 Well, guess what? We're back home again. It's good to be home. It was fun playing on the municipal side of the street, but I think that we've got nicer quarters, though their cushy chairs are kind of nice over there. It's not worth sitting through hearings on dogs and to some people. For some people, cushy chairs. There are only five good chairs, and two people sat on hard little wooden chairs, and when Judd was absent, it was an advantage that he... We had only one member of the committee on painful wooden chairs, but it's good to be back home. That's good to be back home. It's incredibly hard to run the meeting over there, because there's just so much going on, and half of what was going... You know, you're paying attention to the superintendent who's way over there, and you've got members of the committee behind you, and you're constantly doing this maneuver. It's good to be home. We have to behave ourselves now. Well, yeah. I mean, people aren't going to confuse us with a selectman. What is a selectman doing on that? Okay. The first thing we're going to do is introduce the artwork, which is a pleasure that we have not had, because we haven't been in the room with the artwork, and our kids do such great stuff. So we're going to start off with the insect unit from preschool one over the course of a few weeks. The preschool students learned about insects through the reading of Eric Carl books. The favorite books from the unit were The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Lonely Firefly. In this display, we also incorporated ladybugs and a flower garden. Different art mediums were used in the making of this display, such as watercolor paints, sequins, and tissue paper. Then, preschool four Miss Amy's class did something fishy, which I think is over here. During our ocean theme, the children were fascinated with the different kinds of fish and treasures found in the ocean. We made our own aquariums by painting the frame made out of a paper plate, gluing foam shapes for the fish and finishing it off with a plastic bag filled with sand and shells. Come discover our adorable creations. Then, over in the back, preschool three did an insects unit. During this unit, we read many books about insects played with pretend bugs, hiding in the grass in the sensory table and had ants in our flubber. No uncles. As the children explored pretend insects, we had live caterpillars doing their work in our butterfly house. We left the encased caterpillars on Friday, and when we returned for Memorial Day weekend, we had butterflies. You can tell how long it's been since we've been here. To represent the metamorphosis, the children created their own caterpillars and butterflies. Releasing the butterflies into the nearby trees was exciting. We spotted one on the playground a few days later. And then over here to the right with the yellow background, ten little rubber ducks. The children enjoyed reading the book Ten Little Rubber Ducks, written by Eric Carl. Each child created their own duck and the wonderful sea animals the ducks encountered during their journey through the book. We used a variety of different materials to create their own delightful ocean scene. That's preschool two. It's good to be back. The elevator is working. We can now meet here. It was a long, long ride. And I think on behalf of the entire committee, we need to recognize the custodians, the tech people, and everybody who works in this building, who needs to haul stuff up and down. We understand just how difficult it is to move things from level one to level six and back again. So thank you so very much. We're so appreciative of this. Maybe we can get you a new school. We now go on to public participation and a reminder that we do not comment back at public participation. We listen to you. We have a lot three minutes for each speaker. And Sir Bon Foley is first. Liz Higgins will be next. So I think you've seen the list. Ms. Foley. We'll just keep sliding this down. You guys can come up. Okay. So, Siobhan Foley. I teach third grade at Thompson. And I'm also the vice president of the union. And I am here along with some of my colleagues to introduce the teacher's budget priorities for the coming year. Given the shortened time frame, we did not have enough time to take a look at the administration's priorities and really review those closely in accordance with our own. And so we are presenting to you what we were able to come up with in our 10 minute meetings that were held at each building. A copy will be given to Karen Fitzgerald. So tonight we have Liz Higgins who's going to discuss the elementary priorities. Christine Braefield is here to discuss the specific priorities around physical education. Juliana Keys is going to speak for the middle school and Valerie Sarason will speak about the high school budget priorities. So I'm going to let Liz begin. Okay, Liz Higgins, you now have your three minutes. All right. So we have a list of five categories and then number six being miscellaneous. The priorities that we have at the elementary level would be additional teachers and the priority to keep class sizes as low as possible. More TA support is category number two. More technology support category number three. Academic and social emotional support. Curriculum materials and more curriculum support. And again, miscellaneous. And to add some details to, the TA support would be grade level TAs to stay in the classrooms and not to be pulled as substitutes. NTAs for larger class sizes not being used to service IEPs. More technology support would be, you know, having staff members come in, experts coming in to help the kids with technology. Also having additional hardware and iPads for each of the elementary schools. More math support, more comprehension support, more literacy coaches. There's a theme. More bodies to help get the job done. The elementary teachers are feeling that it's necessary for every teacher to have their own FOS science kit in order to implement the new curriculum. And across the curriculum, additional books and more outside experts coming in to provide professional development. And some of the things in the miscellaneous would be a key card entrance at all the elementary schools. Sinks in the cafeterias of all the elementary schools. Modular classrooms specifically for Stratton for music class during renovations. And creative seating options. So more furniture to support collaboration in the classrooms at the elementary level. Okay, thank you. Miss Braefield. Good evening. My name is Christine Braefield and I'm a physical education teacher at Thompson Elementary School. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight on behalf of my elementary PE colleagues. I'm here this evening to address the issue of double gym classes. While there has been the need for a few double gym classes in the past one or two schools, the combination of the weekly early release time on Tuesday and the enrollment growth have led to a substantial increase in the need to double up and have two gym classes each with their own teacher running simultaneously in the gym. There are currently 33 doubled up gym sessions at the elementary level with Pierce having the least at one and Bracket and Dallin having the most at seven apiece. While there are good weather days when one class can be outside and the other inside, there are many days of the year when both classes need to share the gym space. The PE teachers have been doing their best to be creative, but having 45 to 59 bodies in one space presents many challenges. Double classes are not ideal for teaching and learning. It has been difficult for us to follow our curriculum because we don't currently have twice the amount of equipment needed to effectively teach in the curriculum. We are being forced to either deviate from our curriculum or have children wait a long time for a turn. Student safety is also another concern. With so many children in the gymnasium at once, there is a higher risk of injury. While we do teach body awareness and appropriate movement within their own personal space, some children have had trouble following these guidelines in the smaller space they have at their disposal with the double classes. Whether it is a kindergarten or fifth grade double class, each has its own challenges. Smaller children pose a noise and management issue, along with the difficulty of establishing routines and calm transitions, while fifth graders pose a space and equipment challenge. Many children also have a sensitivity to noise, and no matter how well behaved, 50 students simply make more noise than 25. One PE teacher has even spoken to their principal regarding some sound reducing panels for the gymnasium to help with this issue. I want to close with a request to add additional PE teachers next year, both to meet the increased enrollment and to deal with the early release Tuesday schedule. Technically, there are 43 available teaching blocks during the week, if the gym is utilized at all times. But due to the fact that teachers are shared between buildings and there is little wiggle room in the schedules, principals have been forced to go to double sessions. So the temporary periods with the gym occupied at all times would mean that only the largest school right now, Brackett, would have the need for a double session. With more PE FTEs, principals would have more flexibility in how they create their specialist schedules, thus decreasing the need for double sessions. We could really appreciate your support in this area. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Keynes. Hi, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. We all know that, and that means we need more staff members. Mr. Ruggieri has requested staff in the core cluster areas, as well as exploratory, and we all see the need for those areas. We specifically need more special ed staff, especially in the small group programs and support for those students when they go into mainstream classes. This has been particularly noticeable this year with the influx of students from Jermaine Lawrence. We have a lot more of them coming. They need more support in our school. We have a request echoed by many of our teachers that we need a full-time science director. That's not a knock on our current science director, but the position deserves to be full-time. We particularly need more world language staff because coming into the Odyssey is the first time that students take a world language in Arlington, and choose what language they want to take. This year some kids were told they couldn't take their first choice language because we didn't have the staffing for that. We're interested in learning something. Other than staff, we'd like to continue with Wi-Fi improvements. It's been kind of a rough year, and there's still a few blank spots in the building. And finally, we're requesting some security improvements, and this was really highlighted in our Alice drill last year that we need deadbolts or a quick way to lock the doors that don't involve keys, especially for days when you have a substitute in the classroom or a prep period where a teacher is out of the room we need pull-down shades on the windows on our doors because if the idea is that there's an intruder in the building and you've got teachers trying to tape a cover over a window, it feels like we're not taking things seriously. And we take this very seriously, the safety of our students. And this needs to be done for both the outer doors to the hallway and the interconnecting doors between the classrooms. So we want to take this seriously, but we think that a lock that can be activated without a key or even a deadbolt, like a doorstop or a deadbolt or something that could stop the door from opening would be very important. So, thank you. Valerie Sarrazin Hi, I'm Valerie Sarrazin. I am the secretary of the union. I am also a special ed teacher here at the high school. I know this is your first round of listening to suggestions or concerns, and the high school is no exception. In fact, the faculty, the AAM members are going to be having a meeting tomorrow morning at 7.30 to compile a list of their most current concerns, but some of them actually came forward so far. And it comes down to staff, staff, staff. One of the staff areas is actually in the dean's offices. And we're not looking for another dean, but we're looking for full-time secretaries because it's very uncomfortable. It's also very frustrating when you send a student down to the dean's office or you call down to the dean's office to get some information. And unfortunately, the dean has been called away to their own meetings, and there's nobody there meeting the office. You do have student assistants, but they're not necessarily responsible for answering the phones or getting in touch with them. And we just feel that the dean's offices are so busy that a full-time secretary or some kind of administrative staff is necessary. As you probably have heard quite a few times, the classroom class sizes are getting larger. Those individuals who are blessed with a really nice, large classroom are the ones who get the increased enrollment because they actually have the physical space, so it would not be unusual for someone with a physical space to have 32 kids in an English class. And as you know with that many students, that many papers to write, the individualized attention, the attention to detail, of course, gets put into the back burner because we're trying to accommodate the basic, basic needs of these students as they are approaching 10th grade MCAS. One of the areas that we really would like to see is the Wi-Fi. And we're not just talking about the output. The Wi-Fi department or the tech department is the hub of the school system. Everything depends on them. And we just feel that more money should be put into this in terms of staffing and the needs that they have since they serve us all. And without them, we become a dead zone. And that actually happened on parent conference night where the system went down and we were not able to access students' grades and their schedules for the parents. Last thing is, of course, the building itself, the usable bathrooms, et cetera. I do want to emphasize we are very, very grateful to have the elevator up and running. And we can't say thank you enough to the custodial staff, especially at the beginning of the school year when people were moving around. These gentlemen and women literally carried desks. They carried boxes. They carried chairs up five flights of stairs. And I can't give them a bigger Christmas present than saying thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. And Linda Hansen. Good evening. My name is Linda Hansen. I'm the president of the Arlington Education Association. My remarks actually have to do with, hopefully, my final words on the park MCAS decision. And I know it's on your agenda later. So I'll defer to you, Mr. Schlickman, if you want me to make my comments now or later. Be my guest. Go for it now. Okay, great. So, you know, with the recent update, the latest update about the fact that the long composition will now be scrapped for MCAS, that some of the park questions are going to be put on MCAS. We feel like we have, you know, kind of the last and best information that we can have to make a decision. So we just had a board of directors meeting earlier this evening. And basically this is the feeling of, I think, the majority of teachers at this point. What the decision comes down to at this point is really, you're going to have a time test or an on time test. You're going to have a test with a lot of park content or a test, the MCAS test with some park content in it. You have hold harmless. You have not hold harmless. And I think really the way that teachers are looking at this at this point in time is that they would look forward to a two year break in the accountability system. That said, they want to learn as much as they can about the park test during that time because they know full well at the end of two years when the accountability machine gets turned back on. They want to know as much as they can about the tests that they, both they and their students are going to be accountable for. So I think, you know, really there's been some sentiments going both way on this one. But the way where we come down now with all the information that we have at hand is that teachers are ready to move forward with park. We appreciate the opportunity to decide online or paper and pencil at a school based level. And we definitely consider the need to do this test drive, the test that we message that very clearly. And I think one of our concerns is that the communication around that, if this is the way you decide to go, be very clear and consistent in all schools to all teachers and to the community and to the parents. It can't differ from one place to the next. So teachers are concerned about that aspect of it. So we appreciate the questions that we've heard during this debate. We appreciate the conversations we've had with you both, you know, during your meetings and offline outside of your meetings. And I think, you know, at this point, teachers also are ready to just know what they need to expect going forward so they can start to plan around that. So, you know, I'd be happy to answer any questions later on when you talk about it. But that's, I did want to just update you with kind of the latest feeling of the teachers about this evolving situation kind of week by week as it's evolved. So thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, that concludes public participation. I now go on to the fiscal 17 budgetary needs of elementary principals and this special education department, Dr. Bodie. Yes, I want to welcome... Go please, come on up. I think all seven elementary principals are here and... Oh, yes, I forgot. Mr. Hanna has been sick the last couple of days and couldn't make it this evening. They have a joint presentation they've been working on and I believe that Ms. DeFrancisco is going to be the primary spokesperson, but I think everyone... I'm so quiet and shy they're trying to break me out of my mind. So that shows me this two years ago. Right. I