instruction, our students, their motivation and interest in what they were doing, engagement. But to a person, they talked about the physical problems of this building. Going from one room in December that was 90 something to another room that was below zero, and I'm exaggerating, but there was, you could go to different parts of the building, just even in that simple thing of the temperature of the room was a problem. I think that what has been of a particular concern has been the lack of the quality of instruction in our science labs. They, one, are not of the size that MSBA even recommends. We looked at two years ago, not even two years ago, looking into whether we could apply for one of the science programs to expand and renovate our science labs, but we didn't qualify because none of our rooms matched what they said was the labs that they wanted to see if they were going to invest money in these labs. But we have labs where they're inadequate to what we want to do. The area where there might be a whole group instruction, your polls that you can't see around, and Ms. Starks alluded to that, it is very true. The space is just not conducive to learning. It's certainly not conducive to very innovative use of technology in those classrooms. The whole building needs serious renovation, and of course when you go into this process with the, if we submit an SOI this year, we will enter into a process where we decide what is really the best alternative for what we need to do to address the functionality of this building. So there are certainly some issues in the letter two around safety, and there are things that we will address, and there's been issues around cleaning lists. It's very hard when a building is this old to keep it at a level that you'd want it to be at. The floors, if you look at the floors throughout the entire school, you'll see chipped tiles, and it's very hard at this point to really get, you know, to have a good waxing that's going to take. We have windows that don't work well. We have, you just go down the list. It's long. So we have to address this. Being put on warning means that if we do not address this, we do run the risk of not being in a credited school. Now what the timeline on that would be would probably take a number of years, but what they're looking for from us as a community is what is our plan to address some of these dire building needs. So that's sort of in a synopsis of what this letter is. As I said, it will be available for everyone to read, and we are going to have to address a number of the concerns expressed. First off, I'd like to commend you and the staff for all the outstanding commendations that we've given. It was as we hoped that the negative statements would be based on physical plant, and that's what came out. Some of the things that are listed and the safety ones, do you see those being able to be addressed as soon as possible? I'm concerned about the last two under the curriculum. Do you mean the lack of fire blankets? Yeah, the blankets and the shutoffs in the laboratory for the gas. I have a son that's a chemistry teacher and he really brings that home. The answer is yes, and in fact in some of the labs we don't even use the gas any longer. The other question I have for you, will you be bringing a budget of some sort to the budget committee to meet some of the other needs that we might be able to meet prior to the total renovation of the building for the upcoming year? Well, there are some things that are actually going to happen. Certainly the needs of this building is all the buildings are brought to capital, which is actually where Ms. Johnson is at. And we have money already been allocated for the new boiler. And once you, of course the process is that Tom Meeting authorizes the money, but then by the time you order the materials, in this particular case the boiler could be here in November and we could put it in. We're investing in things. We've already invested in another boiler. We are investing in this building all the time because you have to. We can't go another winter with the uncertainty of the boiler as we did last year. We had days where we didn't have any heat and that's just not acceptable. Just one more question. The major issue, more than half of the ones listed under the curriculum are the safety ones we were just talking about. If we have to close some of the labs, are we going to be cutting back on some of the programs, the chemistry programs and things of this nature? How are we going to address that if they don't have the laboratories to utilize? Well, that's a very good question. It certainly can impact the programs. It can certainly reduce the amount of actual labs that can be done. Now, not all labs that you deal with in chemistry involve gas. Certainly quite a few can and do. But yes, of course it impacts the program and that's what Niasco has been saying all along is that the physical state of the building is impacting what's going on structurally in the building and if the building is not attended to, it's going to impact it more over the upcoming years. Thank you. I think it's important to understand that what Niasco pointed out are some significant structural issues with the facility, the negative impact of the facility on the delivery of the school's written curriculum, the insufficient number and size of general classrooms and art rooms, the layout and design of classrooms with columns and posts that limits students' vision and obstruct their movements, the insufficient size and design of science labs, the need for the increased availability of a full range of technology, the closure of a classroom due to environmental concerns, the falling of ceiling tiles, the presence of dust and lint and vents, the worn broken and poor condition of desks, tables and lab supplies that run out of the current standards. So there may be a short-term answer to all this and to some of this rather, some of the issues that are raised, but the only answer that would satisfy the demands of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges is that the town of Arlington commenced the process of securing funds from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. I mean it's pretty straightforward. This compels us to begin the statement of interest in December, to file a statement of interest in December, to work our way through the MSBA process, which we've been through before. It's a good process. It's a time-consuming process. It starts with the statement of interest. Then if you're lucky, you get a feasibility study, you get authorized for a feasibility study, town meeting has to appropriate money for that, and then at the end of the feasibility study process, we have different recommendations for a building. My sense in reading all this and walking around this high school is that we're looking at long term, with the MSBA's participation and participation by the voters of Arlington, a renovation addition to this facility. That's the only way to address these issues here. It's not a patch job. We're not talking about a patch job. We're talking about a renovation addition to this facility to meet these instructional needs of a high school in the 21st century. Historically, Dr. Janger was right. It was 1991 or so. There was a study done of the high school that said we needed to build a new high school, and we didn't do it for a lot of reasons. There were other priorities, and now it's past due, so the time has come to do something. I see this report as saying, or this letter as saying that we have a great high school that with fantastic educators, we have a great high school that we have a great high school that has fantastic educators with a high quality teaching and learning going on in this building, which is something we can all be proud of in Arlington, and we have a physical structure that is impeding our continued success, and we have to take action. That's the statement, and my question is, and I think I know the answer, but I just want to make sure the public hears it, is that you are in fact starting to marshal the information and the staff needs to write a letter of a statement of interest to the MSBA. Yes. The process has begun a while ago. It is a community decision. In fact, when you submit a statement of interest to MSBA, the school committee has to sign off on it, which I'm certain that will be the case, but the Board of Selectment does as well, and the reason for that is a community decision, because once you begin that process, you have to have the commitment of all involved to follow that process through, and