 My name is Judson Pierce, and I'm proud to chair the Staffel Committee one last time. Before we start our formal part of the evening, we have some special dignitaries in the house, and I'd like to recognize them. First, our state representative, Sean Garberley, is here if you might be able to join us. We have some presentations and some celebrations to do before the evening really gets started. Welcome. Yeah, both of you at the same time. That'd be great. Blackman Joe Curo. Good evening. Well, first, I just want to congratulate you, Chairman Pierce, for doing a fantastic job this year as chairing this esteemed committee. I think you've done an extremely terrific job and you're proud of the work that you've led with your fellow committee members, so congratulations on your last meeting. I know your family's here, and I know they're looking forward to having you back more, but you really have done a great job, and it's been great to have you as a partner, as well as the other members of the committee. I am here because I know Selectman Curo as well. I get to give a little parting gift to my friend Leba Hayam, and I'm sorry to do this because she's been such a fabulous voice for the kids of the Arlington Public School system, and who's really been a great partner on the Arlington School Committee, and I remember when you were first running, Leba, I know we had talked many times about what I felt the next voice on the school committee needed to bring, and you really exceeded all expectations, and you've been a tremendous voice for education throughout the town of Arlington. I know you've been a pleasure to work with, hearing from your colleagues, and it's sad to see you go. It really is, but I think six years on the committee is a long time, and I know your family is, I think three years on the committee is a long time, so I'll knock at you, Jeff, I promise. But you've been terrific. So on behalf of Senator Donnelly, myself and Representative David Rogers, we wanted to present you this citation. So be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers its sincerest congratulations to Leba Hayam in recognition of your years of dedicated service to the Arlington Public Schools and the town of Arlington. The entire membership extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for future good fortune and continued success in all endeavors, given this 27th day of March, signed by Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo and the Arlington Delegation. Congratulations, Leba. Joe, want me to give it to you? You always talk me in step, check my hands. Very nice. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for allowing me to come back. I was just noting that the place looks so much better, and I don't know if it's because of my absence. It looks so much better. And like Sean, I did want to start and just thank you, Judd, for your leadership. I've been in that spot and I know it's a tough deal, but I'm here tonight to honor who was my wingwoman from that time, who was my able vice chair. I think you all know, Leba and I, I think the first time we met was six years ago at the Martin Luther King observation, the dinner. We met there when I was first starting my run for school committee, and she was introduced to me as another candidate. And for the next few months, we would fight over street corners, who stood where or whatnot, and we would have conversations across the street when nobody else wanted to talk to us. And I'd say we came very close through that and through the many years. You know, Leba, what you obviously know, what you bring to this place is not just a commitment to kids, but also your background as a professional educator and as an experienced negotiator. And how many sessions did you and I sit in where maybe 30 sessions together, at least in one particularly difficult contract negotiation, or prolonged, I should say, where your expertise was really invaluable. We went to collaborative bargaining sessions together and all of that. So I'm very sorry to see you leaving the committee, but one thing that I love and I miss about this whole group is that our paths always seem to cross around town. And so I know that we'll see one another, you know, dance recitals and piano recitals and band concerts and everything, everything else. So I don't have any big formal presentation, unfortunately, like Sean did, but I do know that a wise man once said that with great power comes great responsibility. And I think you've really lived up to that mantra. So will you please put out your hands, please? Uh-oh. Catch. I hope that will remind you of that mantra that with great power comes great responsibility. And you've exercised your responsibility to Arlington's youth, really great. And the great thing about that is it always lands on its feet just like you. So thank you very much. I'm glad I was able to share this. Thank you. Thank you for being a friend to the schools and a friend to Arlington. Thank you both for being here tonight. I mean, Joe, I definitely want to have you back again. Yeah, I definitely want to have you back. You came up with Leba. I mean, I was sad not to join you both at that time, but it was nice to join you a little later on. I know other members of the committee have a few words they might want to say and other offerings, as they were. What I'd like to do is maybe do that for another five minutes or so, invite the superintendent, assistant superintendent, Rob and Karen, if you'd like, 10 minutes or so for recess to have some refreshments before we get started again around seven. So I also want to recognize our table tonight, Siobhan Foley from the AEA is here with us and Alex Crowley, a junior, junior class treasurer and president. All right. What are you, president? Welcome, your honor. And also in soccer and basketball. Thank you for being here, Alex. Why don't we go around maybe starting with Alex or Siobhan or if you have any words or Kiersey? We were warned. I don't know the answer because it's hard for me to come up with things off the cuff, but what I'm going to miss, I had a few things. One, oh, sorry, sorry. Okay. What I'm going to miss is how you were able to be a graceful point person during certain not so distant controversies, which I'm not even going to mention. I don't want to bring them back. How you've been able to share the knowledge that you bring from your experience, both as a teacher and administrator, a viewpoint that's been very valuable during negotiations and seeing in admiration how you've managed your multiple roles on the school committee in your job as a parent of two lovely young women. And finally, I'm going to miss having a walking partner for the Patriots Day Parade. I'll loan you the girls. Close, but not. Thank you, thank you. There are so many reasons why you were elected to the school committee and why you were a great school committee member. I mean, you understand schools. You understand teaching and learning. You understand contract negotiations. Your experience as a teacher and a principal and the union representative were all key. And, you know, I knew you for several years before you got on the committee because we crossed paths professionally when you were a district math coordinator in Maldon. And these are all reasons why you got elected to the school committee and why the voters of Ireland saw your talents. But, you know, when they renovated this room, they moved all the cabinets around and something just appeared here. And I think this has something to do with your election to the school committee. It's a binder. It's the binder. Oh, the binder. That's a relic. So this is where they've been. I do have to point out my binder only had seven tabs. The organizations. Oh, it's very hard to talk about. It's hard to talk about. Well, I remember, it's important to understand the context when Liba was elected. It was 2008. It was a very divided school committee and divided town. And what Liba brought to our discussions, starting in April of 2008 when she was elected and joined the committee, was a focus on teaching and learning and on kids. And that had a profound impact on the way we deliberated, on the way we made decisions, on the way the school committee moved forward on a number of issues and you were able to bring your expertise as an educator, your perspective as a mother, your expertise as a school administrator, your expertise and experience as a union member in Malden. And that brought a whole fresh perspective because all of a sudden we were talking about teaching and learning, which is what we should be talking about at our school committee table. And that changed the dynamic and had a profound impact. And I think that's why you were elected by the voters because I think that's what they wanted. And that's why you were re-elected by the voters. And I wish they were re-electing you now, but you chose otherwise. So I also want to publicly thank your family for supporting you during the past six years because that's an enormous commitment. And there were many nights when your husband stayed home, shuffled girls to different events, and while you were here serving the town of Arlington. So there were a couple of significant areas where you had an impact on the committee. Joe mentioned an impact on the schools. Joe mentioned negotiations, the redistricting effort, you led that whole committee. And that changed the way we organize our school districts. It's going to change it over time. And that was, you found a peaceful solution to a difficult problem. There was an awkward, uncomfortable superintendent search that you maneuvered beautifully and we got the right result. And so I just thank you for always reminding us in every discussion, every heated discussion that it was about students, it was about teaching and learning. And that's what helped the committee to get right on the right path. So we will miss you and I thank you for your service. All right, so this is probably, you're probably in the same position I am as you have a junior. You have probably had to fill out that form that you have to fill out about what a parent has to say about their kids. And so the people downstairs in guidance have you fill out this form. And you have to, the first thing they ask you is you have to come up with three adjectives, well three words that you would use to describe your child. Now how anyone boils down their child into three words is absolutely beyond me. But I found it a useful method because as always you can never, you never can get in everything you want to say about someone. And so I applied the same thing to you. I didn't fill out the whole form for you. But I decided that what I was going to try to do was come up with three adjectives. So Leba, the three adjectives I chose for you, or I would have chosen for you in this form, are the first is courageous. Not that you charge into dangerous situations, although I do not doubt that you would if need be. But more than that you have the courage of your convictions. You don't stand down when it is something you believe in and you have helped me to see many different sides of things that I never would have if you hadn't been willing to stand up and make me listen. The second adjective I chose for you is passionate. Your thoughts and feelings on things run deep and are rooted in all you know and have learned. You inspire me to find my passions. And the third adjective I chose for you is focused. And I think that that's probably what you've heard everyone say, is you have an ability to see through issues with a laser-like focus that I admire. It is easy in discussions to lose sight of the point. But I find that you often pull us back to remember what it is we need to be paying attention to and what we don't. Leba, I will so miss you sitting here with us and lending your insight and your voice. But I also know that you won't sit silently by. So please let us know what you're thinking. Watch occasionally. Check in. Tell us when we're goofing up. And I wish you the best of luck in everything that you do. We will miss you horribly, but I am so proud to have served with you on this committee. Thank you so much. Well, now that your head is this big... You're going to knock me down to the side. I have a diploma for you from all of us. From the Allington School Committee to anyone who wants to read this. Leba Hyam. Having honorably fulfilled all the requirements imposed by the citizens of Allington, both real and strange, and upon recognition of surviving members of the committee who take no responsibility or liability for future performances of this graduate, we hereby bestow master of freedom with all the right to do whatever you want on the second and fourth Thursday of the month. Or first and third if you have your way. Well, first and third. With that goes this very, very expensive trophy. Leba, some bizarre fate has always had a woman by my side during many things. You've all met my poor wife for 45 years. I don't know what this committee thought of a Joe, because he was the chair at that time, but you got stuck with me when I first came in. And I remember a lot of nights you were, shh, shh. This is rather personal. You may decide to open this and read it. I will ask you to read it at least. This is for me, for my heart. There's no money. So Joe, open it. No, you've got to open it now. You've got to open it right now. See if there was crazy glue. Open it right now. You know. Open it. She already knows. You can read it if you choose. I didn't bring the glue, but it is a repair kit with Formica for the public to know that Libra would sit there and there was a piece missing on that part of the counter. And I would always say, Libra, Libra. And all of a sudden one night she was sitting there with a big piece of it in her hand, it finally came off. Libra, I will definitely miss those nights. Bill, let's just let out my secret of how I can maintain composure. It wouldn't have worked. I just did not. Thank you, Libra, for that first year you kept me under control whether Joe knows that or not. Well, I just want to wrap up our school committee part of appreciation of Libra tonight with a sea of soon rather than a goodbye. I first met Libra in 2008. I was impressed by your energy, your knowledge, experience and education. I admired your willingness to serve the community on the school committee. And she won. She won her very first race. And I knew she would be tough to beat and she was. But how fortunate I was to steal your campaign manager, Mark, away from you. You referred to it as our bromance. And tried to follow in your footsteps. And I've worked with you on policies and procedures, on budget. I saw your amazing resiliency and foresight moving us towards redistricting. As Jeff mentioned, certainly a very controversial issue from any school board, but one that was necessary and you saw the way and approach to that. So Libra, thank you very much for your service here and your friendship. And one of the outside moments I was able to share was in Princeton, New Jersey at Mark's wedding. And I saw you dance and cut up a rug. So I thought of you as a rock star. So this is my rock star trophy. It's got a big guitar on it. I've got something else up too. A few other things. He's a prop man. Props. I love props. You're going to ride off into the sunset. So there's a little riding off into the sunset. And that's just how you have that. Yep, there you go. I love the tag on it. Just like my grandma. Really good. We got nice. Look, it fits. That's awesome. And big strings on it, just like the duck has. And matches are out for tonight. And from all of us here, Rob's bringing us in right now. Re-instituting an old tradition. We can put it up front here. Yeah, right up front. We'll make you sit in the middle for the rest of the night. Like a bed deck and chair? Like a roast. This is your very own school committee parting gift, your chair. With your name on it. It's your name, the seal of the town, your years of service. It's not like born. It's not like that. It says, Leibaheim 2008 to 2014. Take it as just a small token of our admiration and love for you and what you've done for the town. So thank you. Thank you very, very much. I know if you all had a few words to say. I would like to say a few words. Deep gratitude. Leibaheim has been a tremendous supporter, not only of me, but of the schools. We've gone through a lot of difficult moments and difficult times, but also some really great collaborative times as well. And I think that everyone has mentioned what you brought to the committee. I would echo all of it. The perspective you have coming to the committee as a mother, a teacher, administrator has been hugely important in really helping us keep focused on what is the most important thing that we do. And it's very easy to get off that view, but you have been excellent at keeping us focused. And I love your laugh. And we're going to miss that laugh. You really can laugh with your whole body, which is fabulous. But it's really been a very, it's been a very great professional relationship, been personal relationship to know you. And I certainly hope that there'll be many more times that we are able to collaborate going in the years ahead. And I also want to say thank you for being on the redistricting committee because there have been moments when you were just invaluable and being able to give really important perspectives and to be able to help me think through some of the issues as we went along. But it was very, I think it was a great committee and we got finally to a wonderful result that I think will make a huge impact in the years ahead, especially as our enrollment just keeps growing and growing. I think that we'll see the positive effects of that. But I have deep admiration for you. And I am very sad that you're going to be leaving here. It doesn't seem quite possible after all these years, but I only wish you well in all that you do. We haven't known each, I haven't worked with you as long as some of the other folks. But I can tell from the last two years that the children in the schools of Arlington have no greater friend nor ally than you. You are a great friend in terms of the love and the passion you show for our children and a great ally in the way you fight for the needs of our children. And I want to thank you for your support. I will echo that and thank you for welcoming me when I came three years ago to Arlington and my position and the role of human resources that was brought back to Arlington and it's been your experience and negotiations has been very helpful to me. So thank you very much and best of luck. I'd like to make a motion to recess in order to prepare the room for the middle school students presentation. We will return in approximately 15 minutes. Second. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Are all those against? We are recessed for 15... I really want to do that. Good evening. And we are back after a short recess. We have a very special presentation here this evening. I'm particularly delighted about being an amateur thespian myself. Guys and Dolls has got such a rich history and pretty much everyone in this room probably knows at least one song and we are delighted to have the cast of Guys and Dolls here from the Odson Middle School. I'd like to introduce Laura Kirschner who has a few words to say before you're going to present. So if you wouldn't mind coming to the mic. Good evening to Mr. Judson Pierce, chair of the school committee, all school committee members, Dr. Bodie, Dr. Chesson, Ms. Johnson, Mr. Spiegel, Ms. Fitzgerald and the Arlington High School student representative. On behalf of those involved in this production of Guys and Dolls Junior, I would like to thank you for inviting us to perform. We are a small group representing the larger casting crew of 75 children involved in this musical. Guys and Dolls Junior was performed at the Odson Middle School on March 6th and 7th by a talented group of 6th, 7th and 8th graders to an audience of more than 735. It was a great success and we're very thankful for this incredible opportunity you have made available to us. Guys and Dolls Junior is a fast-paced and comedic musical. In the scene you will see today, Ms. Adelaide is confronting her long-time beau, Nathan Detroit, following yet another postponement to their wedding due to his running of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York. We will then follow with the show's finale. Over 150 people, Arlington residents, Odson teachers, elementary staff, high school students, parent volunteers and younger siblings came together to make this musical reality. We have learned through this experience that it truly takes a village to produce a musical, and it's through this incredible process we have built a community. We thank you for your support, time, and we hope you enjoy these two selections. Thank you. Did Nicely explain to you about the night? I hope you're into all about it. Please, let us not have a vulgar scene. We are civilized people and we do not have to conduct ourselves like a slob. Sweetheart, baby, how can you make such a big fuss over one lousy allotment? It is no use, Nathan. I have succeeded in your not being able to upset me no more. I have got you completely out of my- Do that to me. I can't stand it. We love each other. We're gonna get married. We're gonna have a little white house in the country with a green fence, like the Whitney colors. Look, Nathan, we can still make everything all right. It's not even midnight yet. Five minutes to twelve. Let's elope right now. Nathan, why can't we elope right now? Well, the thing is I gotta go to a prayer meeting. Nathan, this is the biggest lie you ever told me. But I promise you, it's true. You promised me this, you promised me that, you promised me anything, I did the stuff that you gave me to kiss in your grave. I really wanted to thank all of you for coming, so much. Thank the parents here who've supported them through their artistic endeavors. I really, really want to thank Corey Gaffney, Laura Kirstner for introducing it, Jen Fernandez, and Greg Kondykes of the Audison Middle School. Just wonderful, wonderful work. Amazing actors and singers. Thank you so much for making my last meeting as chair. Start out like that. I'm serious about the cake, though. It's great. You sure you take it out in the hall for them, maybe? Yeah. Karen, let's get that room. You want to get that room? Yeah. You too. Yeah, you too. Bonus school committee members. Sean, you got to cut up. I can't. I can't. I'm going to do it. Awesome. I don't know if anybody's playing up. I'll miss music as well. We're good. You going to play? That was fun. Feel free. I'm sorry. I just wanted to help out. We all have to sign this up. That was great. I was just painting the next one on the tape. With great affection. It's what we should. You're our public servant. Thank you. I'll sit here. Our esteemed public servant. It'll work from here. It's been suggested to me that if we were to be reelected and become the new chair, somebody would like to have a musical school committee meeting. I didn't mean that we would be in a musical. Anyway. There's a new YouTube thing on happiness. You know the happiness we could try to do that one. Happy. You see that? That Detroit Arts Academy. We should try to do the dance. See what we do. Let's work it out. We've got some time. Before we get started, this is no public participation. We should do is have a cake every meeting. The public follows it out of the room. There you go. This is my last opportunity to speak some words from this seat. Maybe we could shut the door just for a little bit. They're just taking out the music. Oh, that's right. The music. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. I wanted to recognize the tragedy that occurred in our fine city of Boston last evening. Two brave men were killed in the line of duty. Boston firefighters Michael Kennedy and Lieutenant Ed Walsh. And let us remember how these brave men and women our first responders put their lives in the line for us every day. I'd like for each of us to hug our loved ones tonight and call them on the phone and say hello. Maybe we have a moment of silence for Michael Kennedy and Edward Walsh. Please. Thank you. Folks, tonight I echo what I said in my first remarks as chair on April 9th of last year. I'm proud to say that our schools are strong and are preparing our children for college education and beyond. The credit goes around to our administration, to my colleagues, to the teachers, our staff and our community. We each in some way contributed to our town's ongoing successes. We strive to educate the whole child, to educate the children. Bill, you've done so much in your three years on the committee that I've known you, including initiating the kindergarten review committee that eventually led to the elimination of the kindergarten fee. Cindy, you've done so much in your role as budget. I mean, I can't even speak enough about what you did this year in terms of getting the communication out there early enough for our town leaders and our community to know really about the pressures we were facing due to over-enrollment over the years. Thank you so much for your participation, you guys together on this one. You're our senior members. Not senior moments, but senior members. What's that? Wait, let me turn up here. I can't. Speak into the machine. Your historical memory and experience in the fields of education and policy are the heart of this very committee. We've already gotten to you. Cheers. There's more where that came from. Kiersey, you have done so much in the way of analytics and asking the right questions at the right times and saying it the right way. And staying on top of the high school and Stratton facilities, the middle school math scores, your recent hard work on the statement of interest that just went to the MSBA yesterday on our high school rebuild quest, Leba. Again, I can't thank you enough for your hard work and your resilience in sitting through all my speeches. That's why I take some exception, folks, to the article in Monday's Globe. It was written by James Vazmas. He quoted our State Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Mitchell Chester, who said, there's no question we need to accelerate our progress to go from good to great. So if I hear from, let's go from good to great one more time, I think I'm going to go quietly sit down inside the school committee room and have a cup of tea. Though Mr. Chester was rebutting the accusation that employers were asserting that Massachusetts schools were not producing students who were employable, as I understood his point, the solution was more state and educational leaders forcing regulation. That there exists a need to put their imprint on education policy to keep up with other countries. The expression, too many cooks in the kitchen comes to mind. I believe this is what we have going on in education policy today. Too many folks in Washington building their next election victory on the issue of education. Too many folks here in our commonwealth justifying their job status by saying we need to break what is not broken and to the detriment of our teachers, our students and their families. I've recently started watching the new Netflix series House of Cards. Oh, isn't that awesome? I love that. I'm only four episodes in. So far, education policy has made the centerpiece of the president's first 100 days. But in the series, at least so far, the president has no idea how to fix education, nor do the members of Congress. They all just believe that it is the issue that can get people behind, as everyone cares about children. Indeed, you see horse trading around centerpieces of ed reform, such as the period of time to conduct teacher evaluations and give backs and trade-offs in charter schools versus public schools. If this fictional depiction is even remotely true and I have no reason to believe it isn't based on some reality, it's deplorable. I've spoken with our AEA president Linda Hansen on this broad topic and we agree. Teachers care about things such as small class size, IT support, troubleshooting, clean classrooms, emotional support and social support for children, photocopy machines that work. Mr. Chester and our leaders, I ask you can we do these things well first and save the going from good to great bit for another century, please? I think what we're all achieving here is great. We see evidence of that every day in our nine schools. I wonder, do they? We as a school committee, as we enter into our annual goal-setting time in our annual reorganization, must recognize our partners too. We do not mean at all to absolve us and blame it all on our two hills, Heakin and Capital. We must remain mindful not to further increase the number of cooks in an already overcrowded kitchen and keep it as simple as possible. What choices we make, what assessments are implemented that we are holding teachers responsible for all have a consequence. The surprise is that it is often not what we wanted to have happen. That's my last speech. I'm going to miss doing that. But moving on. You can write for me. All right. We have some more meeting to go. We are on the pilot on partnership for assessment of readiness of colleges and careers. Park. And here to present on this subject is our assistant superintendent, Dr. Laura Chesson. The school district will begin as many other school districts are currently underway or will begin a pilot of park which is intended to be the replacement for the MCAS test. And I just wanted to talk a little bit very briefly tonight about the this might not work. I might have to move. Let me move down. We spent too much time getting ready for park today. Not enough time in here checking out the technology in here. I just wanted to just briefly talk about MCAS and the high school graduation competency and determination so folks know where we're coming from. Talk about an overview of park and the two year transition plan from park to MCAS and then we'll be glad to take questions. So as we're all aware the Massachusetts comprehensive assessment system was put in place and all students who are educated with public funds including students who have disabilities and disabilities with disabilities with a high school efficiency must take the MCAS and we receive reports based on individual students, schools and district performance. This slide shows you where each curriculum framework was adopted and where there was revision. You notice that in mathematics and English language arts there were major revisions in 2011 and that is when we looked at it and you'll see there will be a change probably within the next year or two in science and technology engineering as Massachusetts looks at the next generation science standards and decides how they will modify those to meet the needs of Massachusetts. Currently we're having a transition towards new more rigorous standards and this is something we've talked about many times. The common core state standards particularly in the areas of English language arts and you'll see here how we rolled out this implementation. We first introduced the standards in 2012. In 2013 the MCAS test tested those things that were in common from the two sets of standards and in 2014 we'll have the full implementation. Now we have aligned our curriculum to the common core state standards but as we see as we start talking about park it is more than just the curriculum but also the instruction that needs to match that. So the vision for park it's a next generation of assessment. Massachusetts was one of three states to focus on this and the early discussions and planning revolved around state driven initiatives partnering with other states. So one might ask given the words that we've heard tonight why don't we need a new assessment. The current assessment does test some parts of the common core state standards but really there's been a significant shift and priorities in what is included in the new common core standards and Massachusetts needs to come up with a new assessment system that would be aligned to that and MCAS would need significant changes to be fully aligned with those standards. So the focus on the standards the park will have a summative assessment will focus on either grade level or specific standards. Grade level K through 8 and core specific when we start looking at things like math algebra geometry, Algebra 2 at the high school level. It will include for the first time what's called performance based assessments and actually we will have two schools that will be piloting those performance based assessments and we'll talk in a minute about what those are and what the differences are and how we can illustrate skills and abilities where we are not currently able to do that. In English language arts the PBA or the performance based assessment will have three sections. The first section is on literary analysis where students will not only have to answer questions but will have to tell where they've profound the evidence in the text and answering their questions. Narrative writing will call for an original piece of writing that is inspired by that piece of writing and a research simulation will require students to watch video listen to audio do reading that might be of a fictional nature and then reading of a non-fictional nature all about the same subject and then take information from each of those sources and analyze it and synthesize it and respond to it. And in the math we'll be looking at real life modeling and applications so these are some things that are very different from the current assessment that we have now. So what does the field test look like in Arlington and across the state? Approximately 15% of the students in Massachusetts in grades 3 through 11 were selected randomly. They sent us a list of the students of the schools and which classes in those schools and what tests they would take and whether they would take computer based or paper and pencil tests. There are really wide windows. The first one for the performance based assessment in ELA in math and the second one for EOY or the end of year assessments also in English language arts in math. In Arlington when we look at the performance based assessments which will be happening in the next two weeks we will have them in two schools. Audison was selected to have two 7th grade English classes do a computer based assessment on this performance based assessment on April 1st, 2nd and 3rd. At Dallin two of the 5th grade classes were selected also to do the performance based assessment in ELA and they will be testing on April 7th, 8th and 9th. One of the things I'd like to call to your attention is that we will not be getting any scoring information. The scoring information we will not receive scores based on the student based on the school or based on the district. This pilot is simply to provide information to the test designers and implementers about the strengths and the weaknesses of the test, the procedures and the items on the test. We'll then also be participating in the end of year testing which will come in the May to June timeframe. This time we'll have three schools involved at the elementary level and also at the middle school we'll have two grades involved. At the bishop two 5th grade classes will take the mathematics test and it will be paper based. At the Dallin two 5th grade classes the same two 5th grade classes that we just saw for the performance based assessment will take the English language arts computer based test and at the Thompson two 4th grade classes will take mathematics again paper based. At the Audison grade 6 and 8 will participate in the end of the year test in mathematics in grade 6 and 8 both of the classes will be taking a computer based test. How did we prepare our students? Because we want our students to be able to participate in a way that will make them feel like they're contributing to this process to help make the test which will probably go across the entire district next year. It's something that's still under consideration but looks like that will be the direction that we'll go in to provide information so that they and their peers will have the best possible experience next year. Technology and curriculum leader training is currently underway classroom teacher training is also underway. Student training was held this week at Dallin they tested on the iPads and they looked at the test items they looked at how to go from page to page how do you flag an item if you want to go back to it how to use the different tools that are available in some places the words are underlined and students can actually ask for a definition of those words. They were trained on all of those things and next week on Monday Audison will also be trained and Audison will be using desktop PCs. Letters were sent home by the principals of the affected schools that are part of the performance based assessment this week and similar letters will be sent home to students when we get to the end of the year testing. This is a website that's in your packet that you could actually go out and do some of the sample questions we would have done them tonight but the internet in here for some reason doesn't seem to be working which is why we will have all hands on deck on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week