also want to acknowledge what we also have our whole Special Administrative Department here which Ms. Selmer will introduce when we go on the special education part of the program of the evening comes forward. But I also want to acknowledge in the back if you want to ask any questions this evening we have our director of mathematics, Matt Coleman and director of science, Larry Weathers. All right. And you've met everybody else. So turn it over to you. Before we begin, I would like to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves. Good evening, Mark McNanny, the principal of Bishop Elementary. Karen Hartley, principal of the Pierce Elementary. Karen, do you have a principal at Thompson Elementary? Michael Hanna, as you know, is not able to be here with us this evening. And I am Kristen DeFrancisco. I am the principal at Hardy and I've been chosen to represent all seven elementary schools. In doing so, we wanted to thank you tonight for the asks of our, in our last year's presentation that you granted and update on you on how we have used the resources that we prioritized in our budget requests last year. One was maintaining the full-time social worker position at each elementary school. And this has been something that has allowed each school principal to ensure that our students' social-emotional wellness is supported. Social workers have been able to not only see students individually and in small groups, but also have been able to lead social thinking lessons in general education classrooms that help students learn ways to self-regulate and access curriculum more effectively. In addition, social workers have been able to co-treat students with occupational therapist providers and even special educators. This holistic approach allows students to practice skills in authentic settings. And you heard the teachers actually mention that tonight about how important that social-emotional wellness piece is. So we really appreciated having that this year. Last year, we highlighted the need for more relevant STEM focused learning experiences for our students in the elementary grades. By supporting the purchase and implementation of new curriculum, you have helped us to bring FOSS, which stands for Full Options Science System, to elementary students in first, second, and third grade. New units of study are well underway, and teachers have received professional development to aid in their instruction. As a result, students are engaged in hands-on, inquiry-based science opportunities aligned to next-generation science standards. Children are building parachute systems to study air resistance, designing solutions to real-life design problems, and developing a concrete understanding of engineering. We look forward to the next phase of implementation for our fourth and fifth graders next school year, and you actually also heard the teachers talk a little bit about wanting more kits for that. By granting our request to increase teacher assistant salaries this year, we feel that we are able to maintain the teacher assistance that we have worked hard to integrate into our learning communities. Our teaching assistants are being asked to learn about all that is required to support the school cultures that we have. They work with the greatest amount of students in the building. They help to support students in all areas of the building, and during all subject areas. Oftentimes, our building teacher assistants are needed to be the most flexible staff member in the building. This is truly why we feel we need to show our TAs how much we value their important work and appreciate your help to do just that. Last, we were able to keep class sizes down for most classrooms and in most schools. As stated during our asks last year, small class sizes are allowing teachers to meet the district goal of providing inquiry-based, differentiated experiences for all our students. With projected enrollment growth in Arlington, we all will need to be sure to continue watching this closely and working to maintain the manageable class sizes that you helped us to finance last year. And I'm sure that has been a theme and will continue to be a theme, the growing enrollment that we're certainly all concerned about. As we move into thinking about next year, we have still kept our district goals in mind and are requesting support based on fulfilling these goals, as well as continuing to build on the momentum we are seeing based on investments that our town has made in the elementary school programming. Our staff and community are committed to a system in which all students meet high standards. This requires continued support for our teachers in implementing rigorous standards-based curriculum and instruction, as well as our students receiving the extra supports needed when necessary to meet these standards. The Arlington community has come to expect this for their children as well they should. We have been very mindful at looking at data around our students with the highest need. Due to enrollment growth, this high needs group has grown. For example, for the first time, the Bishop Elementary School has been recognized with a high needs subgroup. This means the high needs group of students is large enough now to document. As we look across our accountability data, we see our most noticeable achievement gap developing with students in high needs populations and their ability to meet yearly growth targets. What we are also seeing is a direct connection between rising enrollment, which is creating a resource gap directly tied to this high needs group. And we think for clarification, it's important to talk about what that high needs group means. So a high needs student belongs to at least one of the following individual subgroups, students with disabilities, English language learners, and former English language learner students, or economically disadvantaged students. For a school to be considered to be making progress toward narrowing proficiency gaps, the cumulative PPI for both the student group and high needs students must be 75 or higher. In short, in order to stay committed to the high standards to which the community and our students have become accustomed, and to support the growing high needs students due to increased enrollment growth, we're asking for financial support in the following areas. One, we ask that we are able to sustain the resources given to support last year's requests that were discussed at the opening of our presentation. Those are full-time social worker in each school building, STEM curriculum, and increased salary for teaching assistants. This will continue to help meet our goals for this year. Two, as you know, Tools of the Mind program is a rigorous, full-day academic kindergarten curriculum replacing a curriculum that emphasized morning academic programming only. In order to implement this curriculum with integrity, a great deal of both academic and social-emotional supports are needed. This program currently operates with a part-time TA, and this is not enough support. It is important that our students first year with us service a foundation in developmentally appropriate rigor, which we expect to grow vertically. Teachers are certainly not able to implement with the same rigor in the afternoon without an assistant. To this end, we are asking, again, for full-time teaching assistants in kindergarten to support the delivery of the Tools of the Mind program with integrity and high quality for all students, as it is meant to service a foundation for future grade levels. Third, due to increased enrollment, we find ourselves servicing a larger number of students, and we need adequate resources to support these children. Currently, we do not have the staff to address the sheer number of students being identified for support, both through special education and intervention. We know that best practices and research support a system where students experience all of their learning in the general education classroom. In order to see this model rise to its fruition, we need to consider the rising caseloads of our learning specialists. They are keeping up with service commitments for students on IEPs, writing and maintaining all individualized plans for their students, attending all required team meetings, and attending meetings to be part of the RTI process for all children. Learning specialists are doing all this while keeping abreast of the curriculum, and changing it up to three grade levels. This is quite a mammoth task. We would like to see our learning specialists be a more intimate team with eight or less teachers and no more than two grade levels. This would allow more common planning time, more co-teaching, more thoughtful differentiation at the beginning of each curricular unit to assist our high needs subgroup students. To this end, we are asking for four additional specialists, which would bring each elementary school up to having three, with each having a TA to support in order to address the need to build teacher capacity to adequately service students with diverse high needs. As part of our support plan for teachers and students, we are exploring the beginning implementation of a coaching program in Arlington. So this is our fourth ask. Currently, both literacy and math coaches work with teachers to build their capacity as they educate a wide range of learners. The idea behind coaching is to help all staff members deliver a high quality curriculum that will meet the needs of all students. Coaches help to support the differentiation and delivery of instruction. They help to develop rigor and build capacity of teachers and special educators. In addition, a group of educators consisting of math coaches, literacy coaches, principals, mentor teachers and Dr. Cheson are working to strengthen this program with the help of distributed leadership workshop orchestrated by the Department of Education and Consultants Education Delivery Institute. This work will help us to implement this program with success and allow the program to grow. Due to enrollment growth, our ability to afford all schools, this coaching model is becoming more difficult. An increase in coaching staff will make our resources commensurate across the district and so to that end, we support the district vision for increasing coaching staff at the elementary level by Dr. Cheson. In order to involve stalled implementation and leverage our investment so far, we are looking to continue our professional development around and acquisition of FOSS Science curriculum, our fifth ask. This curriculum has started what has been a need in our elementary schools and asked for by our communities for quite some time. Next year, we need to complete the implementation in first through fifth grade and we will complete grades one, two and three and actually start grades four and five. To that end, we are requesting funding to continue the implementation of the updated FOSS Science curriculum at all elementary schools. Our sixth ask we also hope to start a three-year plan to overhaul the elementary mathematics curriculum. The new curriculum is aligned to the new common core state standards in both process and content. Our request includes funding for mathematics curriculum updates for kindergarten through grades two. This curriculum is common core aligned and supports differing differing types of learners. And finally seven, you will see in your budget sheet that we are asking for a variety of much needed curriculum materials. These include Lucy Calkins kits for new classrooms, LLI kits for schools that don't have them, math manipulatives and nonfiction reading materials aligned with the common core state standards. In closing, the elementary school principals are looking to continue building small grade level teams of educators that include classroom teachers, special educators and their TAs, math and literacy coaches, social work support and additional support staff. With this in place, it will be our goal to build the capacity of all who work with our students so that they may provide rigorous opportunities for students in which all are able to engage and access successfully. We hope that in speaking with you today you are able to understand how important it is to be mindful of our enrollment growth and that we feel that our responsibility to be proactive around this growth so that we can continue to give the Arlington community the high quality education they have come to expect from us as a school district. We feel that momentum around these initiatives is key and when we are able to support and keep up the momentum or rather when we are unable to support and keep up the momentum, it derails students, teachers and administrators. We know that with your support around these initiatives, we will be able to sustain momentum and provide a rigorous equitable education for all types of learners. Before I thank you and open up to any questions that you might have, both how we are using what you were able to fund for us last year and what we are asking for this year, I think it is really an honor for me to be able to represent the principals. I think it is an honor to be able to talk about what I do and so are the people that are sitting next to me and I think and what I hope that you are getting out of our speech is that with this enrollment growth and with our vision around how we want students to learn in Arlington and what Arlington has come to expect from us as educators and for their children, what we are asking for is really to maintain. We want to maintain initiatives that gather momentum around for teachers, for ourselves, for the administration of the upper administration and in order to do that with this higher enrollment and the growth of students on a daily basis really, we are not waiting for next year, they are coming right now, we really want to be able to continue this momentum around initiatives that we have started and give kids the very best that we can do and with that I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening and have shared our requests, not in order of priority, I think that we say that we may want to prioritize what we get, they are all important and one without the other is not as effective and so we have been really mindful about how we have presented to you tonight so that you know that without one of these things, the others don't work. We are happy to answer any questions you may have about these requests as well as how we are using them around last year's requests. Thank you. Okay, let's go around the room for folks who want to question or comment, Mr. Hayner. I don't have any questions for you, I do want to thank you all. We thank you, you still have a thankless job, you've got to run. We could give you everything we'd give it to you and even when we don't give you everything, you do a great job so thank you very much. You're welcome. Mr. Pierce. I have two colleagues comments. I've got two young kids in the schools, elementary and middle school level and they come home every night very excited about what they are doing. We as parents are excited about them being happy and learning and we hear that from a lot of other parents in the community and people who don't have kids in the schools but who remember how strong the Arlington schools have been so thank you very much. Last week when we were talking with the middle schools we had a lot of questions to each of them. If you have a number I'd love to know it and if you had to define your top three of your asks of I believe seven or eight, what would those be? Again, I think it's hard to say what the top three would be because they're very it's kind of a woven fabric what we're trying to do when we say we're talking about coaches or special educators. Special educators are going to support teachers. The curriculum is going to support the instruction and in addition to that when you think about the enrollment that we're experiencing right now and we talk about smaller class sizes or we're adding into teacher that represents more than just adding in a teacher that represents how do we then make what those kids in that classroom are going to get whether it be there, there, here it's going to be the same and in order to do that we need to support that teacher we need to do that with special educators we need to do that with math coaches we need to do that with rigorous curriculum so I don't think I can give you a top three and I'm going to look to the left and the right I don't think they would give you a top three either but one of the things I and I don't know if this was purposeful from the start but looking back over the request in the in the conversations that we've had in the next steps in the processes and initiatives that have started for example talking about tools of the mind and seeing that program and initiative through requires continued significant support for those kids the work that we've done with science is great but we're really hitting some of our youngest students right now and we need to continue to grow that so that when children leave the elementary school they're ready for the great work that's happening and with the initiatives that they've started in the sciences so if you I mean when you look at the asks what I what I hope that you see is we're not asking really to reinvent or to start or to pilot or to begin we're looking for you to support us in continuing really strong academic and social emotional programming that's happening at the elementary school and they are all in there are all interwoven in some way when I think about and when we thought about putting things in an order you know yes Kristen said you know we're passionate we all know we're all passionate about what we do when I look back here at Liz Higgins here who is a master teacher who you know over the years can say hey I got this you know just give it to me I'll take it but when I have master teachers coming to the table and saying we need more because this is happening we listen we listen to stuff like that and so that priority and again we reiterate it's all connected and what we want to do is to sustain what we have going on as a district right now everything that we put money into we need