 I'll call in to order the meeting of the Amherst Regional School Committee, Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee of August 30th, 2011. Thank you everyone for coming and thank you ACTV for bringing us to people at home. First order of business, or could you call to order the Amherst committee please? We call the order of the Amherst School Committee, we do have a quorum. And Kathy? I'll call to order the Pellum School Committee meeting. Great thank you. First order of business is reorganization for the regional committee which means picking a chair and a vice chair. So for this part of the meeting I turn it over to Maria until the chair is voted on. Thank you. So only the regional members will be in this discussion so Annie you won't be in this discussion for region. So I think what I'd like to do is to ask for a nomination for a chair. Is there anyone who'd like to make one? Rick Hood for chair. Do we have a second? Debbie you seconded. So at this point I'd like to just go through a roll call and have each person down the line state the person who they would like to, we have a person nominated, but to go through that. Okay so Debbie would you start for us and say who for chair? Rick Hood? Rick Hood? Rick Hood? Rick Hood. Rick Hood. Excellent thank you I pass this over to you again. All right thank you. Are there nominations for vice chair? You can nominate yourself by the way. Debbie. Okay there's a second. Any other nominations? Okay why don't we start with you again Debbie? Catherine Oppie. Catherine Oppie. Catherine Oppie. Okay we're done. Thank you. Next thing is a gender review. Are there any additions or questions about the agenda? Kathy? So in new and continuing business I'm wondering if we can start with the district improvement plan for this current year and embed number A, the progress while we're talking about the current plan. I'm just concerned that we're not gonna have enough time to talk about the current plan so I want to make sure it's... I think that's a great idea. I was actually going to, I spoke with Rick on the phone, I'd like to make a brief presentation to kind of connect the dots with the district improvement plan where we've been and where we're going and then ask for questions and feedback on the progress and the district improvement plan so we're kind of having that conversation as a whole so I was hoping that worked for people. Next on the agenda is approved minutes of June 14. Are there any corrections to the minutes? Can I have a motion to approve the minutes? Is it seconded? Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Okay, the minutes are approved for June 14th. Are there any announcements or public comments? I see one. Okay, when you come forward please state your name and try to keep it to two or three minutes. I'll let you know at two minutes and... I was forwarded an email Mr. Hood wrote on Monday August 8 expressing his opinion that it was quote-unquote less expensive to hire an outside attorney to limit a special education matter even though the school district had a prepaid contract with an in-house attorney. I don't know where you learned that Mr. Hood but I can assure you that the three thousand dollars you paid your in-house attorney per month regardless of what he has to do is not less I mean is less than the three thousand dollars plus the fees you pay for an outside attorney hired to do the very same thing. Every member of this committee should be up in arms about an administrative decision to waste precious education dollars in this way. Mr. Hood as chairman of this committee you should be making very public inquiries into why the decision to hire duplicative legal services was made. Tell us who is responsible for this violation of the public trust and why you consider it acceptable. You should be asking what other decisions your administrators are making that are equally improper. Your negligence and that of the administrator who made this decision is hurting our children and our community. This is shameful it is malfeasent and it's terrible policy. Parents who come to Amherst for their children's education and pay handsomely the taxes for the privilege are appalled by the tremendous waste this kind of decision represents. Let us be clear you have failed them. Thank you for your time. Moving on to superintendent's update. I guess I too am concerned about this. We have a retainer agreement with an attorney and it appears that there is at least some of the special education cases that involve another attorney and I'd like to hear an explanation. If Mr. Riffin has a question Steve has a question about the specific circumstance Rick has been made aware of the circumstance and has been involved in the conversation and I would suggest that we not do it in public session because it has to do with specific children and situations. So I don't see that it's something we can get into right now. Well I mean I think it's a real problem. We have a retainer agreement with someone to to handle all special education cases. Those that were going before the person took over and any cases to start now and it's 36 thousand dollars a year I believe and and I don't understand how we can have a retainer agreement and you know and then hire someone else to do some cases and I think if if our current attorneys are not capable of handling some cases then they need to return so he needs to he his firm needs to return us some of the money because we hired that firm to do all the special ed cases and if that person has not turned us down but rather is just not being used then that's a real problem for us because we talk all the time about lack of funds. If we have a retainer agreement it's my view that only that firm of Dupere and Dupere should be doing special education cases and it's not meddling or micromanaging because it's our responsibility to select the attorney and so I mean I think it's appropriate for the school committee you know to make a motion to instruct the administration that we will no longer pay for the special