almost every member of the technology staff, myself and Susan Bisson integration specialist will all be located at Audison so that we'll have all the supports that we need to have a successful pilot test next week. Are there any questions? Mr. Hanna? I heard you say that we're field testing. Are we field testing to determine if the test itself is actually covering the common core? Is that part of the field testing? Well, they will have enough data from the state of Massachusetts to be able to look at that and actually Massachusetts is not the only state that's currently field testing park. All of the park states are also field testing it so that is one of the things that they're taking a look at to make sure that there's what we call validity so the test is testing what it says it tests. What do we get out of it besides having a chance to see what the test is like a practice? Was there any other incentive provided by the state? The training that you mentioned for the students and the faculty is there a specific or a national recommended training or is it just what we fly by the seat of I apologize. I know what you're asking. We actually have a tutorial that's provided by the state or by the park consortium by Pearson. I have to say that we looked at that tutorial and found that it was not at an accessible level for grade and we had the same concerns from other school districts so based on that we've made our own training session and we're probably going to do the same thing for sixth grade is to use the module that Susan's created and the park people have heard loud and clear that the Pearson training module is not really accessible to students. My last question is the next year is the start of this it will be implemented next year? I haven't been voted on yet by the state board of education. Do you know if the state is going to provide us any monetary assistance to deal with the technology? There is currently no plan to do so. Nothing in the works at all. Thank you. Just a couple of questions to clarify we have transitioned to the Common Core and Math and ELA K-12. That's correct. And there are there have been rumblings about the Common Core a lot of discontent with it. We don't seem to have that experience in Arlington. I don't sense that. I have not heard that. We have actually and two speakers after me will actually talk about district determined measures but in your packet there is also a copy of the or there should be a copy of the presentation that they did with one of the grades on on park and the Common Core and how to get teachers ready for it. I think that our teachers are looking at particularly the areas of informational reading and writing using mathematics for modeling and looking at taking information from a variety of sources and synthesizing it and teachers are saying yes this is the things that my students need to do. As a matter of fact those are very much modeled after what's required for the AP exams. I've heard complaints but we from other states but we have not felt that here. I just wanted to get that point across. That's not been our experience. Teachers do see it as a challenge and the way that it's necessary to handle classroom instruction will be so when we say we've adopted the Common Core yes we've adopted we've aligned our curriculum but we're moving forward with how that instruction plays out in the classroom. And there is always a transition period with any new curriculum. It's never perfect when it's introduced. It can always be better. Thank you. Thank you. I don't want to get into the park because we're just starting into it and playing with it but a couple of points I want to make. Number one the department has released its testing schedule for next year and they're releasing MCAS testing dates. My assumption is that the park is a noble effort but it's not ready for prime time and I think the department doesn't see it as being ready for prime time next year. They may change that but right now they're planning for MCAS testing and telling us when to block off our calendars so that the MCAS can be I understand that that information was given out but in the training sessions that I've attended as recently as three weeks ago there was no intimation that the park would not be an option for schools to school districts to choose next year. I mean I think we have to take a look at what it looks like and the other thing is that the reason why so many classrooms have to take this as a pilot is what they're trying to do is check out for the correlation between MCAS and park to make sure the metrics are correct so that we're measuring the same thing so that all of a sudden a proficient score on MCAS doesn't turn into a needs improvement or advanced score in park so that it doesn't shift that much from where we are and if the metrics are totally wrong I think the state will take issue with it and not play with it next year. I mean it's a big trial and the technology that's been involved has been amazing. We were at the same seminar and they spent half of the seminar talking about backup servers and downloading and download caching and all sorts of stuff that is technologically advanced for a humble school system that's focused on teaching and learning to get their hands around so I think the issue of unfunded mandates surrounding the park test is problematic even though it seems on the face of it to be progressing towards a better measure than the last century technology of packing stuff in a box, shipping it off to New Hampshire and waiting until September for the result. I want to caution us that while it tests the same content as the MCAS did last year because it's based on the common core state standards the type of task that it's asking students to do are dramatically different from the MCAS so I'm not sure whether it's going to be an apples to apples comparison when we start looking at metrics after the fact. It may not be. I mean it's much more performance based so that if you aggregate out say the open response section of the MCAS it would probably relate more to that per say then to the rest of the test which makes it I think a better measure of what a child can do rather than how a child tests if done well but we're not going to know that until after the pilot cycles are through and we get a sense of how kids are responding. Dr. Cody? Well I just wanted to tell you one of the reasons why they gave the MCAS schedule out is that there still remains a possibility there may be a choice in this but the 10th grade is going to continue taking MCAS for a couple of years it's only really going to be K-8 that are going to do park and one of the things they're asking superintendents to decide this summer is whether if you if you're doing park are you going to do park in technology park in paper and it's an either or choice and that's actually one of the things that may come out they may not reveal this in their pilot but they are looking to see if they can hold some variables constant does it make a difference in terms of performance on particular questions if they do it on paper or by technology and I'm not sure we'll have that information before we have to make a decision about that but it is an issue and I would be encouraged to go up and look at this because it's really quite significant in terms of the kind of technology skills that students need to have in order to be able to just even answer the question so I thank Dr. Cheson and Susan Bisson for the training they've been giving both teachers and students because I think without that it might have been rather very difficult to have been given this test and have no experience on it you know ultimately to do it in technology you can be iterative and tailor the test to the level of the student as they go into it rather than having to ask all the questions of every student whether they're tracking towards a low score or high score so it can be a more efficient less time consuming practice for a school district to be giving an electronic test if done well and we don't know if we're going to be there The kinds of questions that they're asking the performance based assessment I'm not sure how you would do that by paper and pencil test because the students are having to watch video, they're having to listen to audio so it's really geared towards that and I think that while our students were perhaps a little apprehensive as we went began the test training we trained the elementary students and after four or five minutes they were kind of like oh yeah this looks like this app that we used this looks like this when we do this and that so we had so far we had a good response now we'll see when we get into the testing cycle but I had just a couple questions sort of about mechanics so I had understood that children would only be have to do two hours of a test but the test is April 1st, 2nd, 3rd we're doing it each day two hours each day for three days so six hours it's really an hours worth of test there's ten minutes of sign on when students come in for the online portion the test takes about an hour is what the state is but we're adding an additional hour should students feel like they need extra time because we don't want students to feel stressed by not having enough time to do the test so it's really an hours worth of testing but three times and at the end actually I just want to add that the test designers have put in surveys for students so the very last thing they'll do is to take a survey regarding their experience okay that actually kind of jumped to my other question I'll come back to that so why are these Dowan kids having to take it twice they were randomly selected to take the performance assessment in the middle of the year which is now and the end of the year assessment at the end of the year it just seems like they're ending up with an awful lot of testing this year I mean an awful lot of testing and I'm not real keen on that so getting to the other thing the survey questions sound sort of in line I was wondering what is our district going to do to to me it seems like it would be a stress relief to the kids to know that someone's asking them how did the test go and how can we make it better for you and what did you understand so the survey questions sound like one thing are we getting that information back from the test we will not be getting that information back from the test but I've already arranged with both of the schools that are doing the first test that I'm going in to meet with the students right before the test so they're having this training with Miss Bisson but I'm also going to go in to the test to remind them while we would like them to do their best because the better the information we get the better the test will be in the end but to let them know that they shouldn't be stressed about it there's not going to be a specific score they can't fail it's not like MCAS where they're going to get a warning or a proficient or advanced but by the same token I want to let them know that we'll be coming back to them at the end of the test and here in this district we would like to hear from them and I know that at least and I'm sure that Dallin's doing the same thing but I just happen to have this conversation with the folks at Audison today is that they're going to plan like a little celebration for these kids for participating in this okay I'm glad about that but so are you going to have sort of a focus group to talk about how the test went and things okay so they're definitely being surveyed for their teachers who know them well but also I'm going to be there too yeah I just think that will be very definitely debrief with them I think it also raises the bar for what in terms of how important it is that they what they have done right exactly that part of have they talked about any allowances for students that have disabilities you mentioned they're going to watch videos or hear things yeah there's the same accommodations that are available now it just so happens that the classes that we're testing there's some very standard small group setting clarification of directions just by random those were the classes that were selected but there are actually a number of accommodations that are not even possible through a non-computerized based test that will be available when this test comes into play last question I know you said we're not getting any scores or any results from this because it has Park or whoever's instituting this talked about how the scores will be reported out when MCAS started it was initially to evaluate schools that was the lowest level that was supposed to do we've seen a dramatic transition to that they haven't really been specific about what the reporting structure will be like I do know that it will all be available online because the option is there but it's grayed out and they actually have a training module that tells you about sort of about it I guess what I'm asking is when we get there in the future are the scores going to be made available to the schools or right down to the parents my understanding is it will be the same as MCAS it will go down to the student level but there hasn't been a definitive statement about that yet thank you I just have one question I'd like to direct it to Miss Bolli or Miss Hansen who are here tonight regarding your impressions from seeing for years your third grade right Miss Bolli? so this is when MCAS starts in third grade what is your view of MCAS past, present and potentially future what does it help you with your job do could you just give us a little bit of a background for someone who's not in schools every day quite frankly I don't love it I mean it's third graders in a lot of ways in my opinion it's developmentally inappropriate for third graders we do get some very good information about how the children are at reading and analyzing the text finding evidence in the text going back looking it's I find that the stress level of the children of the classes that I teach their stress level seems to be increasing every year every year I have the kids coming in to me with more knowledge of the MCAS from siblings or from hearing about it with a lot of misconceptions I just focus on the fact I give them two hours of recess for every day of testing and tell them that's all they need to really know about it's two hours guaranteed and we talk about what that means and I try to also focus on that with parents too but I don't love it the other thing I do want to just point out too that as Ampe mentioned about the amount of testing I also want to point out that ELL students this year have taken a new test that was a significant time increase in the amount of testing they've ever taken and are those children also going to be tested I'm assuming that there would be some ELL students in these classes that are also going to be taking this park assessment so I would want to point that out too that's a significant amount of testing for those children actually a very significant amount of testing quite unfair in my opinion I just wanted to share this story because it was a busy week for my son last week this week I'm sure a lot of us here have children who have been undergoing the MCAS again a friend of mine given breakfast to her girl really healthy breakfast she was eating it all up and she wanted to be alert she said she wanted to be alert because she was about to take a test and she was going to impact her teachers staying there and she wanted to give her teacher the best possible chance to stay because she loved her teacher so it sort of turns the test on its head when I hear that story it becomes a test to either retain or say no the teacher is not doing his or her job rather than assessing a student's performance that's one of my biggest concerns about the former test, the MCAS test what are your thoughts on that Dr. Cheson about about using it to determine whether a teacher stays or goes the district determined measures which the next presenters will talk about while it provides very important information to us is the least important part of the teacher evaluation system in my personal opinion I think that the conversations the teachers have with their evaluators about how to improve teaching and learning the professional conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise without this new evaluation system while it's a drain on evaluators to be in the classes it's also quite beneficial for evaluators to be in the classrooms as much as they are now they really truly get to know what's going on in their buildings and to really not only have conversations with teachers but to be able to provide teachers with the support and assistance that they need it's never our intention to ever use a teacher's results on an MCAS test in a negative fashion it's data that like any other data that we collect where we sit and we talk about it and we hopefully work together to improve teaching and learning for our students it's not a stick we don't use it for that is that good moving on to the next topic it's a good segue it is a good segue this is district determined measures this is common assessments that we're using in the district Dr. Chesson introduced the last part and you might have a part of this as well Ms. Linda Hansen is here as well and Evelyn DeRosa thank you very much for joining us tonight please thank you well tonight Linda and I would like to welcome you to the state of the literacy address unlike the president we will take questions during or after if you have them what we'd like to do tonight is to talk a little bit about what the district determined measures are for both reading and for writing this year the kind of data that we collect and what that data looks like mid-year this year which one is it thanks so for grades K through 2 this year we're piloting the DRA I've heard about the diagnostic reading assessment that we've been doing at the elementary grades for a number of years now our district determined measure this year is that one for the younger elementary school kids because we don't have something else that goes along with that that we don't have MCAS at those grade levels we're actually using a math assessment that the math department will talk about when they come for grades 4 and 5 we're doing the DRA too but we do have MCAS we have their student growth so we have that that we're going to use looking forward we're also going to offer teachers the option of maybe looking at our fall and our winter writing prompts this year we started with opinion writing and every grade level did it grades 1 through 5 did it in the fall and we'll do it in the spring kindergarteners actually did it mid-year we'll do the prompt