to put more money into and build on it and make it greater so we can continue to develop and deliver the high quality education you know it means a lot that you know the teachers are here tonight you know to hear how you know it's serendipitous I mean you're asked the elementary ask is the same as ours and so that's really saying a lot there's a lot of power behind that I think the other thing that you know I'm actually thinking as you just said that being able to be an administrator and being in all classrooms and evaluating and pay attention because I'm about to compliment the evaluation system it is a wonderful thing to be able to go in and give feedback and to watch how classrooms work and how you know they make what we're talking about this intimate group of people who really all have a role in bringing education to our kids I want that to look the same in all 19 classrooms and right now I can't do that because I don't have enough to do that and the people that I do have are very taxed because as we increase this enrollment and we ask them to know third grade curriculum fourth grade curriculum fifth grade curriculum be able to differentiate it be able to adapt it be able to make it rigorous be able to address needs of different learners that's a lot and so I want to be able to say I can do that in every single classroom and I think this list that we've come put together will allow all of us to do that yeah so I have one question which is that can you give a copy of your remarks to Miss Fitzgerald okay good that'd be great because I'd like to I know I missed some things while I was writing down and the other is more of a comment just that I just want you to know that I know I and I'm sure the other members of the committee who are involved talking to the town in terms of trying to work out the budget for next year we're really listening and we're I'm writing down your words and trying so I can bring them directly to them trying to get us as much money as we can to do what you're asking thank you I just want to make a note that Miss Starks is ill tonight and that's why she's not with us last week she was visibly ill and she needed the rest so I know she really really wanted to be here because the budget talks are dear to her heart Mr. Thielman thank you very much for the presentation I have three children in elementary school so this is something I'm paying attention to I heard that Jim teacher the talk at the beginning about the increase in enrollment causing space and noise issues at the elementary school and the gym classes and I'm sure my children have contributed to that in fact in fact it's actually been documented some of the reports that have come home so the question I have is do you have an FTE total do you have a full time equivalent total that you came up with no okay that's probably not a bad strategy but do you Kathy do you it'll be it'll be yeah Dr. Bodie and Ms. Johnson who is defending our capital budget right now the capital planning committee it's cut night so we're very happy that she is where she is standing up for us right now but we'll expect to get a full outlook as to what the FTEs look like and what we require in order to run a building yeah well when we get the number the coaches how many coaches are we talking about per school how many coaches do we currently have now and how many do you want yeah do you want to have Matt answer that question that was great Linda's here too yeah come on and Linda do you want to talk about that for a little bit oh yeah we've got a couple experts here we come we don't fool around thanks for having us so right now for the math coaches among the seven schools we have 5.1 FTE they're not all full time so what we're attempting to do trying to do is work towards something that's a little bit more one to one right now since summer part-time in some schools summer split between a couple schools with you know the number of teachers that we're working with the fact that a lot of the teachers are reaching out and wanting to work with them I just want to beef it up a little bit just to try to get to the point where I think we can service the teachers much better so for math it's 5.1 what's the magic number to make it work right now it's 5.1 you want to go to I think the budget asked was 1.6 1.6 more so six so you're going to go to 6.7 yes FTE math coaches at the elementary level got it thanks Matt hi so at the for literacy coaches were 1.6 right now for seven schools ouch you are tough we're tough yeah so I'll let Dr. Cheson maybe talk about what the vision is more I think it's the vision more yeah I think we asked for 1.0 additional we know that that's minimal it should be more than that now the way does the coaching work are you kind of coaching teachers who then can become coaches of other teachers well for the most part I mean in terms of the in terms of math it's been evolving over the time because of the fact that a couple years ago I think we really needed to pay a lot of attention to the curriculum we really need to work with the teachers in terms of understanding the curriculum restructuring the units thinking about different ways in which they could actually implement the lesson spending a little bit of time for the math so the coaching for the past two years, two years prior really revolved around that it was a lot of the foundational stuff and now what it's evolving into is we have coaches who videotape lessons and then they sit down with teachers and they talk about the characteristics the aspects they're common planning with the teachers to kind of think about the types of questions that should be asked different ways in which you can actually take some of the content and differentiate it so you might ask the secondary question that enhances it you could ask other questions or modify some of the numbers or certain characteristics of the problem if a student is struggling so it's really about trying to mine and get a little bit more out of what I would call that initial exposure to the instruction just so there's some more depth there so that's primarily of where it's going right now it's not really meant to create a teacher who could then coach another teacher it's a lot of that is about time you know these are coaches who are working with multiple grades across the whole entire school it still is it doesn't sound like a whole lot but the math coaches work their tails off in the road they can't tell you exactly what they do but they never stop working that's kind of how it is and I would say from the literacy point of view we started out we were fewer for sure when we started out but our role initially was really to create and run a response to intervention reading program and it's really evolved through the common core needing a lot more support for classroom teachers for a new way of approaching reading and writing the whole writing workshop model the reading workshop model the rigorous common core units of study so the RTI reading program is really at kind of a good strong maintenance level right now so we were repurposed to start working with classroom teachers to really help them better make the transition to the common core curriculum so you know just today I was telling Thad that I was in his school for about half the day in a fourth and a fifth grade classroom hosting the new meant the first and second year teachers observing an expert writing teacher we were videotaping her we're going to post that we're going to have a great grade level teachers to watch we were talking about teaching and instructional practice in real time so with one point six of us spread out over seven schools it's kind of thin but it's really a very much a repurposed role and the idea is that we're supporting classroom teachers now in the hard work that they need to do it's good point also maybe think about the elementary schedule sometimes in a secondary school you can coach teachers to be coaches to gain some leadership experience and move up in leadership and that's the way to identify future administrative talent but the elementary schedule has got a lot of restrictions. Can I say one thing in response to that I think and develop teacher leaders who can actually stay in the classroom and have an added role which is to mentor and become teacher leaders but you know we need those people to want to stay in the classroom as well too because we don't want to take all that expertise out of the classroom outside you know that needs to create so the whole entire RTI to kind of clarify a little bit more and the budget asks we're also I think student interventionist for math so it's kind of this shift right now in math we're heavier with the coaches but we don't have any student interventionists in literacy they're heavy with the interventionists but they don't have much coaches so the asks are more about kind of trying to find a little more balance with that. Clearly I've broken out of my shell at this point. The other thing that is nice about that from the principal perspective is when we're giving feedback to teachers whether they be non professionally status teachers or teachers that have been doing this a really long time it's nice to be able to say I see this this is wonderful this is great I also see this and it would be my expectation that this is what this would look like but I have somebody that can help you I have a coach that can come and model for you I'd like you to work with that person and now you've built that teacher's capacity and that's huge for principal to be able to have that and do you know furthermore in talking back you know to what we talked about in the speech is that being able to have that person as part of planning and looking at units and tweaking things and not just looking at kids that need differentiation on the lower end but also really taking a look at those kids that need differentiation on the higher end we're about engagement we want all kids to engage and that means meeting them where they're at and this helps us certainly to do that my last question is about the coaches does the coaches having the coaches allow you for you up to do some coaching as well does that give you time or just there isn't time did you say free me up well if you're coaching if you're working with a teacher we might need some assistance maybe it allows it to be a really focused I think non-threatening but it's also consistent because Matt's coaches Linda's coaches and Linda she's one of the coaches are giving that same message so I think for us it frees us up in the sense that you know while we are coaches we don't have to know every little tiny detail that's going on in Matt's head because his coaches do and I can get that from them so in some sense yes it does free me up I use free loosely thank you very much last question science kids there was a conversation somebody made a presentation about the need for science kids is that in your this is here and Larry is also here oh Larry okay did you just kind of speak to the science kid issue the teachers raised as well at the elementary level didn't I hear something about science kids not having enough science kids not having enough science kids I'm sorry I wasn't sure what you were referring to yes rolling out the new science program is sort of a monumental task because of all the materials that it involves it's not just a curriculum it's materials management it's kits it's replenishing those kits it's all of the text materials that goes with those kits and it's expensive and so when we plan this we decided that we would roll forward with it we were waiting for all the next generation standards to come out there out and we're trying to address those but there are little problematic humps here and there in the buildings because when you have a particular grade level in a building it has four classrooms instead of the normal three in a sense it creates a lot of extra stress on the use of those materials we're already pushing the limit of and you heard some of the teachers say we'd love to have more kits to use and that is because to have one kit shared by four classroom teachers throughout the year it's just doesn't work marginally we will make it work but to ideally support it we really need to get extra kits in there to cover those needs so we have the we have covered what is basic and we need those extra kits in grades one two and three which we started to implement this year and the same problem will come up in grades four and five next year thank you that helps Dr. Seuss oh further comments? in addition to the the additional materials and the same kits providing the same amount of kits for each grade level provides a more collaborative experience across the grade level as we think about children having the same experiences grade level teams working together collaborating using data to inform their instruction we are looking at writing across the curriculum all this work cannot be done with this one kit per grade level so it's really extremely important that we are able to continue to build on what we started and grow and to supply our teachers with what they need to successfully collaborate and educate the children thank you very much Dr. Seuss thank you for coming here and thank you for your dedication and your hard work I just have to clarify a question the first few asks seemed like they were to be to maintain what we did last year is that correct? not to increase it necessarily to increase that was just my clarification just enjoyed it so much want to keep it going that's all I wanted to ask did you have a clarifying question? I got the answer thank you pardon me for reading dinner Dr. Allison Ampey I sort of have a clarifying question Dr. Bodie or Dr. Cheson I'm looking at the FY17 budget ask that we received under the elementary school increases in the FOSS science expansion is that going to cover what is that going to cover is that one kit per classroom or what? I'm going to have Larry can you talk about how we came up with that number because I can guess but he'll tell you it's mine 20 21 the narrative it might be helpful to also tell what the unit cost is sure the answer to your direct question first of all is that we were trying to again make this work and in order to minimally target those places that needed extra kits it would be targeted to those schools and those grade levels that had a fourth classroom so it would be a set of three kits for a particular example a third grade and bracket and so that would be three x's but there are about six situations around the district right now where there are four teachers in a grade level in a building so that's three times six is 18 more kits each kit is approximately $1200 and that's just for the materials the teachers have also been asking for additional manuals the kit comes with one manual now that means that the teachers need to share those manuals they do have access to some online manual materials but it's not the same as walking around with it as you're planning so that's the 18 kits about $1300 a kit across the district it's just to get the minimal amount there of one kit for the most part for three classroom teachers to share I just have a clarifying question so the clarifying question my clarifying question is one kit per year per grade or there are multiple units the design is and we're really trying to follow what the new next generation standards are the Massachusetts iteration of that to address all the standards that are required every classroom should be using three kits during the year there's a life science kit an earth science kit and a physical science kit and they should rotate through those now again even that ideally every classroom teacher would have three kits sharing three kits during the year still brings problems because it needs to be restocked in between the planning is another issue so we're trying to just make sure we can cover all the bases maybe at some point we'll have one kit for every classroom teacher I think to be frank we've done this the cheapest way possible yes, yes, yes and one thing that hasn't been mentioned with our attention to addressing students of high needs it would be it would also be important in the real extension of this to have at least manuals if not kits available for the ELL teachers and for certain SPED support areas and that's really what's needed to address the whole all the needs of all of the students so the clarifying question just for the people watching how long do the kits last how long did it what how long can you each kit is designed for approximately 10 to 12 weeks can you reuse it the next school year oh yes so for the $1200 or $1300 kit it's approximately it varies per kit but it's somewhere under $100 to replenish it and then it can last a long time in fact our old kits I think the ones that were using before this year were there for 20 something years that's a very good data point but by this time they have disintegrated so that's where we felt we needed to replace 20 year science kits there's a long lifespan a lot a little bit changed the microchip got smaller and smaller and they have provided wonderful resources for the teachers about differentiation and ELL support and it varies to the common core of both math and ELA and a robust online platform that's correct and a lot of support I support this 100% and I would suggest to the committee and to the administration that this become a regular for a better phrase line item so that they're not coming back begging every single year it's a program that we seem to support the added manuals that we got out of MEK when you had one manual somebody would annotate it and it was not quite the annotations I would have put into it and stuff like that it's important to have and for us to invest in this and recognize this as a regular part that comes ahead thank you very much Dr. Brody I would also add to this as we move forward similarly to math we really are going to need to be thinking about coaching as well not to mention all of the professional development that's necessary around the new generation science standards so when Dr. Chester says this is minimal it is because to some extent we're relying on the teachers to do all the