education services of another attorney and I think that going forward it's already been six or seven months since we've had that attorney that we need an explanation and if you don't want to do it in public then then and I think it needs to be in public because and it doesn't have to involve the names of the children but I think the public and the school committee deserve an explanation as to why we're double paying for special education services and if it is our lawyer who says this then that lawyer should be paying for the special education services is he contracted to do all the special education cases there Chris why don't you go in and I just I want to I I think if we end up making a motion at some point that's a fair discussion but I will say my memory of the hiring of the legal firm was that in our discussions in the in the committee the policy committee that was discussing those we assured the special education director at that time that cases that had begun prior to the hiring of the new lawyer would be continued by the same lawyer until those cases are closed all new cases would be taken on by the new attorney so there seems to be a disagreement here or so that should be figured out and if it ends up with the motion that we take on a different tact in my memory fine but I do remember that differently you know a new case cannot be defined as an old case coming back I mean if it was an old case that was subject to litigation of going on to her hearing but it was dropped or somehow suspended but then comes back it would fall under the policies and under which you just spoke about Christian I know we have a lot to do but I want to clarify is our contract with DuPauré DuPauré state explicitly that we are only paying for special education services for new cases that have never been filed let alone anything else or does our contract with DuPauré say that they are we are paying retainer to handle all special education cases you know you know both Christian and I were on that committee and and it really should be born in mind that when we hired DuPauré and DuPauré to do special education we realized that there were some cases that were ongoing especially those that were in hearings that it would not be good for DuPauré to take those cases on and be brand new he in fact agreed with that we thought that was a wise policy I believe that that is a wise policy and again if that if the case was old at some point and was being handled by the former attorney and then somehow was dropped or came back it would fall under that policy because it had been and handled by that the former attorney and that attorney would be more familiar with it then the DuPauré and DuPauré even though it would seem that hey this is a new case and in reality as far as I'm concerned it is not a new case yeah I think this sounds like it's a it's a extended conversation and I'm just aware that we have a very full agenda so I wonder if it doesn't make sense to talk at another time about putting this on a future agenda. All right that's a superintendent's update. Thank you so I'm going to be very brief because I gave an extended update in Amherst and we're doing a fair amount of discussion around our progress but I did want to mention just a couple of dates that are very soon so the first day of the commons the 12th and 9th everybody will join us to celebrate the start of this useful year for our students and that will be Thursday September 1st from 5.30 to 7. Again I would like to mention that we're really partnering widely around this celebration and we're having vision and screenings for adults and children we're having human service networks there to provide literature and educational information for families and we're having a number of performers and parts and crafts for children and we will be partnering with the drive for the Amherst survival center around dignity for all and we're asking people to bring for just underwear and they will have a collection center there so we will be partnering around gathering supplies for our community partners so again this is a wonderful event we hope everyone will come and we will be sharing this information widely with our families. Also the backpack project is well underway and we're partnering with the safe seats for kids program which is a grant funded initiative through the Amherst police department so we will be providing for families backpacks this week which is Wednesday from 11 to 3 and Thursday and Friday I'm sorry Wednesday 1 through 4 and Thursday and Friday 11 to 3 families can come and we've had many many families call in to be coming to pick up backpacks. Also at that same time we will have the police department there and they will be providing booster seats and car seats for families. So again just important information for our community and then also I just wanted to extend again formally to school committee members to join us on Friday which is our convocation for our staff. So our first day with staff at 8 o'clock in the morning we'll be having coffee and greeting and then at 8.30 we start promptly and I'm hoping that the three chairs will consider saying a few words as well to our staff so I would love you all to be there so I could acknowledge you and stand and applaud our staff and their work that they do for our children. One last bit of information that I want to show our sample that I mentioned in Amherst and I think I've mentioned it in a few other school committees now one of our safety initiatives is to develop a crisis response procedure flip chart for each classroom in our schools and this is actually completed and David Sloven was driving around to schools to deliver this today and it's really exceptional and every classroom teachers will have what do you do when. So this has been a long time coming and these are in classrooms now so if people want to take a look at these later I welcome that. So that's that's it for the updates for tonight. Any questions follow up. All right moving on to I guess a review of the district improvement plan