what that will mean down the road is a commitment, in a case of a high school, to have a debt exclusion overwrite. So it is as you point out, because we've been through that together, and the Thompson, it is a process, and it begins now. I'm going to start with the Deputy Director last week, and they haven't set the time, the window yet for when you submit. They think it probably would be the same as last year, which the window would be January to April. It's not a first come in, first served. It's simply based on the criteria they set up for the significance of your request in terms of urgency. And they have different criteria. Of course, Roman is the situation here. Some people might say, well, this is advanced repair. It is beyond advanced repair. So our hope would be that we would certainly have this stand out. Last year they had 101 SOIs submitted, of which they can only do a fraction because they have a limited amount of money based on the sales tax. But the Board of Selectments, so the goal on my end is to have this done by the end of December so the political process can be done, and we can get this in that window that they're going to have. Just an important point that all of us learned about the process. The last time is you want to submit the statement of interest, the first opportunity because we may have to wait because we may get told that you got to wait a year and you have to submit it again. So first thing is we want to unanimous vote on the school committee and the Board of Selectment to submit this to start the process. Then we went through the MSBA process last time for the Thompson School and it was a new process for everybody in Arlington anyway, but it actually ended up being a very good process. There were lots of checks and balances along the way. There was lots of participation by town meeting, the Board of Selectment, the Capital Planning Committee, the Finance Committee. Lots of people had a chance to weigh in on the scope and design and cost of that building that we built. So I think we're about to begin, hopefully with unanimous support from everybody in leadership in the town, a very thoughtful process with a lot of community involvement, a lot of participation, and at the end of the day we have the chance, if we do this right, to rebuild or create a great facility that can educate thousands of kids over time and be a great place for learning. Yeah, I want to reiterate what was said and in fact take it to another level. One of my more thoughtful, cautious and conservative friends started pushing me for data about the high school. I looked at it and said we are at risk of losing our accreditation if we don't make substantive changes to the facility. That's sufficient data. What do you intend to do? That becomes another tricky question because people who have been associated with town government for a long time do remember what the old rules were with the old building authority, that you came up with a plan, you came up with drawings, you got it on the list and you worked with it that way. And the partnership has changed. We need to go to the state and say this is the problem we have. They want to have a seat at the table to develop the fix. So we cannot develop our fix and present to the state. We can only say we have needs and these are the needs and we need your help to work them out. So we're not going to be going to the community with a solution. We're not going to go with drawings. We're not going to go with a plan. We're going with a series of problems with the state because they're going to give us half the money for this project. And that's the way it's going to work. It may be unsatisfying at this point to not have the answers to present to the public. We're not going to have that until we actually engage in the conversation with the state. But we do have substantive, significant and severe needs to improve this facility and to make substantive improvements to the state. So we're not going to have any more challenges in the future or we do risk losing our accreditation. I just wanted to point out that although they have a long list of needs that the high school has, they don't even hit everything. And for example, one thing that I know that a renovation could potentially bring to us is increase safe student and recent spate of various gun issues. And this would give us a chance to build more safety into the physical structure of the school. So it's not just what's on this list. We may be bringing in things that we realize our needs that even though Niask didn't mention them, they're still big, real and would be hit with a renovation. I just want to comment on the process that both Mr. Thill and Mr. Schlickman really described it well. It is a different process. For those of us that went through the old ones, which I was one of those people, it was very different and you're learning a different way of going about it. We do not go with the solution. In fact, that's what the feasibility study is all about. So the SOI is presenting the needs and the problems and they're going to be in terms of the physical plant and we've already engaged an outside engineering company to do a full analysis of all of our mechanical and electrical systems and that report isn't completely finished yet. We will be doing an enrollment study and of course that's going to be looking at where this building is going to be 10 years from now because we might not even begin construction for several years or whatever we end up doing and what is that going to look like 20 years out in terms of projections as best as we can to say and then there's the educational piece and Dr. Janger and I talked about that and in fact we talked about it with a group of teachers as well just the other day that it's hard to have entirely a crystal ball on what we're going to be, our schools are going to be in the future but clearly one thing that they are going to be is there's going to be a lot more collaborative learning and needs for places where students can do this. We're going to see much more of the type of thing that we're already doing at Arlington High School which are internships and coming back and doing presentations not to a class of 30 but to a class, you know, groups of 50 and 100 and we don't really have that type. So we're thinking and that is what I talked with the teachers about. What I want them to be thinking about is if the facility were to change I could do X, Y and Z or I am prevented from doing what I think is good education because I don't have the A, B and C type of thing. So that's where they're thinking and that's what you present to the MSBA areas of NIDAR. And that's what we did with Thompson. We talked about the educational impact. We talked about enrollment impact. We talked about the physical building. Those are the three main areas and of course as you say safety and security and all of those things are very important as well. And that's been a big issue here at this school. So it's going to be quite a project but I feel the teachers feel very positive, they feel positive after getting the report came out and I think they feel positive after having a chance this week to read the letter and have discussions themselves that it's, you know, they are doing a very good job and our students are doing a very good job and they deserve a building that reflects what a great job they're doing and help them become better at what they do. Thank you for playing that out for us and for the public. We have another very important discussion to take up right now having to do with a very recent report, the MCAS highlights and accountability reports. I would. By the way, let me just start this by saying that I've had a lot of emails this week after sending notices both about accountability and MCAS with parents asking when are we going to get the individual report cards and I've answered a lot of them but I think principals are going to address this as well. I don't think that you will get them until at least the end of next week and the reason why is that they come into the schools I mean to my office, they have to be sorted by school, they're at the schools now, they all have to be put in envelopes labeled and then they all go to our central distribution place at Town Hall, that has to get delivered to Waltham and then they'll get mailed. So it's a process and that's where it is. So I would expect the end of next week, Friday, Saturday, possibly depending on how well your mail gets to your house, maybe even Monday. So I just need to say that upfront because I know there's been a high interest in