reading these manuals without necessarily the kind of extensive support that they need as we move forward so we're not specifically asking for that we have been talking about that so I also want to say that there are things that we have talked about that we need that didn't necessarily make this list because we're trying to be as careful and as responsible as we can in terms of what we really need but that would be there some kind of support I would 100% support that I think that the day to day kind of support that needs to go on really has to come from somebody that can hold the hand of the teachers that are not science specialists that need to run through this the teachers can do it fine after a year or two of going through it but in the beginning they need that support and a K through 12 district science coordinator it's hard to get to all the seven elementary buildings to do that and I think that that support is really needed a couple things first of all the research shows and in practice that we have strong principals and good coaching you have great schools because great teachers respond in that kind of a climate and environment and I think one of the reasons why we have great schools in Arlington is because of the leadership of the principals and the people who are supporting teachers Tom Brady has a coach and if Tom Brady needs a coach he has multiple coaches the best teachers want the coaches and it's an important service it's an important professional development tool that we provide for them and that's why I see the importance of that I'm just sort of wondering if the committee would like to actually see some see a kit and maybe get a sense of what this is all about live and in person because talking about science kits is not half as much fun as actually seeing one I would love it in fact I think some kids could come and demonstrate a few of the activities that would be even more fun that would be true you can actually see the kits and the development and the support for teachers with the shortage that we have right now it's tough for us, many of us who work in other school systems or in other jobs during the day to be in the school but I don't know that you want to do that I've done the principal gig and it's I can hang with that you're the one getting the rocks and slings and arrows I got 23 principals who are willing to go and tell me what they think of what I'm doing but I think one of the things we'd like to do is when we come into this room even though it's not a classroom with kids we have the cameras we have the attention of the community and that's one of the reasons why making a presentation here has value I don't think you have to sell me on the notion of kits because I deal with this stuff on a regular basis but I think the community needs to see what the ask is and why it's important the other thing I'm going to say is that I'm very glad that we did the social workers this year when I did the principal thing I couldn't live without my social worker and you know it's the way we meet needs of kids so the question that we're going to be talking about for ourselves in a few minutes is MCAS in park so do any of you wish to cast your opinions before us before we go and engage in our final discussion and vote we are going to make a decision of going to park or staying with MCAS and if we go to park there's the question of paper versus electronic and we've heard a lot of testimony over the past couple of meetings and we've had a lot of discussion among ourselves and we're asking basically anyone who is involved with this to speak up and I'll ask our math coordinator to hop in after you guys do and I think that'll conclude our discussion on the topic but and I don't expect you all to have the same opinion and if you have different opinions please express them I don't think so no so I'm just going to start by telling you what we all did with our staff we went and we talked with our leadership teams about what their feelings are around the MCAS first park and I'm forgetting who spoke about it I think it might have been Linda who said very nicely that we really want the ability to be able to understand and take this for a test drive for the most part I'm not going to speak for every single one of us there may be a couple that have a little bit of a differing from their staff but for the most part you know people really were pushing toward or teachers were really pushing toward park written park written that's what we got as a general consensus now of course you always have somebody that says something a little bit differently but the majority went that way and that is a representation from all of our buildings combined that also had something he wanted to talk about that mark just volunteered mark volunteered fad let me be clear to talk about this you know importantly so we've spoken with our teachers and so you know Linda's comments and what came through the executive board surprised us and pretty much aligned with what we all heard in our schools it feels like MCAS is at a point where it's been compromised enough as a tool that the returns this came right from one of the memorandums from the state we're at a point of diminished returns MCAS at its best tells us about progress that we've made from one year to the next comparatively are the comparative nature of MCAS reduced significantly last year and now will reduce itself dramatically when we look at it at results in 2016 so you know we've spent some significant time talking about this we've talked about other teachers we've thought about it it seems to make sense if we're moving towards a hybrid tool that we get an idea of what park is all about comprehensively get a feel for the experience of our students here more informed perspectives from our teachers so that when this happens in 2017-18 is that when we're looking at the next kind of reiteration we've experienced kind of holistically from student all the way up what this tool really looks like and we can do any preparation and work with the curriculum that we need to do to make sure that we continue to have that high bar that we've come accustomed to seeing from year to year and Matt you're the content expert on mathematics if you can offer a few words of advice to us I'll echo I agree with what they said I would vote for park at this point having a year where we could actually spend some time ironing out some of the issues thinking about what might be some of the soft spots in our administration in wireless networks all those other little things that come along with it I don't see MCAS has run its course when I look at that data I don't know if I'm really learning anything else that I haven't learned from year to year I think it is time to move on to something else thank you very much anything else from the committee Mr. Thielman the school committee votes park or MCAS and that's it and then the district the superintendent with the consulting with you decides whether it should be administered on paper or electronically so it's not our decision about how it's administered but I would just like to get a sense of the conversation taking place in your schools about park about paper versus electronic just to my own notification I think there's a couple of things that we think about we think about the technology piece and I'm going to tell you what a teacher would say a teacher would say they were probably a little bit worried about the wireless features this year you had somebody who people talk about that now so I think that you know teachers are worried about that if they're being honest and that's what they say you know it's the wireless piece they've never done it it's simple you know it's unknown it's it's different the kids have never done it so being able to coach for them and model for them how this works I just think it's unknown and you know that will then become our job to make it feel more comfortable and it will become our job to make sure that the wireless and the technology is in place and that we have enough you know iPads up and running and going when we need to do that do I have faith that we will do that absolutely is a year of written going to make everyone feel better and then we move into a pot into the maybe so and that might be decided how we decide what you know what we do but I think it's just that I think they're a little bit afraid of the unknown right now and I get that you know it's a little bit afraid of the kids Mr. Heiner I would ask both sides to do during the non state time to try the electronic at least in a small portion in every single one of the schools as opposed to have a go we can't split it I don't think then I guess then if you can't then my concern and I can wait to later if you want to wait in the debate my concern is that you're trying the test you're trying it out right now that's the test part of it if we have issues with the technology we need to test it some way we can test it at a school or a number of what I'm saying is that we should be testing the infrastructure if we can't do it with the test but we have something on a regular basis so that we're not finding out it's going to crash during the test that counts so thank you yeah our code if schools do that right now they get a pretty good sense of how many kids can be on there you might need to explain what that is Matt so our code is this organization called code.org which nationally pushes this effort of kids doing an hour of code of looking at coding it's been great so far in the middle school and high school how much our computer programming offerings have grown and we really just see a huge push and I know a lot of these guys are using it and pushing it and doing different aspects of that in the school which is awesome to see well that sounds like something else we'd like to see around here seriously it would be great come on down one thing I don't know if you guys could push back against this but I'm not quite sure why the state wouldn't offer grades three and four written and then grade five they do it based on school is that right school by school it would be awesome if it was based on grade I think a third grade student it's difficult to expect that they'll do well on a computer I'd love to see a fifth grader do it so I don't know if that's even feedback that can be given back to someone else or who do I call Mitchell Chester he listens to us about as much as Dr. Seuss and Dr. Allison Ampe Dr. Allison Ampe I'm going back to the science kits some of us would like to come see them in the classroom if that could be arranged absolutely not I think there's still a lot of utility as Paul said to have it here but there would be so Dr. Seuss I have a question about a different issue about Thompson as you well know in about a year and a half you'll be about 100 kids over capacity and that's projected to go on for quite some time so it's going to be potentially and then up to 500 for a few years maybe down to 480 but no significant decrease one of the proposals is to take to create some more classrooms and take one of those classrooms as an auxiliary gym space and I was just wondering what you think does that satisfy the stress on the common areas sufficiently or is there something else we need and I'm poor so I apologize we've had lots of discussions about it in small groups we had a big discussion about it last night I know there's multiple options out there but the best is to get the number of classrooms that are needed and to somehow create that additional flexible space I don't know that a classroom is exactly what we're looking for but it definitely alleviates some it could alleviate some scheduling issues it could alleviate space with regards to enrichment and breakout and kind of those types of activities it would not alleviate the double gym issue it would not alleviate the cafeteria that we can have it wouldn't eliminate double gyms I don't know that the classroom it wouldn't be big enough we'd still be limited in what we could do we could certainly schedule a gym class in there but it still would be very different than what would be happening within the gym okay do you have a proposal? do you have a proposal? we do is there a consensus actually with what I was curious about because I've heard lots of different ideas ideally it would be nice to have the two portables for next year and initially begin some type of construction whether it's the permanent modulars or the permanent edition the permanent edition to me makes the most sense because it will outlast me and probably many of us there well they last for longer than 20 years I'm not saying that and you know right we do need an additional flexible space we put 430 students in the gym and the maximum occupancy is technically 300 so that's concerning by fire code and I'm sure that happens at adults I've already called them they know that to ask for clarification is it 300 bodies, is it 300 chairs is it 300 adults and putting 500 in there will be interesting as well but it's you're not going to put 500 in there so for an example last night one of the gentlemen came up with an idea of if we added another exit if we created another door on the other to the gym does that alleviate some of the constriction around the ability to use it and there's so many students in there so there's definitely lots of concerns and questions around the safety piece and then what we can actually do in that space that's obviously an agenda item a little further down the line thank you very much thank you for your service to our own now Dr. Allison Ampe did you want me to do this oh hold on Allison Ampe you would like to make a motion yeah okay so I move to give some framework around this our budget process has begun we're still we haven't voted on it as a committee we haven't even discussed it as a committee we're just hearing it but at the same time the town's budgeting process is like several steps ahead and we're starting to see how much money is the school's going to need how much are we going to get and toward that end I am making a motion that this full school committee direct the superintendent to put forward to the town manager and the long-range plan committee a number that communicates the full scope of the Arlington Public School needs this is envisioned as the full asks minus any anticipated revenue she may also submit a lower number I'm saying asks pared down and or new proposals for enrollment growth factor she so desires all communications should include the message that the school committee has not yet discussed nor voted on the budget proposal second discussion on the motion Mr. Pierce I read that today and I thought about it a lot and I have to say I'm fully on board I think it's a great idea and I think it would give the other side of Mass Ave an idea of what we're looking at more specifically so thank you Dr. Seuss just to give everyone an idea of what's going on right now our budget number is not determined by our need by the children's need by the principal's needs it's determined by a bunch of formulas so our general education expenses used to be able to go up no more than three-and-a-half percent they're decreasing it to three-and-a-quarter this year they are deciding to decrease it to three percent next year special ed can go up more than seven percent and for each additional child we get 25 percent of the per pupil expenses which is insufficient it's the marginal cost edging additional kid is not a hundred percent but it's definitely not 25 percent it was just completely made up it wasn't based on how much it really cost it was based on what the financial people in town felt they could live with in long-range planning so what that means is with the enrollment increases with the common core we are increasingly constrained and each year it seems to be getting worse and so I think this is a proposal it's a good proposal to push back a little and say to the town that number on paper I understand why you're giving it to us but it doesn't reflect our real need in our district so thank you Chrissy this may be the teacher in me but I've said it before I believe strongly that my position as a school committee member is someone to advocate for education for responsible money for education and not to be worried about budgets beyond where we are the town will then turn around and accept us and fund us or reject it and fund a lower number at that time we have to then take cuts but I personally believe supporting the budget that is fiscally responsible to maintain the programs and go forward with the new programs that are constantly happening in education Dr. Allison Ampe I didn't mention so I'm putting this forward because I think we traditionally have not we've communicated needs but not in terms of real numbers you know we need this much and I'm just trying to push us to do that Mr. Thieleman so I very much support this I don't think we've ever done this before a usual vote is to accept the number in the long-range plan whatever that is so this is a good change initiated by Kersi and the subcommittee and Kathy and so good job and I'll be voting this is just me we haven't we didn't have a chance it wasn't me because the subcommittee didn't want to do it was I couldn't do subcommittee in the time frame I just don't want to miss you deserve a lot of credit so just take it why why just put the show on here so okay so I'm very much in favor of this and I think it's a bold movement it's about time if you want to see a budget genius watch her on TV we did a show on ACME it's now online look back in the day when did we run the last override 08 was it 11 time flies when you're having fun in 2011 we did the override which was another 5 year plan 3 year plan rather 3 year plan and boy so long ago we're 5 years out on the 3 year plan and one of the things we committed to with the town was that we wouldn't go asking for any more overrides or any other additional funding over the 3 years of the plan and the design of this was to put money away in the beginning or at the end of the cycle in order to maintain the level of services we're providing now back in 2011 we weren't looking at such a radical increase in enrollment we now are the circumstances have