again in the springtime we also thought we might offer teachers the option of using their Lucy Calkins writing and of unit scores as a district determined measure knowing that everyone in the same grade level has to pick the same district determined measure and that maybe having more than 2 is a good thing to see if it's not going so well in one how is it going in another one so we're going to meet with teachers and kind of get their input as to what they really want to use for district determined measures in the future knowing that they can change those from year to year to see what is working for them or what they really think shows how kids are doing and how they're doing in their classrooms as a way of actually showing parents how their children are doing and reading we used to have this parent friendly it turned out to be not so parent friendly and a little difficult for parents to follow so this year we decided to do a more linear graph so this would be one child's reading progression so across the top it's color coded so you know that kindergarten scores are in the red the first grade scores are in the green second grade is in yellow and up all the way through we also marked a mid-year point so that's where a child should be if they're on benchmark in reading so in kindergarten the mid-year benchmark would be a B2 if you look at the DRA levels that go across in the middle of first grade it would be an F10 in the middle of second grade it would be an L24 so you can actually see where they should be at the beginning of the year the middle of the year and the end of the year on the third line we actually have the dates of the DRA so we give them in June so this child actually was a C4 in June and when they came back in September they were a D6 so their September date is there this is the perfect child because in the middle of the year they're an F10 and that's on benchmark and at the end of the year there are an I16 so this one of the things that we can actually show parents is if there's some summer regression if they were a C4 say but when they came back they were a B3 so something to show them what do we have to do over the summer what aren't we doing obviously this child was fine with doing that and we want to make sure that we have every child making a half year's growth not just the kids who came in at benchmark the kids that are above benchmark not just hitting that mid-year point but going beyond that in grades in grades 4 and 5 you can see that it kind of looks static it's a level 40 text for fourth grade it's a level 50 text for fifth grade what we're looking at those grades is to see the increase in comprehension and increase in fluency so if a child comes into fourth grade and they are instructional level on a 40 coming in we want to see them go to an advanced level by the end of the year at an efficient level so that their comprehension is getting higher they're reading maybe not higher level text but they're reading different kinds of genre and more in depth on those so we looked this year and we really wanted teachers to look at not just where the scores are or grade all of my kids are meeting benchmark but to really look at what that growth looks like so looking at having at least a half year's growth let's say a grade 1 we know that we want to go from a C4 F10 in the middle I16 at the end you'll notice that we have some slashes up there so it says I16 J18 when we started looking at the common core we're looking at maybe trying to tweak the levels what we think should be benchmarks for beginning of the year and end of the year looking at what those expectations are then also looking at what the qualities are that are at those specific levels it looks to us like we really have to think about a C4 maybe being the end of the year benchmark for kindergarten that's really consistent with the Irene Fountas levels the tools of the mine levels are all a little bit higher and districts around us are beginning to look at what those benchmarks should be at the end of the year and the beginning of the year now it's obviously it's easy to see if you start at the beginning of the year benchmark at an A you make a B2, you make a B3 you can actually see that they've made a half a year and then that they've made a full year it's a little harder to see when they start like at a B3 so they were below benchmark at the beginning of the year but they made it to an E so they haven't you know what is it that's a half years growth so we actually put together a little spreadsheet for the reading teachers so that when they were looking at it in the classroom teachers they could see what that was kind of easily what was a half of years growth for our reading teachers we have reading intervention planning sheets so any child that's going to go into reading intervention the reading teachers actually really keep really close track of those kids and actually do more progress monitoring of those kids between the beginning of the year the middle of the year and the end of the year testing so with reading teachers again we wanted them to look at were these kids really making enough growth so we added a growth column and you can see that there's a couple three minuses at the beginning couple pluses with kids did make at least made more than a year's growth and then the equal where the kids made at least a half of years growth for these you also see a second grade one and it actually is one right from a second grade class and the phonics to coding inventory is actually a phonics skill that matches their foundations and it's out of a score of 50 so by the end of the year we want kids to be able to do all 50 of those little phonics skills that are being taught so at the beginning of the year you would expect kids in the fall who haven't been taught it obviously not to have a high score at the beginning of the year again we check for oral reading fluency and comprehension not just the grade levels and under our tiers we have tier 2 kids tier 2.5 kids and tier 3 and it really reflects the level that they're at in reading the level of support that they need and that we have the assessments done in the fall we redo those mid-year to see if kids need either more support or less support and we have these for every single grade level again in the spring we do the assessments again we kind of plan for what we think might be groupings for the fall so we can actually see where we need more reading support where we need less reading support where things are just going great or where there's a real big chunk of kids that aren't making a lot of progress and what are we going to do about that so we use it at the end of the year to kind of pre-plan for the following year so the mid-year data this year this is an aggregate of the whole town all of the different schools we do have it broken down by schools but for you guys we have the whole town you can actually see that kindergarten is about 22% of the kids so the mid-year benchmark which would be that B2 we have a good chunk of kids meeting or above that benchmark in kindergarten first grade 14.9 15% and again a good chunk of kids who are meeting the benchmark or above the benchmark in a grade two 15% and another really solid chunk of kids who are meeting the benchmark so mid-year is where we really re-look at kids exit kids out who are doing just fine either increase support for kids who aren't making that progress or really increase it for kids who haven't made much gain oops, go ahead any questions about that data I wanted to ask you about the previous slide okay seeing our students that were above benchmark in kindergarten and first grade are higher percentage wise and then we see that dip I realize that that still means the majority of our students are at or above grade level but I do wonder if that represents actually a year's worth of growth on the part of those students that were above benchmark and you would see that if we had every single individual student out in there you'd be able to tell if that child came in at the F-10 and went to a K you'd be able to see that and we have that on the reading intervention planning sheets and the teachers can actually look at that on their individual spreadsheets for some schools I've done that out say if I'm on with a group of teachers we have like all of the first grade kids that were where they are now and mid-year we actually assign them a plus a minus or an equal so teachers knew even if they came in and they were above benchmark we want those kids also to make a half year's growth not just make the benchmark for that grade and that's what I'm wondering whether they have made that half year growth or whether they're making less and think about to make sure that that group that's already overachieving in terms of what our expectation is that we keep them overachieving and that we don't level well in each classroom those kids are grouped by ability for guided reading groups so teachers are making sure that they're continuing to move them on so if they came in at the beginning of second grade and they were already reading in M28 teachers are moving them along they may not be moving them along to the next level text or too much higher because then the text itself isn't appropriate for those kids but they would be doing more things like more poetry more nonfiction more writing about their reading those kind of things or then I guess the other question is is there a level of fluency reading fluency that we really understand the focus becomes comprehension instead and that probably is by the time they're at the end of second grade and the M28 is the first time that kids are asked to actually write and they have to write a summary and that's the first time that the questions start to get a little more complex and so comprehension becomes more of the focus at that point and not actually the whole problem of having to decode it and sound it out so I think the question that Ms. Hyam was sort of going after and pardon me for being somewhat analytical here but it's just how I look at this is that okay let's say if you have a kid at F10 last year where's that kid landing right now so if that kid lands at L24 they've made a year's growth if the kid lands at K20 they haven't quite made a year's growth and if the kid lands at M28 they've exceeded a year's growth are you agreeing with that scenario? okay so if you're talking about a first grade or a second grade or is that? I'm saying first grade to second grade and I'll just say quite simply yes that's exactly the way we're thinking about it so the question we're having and I think the thing that is not as instructive for us is how many kids are at or above because the level is wider so it's easier to end up at G12 go back to where it was because I can talk from that it's easier for a kid to end up at G12 in first grade which is slightly above level than it is for a kid to end up at M28 so the likelihood of being above level in second grade it's harder to do that in second grade than it is in first just by definition of the metric for a second it's really not necessarily and that's why I wanted to go to this next slide because this levels out you know at first grade it's just divided up a year's growth is divided up into more discreet and I know that you understand that and then it's divided up into less discreet chunks in second grade and even less in third and so on so that's really why we came up with this because this equalizes a half year process to make the equivalence between a half year growth no matter where they started I think coming back is I don't think it's informative for us looking at how many kids are above or at because there may be you know measurement error in there as well in the way they're constructed differently in different grade levels what I think that I am more interested in I think that Ms. Hyam is probably thinking the same way is how many kids have made more than a year's growth on a year's growth and didn't quite make the year's growth so you're more interested in this sheet here all the way over to the right actually looking at if a child made less than equal to or more than a year's growth so the summary of that data is more meaningful to us than it did to tell us how many kids are above level I see what you're saying Doctor Allison so I understand how this works for students who are reading below grade level but to tag on what Ms. Hyam said about the kids who are reading at or above grade level does this mean that we're now assessing what level kids are reading at even if they're above significantly above grade level because that hadn't been my experience in the past we go up to a year above grade level so if they're reading if they're a second grader we go up to the end of third grade level so we would go up to a P38 if they're reading above that that's fine but we really try to we start a year above partly because of the type of text it is you know but a teacher wouldn't be just having the kids read you know that level they would be doing right I'm just thinking you know if you're trying to I like the idea that you're trying to have everyone get a year of growth it does in the past what I've seen it didn't seem like we were doing assessments that we could actually measure that if the kid was at a higher reading level and I'm still not positive I'm hearing that it is accessible I guess it would be because you'd go up to the next grade correct that's exactly right and actually the assessment itself the directions are to only go one year above where the child's reading so that's part of it's kind of built into the assessment but that way you actually allow for at least a year's growth through the testing system right yeah I can't explain it some other point it doesn't actually you aren't actually able to measure if you're not peaking you know if you're not actually hitting where they are you can't tell if they've risen or not we've had many conversations about this and we're happy to talk about it more yeah Mr. I see this chart here this chart here would be used for a group of students my correct are the records kept on an individual so if I'm a fourth grade teacher can I look back and see the growth or issues with the child there are a couple of ways right now we have a paper and pencil thing that goes along with the kids every year teachers at the beginning of the year get all of the reading scores for their kids from the last year just the last year they have the last year paper that's in a folder a reading folder that has everything for that child from kindergarten all the way up a beginning a middle and end a year bench is there any thought to do this electronically oh yes we don't want no we want to keep it paper and pencil always thank you we would love it to be worked out that way and we're looking towards doing that we're working on it we're working on it yeah I mean I don't mean to oversimplify it but isn't this just basically an excel spreadsheet yeah thank you Mr. Filman two questions how how are parents informed of these results how are we how do you communicate with parents well the results are on the progress reports that the children get three times a year the levels are on there whether they're on benchmark above benchmark or below benchmark we are looking at changing that progress report and then the second question is how do you use the results to inform professional development for teachers so actually we have several opportunities it's been a while since we've sat down with teachers and had to teach them how to use this it's with the reading they've been doing them for about eight years now and they're really good at that but at data and service review meetings it comes up as to what are the needs of the students you know and we also work with lead reading teachers or lead at grade levels they'll come to us with here's what you know my group of teachers thinks that they need we'll have individual teachers at buildings call us and say here's what's happening in my class and what can I do I actually meet with a couple of different grade levels at one building actually every other week looking at kids because they had a large group of kids that were struggling and to look at you know what can we do for them and how can we help them move their students along okay so I'm going to take over for the writing part of the presentation before I get started here though I just want to make a couple comments about DDMs in general because we were asked to give you an update of not just what's going on with literacy assessments but how it relates to district determined measures so what my association had on I just want to say that we've had a district determined measures joint committee teachers and administrators meeting monthly since the beginning of the year really just to learn alongside each other what's coming down for the state from the state related to district determined measures and I really do want to say that we're very much in alignment I think between the teachers and the administrators that this whole process really should be manageable it should not be adding a whole other layer of complexity to what we do and so we've really looked at what the common assessments are in the district and thought about how can we you know which one of these in addition to MCAS scores do we want to delineate as our district determined measures because every teacher needs at least two from something that they teach so we're talking about elementary teachers so there are actually some choices to be made because you have reading you have writing and you have math so you can pick some combination of those things to be kind of scored for your district determined measures as it relates to the evaluation system yeah and so then I guess I would say just finally the distinction in my mind between a common assessment and a district determined measure is some agreement between the association and the district that these are the things that we're choosing to actually be measured on as part of the new evaluation system so part of this this is kind of what's out there and then we're having ongoing conversations with teachers so that they understand that these decisions are being made and we certainly want to make sure that they have have a voice in this and I know everybody feels the same way there so writing we are using the Lucy Calkins units of study in grades one through five for our narrative opinion and informational units as part of this program we just want to show you a little bit about how it works in terms of the scoring aspect of it this is just an example of a second grade rubric this is just for opinion writing there's different rubrics for each different