that issue. As part of the state testing that we have been engaged in now, I think it's close to 15 years and potentially will be changing in the next year or two, we have been following very closely our students progress both from different vantage points. Certainly vantage point of their improvement in terms of the content knowledge, their performance on the assessments, we look at it in terms of our high needs groups and until recently we were looking at and not that we're not still but we look at different demographic or racial, ethnic breakdowns in terms of how students are doing ELL students, special education students and look at those different groups. What has happened in the last year or so we now have taken all of these groups which we have individually looked at and put them into one subgroup which is called a high needs group. Well the accountability reports are looking at it's a new way of looking at progress to narrowing the achievement gap in schools. There used to be a measure called AYP. We no longer talk about AYP, we talk about PPIs and I think that a lot of people have been sort of lost in this changeover and before we actually started talking about numbers and this kind of information I had asked Dr. Cheson if she would just do a brief overview which we did with all the administrators the other last week about where these numbers come from and what are the significance of the numbers and how they affect the accountability reports. I know that quite a few of you here at the table are steeped in this yourself but I do think that when we talk about these acronyms and that people who are listening to this really don't understand entirely what we're talking about. So that's why we're going to proceed looking at our district data with this little introduction. I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail all the information that I'm showing is available on the Department of Education website but we wanted our principals to make sure that they were all in the same place so that they could look at their reports and better understand them and this is what we showed them last week and as Dr. Bode just mentioned we used to have a framework called AYP and now under the new Massachusetts framework for accountability and assistance schools are rated on a scale from half which 80 percent of the students schools are in level one and level two. Level three is where schools really need to start to take a look at where they need to make changes and four and five are those type of districts that you often hear about a possibility of the schools that are possibly going to be taken over by the state or at least under consideration for being taken over by the state. So under the old system the goal was for 100 percent of students to score proficient or advanced by 2017 on the MCAS test and under the new system the goal is for a district to cut their proficiency gap and one second I'll talk about what that is so if you look at this chart it demonstrates that in ELA and math from 2001 originally to 2013 and actually at one point in my career I believe it was 2010 all districts were supposed to go from where they started in 2001 to 100 percent proficient and advanced by the 2013 school year. That was under the old system but we've had some major changes in 2012 and that was that the old goal was replaced by cutting the proficiency gap by 2017 so MCLB accountability status labels were replaced by the states one through five AYP is replaced by the new performance measure called the progress and performance index or PPI and that incorporates measures of student growth in ELA and it also included science which the previous measure did not and it also included some other indicators at the high school level such as graduation rate and dropout rate so what are some of the key concepts. It's a measure of measuring progress towards a group's gap narrowing goals there's an annual PPI that shows progress over two years and a cumulative PPI that represents a trend over time. There are core indicators and there can be up to seven that high schools have seven and elementary middle schools would not have the last two here so we take into account ELA math science proficiency gap is the difference between 100% of your students being a proficient advanced and where you began at the target year so if you're the first year that we started this you had 75% of your students that were proficient in advanced then the difference between 100% and 75% would be 25% and your goal by 2017 would be to half that or have an increase of 12.5% it also looks at ELA and math growth we often refer to this as SGP or student growth and at the high school as I said before it's going to look also you're also going to get points based on or not get points based on your annual dropout rate and your cohort graduation rate for your four and five year. There's also extra credit if you reduce the percentage of your students scoring warning or failing or if you increase the percentage of your students that are scoring advance by 10% or more from the previous year or if you decrease the percentage of your students scoring warning or advance from the previous year by 10% then you get some additional points and PPI when they finish calculating it runs from 0 to 100 and 75 is said to be on target. It's quite a complicated calculation but just to give you an idea so you have your core indicators whether you're closing your proficiency gap and ELA and your target would be 75 points whether you're closing your proficiency gap in math again 75 points same thing for science whether you're getting an ELA growth of 51 or better which would be 75 points would be given same thing for math and what your annual dropout rate and your cohort rate is and as you can see you can get extra points. If you increase the percentage that are advanced or if you decrease the students that are warning equivalent. This is a sample report and you'll see that and these are the reports that we gave out to all our principals last week and they're available for every school in the Department of Education website so if you want to look up a particular school but one of the most important things here is the state has added more information on the first layer of the report so if you look at the sample school you can see that it's level one school and it shows that it's meeting the gap narrowing the goals you can see what it's all students PPI is which is right here 100 you'll see that the high needs students PPI is 78 and then although some documents do refer to the subgroups of being at least 10 and they're released on 826 by the State Department of Education says that you actually must have 30 students or more in a specific subgroup in order to have a calculation based on that so sometimes you'll see the number 10 but actually the document they released on 826 said that number significantly higher so if you don't have enough students that fall into that category then you will not see a separate number for that student so in this example here it does not mean that the school does not have any ELL students or low income students but rather it means that and that may be the case but it also may be the case that it just doesn't have enough students to report that again on the bottom here you'll see that this school their annual PPI and their cumulative PPI and what their target was so this would be a school that would be a level one school and then there's a third layer of the report if a school was a level two school you'll see that this says level two and it tells you the reason why this school or one of the reasons why this school is not a level one school and in this case it says that it's not meeting the gap narrowing the goals and if you look down below you'll see for all students the number is 72 for high need students it's 40 for low income 41 and students with disability it's 29 so you'll see that that did not meet the target of 75 for a level three school which says that this one is among the lowest performing 20% of the schools there are a variety of reasons that a school could be given a level three designation and one of the designation rules is that if 90% of or less than 90% of the students on the report it will say that less than 90% of the students participate in the MCAS if you unlayer that in some cases it's really not talking about the participation of MCAS but it's talking if they're ELL students it's actually talking about their participation rate in the access test which is the ELL student test that's also given by the Department of Education that doesn't