changed the promise we made to the voters of Arlington in this override package is if you pay for more we will maintain the level of services well the town isn't adding new streets we don't have additional square footage we don't have 10 new parks but we do have about 10% more kids than we did at that time and we need to adjust the formula in order to come up with a number it doesn't allow us to go and expand programs wildly we need to go and state what the principal said last week and what you guys said this week this is because of the additional enrollment we need to meet the needs of the additional students who are coming through the door and the additional teachers we need to teach them and the additional support staff we need to back up everyone who's working for the students so that's what this motion is about Dr. Allison Ampey put it forward and I'm glad this is going to become our position if it's adopted any other debate on the motion before us hearing none all in favor opposed that is a unanimous vote thank you very much thank you very much special education our director of special education Allison Elmer and she has a lot of her staff here tonight hopefully will come up and introduce themselves and what they're doing I do want to echo what the elementary principals have said that these asks are not to be adding anything this is really to maintain where we are and if we don't have additional funds we are going to be below the service level that we have had and certainly the service level that the board wants and expects well certainly we're below this on class size already we are it's a great group of administrators and I think that you could see that this evening welcome thank you we couldn't possibly I was going to say we have quite the act I'll start with introductions I don't think you've got to meet everybody we're going to have a powerful compliment then so you want to Joyce Hi I'm Chris Carlson elementary coordinator Jill Park and elementary coordinator Lynn Bennett high school coordinator Martha Wall so good evening and thank you for allowing us this opportunity we're going to use this time briefly to highlight our priorities for the upcoming school year about these identified areas of need what you'll see is that most of our requests are reflected in the previous request so we won't go too in depth since you've heard a lot from the other levels we'd also like to begin by thanking you for your support of our request in the FY16 budget which included maintenance of the full-time social workers at each elementary school, the three district-wide board-certified behavior analysts and the company behavioral support personnel as well as the addition of the 0.5 FT school psychologists who are just at Ottison I also want to just highlight the creative and fiscally responsible ways in which we have been able to strengthen the depth and quality of our special ed programming over the last year through the reallocation of resources we were able to fund a full-time teacher of the visually impaired orientation mobility specialist this was something, a service that we had previously contracted and we were able to now bring that in district as well as add a full-time speech and language pathology assistant in place of a 0.5 speech and language pathologist all of this to keep spending neutral but allow us to meet our compliance and requirements as you've heard repeatedly from both the school department and Dr. McGibbin's report our enrollment is increasing and with this we have seen an increase in our high-need students to reiterate that high-need subgroup is not just special education students it's English language learners formerly limited English language learners as well as economically disadvantaged students but we know within our department that our special education population is growing I believe you have in front of you a just a chart that demonstrated that unfortunately we don't have it for the viewers at home but you can see that we gave you both October and June numbers as students get identified throughout the year that number grows throughout the year so if you can see both in September as well as June that our numbers have gone up from June 2013 where we had 856 to last June where we had 934 so the increase is felt within special ed as well in order to keep up with the increasing needs of this subgroup and what we are required to provide under state and federal law we are requesting a 4.0 FTE increase to the elementary learning specialist you heard this reflected from the elementary principals as well we have reviewed four learning three learning specialists at each building across the district we know that looking at learning specialist caseloads and service delivery grids does not give a complete picture of the entirety of their roles from a purely compliance standard we have provided their caseload as well as just the hours of service that they are required to provide to students through their individual education plans and you can also see contractually what they have the time to provide and it far exceeds what we currently have for staffing but this doesn't include the meetings, the report writing the assessment time that they have to put in as well as the work that the elementary principals talked about in creating these cohesive teams, grade level teams where a learning specialist is working with two grades eight teachers, a coach an English language learner teacher so that we are not going to fifth grade for half the day and third grade for half the day and second grade and first grade and trying to be content specialists in all those areas so we would like to see this 4.0 increase at that level we are also making a request for an additional 1.0 FT school social work at the bracket elementary school several years ago when our in district programs were developed we created K-12 specialized learning centers for students identified with autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities and emotional impairments at the time tough decisions needed to be made about staffing as limited resources were available to service these high needs populations we were able to provide full time licensed clinical social workers to the program servicing students with autism and emotional impairments but not for the program with students with intellectual disabilities it's now time to provide similar resources to that program currently at the bracket they have a 1.0 FT social worker who services all students in general education kids who receive learning center supports or inclusion students as well as the sub separate program and again we provided just a chart to show you that distribution as compared to the other elementary schools that have these specialized learning centers and you'll see that the caseload at bracket far out exceeds what the caseload is at the other schools where they have a 2.0 allocation another area in which we're seeing an increase in enrollment is our preschool population the monotony preschool services special education students entitled to services under the IDA as well as tuition paying general education students and you can see from starting in 2011 up to our most recent school year that the number at the beginning of the year and the number at the end of the year you can see the growth because students become eligible as they turn 3 so what we start out with in September isn't what we have at the end of the year and while the numbers have been lower in September you can see that the growth across the year is steadily increasing so that by this June we'll have anticipated 17 more students which is again exceeds what we have seen in the past and this is based off just what we know we have mentioned referrals not community students who may be turning 3 and parents may make their own referral to address the demand on both space and staffing we have made a capital request to renovate the existing office space into classroom space and we are requesting in the operating budget a .5 FTE teacher increase and a 2.0 FTE increase in teaching assistance at the high school level you heard Dr. Janger talk about several of the requests so I'll just highlight the different requests that we have we are requesting an increase to our speech and language pathologist allocation from the current .5 FTE to a 1.0 FTE to meet our state and federal compliance requirements we are also making a similar request to increase our occupational therapy therapist allocation by a .5 FTE for district wide services and many of you are familiar with our Millbrook program at the high school Dr. Janger spoke about this last week but we are requesting a .6 FTE increase for special education staffing so that we can provide content area specialists to some of our most vulnerable and at-risk general education and special education students in the program finally you have heard over the years the repeated request to fund higher teacher assistant salaries we are specifically requesting that supported learning center TAs be increased to the BSP level of pay these individuals work with our highest needs populations and are increasingly difficult to recruit hire and retain with each turn over staff we not only invest financial resources but teacher and specialist time and training staff for the specialized position you also see that the middle school made a similar request to promote all of their TAs to BSP level salaries which would be commensurate with the current high school practice hope we were brief enough I know we got a little off schedule so again we thank you for your time and consideration and I would like to have an opportunity to ask us questions go around the room not at this time just briefly Mr. Chair and thank you thank you very much for the services you're providing Arlington students every day really appreciate it didn't get into the FY17 budget ask list but I was wondering the number of FT's total and the number I have it ready so it's total FT's but that reflects the request that you heard from the elementary schools and middle school in the high school in addition to those 0.5 speech and language 0.5 OT so that reflects the entire district's request and the total request that Ms. Johnson provided you it's $938,792 thank you Dr. Allison Ampe a couple questions first if we change the salaries to the BSP salary level are you talking about changing their title or just the salary I would have to defer to Dr. Bode and Mr. Spiegel on whether that has to be impact bargained or how that would be addressed no it doesn't have to be and it's when we talk about BSP that it's also represents a salary level and more than it is necessarily the criteria for the qualifications of the candidate but I think that in general a teaching assistant is supporting one of our SLC programs I think that they would definitely certainly qualify in that category so they don't need additional training or certification or anything I'm just trying to understand there are there is a certificate for being a BSP we're not saying that they're at that salary level which is different we just call it BSP because it signifies to us a certain salary which is I believe now about $5,000 more it's actually closer to about 6 getting close to $6 more so it would be the total request for that change and I have I have it there I have Ms. Johnson's numbers would be it's $7,920 per person so that is $134,000 $776 okay so the the document that we see it says SLCTA is converted to BSP really what you mean is just we're raising their salaries we're not converting them to BSP okay that was confusing to me and then I had a question about the preschool when you add special education students don't you also have to add regular ed students general ed classrooms that are capped so they start at the beginning of the year full so we have a 15 students in the classroom 8 special ed students 7 general ed students as well as our sub separate program which is only special ed students so we begin the year at what 35 general ed students so they remain flat throughout the year we have a waiting list actually for the general ed but my question is if we're adding 17 students this year how are you possibly getting by with just half a new teacher and two TA it seems to me if we're adding you're expanding so throughout this year we're adding those students and we're going to the state allows us if we exceed that ratio in the classroom that we will have to add TA support to do that so currently we will distribute them into the existing classrooms but ideally as we've heard class size and when we think about our youngest learners and not only the physical needs that they have around you know toileting and hygiene but in addition to the academic work that they're doing and I do want to remind folks at the common core it actually extends to the preschool which is something we don't often talk about so they are engaging in rigorous academic work as well you heard a little bit about their science kits and whatnot but so we're similarly we're making do the best we can and we also need the conversion of the space that we talked about in the capital request to do this as well okay okay thank you Mr. Thielman so I guess I just want to make sure I'm clear on the numbers maybe Diane's not here but in the memo that I read we were talking about a $4.6 million request is that and then in the spreadsheet I'm looking at the total of $3.8 $3.8 I believe is the $4.6 okay well then I just need to do more studying because I see a narrative that's the first paragraph of the narrative the cover sheet talks about $4.6 this is on Novus so maybe there's a draft Ms. Johnson will be here after capital okay and then so special education increases about a quarter of the total about roughly speaking okay and what percentage of our budget does it represent I'm wondering of our budget presently our budget it's probably about 30% maybe 31% so the increase is not it's within the 7% yeah it's within the 7% okay you know the one thing I'm just trying to get straight in my head is that a few years ago we were in the impression that adding TAs wasn't the best strategy for special education and so now your strategy is very necessary we want to be able to retain higher quality TAs that request is so that we have a very difficult time Mr. Spiegel and particularly Ms. Park and Mr. Carlson can speak to the work that we do to recruit higher and retain TAs at our current pay level we often do that work in May and June only to have somebody accept a job in August because it's at a higher pay and we're still actually trying to fill a vacancy at this point so it's a challenge there's turnover there was turnover it wasn't been empty this whole year but and how many TAs do we have in the special education program right now total TAs I knew you were going to ask that I have it here the total TAs so we have 19 special education TAs across the seven elementary schools we have nine one-to-one TAs which are for individual students as reflected in their individual education plan and then the SLCs the specialized learning centers have 13 among the three and then there is a BSP that behavior support personnel and there's seven of those and given the challenges in finding TAs it doesn't make more sense to have greater to take some of those TAs and make them into FTEs to full-time positions rather so part of our request to meet the if you look at and we didn't really go through it if you look at just the service requirements for the IEPs our modest request of 4.0 learning specialist we'll still not tackle that so we have to rely on TAs to meet the service requirements if we were to cover it with just teachers our ask would be substantially more okay but so my question is it wouldn't make sense it doesn't your recommendation is let's not have more learning specialists let's add more TAs because that's more bodies we're asking to add learning specialist we're asking we're not asking to increase the TAs only with the additional learning specialist because they're paired with a TAs we're asking to increase the salaries of the existing TAs thank you sorry if that wasn't you in the special programs in the specialized learning centers the middle school has asked to increase the salaries at all levels for the TAs thank you that clarifies Dr. Seuss my question about the increasing numbers and I could do the math too but is the proportion remaining about the same and increase basically driven by our population increases it is so we stay around 14% which is below the state level I think we do our reading program and the work that we've done in our math intervention through our RTI program really does help us to stay at that level as well as that's the work that we want our special educators to be able to do when they're covering service delivery that they're actually working with those grade level teams pushing in the classrooms and if you see the breakdown you will see the majority of their time is actually spent what we call push in or in the classroom okay great I just want to extend a compliment to you all but particularly to the monotony preschool I have a colleague who is a preschool parent and I hear nothing but wonderful things about what's going on down there thank you for your service any other questions from the committee hearing none thank you for coming in today oh Dr. Allison can I answer Mr. Thielman's question about the numbers so I think if I'm understanding the 4.6 is not the ask the ask is several pages down and is page 5 of 6 yeah 3.88 it's a 3.88 minus 400 so it's actually 3.39 and then the 4.6 number 4.6 number is trying to back up what the growth enrollment oh number should be it's doing some calculations okay thank you but there is a discrepancy and the total asks and then sort of what we pair down a little bit because we're trying to be so comfortable right there's a couple of different numbers have been thrown around that's not this issue that's 1.8 is a pair down not pair down that's the full oh I thought the full was bigger okay got it I'm sorry close I'm sure I misread it yeah okay I mean I gotta read it more carefully I think they're not labeled thank you thank you I'm as happy as I'm gonna get I'm round this I