type of writing so in the yellow stripe down the right hand side there that's if you're meeting the expectations and so we have kind of beginning progressing meeting and exceeding the expectations and each type of writing is broken down into three parts this is just the structure part of the essay writing and there are five different components to that opinion writing overall the lead the transitions the ending and the organization so those all get scored and added up together to equal the structure component of the writing then we have topic development as another component and that has to do with elaboration and their ability to use craft then we have just language conventions which is your typical spelling and punctuation so on a piece for writing piece for the end of the opinion unit it would be scored on in all of these different areas and a student would have would have total score in each area and that's what that spreadsheet looks like in a minute this is just one really nice thing about adopting the Lucy Calkins writing system is they've crafted very thoughtfully well done rubrics that span kindergarten all the way up through eighth grade so you really can see a progression over time and increasing complexity at each level so this is just one example of opinion writing just the overall that first structure category how the writing expectations develop over time from you know just basically in first grade say the writer wrote her opinion or her likes and dislikes and said why in second grade that moves to they wrote their opinion or their likes and dislikes and gave reasons in third grade that becomes told readers their opinion and ideas on a text or a topic and help them understand the reasons in fourth grade right reading a claim about a topic or a text and tried to support their reasons and so on so another thing that we do in writing every year is we have what we call an on demand opinion writing time so that's where a child is given a prompt and just one time period to sit down and write to that prompt so I think this year it was 45 minutes opinion writing is something that's newly emphasized in the common core so it was a new it's really kind of a new thing that we're focusing on and emphasizing in our writing program so this was really you know first run at opinion writing for a lot of these kids kindergarten through second grade the prompt had to do with choosing a toy or a game you like best and write about it give reasons for why you enjoy it so much and write an ending in grades three through five we ask students to come up with a topic or issue that you care about they had 45 minutes to write an opinion or argument text in which you will state your opinion or claim and explain why you feel that way and you can draw on all these different things but they really don't have a lot of any other physical resources to draw on it's just kind of their knowledge in their head so we thought we'd give you a little treat and show you just one sample at every grade level so you can see what that looks like through the grades so in first grade this child said I'm sorry it's a fun game I like that game Evelyn did a really good job transcribing this into text second grade my favorite choice of blanket called taggies I like her because I've had her since I was a baby I throw her up in the air and try to catch her again when I do catch her I cuddle up with her and suck on her tags when I'm sad taggies is there to comfort me when I have nothing to do taggies is there to play with taggies is there to be with me when I'm scared taggies is there I love taggies so you can see how this child really was pretty convincing and all the different reasons that they love this taggies blanket third grade I think third grade should get to play dodge ball in PE my first reason is it takes a lot of skills we learn in gym class for an example hand-eye coordination reason number two the gym has lots of squishy soft balls so nobody would get hurt reason number three I take a lot of exercise like speed and dodging which would be good exercise it's also a fun game I think we should play dodge ball in third grade having looked over a lot of these essays I can tell you dodge ball is a hot topic in the elementary schools this is what you see this is a fourth grade sample also about dodge ball my issue here and I won't read the whole thing just the top part because people on camera can't see these really nice essays but you can see how the essay develops over time the reasoning the thinking the giving evidence my issue is that dodge ball is not played in elementary school and this paper is to show why dodge ball should be played in school so there's the lead my opinion is that dodge ball should be played in elementary school because it helps practice some important skills like focus hand-eye coordination so you can see the vocabulary is becoming more sophisticated and more reasons are being given in fifth grade this is an essay about school is very important because if there wasn't any school everyone would be stupid so there you go that's why we're all here right the human race would become much less intelligent and second everyone would only know play and chores and that would be a bummer so it goes on it's really a nice essay though so teachers take those essays so these essays were all written in 45 minute one-shot deals at the beginning of the year where we really haven't been working on opinion writing a lot you know I think it'll be really interesting to watch the essays develop after one or two or three years of working on opinion writing and coming up each grade so that rubric that we showed you in the beginning of the year and then we'll go back to the next slide and then we'll go to the next board so the students name would go on the left here this is the kind of data we collect this would be the structure score the development score and the convention score again this is really baseline data so we have these are the benchmarks up here and you know you there are few really great essays but you see a lot of the kids are still developing and they're really interested in getting a person to take a look at so one thing Lucy Hawkins Evelyn and I have had the great fortune to go down and hear some of their presenters at Columbia on their campus there and one thing they warned us about once you introduce opinion writing in the schools you kind of let loose the floodgates and watch out you know everyone kids have opinions about some of the units of study have kids making speeches writing petitions so doing opinion writing in all kinds of different forms but since we're here to talk about common assessments and district determined measures and how they kind of relate this is the direction that we've been going in at the elementary level it's really about trying to take what we do anyway what we find valuable and we're trying to take a closer look maybe at the data analyze it a bit more carefully do some of the things that you were asking us to do a little bit more of really looking at measuring half year progress full year progress measuring progress over time I think that whole idea is really part of district determined measures so we're trying to think about how can we use what we're already doing they're common across the whole grade in the district that's one criteria I think it's valuable because we were doing it even before the district determined measures edict came down so how can we take these things that teachers find useful call them DDMs and you know kind of find ways to look at that data that's even maybe a little bit more analytical and a little more useful so that's that's the idea and we'll take any questions about writing or anything else that we've talked about do you see an improvement on the writing aspects of MCAS as a result of this program will we we're still pretty early I would say early days of implementation was your question halfway I guess I'm looking at the the quality of writing that you gave a samples of and I remember when I first started teaching in the fourth grade it was almost like almost two years back from the fourth graders would be I'd be excited at the second grade level type of presentation from what you showed us here a lot of thinking, a lot of the process seems to bear fruit and as I left education it was starting really to show that what I thought was very mechanical my students were very expressive in their written words I think it has a lot to do with too I always say be careful what you wish for be careful what you test because that's what you get a lot that becomes a goal and an end in itself so that's what you do a lot of so I think the MCAS and the advent of the long composition in fourth, seventh and tenth grade really bumped up the amount of writing we did at the elementary level and especially those fourth graders we had them writing all the time long essays, common core I think one of the good things about it how people feel about it people are excited about really focusing on not just the narrative anymore but really focusing on three different kinds of writing it's more balanced and it meets different kids in different ways so I think that all the writing that we're doing now and the fact that everyone's going to be assessed in writing and all different kinds of writing I do think that's one good aspect about it because when you have just a narrative five paragraph essay kind of being the target you got a lot of that and now it's like well it could be anything it could be narrative, it could be opinion, it could be information you need to be ready for it all I kind of like that that's not as easily to prep for because it means we just need to go back and focus on good writing teaching and I think the Lucy Calkins program is really helping teachers just know and understand what good teaching writing is like and I think they're excited by all of the variety of things that kids are coming up with I could go on I just want to say one of the things that strikes you and if you go here their presenter speak it's almost like drinking Kool-Aid and getting on the program because I went and it was actually very transformative for me was is that the connection between writing and reading and that Lucy teaches in the program teaches writing skills or techniques but then has children explore then well now that you've used that why might an author want to use that and then connects it to the right have you read a book where the author has done that well let's talk about why you did it and why the author did it and you can see teachers being able to take kids from zero to 60 in a very short order because of the connections that they make and I'll just say I know we're way over our time already but I was in a third grade classroom today that I go into often during their writing period and just I'm observing the teacher I'm working with the kids and just trying to better understand the opinion unit and you know we're talking a lot about data and assessment but being in the classroom and really seeing how excited kids are getting about their opinion their thesis topic that they chose you know more dodgeball why some designer of of Minecraft you know should have more of a certain kind of thing that they don't have why older sisters shouldn't steal things from your room you know it's just really that's the excitement and that's the spark and that's what you know teachers don't want to lose and that's what all of us in the education business we want to make sure that that stays front and center that you know kind of that spark and that creativity yes we have to do good teaching yes we have to measure how well we're teaching and how well kids are learning but we also have to always keep in front of us that the idea about the spark and things that really you can see kids are engaged with Dr. Allison I had one question I don't understand if we're still doing Lucy Hawkins in kindergarten with the tools program and I'm just wondering how progressive is the Lucy Hawkins program if we're not still doing it that a problem what's happening with that One of the things we did look at in first grade they have an if-then curriculum book so if kids have not been doing this in kindergarten it has some additional lessons for the teachers to do at the beginning of first grade to get them into more narrative there's a lot of writing going on in a tools classroom a lot of the writing has to do with the stories there's a lot of incredible writing coming out of kindergarten and incredible vocabulary coming out of kindergarten there's a little less focus on the narrative and a little bit more maybe on the summary of the story and changing the characters but there's still a lot of writing and I think just getting kindergarteners to not be afraid to pick up that pencil and get something down on paper I think first grade teachers can do a little bit of back pedaling kind of looking at it that way thank you anyone else well thank you very very much for giving that presentation to us thank you for having us so the plan is that each of the curriculum areas will come in and present to you what they're doing for district determined measures but also what they're doing for common assessments and the kinds of things that they're starting to learn from the common assessments that you saw being able to be a little more finite about what a half years growth was what a full years growth was is really going to help especially as we really ratchet up these data meetings as we go along and the block scheduling that we have now with the elementary school makes this very very important because they're able to look at that flex block and how they can use flexible groupings and how teachers can sort of use other resources one of the things we're providing for teachers is a list of all the different resources that they might be able to use should they need interventions during that flex block the people that will be coming in will be showing us a similar structure across the grades some people are showing K-5 some people are showing middle school some people are showing so there will be a variety of measures this is the first of four it's just that the literacy is so structured in terms of points that you're reaching running through the first through five particularly in grades one and two that you're not going to see this precision in district determined measures in other content areas the way you would I mean the design is very different because there's sort of a sequential nature to what's happening so you have to think about district determined measures in other areas in terms of growth a little bit differently than you're able to do given the extent in the relative precision of testing on ELA one thing that it bears saying here is that Arlington has been in district for many years that have used common assessments to measure student growth we haven't necessarily used them in the same sense of looking at teacher impact but the effort we're making with respect to district determined measures which is a mandate from the state it's actually been a very I think will be a very positive thing it's just actually retooling some of what we do to looking at what is it telling us and after we can look at that and have that be a very important part of the kind of data meetings that we're having in all schools then we can also look at what do we need to do to be supportive of teachers and that is all a very positive thing so the district determined measures Linda Hanson talked about the committee that we've had this year we meet regularly on this one of the things that we collectively feel very strongly about is that this is something that teachers have to have a major voice in not only in terms of what the district determined measures are going to be but also how we interpret what the impact is and so that is something that we are working on I think it's something that will evolve over time it's like anything it's something a different lens of looking at how to use common assessments and I will also say we still use common assessments in addition to it's just identifying these a little bit differently it's created in mathematics more not that they still don't do unit testing you still don't do quizzes but we have more bigger slices of testing that we can look at larger units of learning that may have occurred that's good no I just think I also want to echo and I can't stress enough that we are really working as closely as possible with teachers now when you have a whole bunch of 5th grade teachers together they may have some varied views as to what should be used for district determined measures and to some cases a decision may have to be made or by majority we're not always going to get to the same place by consensus but we want teachers to feel like they at least had an opportunity to be heard I just want to commend you and presenters that have done already on the fact that we are getting a lot of bang for the buck from what we're using though so when we're looking at our DRAs and we're looking at this district determined measures and we're looking at the writing rubrics these are examples of good information about student growth and achievement and what intervention students need to achieve and we're also using that as a way to inform how we're viewing our teachers as performing for their class and the level of learning that's going on for that group and so we're not creating something artificial that adds another layer of meeting completion on the classroom we're choosing very mindfully pieces that can give us the most information about the most number of things I'm so sorry that really is thoughtful it is helping keep our students in this very assessment have the time from having even another layer of assessments that they feel that interferes with the learning of the day so thank you moving on we have superintendent's report I wanted to just give a few updates it's not as much as I've had in the last couple of weeks I think one of the things we are very pleased about is that we submitted yesterday the statement of interest to the MSBA you've had the latest version it's gone through many drafts and there's quite a few people to thank for their work on this certainly Diane Johnson and Julie Dunn and Chrissy's been helpful Amy Spears the principal of our high school assistant principal Bill McCarthy have been very helpful as we've evolved this and so I think I feel very pleased about it we've sent not only the statement of interest but also all the supporting documents electronically and then we will be sending out tomorrow the complete packet you send the hard copy as well as everything did you say sometime in the past we will