make sense this slide shows some resources and documents there are a number of small videos on the State Department of Education website in detail on PPI and several other of the measures and you can certainly take a look at those actually does a really good job talking about it in plain English I think. Thank you that was very helpful. I don't see any questions. Across from people listing is that it's a very complex formula which is trying to measure your progress in meeting a target and the target is mathematically determined by how much progress you have to make toward a particular goals essentially yet you could make in fact this is the case in a number of our schools they've made the target with the aggregate means all the students and they're quite well they'd be in the 80's but even if they had a 74 or a 72 on their high needs group which is all of the subgroups in one group they would not be able to be a level one school they would be a level two school and I know that it's it would be possible that you could have every school in the district be a level one school and in another in your last school could be a level one by meeting the target by the aggregate but if they miss it by one point they could not they could be a level two school then it means that the whole district is level two so you your district level is by your lowest level of any subgroup or aggregate group so that's how it works and Laura is correct that there is some video there's videos on the website they're the really if you people really want to get into understanding it more as a district we I sent out a press release last week talking about what happened coding that had happened last year and Laura was talking about the participation rate that's what happened at the participation rate on the access test went below the 90 percent which then triggered a level three that appeal has been made in fact even the department of education said had but that happened that would have been a level two our schools in the district are level one or level two until every school and every subgroup in every school attains their target we will not be a level one district we I think that the quality of teaching that goes on in this district this is definitely a level one district and that is a goal that we have to be able to demonstrate that and so we've talked a lot about that and people are digging into the data very carefully and there's a lot of data and you have to think about also what is the best leverage in terms of what you really need to be focusing on and as and I go back really to what Dr. Django was saying I think that you can get lost sometimes in these numbers but you have to really step back and say what is really important to know and some of that is determined by what the common core standards are and making sure that the curriculum that you're providing is aligned with that and then understanding whether they're really learning it and that's in a simple terms what we are really focusing on as a district but each school will have an accountability report card and you have those report cards for each school with all of the you've got the layer 2 and you've got the layer 3 data and as I said each school is looking very carefully at this so before we move on to MCAS highlights I thought maybe we just stay with this issue of accountability in terms of again 30,000 feet on this we have 4 of our schools which are level 1 and they are the Bishop Brackett, Dallin and Hardy schools and then all of our other schools but Addison are level 2 but when you actually get into the data you'll see how close it would be so for example Thompson in the aggregate they were 85 well making the target but for the high needs group it's 71 so it's they're very close I just want to say that the score that you're talking about for the Thompson they've got a 71 where they need a 75 that's a rolling four year average and the most recent year is 40% of that rolling average the previous year is 30 the year before that is 20 the year before that is 10 now the fact is that this year the Thompson got an 81 that's 40% of the score it's getting really hurt by their 2010 score which was a 19 that will fall off next year and it's very conceivable that the Thompson will come in with the 73 that they need to be a level 1 school for high needs next year in fact the way I look at it most of the schools this year made progress a couple didn't and I'd say that all of the level 2 schools except one are mathematically very capable of hitting level 1 next year so we're in a better shape this year than we were last year and there's been progress made and I know that from my experience of looking into this last year and the work that has been done is that the school departments taking this seriously and targeting the areas that require help so it's a good year for test scores from Arlington remembering one thing the test score is not a goal nobody is dropping the kid off the first day of school saying gee I hope the kid does well and MCAS it's like they hope the kid gets the Harvard or MIT it's a different thing but this is just an indicator and it measures something the PPI scores I think are a much better indicator of school quality and issues than the old CPI I think it gives us a pretty clear picture in a direction and this year's direction has been moving forward Mr. Tillman I don't know if this question is appropriate or not but what I just could you speak to what the strategies are to support teachers where their MCAS scores might not have been where you wanted them to be or individual buildings or even strategies that might be being used to help various subgroups is there kind of an overall global strategy to address any areas where there's weaknesses well we'll certainly go into greater detail on that in two weeks when we present the report on MCAS results but let me just briefly say that there's been a significant increase in the support that teachers have been given this year in terms of the math coaches that we now have in the schools that we've changed what used to be teaching coaches into literacy coaches we spent a great deal of time this summer with those teachers working with those coaches and we already have been already this year working with them and the amount of data that we're allowing teachers to get access to and we hope that we will be able to continue to increase our ability to be able for teachers to get access to their student data and be able to analyze it and really react to it as quickly as possible that's something that we're hopefully bringing forward in terms of a budget need to the capital committee I think those things will be the things that will lead us forward to what Mr. Schlickman is talking about I think at our level school board level you look at level one school level two school you look at the MCAS scores you look at rankings and all that stuff and I think it's certainly important for expressing to the general public how our school district is doing and I always think about it what about those kids who got needs improvement what about those kids who are unwarning what about those kids in the subgroups and I think that's I'm glad, thank you for your comment Dr. Chesson because I think you don't want to get lost you don't want to get lost in the numbers and get lost in the celebration of a school that did really well and is top of the state you want to think about those kids that struggle and what we're doing out anecdotally we have a teacher in a school that level one did very well he said just saying just the other day to her principal saying what can we do better and I think that that sort of speaks to it all people really want to understand what they can do better and honestly unless you really take the time to go into the the data and really look at it no you don't you it's important to get it that into the level of actually what types of understandings don't our students have and so to that extent I think that what we're doing with our district term measures and what we've been doing in common assessments I think is another step forward because we're looking at common assessments a little bit differently and looking at where the progress is from one assessment to another in terms of key concepts and we've always not always but we've had for a long time common assessments but I think that little piece has been missing that this is really going to help with and making sure that you understand very clearly what are the outcomes you want in terms of student learning at the end of the year and there's a lot of wonderful things