need more time to go through it's hard to keep up with Dr. Allison Ampey incredibly brilliant watch her on TV you'll see that it's time for the vote we've discussed this a bunch can I ask you yeah Mr. Thielman we're going to the park versus MCAS discussion so this is what we're going to do because we've had a lot of testimony and we will I will ask for a motion I will ask for this motion for the purposes of opening debate and then we'll see whether it's approved or not so I'd like to ask for a motion to direct the superintendent to notify desi of our decision to choose park for 2016 that'll be the motion second by Mr. Heiner okay we're in business Mr. Heiner hearing tonight from the teachers association for the teachers and the principals I'm finding myself in a slight quandary I do not trust the commissioner of education I accept the fact and I think it's important for us to practice and when it doesn't hurt us in any way a very good rationale for doing it I just it is my sincere hope that the final test that comes out is exactly what we're testing this I've read as much as I could I still think it's a con I think this MCAS 2.0 is nothing but park and I would like I don't want to speak for Ms. Starks but I support exactly what she said and each time it's another burden on the teachers if I could vote to not have testing throughout the state for 2 years and give everybody a break any kind of testing I'd do that I think the teachers would support that as well I would like to hear the rest of anybody else I'm less against us doing it than I was before I haven't 100% decided Mr. Pierce thank you Mr. Chair I think that my decision tonight will largely be based on what I heard tonight and the further information given to our educators and the people in our buildings matter so much to me I would like the committee at some point in the near future to consider signing on to the proposed legislation at the State House I think it would serve a valuable message to the State leaders about how we feel this decision making process has been put to us sort of puts us in a weird box of choosing between two apparently not perfect choices but I think that the decision to go to Park in 16 would serve a little bit of a break for our teachers to get used to something that could be new and unbecoming to what they do we know for a fact that our students excel well beyond what their feelings are on a given day on a standardized test we know that because our teachers see them every day and they see their progress every day so I would very much like the committee to consider the legislation maybe on its future agenda item for us to discuss it thank you I'm going to make a statement I haven't talked that much before during these discussions so it's lengthy sorry I'll be voting for Arlington to go with Park last year I voted for MCAS I have three major concerns first that our technology was inadequate for electronic testing that we at local and state levels that the test is timed they have unclear what test the future would hold I had also hoped that the additional months could be used so that any testing change would not be a hurried and harried event I think the vote to stay with MCAS last year had political power there had been numerous there have been numerous changes to Park since the Park versus MCAS discussion began and Massachusetts is opted to go create their own test most likely a version of Park actual test questions are now released for review the amount of prescribed testing has dropped however I do not see that voting to stay with MCAS this year has the same political power another reason to stay with MCAS for 2015-16 was the continuity of useful data that helps our schools going forward given the changes in test composition and in testing population composition I don't think the comparison data that we will be getting for MCAS will be as solid or as useful Park will also have issues but there will be a greater pool for comparison we've heard from our teachers themselves and the principals that the majority prefer Park this was not the case last year we also just heard how our schools all prefer Park this year over the past few weeks I've been asked but why give a test so when I say I think we should do it I think we should do this year with the clear statement that we are testing the test we're not going to worry about the results and we're not going to discipline anyone the results but I've been asked so why give a test that you're not going to count I think this question doesn't capture my intent I want us to give a new test in the least stressful manner possible by saying it doesn't count I don't mean that we'll take the results and just throw them under a desk and ignore them my hope and expectation will be that results will be looked at we will work towards needed improvements whether in testing equipment testing prep changes in curriculum are pushing the state to improve the test but it'll be an environment where our staff knows their jobs are not on the line depending on test results not not that they've necessarily been in the past I still have concerns about the park test specifically it's time nature developmental appropriateness the amount of testing and more I understand that parks proponents see many advantages to it including better alignment with common core more rigorous questions when I look at the options I'm told we face in the near future I see park in both of them I think in the long run it will be more stressful for our students if we stick with MCAS now and then it will have to change and then have to change over to electronic park like test with little or no time in a whole harmless position from the state what I'm concerned is what has not happened in this discussion is any discussion with parents and students one of the additional reasons I voted no last year was to buy the administration some additional time to allow better discussions with parents I am frustrated and disappointed that this has not happened but I'm not going to vote no just because of this the park communication plan calls for a variety of notifications being sent to parents I assume will receive an updated list of when these notifications will be sent since states have already passed I haven't seen any notices yet but the most important point is not yet included in the communication plan that is what type of message will be conveyed I think it is vitally important that the administration have a clear message that we are doing a test of the test this year and that the results of the test do not matter finally as I vote yes I want to emphasize the two things I feel are important most important one we need a robust test to conduct a test electronically by this I feel we need to simultaneously test electronically the minimum number of schools that we would have to do if everyone in the district was going to take the test electronically given the constraints coming from the state in terms of testing schedules if a mock testing schedule can be created such that it can show that only one school will need to be tested at a time then testing one elementary school would be enough if a mock schedule showed that we would have to if we were doing everybody have to schedule two schools to be tested at the same time I want us to test two schools at the same time this will allow us to better evaluate our readiness and have information with which to form our budget process next year second we need to quickly and clearly communicate to parents and students and staff as being viewed by the school committee and the administration that we are doing a test of the test this year that the results don't matter and we need to talk it down as best possible I'm really concerned our parents have not been warned and they are going to be going whoa we should also include the new expectation from the state in this message we need to convey that the new expectation from the state that the seventh graders and beyond are going to have to pass electronic testing to graduate from high school because I think that's just kind of the final thing and yes I think he's taken our arms and holding them behind our back and that's totally what he's trying to do but until he leaves that's where we are so sorry thank you Dr. Allison Ampe Mr. Thielman that was very helpful presentation so I'm I favor park I think this has been a good conversation in Arlington I think the conversation with the faculty has been a very good one I think the faculty I think the conversation among the principals has been a good one so I think this process compared to the process a year and a half ago has been a very good process very collaborative you know I echo Kirstie's concerns and I think we this is either a goal last year it's a goal this year but to make sure that our parents are informed there's information sessions there's a chance for people to come to a meeting and ask questions about the park test and what it means so I think that's a very important point I want to ask a question to get some clarification about electronic versus paper so we can have different schools some schools can go on paper that's a decision you're going to make based on what's the criteria going to be made to make that decision well what we have said to teachers is first of all that we would like schools to have a strong voice in this process in which they would prefer we've also have said to teachers that we really are we are looking at this as a way for everyone to practice and that doesn't mean that we're not going to look at the results but the results of our participation in park will have no effect on our accountability and actually as Mr. Coleman Matt Coleman was saying the comparative results anyway with MCAS have just sort of been diminishing and will certainly be diminished this next year so I think that message has been given last time we talked about it that teachers heard that message from us Laura went and met with all of the teachers that would be grades 3, 4 and 5 and that message was conveyed as well we will certainly need to in either one give them some experience of what this is like because it's a new test you wouldn't go cold into anything that we're prepping for it but mainly just to get the sense of what the test is and certainly that will be true in electronic anecdotally I can tell you we had one of the deputies from Department of Education come and speak in an EDCO meeting with superintendents today and much of the information you've already been given is that the districts in EDCO that did the park online last year said that the kids liked it a lot it really did it was probably a little bit more of an adjustment for the adults but having said that I think that we do need to test it we'd like to test the electronic part of it our Wi-Fi capability want to do all that we want to take a look at the test and see what our students think of the test questions what our teachers do and see what we need to work on that's a good thing the test will help us determine what we need to work on in terms of instruction a concern I have is that if we get to a situation where some elementary schools take the test electronically and some elementary schools take the test on paper it's going to be in the next level it's possible kids learn quickly and they adapt quickly and they pick things up I get that but it's possible that some students are going to be disadvantaged because they will not take a computerized test before middle school or wherever that's a possibility I wouldn't rule it out but I think that one of the things that we find all the time is that the students are they are in that scenario because you're thinking of sixth grade probably in that scenario we would give students exposure to the testing tool because it's the only thing fair you don't want them to go into a test not understanding how you manipulate a screen or get a particular tool off the toolbox so all that would have to be done that was the same training we did last year two years ago one did the online testing we did training with the students also at the middle school we did training with the students there are sample questions there are little small sample tests I think it was our intent that should we go park this year and have a division of paper and pencil that next year our goal would be that everybody would do it online and so there would be no student that would not have a number of years of experience prior to having to take it in high school and I think that's the most critical thing yes we always want to have good results but a competency determination for a student the tenth grade is where the rubber meets the road and we would make sure that students would have as many experiences as possible prior to getting to tenth grade okay so I'm obviously going to be supporting park I think it's the way to go I think it's been a very good process in Arlington a goal would be that our students are not spending more than 2% of their time on standardized tests I think that's the number so we're well within that well good, that's good to hear I wanted to hear that thank you Dr. Seuss last year I made the decision to go to State with Amcast and I based it solely on the question of whether it made sense to do something a year earlier than we needed to so it wasn't making a statement about better tests, like the direction we were going in or anything like that I do actually frankly like the direction we're going in I think that Amcast 2.0 will ultimately be a better test it'll be a better test because it will combine the best of park plus the Massachusetts knowledge that we've gained through Amcast we will have control over it Pearson's not going to be involved a bunch of good things so last year my decision was based on three things basically what teachers were telling us and at that time teachers were telling us that they just needed a year break from one new initiative and I thought that that seemed like a very reasonable request and I didn't think that the cost benefit analysis of waiting that extra year was too the disadvantage wasn't too great I was also concerned that parents that it was very late in the process and parents wouldn't have enough time to understand what was happening that remains a concern this year and once again I invite you to come in a couple weeks to community relations where hopefully we can work out a strategy to not just have a couple of memos in one meeting but really sort of a really robust roll out and conversation with parents and the third thing is at the time it seemed very uncertain what was happening we just really didn't understand what the test would look like and I think that's changed now and I think we have a much better understanding of what's going to happen so I'm going to vote for park this year I really welcome actually frankly that this year could potentially be a year to play with the test because it's not going to be exactly the same test I don't believe that it's just going to be exactly park with something you know I think there's going to be enough pushback that it's going to be a better test and not the exact same thing so it actually gives us a little freedom that we can sort of play with this thing without it sort of being the real test and I would urge that we have no more than two elementary schools do the computerized version I think there's been a lot of anxiety about the computerized test and the anxiety I've actually heard certainly around the younger kids and I know it would be great to just start with fifth grade and I know we can't do that but also a question of our limited people who can service technology I mean we sort of the people who are out there are sort of strained as it is so I think it would be advantageous to start small and actually frankly I think if there are problems then I think we might want to just you know not go full throttle the next year you know go from two to five or four or whatever we'll see what it obviously will see what happens yeah so that served my thoughts okay one point at one thing is that we are making a decision at the end of December because we weren't even told what the decision could be until the end of November so that any discussion of doing a lot of meetings prior to this point about what we're going to do prior to November we didn't even know what our options were so yeah I mean we've pushed back the schedule I think one of the things that has happened as a result is we've had three good meetings where we have talked about this on camera before the community so that the town is aware that we are thinking about this and thinking about this carefully and it's been an excellent discussion I'm very proud of this committee and proud of our staff I'm proud of everybody who's come forth with really great arguments and thoughts about what we should do the the test isn't going to count for accountability but it's going to count in one way and it's going to provide us information and I think that what we will end up doing is using the information to improve teaching and learning and nobody should be afraid of this because we are not looking at accountability scores for next year we're looking to learn from what we're doing and to use the data we will be getting to think about as our curriculum aligned are we able to do the computerized test what do we need to do with kids to have them more able to respond to computerized tests if that's indeed an issue or how do we get the adults to be comfortable with computerized testing I think the experience for the kids in a district such as ours is a better experience doing the computerized version I would encourage as many schools as possible to do it electronically because I think the kids will get a better experience and psychometrically you have better opportunities to ask questions on a computerized platform than you do on paper and pencil my analogy would be something like this is that if I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100 you'd be guessing 50 and going to 75 you'd be a little literative in your process but if it was like a paper and pencil test you'd have to ask for each number between 1 and 100 and it would have to be a yes no answer the paper and pencil test is essentially