know within a reasonable amount of time before the end of this school year I'm hoping that we will it's very possible they may make some decisions at their May meeting they meet once a month and I certainly think that we would know by the summer because this is an annual process and they have to make some decisions as to what group will be going forward Is there any way to know how many other requests have gone in? I mean just anecdotally you probably know of some but Belmont again I don't know as well of them resubmitted I did not ask the superintendent though I saw her the other day I did not ask her if they were going to resubmit Do some students submit and then skip a year or two and then resubmit or do they try to do it sequentially? Well generally you would probably do it sequentially just because you can use the same statement of interest after in the year in the third year you would have to change it update it. Do they give you feedback if you don't make the cut? Do they give you a reason why or do you just assume there were higher priorities ahead of you? We'll certainly follow up with them and ask them why once we have a decision yes Yes Dr. Ellis If anyone's interested Dr. Bodie had pointed out to me that on the MSBA website it's kind of hidden but you can actually find statement of interest from other schools in years past and what I found is I couldn't find any direct link to years past but if you just go up in the address window and just change the year it dumps the next set to you so you can go back and look at who's submitted but the other thing I noticed is that for the schools which are like rolling their application forward they don't always show the second year that that school's in there but sometimes they're picked for the ones that get rebuilt so it's not a total dataset but it gives you an idea of who's out there and it's very interesting reading just skimming some of them. We did read the high school ones in recent years particularly of interest of the ones that were actually invited in to a feasibility study just to see what they were expecting and I feel that we've in many respects exceeded some of these quite a bit I think we did actually a very good job in all of this and it was a team effort it's gone through many iterations even since last week we've keep working at it and at some point you just say we're done we're there. Can I take a tangent on the high school? Certainly. I don't usually and I don't think I've ever done this is read something from the Arlington list but this just really seems like an important facility issue that we think of that we haven't thought of that we really should address and this is an email from a woman named Marja who was a guest of ours at a school committee meeting about a year ago and she wrote that her first and last visit to the high school took place last year I was attending the school committee meeting and I had a young kid with a stroller and a toddler I entered through the front door and was lucky enough to bump into someone who was attending the meeting too so I followed her and made it to the room trouble started when I had to leave the meeting early with no guide to let me out I thought I remembered my way so we started walking hallways and taking elevators only to end up in different dark hallways and different levels of the building I think I stopped the elevator on every floor and tried every hallway in every floor in an effort to get us out to no avail 30 minutes or more past I did not find a single person the entire time or a sign that indicated the exit then hope we seem to be on a ground floor and there was a door we could open so I went through it and found myself inside some sort of patio surrounded by walls and close to the street by a high locked fence worse now that I was in this patio the doors would not open again to let me back in we were literally trapped at this point I considered calling the police long story short a group of teens passed by the other side of the fence and I asked them for help they ended up finding someone who helped us back in and out of the building although it took us another 15 minutes of walking to go around the mass structure to reach Mass Ave I could not understand for the life of me how anyone could find anything in such a place and that in this email she is wishing us very very much well to get a new building and I think that navigating around the building is an issue I read this and it made a lot of sense to me because when you're in the building the signage is leading you to places that are really leading you back to the front door and the secret to this building which only the initiated knows that the main level of the front entrance is the third floor not the first if you know that and you get in the elevator chances are you're probably okay but if you don't know that fact you could end up god knows where in this building and haven't taken the tour in this building it is a labyrinth so I would like to suggest that we one in the elevator put a sign in the elevator that says Mass Ave level third floor it's a good idea it's a really good idea and I wouldn't have thought of it because I've been in this building for a long time for years and then strategically placed signs to say to the front entrance to get people back to the starting point and you know to have somebody leaving our meeting and getting lost and wandering about for this amount of time you know I'm sure that there's humor written in it right now but I'm sure it was kind of frustrating for the poor woman that was trying to get out of here after visiting us and in retrospect in terms of looking at the way the building set up I think that it would do us well to invest in some signage it will get people out of the building as well as to where they want to be yes good suggestion good suggestion I just want to note that not helpful to this person at all because she had a stroller but the exits and levels in the stairways are marked which in the case of an emergency that's the way our students would be expected to leave the building does it tell you the third floor level is the way out no no the elevator doesn't the stairways really don't too the stairways do have exit markings that is required by fire and we do but some of those exits don't go where the people want to go so I just wanted to point out that there's no imminent danger for the students coming here that they will not be able to get out of the building but to that point I think it's a good one and we're going to be in this building for a while to be able to find their way it is a labyrinth and I think that is feedback that I've heard on the numerous tours that we have given in the last since December we had a tour on March 15 and we had close to 100 people come on a Saturday our afternoon ones were not as there were like 20 would come but still there's a lot of people coming and a number of people have said we should do more of these and we will I think that we certainly will do another Saturday sometime this spring and then this will be ongoing because I think people need to be able to see the building first hand and these tours take a while they take a good hour and a half and even then I took a tour of a group of people one evening and it was funny I went into a room and I see them sitting down I keep going but we didn't finish the tour it takes a while to just even walk the building so actually we're talking about goals this evening sort of mid-year sort of checkups of where we are and this was actually one of our district goals that we had and I would say that we are moving quite well on this and to actually feel very good about the statement of interest I just don't know what other districts are there and I think that in general and this is very general they take a high school one a year maybe two just depending on the amount of money that they have so we'll see across our fingers but speaking of schools that's going on we are also working on Stratton as well we have a building committee and Cindy's on that committee and I don't know if you even want to chime in here please do because we have met a couple of times and I think that we are moving much closer to a definition of what would be parity with the other elementary schools because that's the kind of clarity of what we think needs to be remodeled there or changed or what needs to happen we have found out that we can do an RFP to get an architect to help us at this point the only disadvantage of doing it the way we're doing it right now is that we're going to have to do this twice in terms of how they do bid laws on this kind of work but we would rather do that than do the whole process right now which would take us closer to the summer before we're ready to involve an architect so I think that probably by May we should have someone that's going to be able to work with the committee and taking some of the ideas to paper because that's what we need to be able to do for the capital committee and to give them an idea a very solid idea of what needs to be done and what the cost would be. How are we funding this architect? How are we funding the architect? I'm working with the town manager on that. Thank you. So that's moving forward and I think that people in town will be reassured to know that we have in this effort forward with the high school we have not forgotten the Stratton elementary and so what will be presented to the capital committee in the fall is a plan, sort of a cost and then we'll have to figure out how we're going to move forward. One part of it may be that we will do a statement of interest for major repair to the MSBA for some of the costs and we'll be looking at other ways that we can fund the rest of it. All right. I want to congratulate the school committee on their performance on Sunday, the Trivia B. There were also strong contenders for the best costume that had. That hat was It was very good. We did keep hearing quack quack. It was distracting you from your answers. But it was good. Other tables. Oh, I see. It was the point to do it. We almost had that tennis ball just up there. We almost had that. Measurement challenge. Those are very clever challenges. They're very clever and the AEA had a lot of fun. They did very well and great costumes. But it was a lot of fun. I was really impressed with some of the students. They would have these design challenges. The adults would be trying to figure out where to start. They did one and they didn't like it. They would do it again. They were just there with the whole experience very well. We had a lot of fun. We did the search for Thompson principle. Some interviews have begun. Last night I met with the staff and last night I met with parents to hear their thoughts about the search and also the qualities they're looking for for a new principle. The hope would be is that we might be able to be at a decision point and we'll be, as we've done with other searches, have opportunities for the candidate to come spend a good portion of the day here and also meet with administrators, teachers, and hopefully you'd be most welcome to attend the community part of it. I'll let you know when that happens. I think that basically covers the major issues right now. We're going to be at the Madison Middle School for their performance tonight. But as we get into the spring, as you know, we get into high levels of concerts and the high school will be doing footloose actually before we meet again. So that's next weekend. It will be on the first weekend in April. So it's the fourth and fifth. Election day. Election day. That's it. Dr. Allison? Yes. I was thinking about doing it. We did say doing it during this report. This morning both Dr. Allison Ampey and I attended the EDCO legislative forum and it was a panel of superintendents as well as Gankucha talking about what are some of the unfunded mandates that school districts are facing. Really there was a lot of information that was there and we have at your places. It's a list of the unfunded and underfunded mandates that school districts have that they need to address. This does not even cover the list of 180, I think it's about 180 checklists that the superintendents have to file in the way of reports every year to the Department of Education. But I think that what this particular document gives you a very good idea is just the level of reports and initiatives, mandates that all school districts need to comply with. And so I don't think that there was any solutions that came out of this other than there were suggestions some of our state legislators were there especially Representative Paisu who chairs the Joint Committee for the House and the Senate on education and just thinking about how we deal with some of these issues that are facing all districts and it was an informative an informative morning I don't think we have a roadmap yet in terms of all the things that we need to do except that they were certainly suggesting that we talk to our representatives making sure they understand exactly what concerns we have and I think given the breadth of these you sort of want to zero in on certain things that would be particularly helpful. Dr. Bode went over the high points of it I attended partly as kind of a dry run for our next session to get so we can be more focused when we go in on the MASC day on the hill but it was interesting hearing the discussion but the thing that I thought was the most helpful was I was able to network with the person who is a school committee member from Lexington and she and I have decided that we're going to go meet with Representative Kaufman our feeling is the pie needs to be bigger it's enough to talk about how we slice up the pie but we think the pie needs to be bigger and we feel like it's great to say talk to your representatives and get them to support but we feel our representatives are already most of the EDCO representatives are already pretty much in line with this so we're not accomplishing much by that and so we're wondering if perhaps Representative Kaufman or who knows where he'll send us but just to get an idea what can we do to help make the pie bigger given that we think a lot of the not as in favor of it is living elsewhere and so I'll see where that goes and report back Mr. Chair. I would also like to consider something else and this may be because I may show my age suggesting civil disobedience but even if we had all the money to deal with this we especially our staff do not have the time to do a lot of it and so I agree with what you're suggesting but also throw into the mix the realization and I think I chair said it very eloquently tonight take a breath and let us get what you asked for done first. It's interesting you bring that up because someone asked exactly that question including the phrase civil disobedience and there was some feeling that from the superintendent from Brookline Mr. Lupini that there is this fair amount of dragging of heels and doing things as slowly as possible along those ends that he does feel just there's too much. I think if all the school districts said no there's no way they could nail us all I'm not suggesting it but I mean at some point I cannot imagine I felt overburden when I was a teacher 15 years ago I cannot imagine the teachers today with all that we're asking them to do and the administrative reports and everything else that are coming down to support this it's just not something's got to give somewhere. Thank you. Well it does occupy a lot of our time and I think the challenge is every day to try to keep things in perspective in terms of a triage of importance then the thing about some of these is though that you have to you do have to be compliant and so there's issues of what level you do it at and so in Dr. Lupini was talking about that doing what you need to do to dot your eyes across your teeth but at the same time try to keep that sense of balance and perspective which can be challenging there's a lot there's a lot that faces us all time and as Dr. Chester has been experiencing just even this park this new mandate just the field test is just absolutely absorbed your time recently and not just yours but several people in order to be able just to get us ready in terms of the technology, the training, the PD and it is quite significant and I think that's the challenge in general about what in this world of mandates and I said at once but it is really something I do think about a lot in terms of just the priorities of how you organize your day and sometimes you get things can just get away and that's going to happen anyway because crises happen, problems happen all the time but I think trying to always sort of step back and think about what's really important that I need to keep my eye on and definitely things need to get done but what's the important part and actually that actually goes to one of my goals this year which is being out in the schools specifically was being out at least three times to be able to be in classrooms talking with the principals about what's going on in the school in terms of teaching and learning and I've been able to and I think by just setting that goal for myself it has helped prioritize some of the weeks putting these when I see a block putting no meetings in my calendar so I can get to a particular school and I think that next year I'll refine the process because I've learned a little bit more this year in terms of how to do it and there's other things I want to see besides just being in classrooms too I want to see faculty meetings and I've been to actually been to some schools several times more than I anticipate even sitting in on some SST meetings to see how they're running and I wanted to expand the repertoire of the things that I see but what I can report out is that first of all it has helped me to do that step back and what is really important and I think being out there more this year than I was last year because you can it's easy to let all this stuff and email and meetings and you know to control the day versus trying to control it in another way now it's not perfect but I also think that it has you know it's been helpful having the conversations and I think in general when I reflect about just the whole process of goal setting when you write something down and you sort of try to schedule it it really is it's a different it's different than saying oh this year I'm going to be in schools more it's just it's very different to have a set schedule and I think that from talking with even children to do this in fact I was telling a couple people we had a principals meeting after school yesterday and one of our principals came in and one of the kindergarteners was talking about