for this year that just ended. We'll start with that. I first want to say that I'm really glad that we're finally get into these things. I don't think we got to them last year at all and I know it's my vision that I hope that we treat these district improvement plans as kind of our Bible and that we spend a lot of time. Reviewing them. If you're up to me I do it every meeting and pull out the plan and see how we're doing on it but at least you know four meetings a year or so we could perhaps devote a whole meeting to doing nothing but reviewing the plan and how we're doing against the plan. So actually I'd like to ask one quick question of the committee first. I neglected to say we do have updated enrollments. Is it OK to the committee that we do this under a new and continuing business or should we do it now during updates. I apologize. I just glanced over and I forgot that we have this. I told the committee I would have that for the Amherst elementary schools. Would people like to do that right now or would they like to do that under continuing business. I just wanted to make sure I gave you the updated information. So just briefly we were looking closely at kindergarten at Crocker Farm and Wildwood the last time we spoke and second grade for Crocker Farm and Wildwood. So now you have a bit of an updated enrollment as of today. So Kathy is here if there are additional questions related to this but at this moment we're feeling fairly comfortable with the class sizes. We have moved five kindergarten students from Crocker Farm to Fort River at this time as I mentioned to the Amherst committee the other day. So are there specific questions. I guess the question is the same as the Wildwood second versus fifth grade. So I guess we're down from 24 to 23. 23 is a lot less desirable. And we still have we sort of had the bigger classroom in second grade as opposed to fifth grade. And I wonder if there's and I know that there was one of the people pulled out to be a coach was a second grade teacher at Fort River. So I just wonder if you know if there's any way to do anything about this because all of the evidence says that class size is much more important second grade than fifth grade. So I will be at this point it is extremely difficult as we talked about last time to move a teacher from one assignment to another. I have been in contact with the principals around these class sizes and at this moment they are comfortable given their resources to meet the needs of the children and given the composition of the groups. Again I will be meeting with principals further this week so I would be happy to raise that question again just to ensure that they're comfortable with class size. You're welcome. Okay so I'm going to shift into a brief presentation. I'm sorry we have a PowerPoint but of course the screens aren't working. So very quickly when I was walking out of the office Jerry said to me that wasn't working last week you might want to make good copies of the PowerPoint. So it's not the best copy. I wish it were in color and nice for all of you but I think I have enough copies for the committee. So I'll wait until that comes around so that we can speak about it a little bit. Maria is this what's in our packet in the back of that? No. So what I thought I would do is and I'll just start and you won't need to follow along here just for a few minutes. I'm just going to take a few minutes to talk about and provide some general information regarding the district improvement plan before we discuss goals for the school year so that you can see where the school committee goals are embedded as well as before we talk about the superintendent evaluation. As we have expressed in conversations numerous times we all I feel we have a very strong school system that does meet the educational needs of many many children many many. However at this point we do not meet the needs of all of our students and therefore we have to adjust our practice in our approach to our work and these are substantial changes. Our district improvement plan provides a roadmap for us to move forward and it does create the structures for continuous improvement. We you'll see this year that there's a strong connection between the district improvement plan and the school improvement plans. The committee in Amherst has seen they saw a Crocker farm school improvement plan and there were very strong connections made and you'll see that throughout your presentations this fall. In order to move a system of 600 to 800 human beings a transformation of the culture has to occur. And to do to really to do our work differently we have to do our work differently to really shift for the shift to occur. It's not that we can just say here's what we're going to do and then it magically happens we really need to support a shift by creating a structure that people work within and to learn and develop. So we have created a structure in a vehicle so I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that. Again we have to hold a clear vision of where we want to go as a school district. We need to support our staff with the tools so that they can improve their practice. We need to monitor their implementation and then we need to assess how effectively we as a system have reached that vision. We've spent this past year creating the vehicle to move forward using research and best practice and we are up and running and there's much work to do. So I wanted to provide a little context and I want to draw your attention to now in your packet a document called the conditions for school effectiveness self assessment. And this was published by and voted on by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in spring of 2010. So if you'll turn just to the first page these conditions articulate what schools need to have in place to educate their students well. And this provides a benchmark by which our schools and all schools can gauge their practice in these key areas. What I intend to do on PowerPoint which I will now walk you through here is to really