a blunt instrument and there's nuance that you can derive from electronic testing and the other thing I say is that I'm very impressed with the way the people who work with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education have been working through this I share a lot of concerns about the Commissioner and about some of the initiatives through the Governor and his appointees but the people who I deal with on a regular basis in the psychometric units of DESI have always been committed to being as open as possible and as a good instrument for us that aligns to Massachusetts needs and to have this taken out of the consortium and allowing this testing to be a Massachusetts based testing system again I think is a good thing so I feel good about this vote I think an affirmative vote is the right thing to do I am committed to allowing the educators in the District to make the call on paper and pencil versus electronic I would encourage as many as possible to go electronic because I think the experience will be better for the kids and the teachers to try out the electronic version and have years of experience under their belt but that said I will be voting to support the motion any further comments at this time Mr. Hayner I would ask the superintendent or some part of the administration of the associated part communication plan could you get that with the new dates to us by the next school committee meeting thank you and a tentative date when you think we will go all electronic tentative and what year because my understanding is the current seventh grade we are not going to have that option to give it to them in paper when they get to the high school that is what the Department of Education is saying the other part is because we are not being held accountable on the thing that communication part to our parents and stuff when they get the copy back it is a very tentative thing when MCAS first came out I remember telling some high school kids this doesn't count and it did count they were trying to ally the anxiety so there is a balance there that has to be communicated especially to the parents for them to understand we are going to be using this information but the part that is the accountability part as far as the school aspect but not for the accountability of judging where we are in the curriculum it is a balance that I leave to you folks we took the pilot our students took it very seriously and have we been able to get information from them to be very helpful I saw no student who did not do his or her best effort I am less worried about children than I am the parents in their interpretation that issue of accountability part we are going to take this information serious that we get from it it is just our relationship with the state that is not thank you Dr. Allison Ampey I am thinking about the timing and if assuming the vote goes part we have a separate motion to authorize the chair to speak on behalf of the school committee for any messaging that is going out about the park test I will make that after on the motion to move to park this is a roll call because it is such a momentous vote I reluctantly yes Mr. Pierce Dr. Allison Ampey Dr. Seuss and the chair votes in the affirmative it is a 6-0 vote thank you very much Dr. Allison Ampey I move that the full school committee authorize the chair to speak on their behalf in any messaging that goes out over the next month to parents and others about the park test and he can work with the administration second any discussion on the motion all in favor aye opposed that is an unanimous vote thank you very much and so we have done some important work here tonight next important thing another thing that could have an impact on our future for another 50 years is the Thompson School capacity issues Dr. Bode you have received this week the updated numbers Dr. McKibben and hot off the presses today and I believe it probably is in Novus but we have the narrative so you have the updated information from Dr. McKibben in terms of what were the different factors that he analyzed over the last couple of weeks in conjunction with our changed enrollment numbers our enrollment numbers from this year which represent a change from what was forecasted both by Dr. McKibben as well as our own projections but he has an explanation for that which I know really you didn't get this very far before this meeting so there will be an opportunity to read it and to have a chance to ask him questions but one of the things that well remains in his forecast is looking at our elementary schools over the next 5-10 years and Thompson and Hardy are both going to have very high numbers are going to be approaching 500 and be sustained at that they'll be in the high 400s these are only forecasts as we saw this year things can change, there's so many things in the economy just the world that can have an effect on this but clearly we need to be planning for larger for more classrooms for both Thompson which is a more immediate need and for Hardy in the next few years what you also see in the numbers really for all of our other elementary schools they are going to remain pretty flat in fact one of the things was a little bit of surprise with the adjusted numbers is that Brackett hit its high point right now and probably will go down somewhat over the next couple of years it doesn't mean that the school is not still large you know and you're having 450 460 students in the school it's a large school so we still are going to need to think about making sure we have adequate space at Brackett but in terms of probably needing to add classrooms certainly in any of our other elementary schools in the next 5, 10 years at least in this this new forecast the answer is no so that comes back to Thompson what will be the right pathway and there are a few options and they really haven't changed since we began this discussion one of the options is of course to add on space and that space can be permanent so you use the word permanent I mean an addition to the building or having an addition to the building which is permanent stackable modular classrooms at the another possibility would be to be somehow taking some of the Thompson students and moving them to another facility another building at the last task force meeting there was discussion about maybe what about going out of town and that was something that was presented and I don't think that that really is a viable option certainly one that I would not support there was also suggestions about maybe moving one class to a Gibbs building and that one that suggestion also is a little problematic in that as you heard the public has heard this evening education is very much more complicated in that students need a lot of support many students have learning specialist support and pull out classes they have reading support they have ELL OT, PT, speech and language and if you move a class how do you move all the specialists do the specialists come there on a part time basis do they bring the kids back to school it's very problematic in taking one class out so it's an option that I could not support another idea that has surfaced on the last week or so is since we will have next year capacity at Pierce suggestions come forward to bus one class to Pierce next year we do have the infrastructure of all of the different services in place we'd have to redistribute probably a little bit within the district and this particular class is a class that has had a number of transitions as they've gone through their elementary experience having been in different buildings it's not it's certainly an option that's preferable to going out of district the other issue with Thompson is what we're going to do next year and one possibility would be to have modular temporary modular classrooms there so we could have additional space for classrooms so there really aren't that many it really comes down to when would we add additional classrooms onto Thompson and what form would they be or on a very temporary bandaid model would we move a portion of the school to another locale so those are the options there's not many really now one option that we talked about before is that we do have a buffer zone between Hardy and Thompson and I do think that it would be wise to widen that for more flexibility to the two schools that are experiencing enrollment growth and that is something that we would have to do here at the committee and we can take it to subcommittee look at it have parents come in as we did very much with the last process it was a process and it wouldn't be done unilaterally but it would go through a process but I think it is one that we seriously need to look at so you asked Dr. Seuss tonight about what about the core spaces if we added classrooms on and I mean it's a very valid question what can we do about the additional need for FIZED I mean that's really where the issue is is the FIZED in the cafeteria the way it's designed and Mr. Nauta would continue to have the way she doesn't use three seating she does five and probably will go to six next year that does mean some kids eat early and that means some kids would eat later and there would be a need for some kind of snack clearly in that kind of model but that model of having individual classes only in the lunch room fits another educational priority based on research is that students will sit down and eat lunch if you have lunch preceded by recess rather than the other way around which is the way we did it for years but more and more our elementary schools to the extent that they can are trying to have recess before lunch and so in that model and actually we have as you know Ms. Foley here tonight with the Thompson teacher but there is a feeling that every square inch of the building is being used and so having some additional space would be something that would be quite welcome I was there yesterday and the after school program originally had a dedicated room now this is a luxury because not all our schools have a dedicated after school room just one but the difference is that we have a tiny office now for that but the kids spread out through the whole building their kids were everywhere in the building for the after school program and it would be nice to have even more space to keep their supplies together so when you're asking about what the capacity question is the question is what is the direction we need to go what is the recommended direction my my recommendation is at this point that we've gone to a lot of discussion a lot of processes that we have a permanent addition built on to Thompson I think that the money for doing stackable portables are not it's not that much different and you're not going to have these are going to start in 10 years 15 years to not be have the integrity of an addition so I think that is my recommendation now having said that there's an issue of money and when we would have a debt exclusion on this and it may be and this is some discussions going on that we would not have the money identified to actually go into the planning process of it and that's something that we'd have to think about is how that would actually happen but I would also recommend I would like to I would prefer to see two modulars at Thompson next year but if that's not possible I certainly have a strong plan B that would deal with the enrollment growth next year Mr. Heiner I support what the superintendent just recommended the idea of an addition on to Thompson with half of our issues we're talking about Thompson right now and the idea of supporting a temporary to alleviate the problem my only concern with this is and you started to address it at the end the timing aspect of it I thought and I'll stand corrected there was some feeling that it might be bundled for the Thompson thing for the 25th of January the temporary and the long range and I would support that but again there's a timing thing that requires if we're going to have a vote it might have to be tonight or a side vote on the 7th if we're all together on the 7th I don't know that's a timing thing and I threw the chair back to Dr. Bode I think you'll be okay on the 14th to take this up in fact finance committee might not be able to meet until after that date so just looking at that now next week we have a task force meeting and with more discussion I'm certainly going to I've already passed on the numbers I will pass on the narrative to the task force groups so they have it and it will be public within Novus somebody can see these see these numbers but one of the things that I know the agenda item is just about Thompson but it's there's a much bigger picture of the whole issue with Addison and the more we talk about it's really hinges what's going to happen here you know we really need that in the equation to know what the next steps are back to the middle school Mr. Pierce two quick questions hopefully when it was built was it built with the idea that at some point there was space there was some area to put an extension and second question might be so fantasy realm but I must ask would this be something that we would go to the MSBA and say look you told us you would only do this much because this is what we were showing two three years ago you know warranty of habitability you know it's not worn out it's not run out yet you know it's not habitable anymore well when we went into negotiations with MSBA one of the districts our strong recommendation MSBA was to have a bigger school than the previous Thompson and we were talking about classrooms we wanted to have three classrooms per grade which was not the case at the old Thompson and have four at kindergarten and they agreed to doing that but then that's what triggered having to do redistricting because they weren't they didn't think that we would have enough students to justify nineteen classrooms and our numbers would at that time would have said just that we had a we saw from 2000 to about 2010 it was jagged but it was basically a trajectory of growth but when we hit 2010 we went off and the next year we flattened out and so that's exactly when we were talking with MSBA in that flattened out period and they didn't see any beyond nineteen classrooms they just didn't and so we walked away from that with at least getting the nineteen classrooms now would we have liked to have more yes we wanted to have more absolutely but we were also at that year just to put this all in perspective that was when we were looking at an override for the general fund and how can we do both build the school and have and have a general override be successful having two override votes in a year was not was not going to probably be successful for one of them so and possibly two we didn't know so everyone was doing their very best they could to make this possible but I felt and other people felt as well that educationally it is far better to have three grades per class because students have an option to have regroupings you know not just the two and so that we were able to get that and unfortunately well it depends how you look at it and we're seeing a great enrollment growth but nineteen isn't enough what we really need now is we need to have twenty four that's where we are doctor Allison Ampe I'm looking at a google map view of the Thompson I'm just wondering is it possible to have both temporary modulars and permanent construction going on at the same time that is something that we're concerned about it's it where the issue is isn't the two in the in the parking lot possibly it's that if we had to put two additional for that that year where can we position them so we wouldn't be in the construction area so there are some finances that need to be worked out and planning that would take place but I do think that that in fact we're talking about that today and have been talking about it how to actually set up the campus to do it Mr. Thielman so I'm glad this is the recommendation because I think it's the right thing to do with that permanent space at six classrooms that's the plan at six classrooms the Thompson school potentially some common space that has to be studied is that right or we need the five classrooms we need the five classrooms that six classroom could serve as additional space for any number of purposes okay so we have to do some planning and we have to do so the question that I have is we have a student enrollment task force meeting on the 22nd next Tuesday night and so are you recommending at that meeting that this permanent addition so that's going to be saw and then we have to prepare for a town meeting vote and then a debt exclusion would that debt exclusion be part of the high school debt exclusion if we're successful or not have you thought that through you about a little bit it could be you could the actual vote doesn't you vote itself doesn't have to have a number in it but when did it before and how you communicate about it you need to have a number out there probably in the marketing majors you need to have a number yes but in the vote itself you don't have a number we're going to it's the vote is to build an extension to the Thompson school and well we've got lots of enrollment growth issues we haven't even begun to deal with we have the high school of course and we have Minuteman so it's possible to put all four yes okay good that's what I wanted to understand we can put all four in one vote it's for all enrollment growth you can do it retroactively and you can do it retroactively so that if you spent the money now and then later on the payments so I think the one thing that we need to get some clarity about between now and the next time we meet as a full committee on January 14th is what we're proposing what the warren's going to how the warren's going to read a town meeting so that we take a favorable vote on it as a committee so the problems or the Thompson are permanent challenges if we were talking about a couple of years of problems there's all sorts of things we can say sending kids one place for a couple of years no problem but in a year and a half it's going to be 100 kids over capacity 480 is a projection go up to 500 drop down to 480 for a very long time so I'm very concerned that we get the structure right