wanting to report what their learning goal was this week and they write the learning goals down and then they assess at the end of the week how they've done with their learning goals and so this kind of practice of doing that kind of thinking is really I think a very positive thing so in fact we do book reads for the town departments we've had a number of books we've read together this year and one of the books talked about this idea of writing goals down that the act of writing a goal down and so being able to refer back to it is a very powerful organizational management tool and I think that the fact that the teachers do this and we're now having our students do this probably should do more of that and even the upper grades I think is helpful and so what I would say about where I am at this point I would say that I think it was a well chosen goal I think it has helped me have the ability with all of these forces that are out there to keep a little bit better focus on the importance and I'll certainly report more about that as we go on this year but I think it's been very helpful in my practice but also we're talking about goals because in my role it's also not only about the personal goals I put down but where are we in terms of the district goals and and we could talk a little bit about this actually as we've gone through this year one of the district goals had to talk we did talk about district determined measures and I think you're going to see over these next weeks what where we are in that process I think that determining what these measures are is a challenge in a lot of areas but in physical education for example or in art because we think of measures sometimes as assessments and and so I think it's been an interesting process for other people to go through too and but I would have to say that as we move forward next year we have to identify what they're going to be for every area of every discipline in the school district but I think it's going to be something that's going to evolve and I think the important part of it isn't so much the actual product that's important but it's the thinking about it in terms of what it is that you really feel it's important that in your discipline or as you as an educator you accomplish and help students accomplish so I think it's if you can step back and look at it that way rather than just here it is another one of those mandates but see what is the gold in there that I think that's helpful some of these but certainly with respect to achievement we're going to have to wait and really until next year to see what the success of it is what is the measure of whether we've aligned fully aligned the curriculum we have documents of course that indicate that but one of the external measures of that of course is how other students do because this year we're fully aligned with the common core state standards so what we've been able to do we've we've been able to provide professional development to implement the new system and improve instructional practice this we had this is something that's going to be evolving we certainly know last year we did quite a bit about professional development about the new educator evaluation system I would say that this year it's the professional developments in the practice of it and what we're learning about it and you already received one survey that we had back in the winter time about how teachers were feeling about the professional development and we'll certainly do a follow up with that at the end of the year as well I think you're planning another one in June as far as teachers who another one of our goal under staff excellence in professional development had to do with retail and we've had 30 teachers in the fall take retail and we now have another 30 teachers that are going to be taking currently taking the retail course we as administrators are also planning to take the administrators retail the summer provided that the state's ready to give us the course but we have already set the time aside for that and so if it doesn't happen this summer we'll be doing it the following year and then with respect to kindergarten teachers we can talk more about this actually we're going to talk about an update on the tools program we'll be doing that on we've scheduled for April 10th agenda but there has been multi prongs of professional development for the tools of the mind the technology plan you've heard quite a bit about that this year and that's been sort of an ongoing discussion I think at this point pretty clear that we have been moving forward and I give a lot of credit to Laura for a lot of the work that has been done with respect to maintenance deliver maintenance service delivery that is in progress there's a townwide committee that's working on developing a way to develop a multi year plan and maintenance but one thing I can say that is significantly different at this point is that by hiring a day manager a new night manager this year we have seen a big difference in the cleanliness of this building it's a challenge we've talked about how big this building is but it's also been a challenge because we've had a number of custodians who have been out on disabilities and we don't ever have a full school here so the people that are working are working very hard and doing a good job but I would say that across the district we're seeing improvement in our maintenance and I give a lot of credit to the two people we've hired they have a very high expectations and they also have checklists that they're checking to see how things are going not only with our own custodians but also the outside groups that we have hired here at the high school and also at the middle school could I just quickly ask a question are these people working for us or are they part of the custodians that are under the town well it's a complicated arrangement well we're on our payroll but they are town employees rather than school department they're supervised by the town part of DPW and even though there's that difference we work very closely together I wouldn't I'm not as that my question was has things changed with regard to that the answer is no the answer is no thank you I don't think it's, I don't know if it's going to change in that regard I had hopes which one this one right here section well this the program is developed by the special education department we I'd like to wait on that and talk a little bit more about that particular one another evening I'd like to have Kathleen Lockyer come in and she's already been in once but I think having her on the agenda this spring would be very a very good thing to hear about the the program the kind of ways we're using data just just as an update in general about special education now we've talked earlier this fall about the diversity of the Arlington public school staff and actually this might be a good point to mention the meeting that you had because Rob has been very involved in this and we hosted a meeting here just yesterday we are Arlington is a member of the MPDE the Massachusetts partnership for diversity in education which is currently about 18 school districts that have that this has been a long standing organization who have a common goal of increasing diversity among educators in Massachusetts and we usually meet in actually in Randolph which is one of the member communities but this month we were asked to host it here in Arlington we actually met in this room just yesterday morning and so I mean this includes members from Randolph and Sharon and over Summerville goes far west as Pittsfield and someone from Pittsfield was on the phone actually just listening in and several other communities and Steve Pereira the former MECO director was very involved in this organization has been very involved in this organization and is still the president of the organization so he was here yesterday and Regina Keynes who is a member of the diversity advisory committee is the professional consultant to this organization and so is Arlington resident so she asked that we hosted here and it was our pleasure to do so. This is the organization that is hosting the diversity job fair and we are hosting it again here this year we plan to have as we have in the past a coffee inviting prospective candidates the principals and department chairs where there are openings and the diversity committee diversity advisory committee are fabulous they do a lot of work and they'll call people up to remind them to come to this and I know a number of you have attended which has been terrific it's going to be May 14th this year. The job fair is Wednesday April 30th in the afternoon after school between three and six and we will invite there will be some advertisements by the organization on some local radio and the Boston Globe or Boston.com there will be some different advertisements to advertise the job fair. The coffee is May 14th The coffee is May 14th. So what are the results of all these efforts because we certainly been working at it it hasn't been as positive as we would have liked we gave you that report back in the fall but we also know that these other communities are saying the same issue they have the same issue and also that Boston this year is going to be hiring their intent on hiring a thousand teachers and we're concerned that we're going to be in competition with that hiring effort. Right I think Boston is focusing a lot of their recruiting efforts on increasing their diversity I think they are under a court order to do so that's my understanding that's still in effect and so they really are being very aggressive in advertising and recruiting we're doing we're recruiting we're attending job fairs we are trying to get good candidates in when we have openings and really different tools that we have through school spring and other sources to identify candidates of color who are qualified for positions and bring them in to interview so we're trying to do a lot. So next fall you'll know what the fruits of our labor will be the other there were four action plans under the operations communications and stakeholder engagement goal and the third one was the strat in which we talked about and then also the fourth one was the projection model for long range multi-year planning and that you saw back in the fall that Diane Johnson had created so we're moving ahead pretty well with these goals and we'll have some more follow-ups and maybe a summary in June. Any questions on the mid-year school committee members? Great. Moving on. Goals part of our agreement with the AEA is that we will have our district goals for next year ready in May and June and also school improvement goals. We've already begun the discussion with administrators and this is something that we need to spend some time on so I'm thinking that we might want to schedule a retreat in May. At some point. Kathy and I have already talked about it. We have to get a date. Again waiting for the fifth but once that's gone you might even want to start it ahead of time. It's set out a doodle for availability for Saturday. After the election we can wait until after the election. Whatever. What is the deadline May? Well in our last game it was May 15th and that's what we need to do. And that doesn't but on the other hand how do schools do their improvement plans? So I think there's some simplicity that needs to occur in this. Really it's a we're talking about it more philosophically which we can spend some time on at the retreat in terms like you know these are like very specific kinds of things that we need to do and they don't really relate as much to what we need to do the Stratton plan or SOIs that's not really the direction they're looking for. What they want to know is as a district you know what are the things that we really want to be emphasizing around teaching and learning because that's what they want to know should I be spending more time working on math? Or are we going to really have a literacy focus or writing focus next year and that's I think is really what the intent of in terms of emphasis next year and so that's what we need to be talking about. It doesn't mean we can't have other things but that's not as important to have ready by June really. So I understand that the dates were set by contract and stuff and I understand rolling it back and the problems with everyone having to rely on pieces but I feel like some of our best goals have been informed by student achievement results and we're going to have to just we don't have some I'm just, is there anything that we have to work with or are we just looking at last year's MCAS and feeling where the wind is going? Just a suggestion that part of I think that's an important thing to bring to the table but I would suggest that possibly the Assistant Superintendent offer some of these things that we might consider we're not going to be able to wait for MCAS scores in the fall before we can do it you understand that but possibly offer us some suggestions and if we grab that that's my question is is there anything that we can get? We will. Because in other words if to try to grasp your point if we're relying on previous years MCAS scores in the district goal setting in the current year it seems like it's outdated. You saw some data even tonight that you could consider the benchmark data for DRA that's just one little piece of data but there's other data from writing that we could bring those things forward to you. The dialogue when we initially started talking about doing the district determined measures and stuff what I heard from Miss Hansen was that they didn't want that to be used for goal setting and stuff so this was that's what I heard. That's what you heard. Now that was may have been just her opinion I don't know but I'm just saying I like data when I'm making decisions and setting goals and I just don't see any data out here to look at and I can come up with stuff I mean ideas of maybe that's something that we can bring to the retreat as some actual discussion points. We can talk about that but I think we need it beforehand so I think what you're saying which I endorse is that as you start to formulate the goal because you're thinking about the goals now so you're doing this you've got to come to the retreat probably with a draft presumably and so I think Kirstie makes a good point that data needs to drive the setting of the goals and even if it's Dave, it's last year's data but it helps drive the setting. We need to have it ahead of time. The data that was used to inform the budget decisions for next year is already somewhat aligned with the goals and so just it seems like having that data on hand where it already exists and it's already our budgeting decisions for next year should be the starting point but it's not going to be my headache it's going to be your headache. Thanks. You can still go to the retreat. We'll give you one of those roll-ups. Alright, thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda, all items listed with an asterisk 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 community so requests which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence. Approval of warrant number 14134 made March 13th, 2014 in the amount of 307,206 dollars and 73 cents. Approval of draft minutes special school committee meeting on February 14th, 2014. Regular school committee meeting on February 27th, 2014. Special school committee meeting on March 6th, 2014. And approval of the Arlington High School U Penn model congress trip that they just started on today. As a matter of fact, March 2014. I ask that we pull special school committee meeting February 14th. Two of us can't vote on that. Anyone else? Okay. All those in favor say aye. All those against? Okay. Now, move approval of the minutes to the special school committee meeting on February 14th, 2014. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those against? Abstain. Abstention. Okay. Five, zero, two. Great. Subcommittee liaison reports, policy procedures. Mr. Thielman. Okay. You have in your packets document which summarizes all the changes. I'll go through them briefly. As the best of my memory. What we, the subcommittee talked about with attorney Bryant and Kierce and Paul can add in. So the first three policies essentially we have one policy in the district in the policy right now AC slash ACA and Rebecca Bryant the attorney from Stoneman channel Miller said that the best practice is to have three separate policies. A non-discrimination statement with updated language that is consistent with requirements of the office of civil rights of the U.S. Department of Education. A separate policy on harassment and then procedures for addressing complaints. So that's why AC slash ACA is broken out into three policies AC, ACA and ACA slash, I mean ACA dash R. That's the first one. Quick question on view. Is there a reason to put the phone numbers in the addresses? Yes. She said that that's what the office of civil rights wants. You're supposed to publish, you're supposed to make it known to the public and what the addresses are. And then she asked, which I think is in there, she asked that we put a statement in their updated contact information above last update in March of 2014. We're going to want some sort of calendar information. What she said is it can just be administrative change. We don't need to do it. But it is a matter of course the school system is going to update it, check it and update it. Do we have that currently going on in our policies where we have like numbers and addresses right now? I think it's the only time I've ever seen a phone number addresses in a policy but she said this is the best practice. We have to check every year. They don't move that office. These federal and state offices don't really pick up a move. I think they sometimes give a nice little thing that you can put on bulletin boards. Some of the agencies that I've seen do pretty like every five years. Well, there you go. Well, okay. So that's the first three. The next one is policy KAA. And so the first thing that this does is it codifies the current practice of having correspondence sent to the administrative secretary and then forwarded the chair and all school committee members. It adds a requirement which Rebecca pointed out is done in a lot of school districts in the state that the administrative secretary attach a list of correspondence to the agenda. It codifies the current practice to the agenda. We don't often have it all by the time of the agenda. Well, we don't have to roll it over to the next agenda. We attach it to the minutes. I think it should be attached to the minutes, not the agenda. Well, no, it's attached to the agenda to serve notice