show you these nine conditions. I apologize to the audience that you won't have this in front of you. It makes it more difficult to follow. So there are nine general conditions that the DESC has identified for school districts to have in place so that they educate their students well. You see effective school leadership aligned curriculum effective instruction professional development and structures for collaboration tiered instruction and adequate learning time. Student assessment students social emotional and health needs family school engagement and strategic use of resources and adequate budget authority. I'd like to talk about the first five top conditions briefly as setting the stage for the district improvement plan. Again I've provided you the source the link so that you can look at this whole document that we will be using as a way to assess our schools. So and I've also included in the slides a few samples of what would our schools look like if we implemented these conditions consistently. For example if you look at the first page where it's effective school leadership what would it look like in our schools if we met the effective school leadership conditions. We would see instructional leadership teams representing the school's grades and content areas meeting regularly to address topics of instruction and learning. We would see that the schools have an improvement plan focused explicitly on instructional improvement and student learning. We would see inquiry reflection and feedback being encouraged as part of our developing and monitoring of these plans. And we would see school leadership models that support lifelong learning of the adults. Next page we would also see a line curriculum where staff can describe how the content they teach builds on and relates to content in other subjects or grades. We would see instructional staff engaging in regular discussions of student learning expectations both horizontally and vertically. We would see periodic reviews of student learning and form revisions to curriculum maps lesson planning and related resources. We would see in terms of effective instruction we would see student assignments that contain rigorous embedded learning objectives that reflect high expectations. Our instruction would align with student learning needs that have been identified through universal screenings and formative assessment. We would see teachers engaging in ongoing focus discussion and collaboration. They'd reflect on instructional practices and effective instruction is modeled for the teachers by leaders, coaches and colleagues. And we'd have instructional staff have the opportunity to observe and provide feedback on their colleagues practice. In terms of professional development and structures for collaboration we would see professional development that's embedded as an integral part of our daily routine. We would see that time is built into our school schedule for staff collaboration with collaboration serving as professional development. Systems and protocols would be in place to guide our collaborative discussions. We would see promising practices for teaching and collaboration identified and shared. We would have a tiered instruction instructional model and adequate learning time. All lessons would be integrated and differentiated so that 80 to 90 percent of our students learn their key concepts within classrooms without the need of intervention. We would see a universal screening system that's used to assess the academic and the behavioral strengths and challenges of students. We would see flexible tiers of research based interventions that supplement and enhance and provide access to core curriculum for students who need additional support. The school schedule would be flexible and provide adequate time for both core instruction and additional academic and or behavioral supports. I think it's very important for you to see these because these are the standards and considered best practice by the state and this is a foundation for the work that we in our district are doing. I also think it's important to note that when you look at the evaluations for administrative leadership practice, which is what a superintendent's evaluation is based on, these conditions are infused into that evaluation process as well. So all the dots are connected. So the district improvement plan takes these conditions that we've identified a few of and it provides a roadmap to move us to making these conditions a reality in our schools. So we have spent a lot of time creating a vehicle and a structure to implement a continuous cycle of improvement. Again, it's not a linear action plan that you can say to staff, here's what you do and then it magically happens. You need to create the structure so people have the opportunity to learn and grow in their work. So if you turn to the next page, what we have done at this point, we've created a district instructional leadership team that meets two times per month. It has the principals, assistant principals, district directors and administrators, educational administrators and we engage in an ongoing cycle of adult learning. We're focused on improving instruction and student learning. That's our sole focus of that four hour block of time. We develop collective commitments. We norm our practice to ensure alignment of our work. We've developed mechanisms for gathering data from classrooms to inform our practice and our goals. The next, which it would look much prettier on a PowerPoint, the next is you can also see we've created school instructional leadership teams. So now our work is being infused at the school level so that we're bringing this unwavering focus on teaching and learning to the building level. So the principals have a core leadership team to help them bring this to scale. The next page you can see we now have teacher teams. So these teacher teams now engage in adult learning focusing again on instruction and student learning. They implement a cycle of inquiry where instruction and student learning is the