and we want to be our students we don't want to give up on important things like art and music and we don't want to do that because you don't again not be lost in the numbers and be trying to go to a test but we're trying to educate a whole child and also providing the contextual experience of lots of things that help help us grow as human beings and so it's balancing all of that in what I might add has a day that has not increased at all in terms of time and teachers that are working very hard do not have enough time to spend together doing this so within these constraints and not as an excuse trying to do the very best they can with all of that thank you Miss Hyman just looking through the preliminary data that first level it's always clear how the schools do have varying populations and I know that we spend a lot of time and energy to bring certain programs back into the town so that our students did not have to travel to other communities to get certain academic programs and because of our student population those programs aren't always in every school equally is there any sort of separation in terms of whether those programs are disproportionately affecting any of the schools level appearance so I'm not saying this well but what the what the core class experiences for the majority of our students might be a little bit different than what perhaps one of our special academic programs that we've set up for smaller populations might be and are we taking that into account how are we taking that into account as we look at the individual schools reporting well I've answered that a few ways our belief has been in practice over the last few years is trying to be much more attentive to the curriculum that's taught in a substantially several programs to have it align with the curriculum that's going on in our general education classes providing both special educators to our professional development when we buy materials we buy materials for those classes as well yes some of the materials have to be certainly modified for the population there when when appropriate we do all alternative MCAS and I know you probably do that in your school you do as well and so those have a different point of effect on your scores and yes they do but they can have an effect certainly they can have an effect on your high needs score on the other hand it's a question of progress and it's what's nicer about these PPI scores that they're not that linear which was sort of a very silly notion be honest but this is a different way of approaching it so yes it can have an effect and but does that mean that we don't have a program in a particular school no and everybody that that's in a particular school embraces having that program there and in fact would not want the program to leave so I'm not sure I entirely hit what you're trying to get at my implication wasn't that we would want these programs to be anywhere else but I know for instance that there was a program that we had in the bracket that doesn't exist in the bishop and when I look at our scores there are some categories that the bracketer the oddison have reported on that the bishop doesn't right and so and it's not that the bracket is really anything perhaps different than what the bishop is providing in that general setting so I'm wondering as a parent looks at these ratings like level one level two there might be the assumption that there is something different for in the general classroom when perhaps there isn't bit when you look at the whole building and so I'm just wondering how that gets taken into account in terms of when we do look at these ratings and how that gets communicated as well well I think you're done a very nice job of communicating that what they what some of the issues are and and it's a very delicate thing to talk about because it's both being very honest about it and at the same time not wanting to have any kind of you know offsetting of one group versus another group we see them as a school and we see them we try to to the extent possible include these students in classes and I think from the point of view and I've heard this over and over again from parents these students are our students this is our school there can be there can be an effect and but I don't think I right now without sitting down actually going through it mathematically I don't think I can answer it beyond that at this moment thank you questions Mr. did I hear you right seeing that there's going to be more complete yes report and you'll be one of our concerns in the past been the middle school math so you'll be talking about that we will we're going to get into more of it but it's all public it came out publicly last Friday it's important I think to acknowledge where we are in terms of our accountability status of our district of each school and also the highlights I think there's a lot to be proud of here does that mean that there's things we don't need to work on no I mean there's I can think of a couple areas right now where I know we need focus and I know they're already focusing on them when I say they I'm talking about our math coaches but at the same time I think that it's important for people to have a sense of pride about the progress that has been made and I think there was some notable things this year that happened that I really want to you know certainly in the press release but for example you know we have a school Hardy who was number one in ELA in fifth grade across the Commonwealth I mean that is really says a lot and and as I was saying to my email to the staff about all this when those students were in fourth grade they were in blended classes and when we had our fifth grade at Bishop they were in blended classes the year before and there's a lot of kudos to the quality of teaching and I think that that's really important message I know that what it says to me is that what we have district wide are just really high quality teaching that goes on and it doesn't really there's different challenges with different groups as you were alluding to but quality of teaching is uniform in all of our schools and I think that these results sort of bear that out quite well but you know that's quite a substantial accomplishment to have a hundred percent proficiency and because we're talking about over 900 schools in the Commonwealth so there are a lot of that and you go through the percentages and that we're in that press release there are a lot of schools was this did I give the report on every single grade every single subject no that wasn't the point of it was the highlights are we looking at all of that data absolutely and looking at issues trends that might occur that we need to take a look at and you know some things have popped out right away we need to take a look at and we will and that's what Dr. Chestins can spend more time on when we we you know give you a more complete report. I just had a couple questions for mechanics of the test the report so am I understanding correctly that they changed the number of minimum number of students to report out a subgroup according to the August 26 document that came out from the state in order to have a subgroup reported you must have 30 students in that subgroup okay because I think it was 10 before I know and I know that Mr. Hayner and I actually looked at it and he called and I actually went back and checked that and when I spoke to the State Department of Education earlier this week several times I verified that that number is in fact 30 for the for the calculation that determines the level of the school right so that's why we don't have nearly as much subgroup data that's correct and second I'm seeing things called extra credit and I'm wondering what extra credit is if you reduce the number of students that are the percentage of students that are failing or warning it's called failing at the high school level and warning at all the other levels by 10 percent you can get extra points if you reduce if you increase the number of students that score at the advanced level by 10 more than 10 percent or more you may get extra points just for clarification on that number is the 30 is going forward for subgroups because I'm looking right at the DSE website and reporting for 13 it says achievement level percentages are not calculated for groups with fewer than 10 students I understand that but I mean I'm just asking is that 30 going forward starting this year or is it unclear I all I can tell you is that of the document that's dated 8 26 2013 it says that you must have 30 students in a subgroup says if a particular student group does