for people who want to look to see what the correspondence is. We don't necessarily know by the time the agenda goes out. We often get correspondence between the time the agenda goes out and the minutes. We attach it to our minutes. I would change it to read the minutes. This may change because if we do go electronically, when Cameron presses the button, everyone will get it electronically at the same time. So I think what we would do should be attached to the minutes. I think what you would do is just what a lot of school committees do is they just say it's from the next date to next date. So let's say from, I don't know, the Tuesday before the last meeting to the Tuesday before this meeting. So it's just over a two week period this is the correspondence received. So I don't think it's that complicated. Our thinking on this is that by attaching it to the agenda, that would eliminate the need to read all of it down. So I think you just said I don't care if you read it or not. I still think it should be attached to the minutes and not the agenda. But I just suggest that at the end of the meeting, even if it requires a quick vote, it has to go on the minutes as well because it's part of the meeting. I agree with you, but by putting it I think it should be on both. There's nothing in the policy prohibiting it from being on both. It seems to me that the same way we don't know who's going to arrive for public participation and while we do take that and we add it to our minutes we have no way of knowing what correspondence we're going to receive. And so what you're talking about is whether it becomes some sort of for notification for a meeting or whether it just becomes an open document as to what everybody has been privy to and so in essence if we attach it to the minutes it almost seems like we're inviting these as topics for discussion or public input at the public participation piece of our meeting as opposed to just information that the committee members receive. So if I were here when this was going to be voted I would go for a historic recommendation of adding. I mean unless we're going to take it up like the board of select men has their list of I've noticed at the bottom of their agendas but it's usually that stuff that they're going to talk about. When we sit here in the meeting and listen to the recitation of all the correspondence that has come the way of the committee I mean that list exists at that point in time so if that list exists at that point of time and we've gotten all the correspondence in the packet as we assemble the packet as that correspondence goes into the packet we list the correspondence that was received and included so that it is published at the time of the final agenda on the day of the meeting or at the time the packet goes out and if we send additional correspondence out that it's updated electronically the point is that we're sitting here reading a list of correspondence and some of it is old I mean we read invitations to events that happened a week or two before the school committee meeting and some of it is just perfunctory but we're reading this entire list rather than sit here and listen to the entire list all we're saying is take that list just attach it to the agenda and if we wanted to attach to the minutes fine that's not a problem why is reading it tied to where it's attached to well what we're trying to do is not sit here and read it for five minutes yes but you don't have to read it you can not read it well no the thing is that I don't understand what that has to do with attaching it to the meeting this is our way of acknowledging where it is in the document for the meeting so okay so I don't think this is a substantial change it's what this really is when the agenda goes out two days before the meeting you would put on an attachment that says all correspondence received from X date to X date and you would have a summary of it and so the purpose of this Rebecca's theory it's more transparent so the public knows that the correspondence received over the past two weeks was received by the school committee it's attached to the agenda in a document anybody the 50 or 60 people that you send the agenda out to including the media see all the people that have corresponded with the school committee in a document and the public knows about it it's from a date certain to a date certain it would be for the next meeting so it's just I think for her perspective it's modernizing our committee and it's a transparency well I mean people and that's it correspondence received I didn't get it I didn't get it so alright so that's the modernization of that practice okay so I JJ it adds a reference to electronic instructional materials it deletes the establishment review committee by the principal because that's not our current practice and textbook selection is by the district it's centralized and the consideration section is updated to include more current non-discrimination language and then IJK just refers to policy I JJ IJL the school committee adds subsequent review by the superintendent and the budgetary parameters of the school committee so we don't we don't necessarily approve the curriculum we approve a budget that that allows the curriculum to be delivered she adds a catch-all phrase library media staff specialists are urged to consult reputable unbiased professional prepared selection aids and there she adds a statement in there about the receipt of library books as gifts and she clarifies that the policy is rooted in the United States Constitution so that's IJL which is the policy on library media materials and then IJM just changes the policy to be selection and adoption of materials offered by special interest groups and it clarifies current practice which is faculty or staff members may use such materials only with the approval of the principal or department head those are all the changes I would just love to get back to the redlining I don't like the one package the new one package the old it's just much easier for me to see the changes on one I know I have to we gotta differentiate instruction with attorneys sometimes to attorneys well I mean it's yeah I mean I think you're right I actually prefer that myself but we can do that I think the next committee that sits I think that when they sit down by the way I do want to you know I have to say Rebecca's been terrific to work with and it's been actually the best who's done in terms of reviewing policies because you have a professional in the room who says a global view of lots of districts and she's gives a lot of good advice I think you're right Judd it's much easier to get a redline version I prefer it to anyone we'll have to probably make a list two of the ones that you're going to be eliminated so that they'll have to be voted to at the same time well that's what we're doing we're it's a sub subbing but I think there's something we're totally eliminated to we've done that you did that the last last time it was just eliminate several so anyway thank you very much good job well you guys have a next meeting set up no there's no re-arching for us we've had nine times this year we're done I personally I've been fortunate enough to have that committee allow me to attend and I commend them for all the work they've done you've done a phenomenal job and with all my issues with lawyers and not money we spent I think that's the best bucks we've spent so far she was excellent the firm's been excellent at helping us with the policies excellent alright great for second read on April 10 budget alright I didn't know if anyone else saw this it was in the globe on March 20th Newton is also having a soaring budget due to increased students so I'm always looking for other districts that are looking already at 61 new elementary students it was just interesting they had I felt like they actually had fewer students but somehow they got more money but anyway I just thought it was interesting I wanted to say that put a plug in for there's a last blast fundraiser at the Monotomy Tavern on Monday from 7 to 9 so for those of you who will eventually have high schoolers it's from 7 to 9 and it's just so they can raise money to help pay for the last blast which is an awesome party all night party that all the kids get to go to they don't have another budget meeting planned because I wasn't sure who was going to be budget chair so we haven't done anything but once we know that for sure we will we will move on and I wanted to take this opportunity Judson while I was thinking of my three adjectives my friend Leba I also thought of three for you knowing that this is your last meeting as chair fortunately at least you will be joining back here in the ranks of the chair there but I wanted to I chose three adjectives for you as well and here they are my first is loyal you are one of the most loyal people I know not only to our committee but to friends family and of course your Boston teams you are behind those you believe in 100% and we all know that we can always count on you the second adjective I chose for you is contemplative while you always have an opinion and have no fear of taking a stand you are also willing to listen to all sides and consider all of the information that we have before us before you come to a final decision and I think that's been really great as chair I think that's a really wonderful quality and the third one I have for you is calm no matter what happens I have never seen you fly off the handle I've never even seen you get remotely flustered and I know that that may be different things may be going on inside but you have the ability to project calm and I believe that this is an amazing asset in a chair and I really want to thank you for having that ability I feel like you have brought that to us and kind of helped drive us in those directions I would just want to thank you for everything you've done this past year I feel like you've really given us leadership has been really wonderful it's been awesome to sit here and been an honor to serve under you as chair and I look forward to continuing to work with you on the committee you're welcome and I have nothing else as far as budget goes not as eloquent as my compatriot here but I have tested those calmness several times privately I almost got to see the fluster but he had the control and I admired he's calmed me several times thank you I didn't get a chance to say that but I want to say thank you very much great job as chair well organized even handed I always felt that it was fair and got all information not to everybody in the committee in an equal way so great job in two weeks we'll get back at you very good we resolved issues between the chair and the vice chair it's a fun relationship it's really they finally organized their ties did we? we didn't even call each other your C&I always tried to match colors last week your dress is never looked the same three years three years we were doing it and then it kind of fell out of sync a little bit but actually none of it was ever actually coordinated kind of a weird it must be a yellow wow I wanted to thank Chad also I really appreciated your chairing I appreciate being on this end I like being down here but I also just want to point out I think you've had some of the most entertaining meetings for example with the Odyssey I really like that and think it brings a lot and it's fun too thank you very much alright moving on then community relations it's time to say it one more time since I have nothing to report I did want to take a moment of privilege to thank you Chad for this year it has been a really really nice way to leave this committee and it's made the decision very easier because all of the collaboration and collegiality that have been demonstrated this last year show me what a functional body this is and how despite differences of perspective of your opinion everybody is rowing together working towards that achievement goal and it's really been a privilege to be here so thank you curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability nothing to report facilities nothing to report just have a few things we have a very special presentation Saturday, March 29 this coming Saturday at 7.30 at the town hall representative Sean Garverly was very instrumental in getting the 2013 Red Sox World Series trophy the town hall how did they do that I heard people talking about it in the stop and shop they were all like oh yeah first I thought they were talking about some famous person we got to go down and get our pictures taken what are they talking about and then I heard about it seeing it up close having seen it and touched it it's really cool I can sort of get in there Thursday, April 3 a week from 7.30 to 9 there's going to be an event at Temple of Moona in Lexington it's my synagogue it's a remembering new town presentation with some members of the new town clergy and people who are there it's going to be a really I think interesting evening I'm going to plan to be there I was reading from the American School Board Journal just this week and there was one of the trends that popped out at me that there had been 44 school shootings since new town school shootings occurred every 10 days since the December 2012 shooting massacre there something that we need to keep our eye on on the issue of other towns and other Temple of Moona in Lexington Bedford has had some recent problems over the last few weeks and I just want to make a statement hopefully make a statement for the committee that we stand with Bedford in its fight against intolerance and obviously hatefield graffiti and statements in the schools and I know the superintendent there has spoken on this a few times and has had public town halls on it and something we should be aware of in Arlington we are lucky to have the Arlington Human Rights Commission here and they do a lot of good work for us when things like that happen and there is a rapid response part of that committee too that's been formed in terms of should that ever happen is how do you mobilize everybody in town that would have ability to respond and it's been a pleasure serving as chair this year it's been a real honor and privilege to speak with Dr. Bode regularly and speak with all of you every other Thursday night and see what kind of work that we can do to maximize the goal which is education learning I would share that too I had a wonderful year working with you very open minded very easy to discuss and we had some tough things to talk about at times and very very responsive and also measured and calm and I've appreciated it and I'm going to miss those introductions you do they're very well thought out of you I had to follow come on it was a pleasure Mr. Chairman just to pile on one of the most important things about being a chair is leading the committee to the decision it wants to make and that's more of a facilitator's role you're representing us you're sharing with us you're giving us the information and standing back and letting us deliberate you had a firm but gentle hand on the gavel making sure the meeting progressed making sure we stayed on topic and got to the decisions and standing back from your own point of view which I think is the sign of an excellent chair you've done a great job for us over the past year and I'm very appreciative of your work would you like to speak and in light of what has just been said and gone on I want to apologize for feeling a need to seek this moment of personal privilege on Tuesday March 25th a political card not from any school committee candidate was published to the people of Ireland that had a statement that was not true I Bill Hayner initiated the kindergarten advisory committee and that the procedure that eliminated this fee was brought to the committee's attention by Ruth Ellen Jacob we're going to talk about last one which is reading the correspondence sorry I won't miss it correspondence for the school committee March 27th, 2014 we have received the following correspondence commissioners weekly update dated March 14th, 2014 as well as one dated March 21st, 2014 email from Corey Gaffney on personal development days for Arlington teachers notice of remembering Newton an evening of reflection repair on Thursday, April 3rd, from 7.30 to 9 at Temple Amenua in Lexington a Boston Globe article entitled the poor neglected gifted child forwarded by way of chair Mr. Pierce press release from Dr. Bodie on the hiring of a new special education director in Arlington yay articles from Washington Post about kindergarten teacher in Cambridge as well as the Finnish high school graduation test which I found fascinating at the AP conference saved the date from chair Pierce information on the model congress trip copy of letter to Karen to Sony about energy efficiency incentive check which I had no idea what that means in the amount of $90,981 information from Dr. Bodie about the day at the Cambridge Innovation Center on April 11th copy of the letter attachments and SOI on rebuilding Arlington document on the unfunded and underfunded state and federal mandates and guidelines for lobbying in preparation for the MASC day on the hill MASC invitation to a discussion on park implementation a district perspective and invitation to the Gilbert and Sullivan Club production of Footloose next weekend and a forum to order tickets that's it. Just a quick question Dr. Bodie those of us that are interested in going to that event on the 11th do we talk to you or talk to Karen about it? Well it doesn't really matter one of those. I already got your email. Thank you. Moving on to executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and nonunion personnel or contract negotiations with union and nonunion in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect to discuss strategy with respect to collective action 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 declares the Arlington administrators association triple a contract I have a motion on that. So moved. Second. Are we exiting only for the purposes of adjournment? Or do we need a vote? I think you want to vote on this. So exiting to come back out into regular session to vote on contract. Well then we should be quick. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I said it over. Second. In the regular session I have a motion Ms. Heim. I would like to move to authorize the chair to sign on behalf of me to sign the contract with the triple a. Second. Discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those against? Abstentions. 7-0. I would like to move the meeting. Yes. Motion to adjourn. Second. Permanently. All those in favor of adjournment. Aye. This committee. And the meeting is dissolved. Thank you.