and that we don't go back three years and say oh my god we didn't think of this right so I would encourage us to look at common space one of the cheapest ways is maybe to take one of these classrooms and turn it into a music room maybe sound perfect properly so that you can use the back of the gym space as an additional so that's much bigger space than a classroom would be but I don't want to make a decision now that we will come to regret I think that the timing it sounds like if we do a vote in January it doesn't constrain us but we need to get the messaging right if for some reason in 2017 we open and the classrooms aren't quite ready because we were really being careful about it but there are a few months out of the way I don't think that's a terrible thing because I think what we need is a really good permanent solution and I think it's going to be much and come up with something that we regret it soon I think there are a couple of strengths that we have going here we've maintained a good relationship with the Thompson architects and they know the building we've got the as drawn plans they laid out the building with an eye towards being able to run six classrooms out that way and given the quality of the work that they did for us on the main building we designed it with one of the classroom areas being more common space or something that could be used for for multiple purposes they could come up with some really nice ideas of how to do it and how to incorporate that into the into the addition I am very happy to hear the superintendent making this recommendation to go for a permanent building because I think that temporary intervals isn't going to do it and the population in the east is growing to the point the community has changed people want to live in the East Arlington with kids the whole generational change folks are willing to sacrifice space for community and when they do that they're looking for the amenities they're looking for the quality of experience that we have here in Arlington that's not going to change unless we do something to break it and I think the best thing we can do it's going to last 50 years we're going to need it in the long term it's the first piece of the puzzle we know we need to do this there are other decisions that we need to make later but this one I favor moving forward as quickly as possible to put the addition on I'm going to ask Ms. Foley who works with us and works in that building if you'd like to make a comment well first of all yes I kind of find it amusing that there had to be a tour yesterday to find out if every available space was being used in our school yesterday because I can tell you every available space is being used I know you weren't the one who was asking that but yes you can comment at any point during the day and you were going to see our third floor hallway crowded with students working out in the hallway because they cannot fit into the classroom in the fifth grade classrooms with 29 and 30 students so they are out in the hallway doing a lot of their work and yes every available space is being used stairwells, everything so we're at capacity and I would personally love I think a permanent structure added on to a permanent addition added on to our building is the way to go everything that I've heard and seen we're going to keep growing even if let's say our numbers go down and we have two empty classrooms those two empty classrooms are not not going to be wasted they are going to be used they will they will never be empty and we have two classrooms in our in our building they're going to have to find some kind of purpose spaces pretty much the one thing we're always looking for right now so I'm very pleased to hear that the majority seem to support the idea of an addition a permanent addition and we're glad you're here to offer your perspective thank you Mr. Hayner I guess I would ask the committee to discuss briefly the members that are on that enrollment committee I think taking a vote on the 14th of January is appropriate but I don't want the enrollment committee thinking we haven't got it together or we don't have an idea of where we want I got the feeling that they were asking us to give them some sort of direction I agree that the artisan thing may not be we may not be gelled on that yet but from what I'm hearing there seems to be some sort of a consensus I'm not seeing we're going to go in with the vote so you're making a motion to endorse the superintendent's recommendation to add permanent construction of the Thompson second Dr. Allison Ampey I'm sort of I guess I'm on a slightly different topic I just wanted I think if people had watched our last meeting and then this meeting it seems like we've gone from one thing to something totally different and I wanted to explain to them that part of the reason is that we've received an update in the enrollment forecast report and it explains why we saw a somewhat decreased enrollment in certain areas that he had projected formally and the whole recast says that the district is our elementary school population today is 2924 and we'll peak in like 2019 2020 at 3064 so we're not looking at a scenario that shows all of our schools being as overcrowded as we were expecting under the first set of forecast and so that's made us push away from the idea of like pulling all the fifth grades out and putting them someplace and focusing more on the areas in the east where we're seeing the majority of the growth that said I think I'm going to abstain from voting for the motion that Mr. Hayner made just because I haven't had a chance to look at these numbers I know Mr. McKibbins coming tomorrow I'm planning to attend them you need to hear it but I just think about them to see if I agree and stuff so the facility that came in yesterday we had a chance to talk through some of the McKibbin numbers and what the McKibbin what the report told us is that the increase in enrollment is consistent as far as the eye can see at the Thompson and the Hardy and so what we've seen is a move of people to East Arlington who like living there for many many reasons access to public transportation and other things and so that seems to be as far as the eye can see so it necessitates us to take action the school that's most crowded now is the Thompson if we have a bigger buffer zone for a period of time we can take some Hardy students and put them in the Thompson and so this is a good solution so we still have to the task force to talk about the Addison Middle School we still have to get the news from the MSBA but for now I think that the superintendent's recommendation is good and I respect the need to go and do some more research but I think it's pretty solid and I think it's I don't think it's another solution I agree I think that no matter what else we end up doing we need to add capacity in the East and we're going to need it for a long time and this is an advisory vote we're not endorsing a plan but I think that the position that we're stating right now given the information we have tonight and looking forward we're going to need to have additional capacity in the East there are other things we can do later on that might involve some redistricting might involve some temporary portables in various locations but in terms of permanent infrastructure this is going to become a necessary part of our mix regardless of what we do so that's why I'm glad to have the motion before us and give us the ability to direct the superintendent Dr. Seuss I just have a clarification is the motion for the six classrooms only with no extra common space or is the motion just permanent in general in general it was a general to endorse potentially temporary modules for next year and permanent addition without specificity and direction to a permanent addition that's what the motion does it's not a total plan just to be clear how the process works we once we do this then there needs to be a feasibility study to find out what's feasible that's all that happens at this point and then the feasibility study involves multiple stakeholders it involves an architect it involves all of us it involves a number of different scenarios and options with costs so we're not specifying we'll find out what we can Mr. Hayner from what I'm hearing is that to solve the initial problem for East Allenton we're looking at this as a potential solution and not at Gibbs or not moving kids to Minuteman or to Medford we were thinking out of the box the other night which I think was a good idea this is a direction to look at that's what I'm getting out of this and as Jeff said the family just said that the nitty gritty comes later once a plan direction is finalized a logical first step we may find out once we ask what this would entail and what it would look like and what the logistics are and what we could get out of this might surprise us but I think that given the information we have at this point in time hearing no other discussion on Mr. Hayner's motion all in favor opposed abstain it's five nothing with one abstention thank you Superintendent report I don't have much oh no I'm sorry I missed one thing here vote to hold a special school committee meeting on Thursday January 7th 2016 at Town Hall it's at 7 o'clock 7 o'clock motion by Dr. Sue second by Mr. Pierce any discussion it's two hours so it's seven and nine can I just say 7 p.m. so the draft agenda that you have in front of you is pretty close to what it's going to look like but we are going to finesse some details to just serve a couple of the topics around a little bit renamed or something but basically this is the idea it's going to be interactive we're going to have tables with small group discussions that information is going to be brought to the front or entered in iPads and will it do we're not going to solve a problem that night but we are going to reach out to the community to find out what people are thinking to educate them about what we know so far to hear their concerns and that is really valuable so it's just part of this public conversation that I think is incredibly valuable excellent you'll be running the meeting and I will be partially running the meeting but I will actually be asking several other people to run parts of it and that will be figured out in the next few days excellent any other questions, comments, discussion or comments and I will be closed unanimous vote now we go to superintendent's report well as I said I don't really have too much it's only been a week I do want to compliment both the Addison and the high school music department once again they just have extraordinary concerts on Wednesday night and then last week was the high school and they honestly are quite superb and I would invite actually more of the public to come and hear them though I will say you'll have a hard time finding a seat because a lot of people will come but they're truly exceptional I also wanted you to be aware just more of an awareness of the discussion that's going on with the middle sex league superintendents and we have started to actually set up some regular meetings but the one of the the topic of discussion this week was looking at in the league high school start times there is growing evidence in terms of brain research, run adolescents who are going to go to college later starts in the day are probably better educationally for them now there's also a myriad of complexity in terms of trying to do that so there's no recommendation yet coming forward but I just want you to know those kind of discussions are going on and maybe I don't know if you'd want to you know include that that's a good idea I think we have the latest start time in the middle sex league and of course by having the league superintendents talk we're taking athletics out of the issue because you often hear later starts so it's complicated by athletics this discussion of everyone's doing it it's the whole league discussing this and so we'll meet again I think it's later January and at some point I will be you know bringing a recommendation that it will be a joint recommendation from this group thank you and just the other thing is one of the things on the agenda I just want you to be aware of what we'll have in January is the calendar voting the calendar start dates and so forth in January and there's also discussion going on with respect to setting up start dates the two years after that so we'll be working on that and anybody who would like to see the new forecast the updated forecast for Dr. McKibbin is now a public document and they can Ms. Fitzgerald can you tell people how they can access it the correspondence we see okay can we also get a special link to that on the front of the page we'll get them on the front page too on the website and that's it subcommittee and liaison reports policies and procedures Mr. Pierce thank you Mr. Chair we'll be meeting on January 11th 815 we'll be discussing the new student restraint revisions to update our policy accordance with state law and continuing with the business that we had at our last session you'll be discussing principal salary policy that is one of those items yes thank you very much for reminding me of that January 11th anything else Mr. Pierce announcements no budget Dr. Allison Ampey budget we'll meet tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. and we'll be discussing super substitute pay and also how to present various data that we've been talking about is somebody making a facilities report Mr. did a great job yesterday I included draft underscore minutes but I mean pretty much what Dr. Bodie said tonight is a summary of where we're at subcommittee so we I think Bill and Cindy and I understand that the director from the committees as follows we support a Thompson permanent addition generally we don't have a specific one we want to look at modulars at the Thompson next year and we took a straw poll the committee at the last meeting saying we favor neighborhood schools that's a value of ours and that's it really and we because we haven't come to a conclusion about anything else about the Odyssey middle school to give school long-term whether that can be converted back to a middle school that's it so that's those really the three directors we have from the school committee and the rest of the and then we'll report back and keep reporting back the school moment task force meets this 22nd the 5th and the 12th I think so we have three meetings before the full school committee meets again on the 14th we have a facilities meeting tomorrow afternoon also well I'm sorry yeah that is technically a meeting of the subcommittee right it's posted if I may I just have to excuse myself because I'm going downstairs to pick up Tiny Tim from rehearsal tomorrow night 7 30 and Saturday 11 3 and 7 30 selling tickets yes I've got a lot of tickets in case you need them just email me my emails on the website thank you very much happy holidays Thank you very much for these goodies. Happy holidays all into all good night District accountability curriculum instruction assessment mr. Thielman, you know, we had a meeting a week or so ago, and we'll meet after the Everything with the facilities work is complete. So after probably after not gonna meet again till after town community relations We voted the next meeting Yes, we did. So we met Had a long discussion I have to learn to watch the count the clock better on the details of this meeting and some input from from community as well and Lots of great ideas We also discussed we also had Stacy Smith who is an Arlington resident a parent and of Consensus building Institute and she has graciously volunteered her time and expertise on this We also Proves survey draft a summary of the Parents survey that we did last year and so I'd like to present it at some point when we have time and talked about doing a Survey to both parents and teachers at the same time on things like start times and Other issues surrounding the calendar to sort of just get the community's feeling And you've been working on arranging meeting with our legislative delegation. Yes, and I've been working on raising the meeting with our legislative delegation The 14th looks like it's the best date for people. I'm just confirming that good So if that works for for you and everyone else, I know you've been chasing down people and I appreciate that I'm executive session minute review subcommittee. Mr. Heiner I wish to apologize to the committee after harassing former members of not coming through I have neglected it Yeah, I have saw my schedule to contact Council tomorrow morning. Okay Warrant committee everyone got paid School enrollment tax for task force. I already reported out. We already reported out And we went past the consent agenda This paper stuff Following the electronic version, but I've been doodling on the paper Consent agenda all items listed with an asterisk are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered And it's normal sequence approval of warrant Accounts payable warrant number 16087 dated 12 10 2015 total warrant amount 675 5 5 5 5 5 4 That's 675 thousand five hundred fifty five dollars and fifty four cents approval the minutes so no minutes Oh, no, it's just the warrant. Yeah, I Said too much. I could just move the warrant Motion by mr. Heiner second by dr. Allison ampy all in favor right opposed We're any further announcements. No mr. Heiner just one quick one I think I wasn't able to say it The Stratton Third graders had their town meeting they passed two out of three articles. It was a wonderful time And how's the polar punch plunge still going forward whether whether permitting Well, it's set for January 23rd. I'm gonna be like balmy the big worry is that The snow dump in Gloucester will be filled again, and they'll postpone it Rotary right now has three members that are going two of the members are over 70 on one of them and potentially with A faculty member is indicated from the high school He will be attending and he thinks he there may be two students that might be attending as well to raise money for Polyo, so we're gonna have palm trees out there on the beach. No, it's going to be cold Motion to adjourn by Dr. Seuss second by mr. Heiner all in favor I