not meet the minimum size 20 students for all students group or 30 for substudents in a given subgroup the PPI will not be reported for that group that's what it says I'm not contending but maybe it's talking about another measure well they said Mr. Slickman I think you might have the answer go ahead if you go to the profiles under assessment they will calculate out to 10 if for the accountability purposes for PPI the thresholds 30 so they do different rules in different places okay thank you there it is no call I won't argue with him he knows the stuff thank you very much Dr. Chesson Dr. Bodie thanks for leading us through those highlights and I must say that I'm extremely proud of that designation for the Harding and some of the other men and women and that's why it was important to put it out for people to see this okay another bit of good news happened about a week or so ago the opening, the special ribbon cutting of the Thompson Elementary School it was a fantastic Sunday it was it was wonderful and so many people came it was standing room in the gym which is there gym auditorium and I think people were just being pleased and happy on so many levels people have wanted this project for a long time and it's been a dream Ms. Foley is here and she knows she lives it every day you might want to ask her a little bit about her experience at Thompson this year I'll give her a chance could you hand the mic over a little bit it's been wonderful as soon as you walk into the school it's just an incredible feeling and the students feel it, the staff feels it everyone who just walks into the building feels it and just being in there all the time it's a much quieter building than the old one that's for sure, our kids are no less noisy but there's something about the acoustics and how it's been constructed that it minimizes the noise we're all wearing the microphones that we have for the classrooms and I will admit I was resisting those at first because I have a rather powerful voice and as I said to my colleagues you really don't want to hear me amplified but actually it's wonderful because I can talk in a very normal voice and every single kid in the room their head just snaps right to attention as soon as I just talk in my regular voice it's fantastic the technology we're getting the iPads out the kids are super excited about them but they're starting to learn that they are a learning tool not a toy and that's happening in all the classrooms and it's just yeah, it's fantastic thank you to absolutely everyone who worked on that committee and to work for this dream because it really is absolutely wonderful and the ribbon cutting was fantastic the 5th grade student did a great job so it was a wonderful event and we have another wonderful event coming up and that is the dedication of the library which you all supported for Mr. Bill Shea who was those of you who worked with him and knew him it's just a wonderful person Energetic is an understatement and passionate about being of service to make Arlington a better community particularly our schools better schools we are having the dedication ceremony this coming Sunday it's from 2 to 4 and so if you didn't have an opportunity to come and visit the school the ribbon cutting the school is open during that time period and you're most welcome to come we are going to have a book signing and talk about the work these done as an author and the teachers at Thompson have volunteered to come and run different sessions in different rooms on literacy and some of them sound really fantastic and so that will be going on in the building for the children and there will be also an event in the library but preceding all of that we will have another opportunity for some presentations some thank yous some people who have known Bill for a long time are going to be speaking as well we're designing the program not to be a long program but nonetheless a very fitting program for the contributions he's made and for such a wonderful human being he was and such an example to us all that then there's going to be refreshments and an opportunity to go to these events and even tour the building so please join us on Sunday thank you I'm going to ask you to stay on the stay here you've got superintendents report coming up and some goal setting agendas for this coming year that you'd like to speak to us about let me start with that we've spent some time here at the table let me just put this context a little bit we've begun a new educator evaluation system that throughout the entire structure of a school district and in that process it it is a process in which individuals are really looking at their own practice or looking at their goals and setting goals for that year and as the year unfolds to be looking at how what progress is being made and so the process is one of trying to have it be much more reflective and not that people haven't had goals in the past teachers always do they'll start the year saying I want to do this this year or I want my children to know that better this is a little bit more formalized in terms of what we're going to be doing with goal settings so we've talked a bit about that and we're going to talk more about it this year as we go on in fact this last Tuesday teachers met to learn the technology that we're using for this but also to have some time just to work on their own goals so this is true with teachers, with administrators with central office people we're all in the process of developing goals for this year and I am as well for superintendents the process is a little bit different just because there's not just one supervisor there's a whole committee of people and then there's also some limitations as to what types of observations you can make so having said all that it's a little bit different but nonetheless it's the same so there is a goal around practice and one about student achievement and the Department of Education has also suggested looking at district goals I will say this and that Arlington has been a bit ahead of the curve in terms of the school committee and superintendent evaluation because we have been doing that for a long time looking at goals evidence of success and as Mr. Sillman I know we have a system with this we've evolved we've evolved to a new we've evolved but the idea is the same you want to set some goals you want them to be things that you want to do but sometimes it's a challenge you may not completely get there and maybe something that goes on for a while so we've been doing that so I don't see that we're markedly different but I have specific ones and with respect to practice it's actually my goal is actually very much in line with the goal that we're doing as administrators throughout the whole district as we work together to have a common language a common perceptions about what we see as really quality teaching we're working together to make sure that our understanding of what good instruction is in a classroom we would agree because I think that one of the concerns and I don't think actually in Arlington it's a huge one but nonetheless it's there as we go through this there's concern that you get the easy grade of this the graded is a little bit harder as you go through this so we're trying to work on that and we have commonalities and so we have a team goal this year and one of the things that we're doing there's a number of things that we're doing but one of them is practice rounds where we will be going when small teams around to different classrooms just to debrief about our own thinking about what we're seeing and so one of my practice goals is participating in that which I will be and I do this anyway but it will be a little bit more formalized a little bit more accountable in terms of the number that get done maybe didn't get to all three last year with a particular principal this year I will be getting to all three of those kinds of practice rounds so that's the nature of this particular goal and in the format we've already talked about this as a group there's key actions and then benchmarks that go with the achievement of that and what I've done in the format of this goal is actually relaying this to what are the standards that are expected of superintendents and the rubrics involved in that that evaluation and also what are our district goals and certainly one of our district goals around evaluation and implementing this new educator evaluation system this year and this is just one aspect of it so that's the area of practice with respect to student achievement my overall goal is that our MCAS 2014 and the aggregate