core. They look at strategies. They make adjustments based on the evidence. So basically they develop plans together. They try things out in the classroom. They bring the evidence back of student work and then they adjust their practice. And they develop plans for intervention and for challenge for students. That engine is in place. We're also strengthening a tiered instructional model. So if you turn to the next page, Kathy. Can I just ask you a question about the teacher team? Please. So it shows the teams coming out from each school. Yes. So I'm wondering in this structure you had talked previously about teams of teachers in similar grades across the schools. Yes. Is that not part of this? That's a different. No, but what I would say to you is once you have the teacher teams in place and you have grade level teams for instance working together to plan to implement to gather student work and to evaluate that work. Then you have the opportunity to look across schools and across levels and slice. Say all of the grade K through two teacher teams are going to meet on a regular basis to look at content related to mathematics within a cycle of inquiry. So we have the opportunity to share and to norm our practice its alignment within a school and then across schools and then also to have some of the vertical conversations as well. So is it reflected in that model? No, but it is absolutely in a plan and it will be reflected in the district improvement plan. So the next page is you'll see a tiered instructional model. Thank Crocker Farm for starting creating this model and this is just our first prototype. And what I really want to call your attention to is in these conditions that you just we just heard a little bit about. The conversation is that 80 to 90% of students should be in classrooms benefiting from a consistently aligned guaranteed curriculum where teachers understand what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to be teaching what resources they're supposed to be using that we have universal screening data that informs their instruction where they have coaches to help them to improve and that they rely on their colleagues to share best practice on the academic side. And again on the behavioral social emotional mental health needs in our schools, you'll see the same on the other side of the triangle. We have opportunities for students to learn about the core values. They're supposed to be respectful within the cafeteria. What does it mean to be on the bus? So that we're not leaving it to chance that children just naturally understand what our adult expectations are. So we have the opportunity again for explicit direct instruction in the classroom as well as support from guidance staff and other mental health professionals to support teachers. We also have, we'll be using the educators handbook which you'll see in the district improvement plan where we're able to use discipline data to adjust our work in the building. Where do we need additional support? Where do we need to change our routines? In addition, where would we need to intervene with a student? So, and then the second tier of intervention is when students are struggling with, given this level of rich educational opportunity, we have students who are struggling. Then what evidence-based interventions are we using and how we then monitoring whether those interventions are effective or not. So this is where our work is lying right now is improving our instructional program. So when you look at the district improvement plan, you will see goals that are specific to co-teaching and inclusion which feeds the instructional, the tiered instructional model. You'll see that we are building in an enhancement block into each elementary student's schedule, a 30 minute block where students are either able to have academic intervention or be able to have the opportunity to go deeper into a concept that they may have mastered. We have universal screening data that will be used to inform instruction so you'll see goals specific to that work. You'll see alignment work around our curriculum and you'll see at the elementary level at this moment coaches to support improvement of instruction. You're also going to see goals in this district improvement plan that are related to developing partnerships as you've seen in the past to improve our educational opportunities for students and goals related to improving communication within our schools and outside of our schools to the community, to families and to the school committee. We also are reorganizing this year a bit internally so that I have a person who will address goals related to student achievement and accountability. This person will also be developing a comprehensive plan for community engagement and family engagement. So families were actively planning and how are we going to have families feel connected to and able to access and participate in our schools to support their children. And we will have a person who will be entitled Director of Student Achievement and Accountability which you see in your organizational chart. So you'll also see in the district improvement plan that the school committee goals are inserted into the document which is what was discussed with the three chairs who've met with me over this process. And they are indicated in red which I think we have color coded copies for you. And then we've also provided as you've seen some progress on our goals from last year because while the purpose of this is to really look where we're going. So partially so that you're evaluating my progress on implementing my goals. But I thought that that would be really difficult to do without seeing some foundational information of what progress have we made so far in this past year. So I'd love to just hand this document out which is the color coded district improvement plan. So this is the same as in the packet but color coded. Yeah I thought it might be easier. Well there are some minor adjustments too. I looked at some dates. I took off some typos and took the