will be improved and at each grade level tested when we go through the next testing cycle there are a lot of things that we have put into place and we'll talk more about them as the year goes on and actually people come in to talk about it in ways that we are going to be more leveraged, more strategic, more prepared for helping our students succeed on these assessments which are important. It does mean it's the only thing that's important in education but to say that they're not is quite accurate. So that is the achievement goal and in terms of the district goal and we have a lot of district goals, they've come down from where we were a few years ago where we may have 40 but one of the ones that's really important to all of us in moving again forward in helping teachers and helping ourselves improve is implementing these district determined measures. I mentioned that earlier and looking at, you know, we set a baseline in our own assessments and then looking at student progress for the year and so the district goal has to do with the implementation and pilot of those district determined measures. So those are the areas and there's no action as I mentioned to it really needs to be tonight. I think that it's one of those things that might be a subgroup in terms of more timeline issues or some vetting of the evidence you want to see that type of thing but that's the nature of it. So I think it's important for people listening to know that this process that we're going through with all teachers and administrators is also going, is happening with me as well. Any questions for the superintendent on this? Dr. Allison Ampe. Did we want to make a formal motion for the policy? Or to be referred to a policy some procedures meeting? Yeah. In the near future? Sure. I'll second it for the purposes of discussion. Did you make that? I wasn't. I was asking because it sort of was out there whether we needed to, I mean, do you want to just take it up or do you want a motion? We can just take it up but I'm, what are we taking up? What do you want to take up? What set of evidence you should present? Yeah, what set of evidence do we want to, what do we want to do with all the other district goals in terms of evidence as well? And, you know, sort of reporting out of when we're working with teachers and administrators they're going to be a formative time too, is looking at it. Now, in our discussion what it might make more sense and a number of you suggested Mr. Anderson that we, you know, label each different presentation or that something comes in, how it relates back to any of these and label it very clearly so you know. So we're all going to be learning as we go through this this year and we'll probably tweak it a little bit better next year. I don't know if it should go, it is a policy eventually but I would suggest to the committee for purposes of discussion make a unique group to work with Dr. Bodie to get this done and then when it's done bring it to policy rather than take policies time with all the other things that are going on. This is something that we've been trying to hammer out for the past four or five months and just a thought to take it off to the side and eventually it belongs with policy, there's no question on that. Whatever you want to do. So why don't I like that piece of opinion and I think policies does have a lot on its plate right now. I'd like to make a motion that a special sort of study group or sub committee work with the superintendent this year on the process and the evidence required for the superintendent's annual educator plan. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? All those against? Special subcommittee has been created for that purpose. I'll be happy to work. We need to create a leader on or two. We just need to create a special committee. A couple of people. Would any volunteers like to? Ms. Hyam I say, Mr. Schlickman, Ms. Starks I can't do four. Can I do? No. Ms. Hyam, Mr. Schlickman, Ms. Starks. I'll visit. Great. All right. Superintendent's report. Just a few things. I want to compliment the performing arts department at the high school and particularly the jazz band and the magical singers. They were amazing on Town Day once again. And it's particularly so that they're able to pull off a performance that they did and it's only a couple of weeks into school. So I want to congratulate all of our student musicians and their Tino Dagestino and Cheryl Christo who are their leaders. In raising money for the trip that they're going to be taking this winter is having a yard sale on Sunday and I'm doing a little bit of marketing here. So if you're coming by the school, please stop by and know that this is a benefit for the music department. I do want to, because there's been a lot in the news recently about concussion policies and implementation of concussion policies and I just want to pass on an anecdotal statement that our director of nursing Sufranke told me the other day it came up in a discussion with a trainer at a college specifically Northeastern saying that that already Arlington has a reputation of being the gold standard in terms of what we're doing around concussions. So I just think it's important for you to know that the committee has worked and the policies and procedures have worked on that policy, but it's important for you to know that it's really being implemented and implemented well and to have college trainers tell us that that's the case that's terrific. And that's what we want to see happen. Mr. Hayner wanted to mention, having mentioned the conference this year is on December 6th and any of you are welcome to go to that. We do need to sign you up so if you're interested, if you let Karen know we can do that. The other thing I want to encourage parents about we don't have 100% yet of people going in and making sure that they can get into the parent portal and we don't waste any information that's key, phone numbers, emails and so forth because we are while we could still exercise our alert now system, we want to make sure that at the time we actually are testing it that we have we have good data, good contact information. Can I just add something to that? There was a request from some parents that the testing has started rolling out for the alert now. There was a request that perhaps it could be done in the evening so people aren't panicked. They see the phone call coming in and they're panicked that something's wrong for their kid and so they felt it would be better to have, if you're rolling out a big phone call for a test to do it in the evening so that you're not, you know where your kids are you're not worried for a phone call from school. Pass it on. Good suggestion, thank you. Also there were a couple of parents of students who graduated who are no longer in the system who have wanted to know how they get off of that because they don't care if they're school anymore. So I don't know how we do that and there didn't seem to be any place on the website for them to like getting, they just didn't know who to get in touch with and so if I have them. If they double their contribution to AES, they're off. Put something on the website about how to opt out. Generally what happens when the student rolls over then it automatically, there's a matchup that goes between Alert Now and the student management system, data management system. Let me check into that. Okay, thanks. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Moving on to consent. The items listed with the dastrics are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence. Approval of warrant 14-35 dated 9, 12, 13. Total warrant amount 528,321 dollars and 97 cents. And no draft minutes. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those against. No votes. Policies and procedures. Okay, we have a first reading on the educator evaluation policies. The policies that we have are inconsistent with the contract and with state regulations or state laws so they have to be revised and Rob revised them. So the first one is the educator evaluation so it's no longer evaluation professional staff The language that Rob has laid out here, and I'm going to let him talk to this in a minute, is consistent with our collective bargaining agreement. The next GCO-R and GCO-1-R are no longer necessary and are also inconsistent with the law and the contract. And so GCO-2-R needs to become GCO-R, evaluation of teachers and administrators, and the language in there that the edits make it consistent with our contract. So basically, that's what we're doing. We're just updating the policies to make them consistent with the law and the contract. I don't know Rob, but I mean, is that about it? Okay. That's it. Are there any questions? Oh, it looks good. Okay. So it's only a first reading, so it's a chance for people to look through it if they have any questions, if they can think of anything. The second thing was we were directed by the chair at the last meeting, and we acted very promptly, Mr. Chairman. We turned this around right away. So we were asked to look at policy BDEB, school committee liaisons to individual schools. And after discussion, we came up with this idea of having the school committee chair request the PTO parent advisory councils of the district's schools, namely liaisons of the school committee. And what we thought, what we decided we would do at our last meeting was put this out for first reading tonight, ask the chairman to solicit feedback from the PTOs and the advisory councils to see if this is a good idea, and then have a second read on it in two weeks with your feedback. Sounds great. Any questions on that? That's it. Well, we have some second reads ready for, or no. No second reads. No second. And there's a bunch of other things we're working on to be seen in the minutes. There's a bunch of other policies working on. We're just not ready to present them yet. We need to do some more research. Thank you very much. You bet. Budget. We met a week and a half ago. The most of our meeting was spent talking about how we can use the new tool that Ms. Johnson has created to help us kind of better plan out further, especially considered the headline on those of you who don't get the advocate, but we were the headline, elementary enrollment spike right there. So we, along with a handful of other towns in the state, saw a significant increase, especially in the elementary schools this year. And so I had talked to Diane and she brought forth something that allows us to actually look at our budget from the point of view of also taking into account growth in the schools, especially when we have growth like that. So we can keep taking in a certain percentage of kids every year, but when we have spikes like that, it really does make a difference. And so it's really important that people understand that although we have all those kids, our budget that we were assigned and voted did not assume that level of kids coming in. So some things have to, that number of children is at least two more teachers and all the things that go along with opening a classroom and that kind of thing. So just trying to get our heads around what the impact of enrollment is and what the impact of a lot of things are on the budget and kind of being able to roll that up so that when we go to a lot of these planning meetings that we can now show where we think our budget will be in the next three to five years and kind of what that looks like. Things that we know are going to go up like energy costs and enrollment, although maybe hopefully not as big of a rise as we've seen this year. So it was very interesting. It was a very good meeting. We also started looking at and attempting to lay out the budget calendar only to realize that we had a shortage of meetings in November and December due to where the calendar falls. So we did not finish that because we didn't have the date. So one of the motions that I need to make out of that is to, I would like to move to add or change the meetings in November and December of this year to the following that we would hold two meetings in November on Thursday, November 14th and Thursday, November 21st and two meetings in December on Thursday, December 12th and Thursday, December 19th. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those against? And we are having our next meeting then on October 3rd, which we will, basically the agenda is to set that budget calendar, bring forth a draft of the budget calendar for this coming year. So hopefully we'll have that for the next meeting. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Community relations? We will be meeting in October working on the date. Great. Curriculum Instruction Assessment and Accountability. Nothing to report. Thank you. Facilities? I was hoping to report we were going to have a meeting but we had a minor problem. My goal is to have a meeting date set and probably have the meeting prior to the next meeting. If I could just add one little thing. I had a meeting with Mr. Good to start the feasibility and possibly a survey on going paperless and he indicated to me that the town is very itself the selectmen are very interested in doing this. And so he and I have another meeting and hopefully with the town manager to work together with the selectmen on a similar project. That's great. And I would just like to, going back to what we were discussing a little while ago, talk about the fact that there's going to be a meeting of the Long Range Planning Committee at Town Hall on October 24th at 8 a.m. That meeting will be to discuss the high school and where we go based on the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and their report and what we've talked about tonight. And the Stratton School will also be on the agenda for that morning, October 24th at 8 a.m. Oh, and I'm sorry, I forgot. There is a meeting of the Budget Revenue Task Force for those of you who attend those meetings at 6 p.m. on Monday, October 7th in the Selectmen's Hearing Room. So if you didn't get the invitation, that's when the next one of those is. Thank you. All right. Moving on to Secretary's Report. All right. Let's see. The correspondence we have received for the past since our last meeting was an invitation to the Bill Shae Library Memorial Dedication in the Thompson School from 2 to 4 this Sunday, September 29th. A copy of the letter from NIASC granting accreditation to AHS but warning us about our facilities. A copy of the press release regarding the APS Accountability Report. A copy of the MCAS data for the Arlington Public Schools. A copy of letter sent to parents from District Attorney regarding truancy. A copy of the Budget Subcommittee meted minutes from September 18th, 2013. Saved the date invitation to the Metco Directors Association Conference being held on Friday, December 6th, 2013 at the four points by Sheridan Norwood. An Education Client Alert from Murphy has to me and Lahane about changes to the anti-bullying law and email from Dr. Bodie highlighting MCAS results in the district. Mr. Schluck. I got individually, I don't know if we got individually as members a request from MASC to select a delegate for the annual meeting. I did not get that. Okay. Okay. And that's something we should do in the near future. As a district? As a district. We need to elect one of us to represent us at the annual meeting on Friday, November, whatever. Eighth. November 8th. Right. Did you get that, Garis? I didn't get that correspondence. Okay. Did not get that. You have a special, Paul. Yeah. Ex-president. It's closed. Yeah. I got that correspondence. Usually the practice is that the chair goes unless the chair can't go in. Okay. Okay. They need a form of election. Yeah. So, you know, it's Friday afternoon. Oh, it's the afternoon? It's an afternoon thing. And I hope that we'll have a lot of folks. I hope we have a lot of folks at the conference for the awards dinner on Thursday night because we have an outstanding member of this committee who was being honored as an all state school committee member. And I couldn't be more pleased to note that my friend and colleague, Mr. Seelman, Don't tell you to give it away. Give it away. He didn't know about it. I mean, it was going to be hell. I mean, he didn't know about it. I know. I know. Jeez. We voted this today. We voted the nomination. He wasn't here. I heard about it. He voted the minutes. Congratulations, Mr. Seelman. Thanks. I ratted Slickman out. Yeah, she told him the night of the meeting. So very, very great news. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to move into executive session if there's no other business tonight in open session. Okay. Move into executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or nonunion personnel or contract negotiations with union and or nonunion in which have held in an open meeting they have a detrimental effect. And to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if in an open meeting they have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so it declares second. All those in favor roll call hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Now in executive session exiting only for the purposes of adjournment. I should.