interim off my title. Rick? Sorry well that's going around. Can I ask a quick question about what you just went over? Of course. Can you explain what you mean by a guaranteed curriculum? I don't know what that means. What that means is that we understand what our curriculum is that we have agreed to use certain curriculum materials and that we understand the instructional model or the methodology of how we're going to teach. And it's guaranteed because we have methods to sample whether it's happening in class or not. So we have whether that's walkthroughs or instructional rounds or through the use of teacher teams where teachers develop that collective commitment that we're teaching this now. And this is how we're going to look at that. So I see that as a guaranteed viable curriculum is that what you have on paper actually happens in the classroom. To follow up on that. This is a very nice plan. I think you could have an equally elegant plan that was totally opposite in strategy. And I'm just interested in outcomes. But in terms of this type of guaranteed curriculum I can imagine having two teachers, same grade, a completely different approach. And it have been both been successful. You're going to force one of them to change? I'd be really interested to look at what how successful they have been. I would like to look at student data to see that we are reaching each individual child. Because it's very, we have exceptional teachers and teachers do a great job in the classroom and we're not meeting the needs of every single child in their classroom. So there have to be some standards that we have an expectation and understanding that we work within so that when interventions need to happen. Am I saying that every teacher teaches the same way? Absolutely not because teaching is an art. But there have to be some consistent understanding so that when a student is struggling you can identify why it's not left up to chance of not knowing what's happening. Within closed doors. I guess at this point for me I also have staff here who are well ready to answer more in depth questions. If there are questions other than I'm really interested in hearing about your feedback on the district improvement plan. Is there something that's missing from your perspective or clarifying questions. Again I'm working on timelines and I've been working on looking at evidence of how am I showing progress. Dr. Guevara who will be the director of student achievement and accountability will be helping me. As you'll notice on the last page there are some just dart student data indicators. Marta will be working with me around developing student outcome measures this year. So there's some things that are still in progress but I'd love to know if there's anything that the committee would like to have either clarified or anything that you feel like from our discussions is missing. And then if there's specific questions around action plans if someone's here in the audience that can go down to a micro questions I'd be happy to do that or make sure we put things on an agenda for a future meeting. There's a lot here so one thing we might do if you want is go page by page and just ask if you have any questions on a particular page. So really the bulk of this starts on page 11 I think. Yes Kathy. I actually have a question on page three. Okay. This might be something that I missed but I'm wondering about all these interims. Yes. And why we have interims and what the plan is. That's a very good question. I have reorganized to a certain extent within our central office. Joey and Smith's position I have maintained as an interim because as it had been when I was doing interims. What I would need to do is to be able to post the position at a period of time where Joanne would have an opportunity to apply if she chose to and other candidates would apply. So at this point because she is an interim there are other administrators that are also in an interim role underneath Joanne. Yes. So you're the superintendent is not interim. No. Why is that there? No I corrected it in one I apologize. We've been moving a little too fast and furious. So that should be off as well as let's say so it should be interim student services student services administrator special administrator. It should not be interim director of student achievement and accountability. I will clean that up Kathy. Thank you. It's not an interim. Correct. So the student services still is. Yes. And so so I guess I just have a question of we should have a plan of how long an interim lasts. Yes. And I intend to post the position this spring. Thanks. Can I ask a question? Is this an additional administrative position? So we've added a director of achievement. No. And then we also now have we're still going to have a director of student services. No it was reorganizing internally is not adding an additional position. So maybe I should say any questions on page four. Right. These are pretty consistent with the earlier document. That's one of the red circles. Page six. Sorry. So on page six. Shouldn't they all four overlap. Yes they should. We worked on that a little bit. I can see it's a little closer to all four overlapping than in the last one but there's still not. It's the best we can do today. But just so that everybody knows I mean really they. They are all overlapping and we have mechanisms to make sure the information is shared among between. Yes. And the director of curriculum instruction and assessment says to FTE is that two different people. At this moment we have one director. However I am actively and have been actively working with Amherst college to fund an additional administrative position as I discussed with the committee last year and we are very close to having that happen. So proposed second FTE but it would be funded from an outside source. Partially through outside source partially through grants. Page eight. Page nine. Page ten called the district process goals. Page eleven. And we discussed at the Amherst meeting having math as a separate topic and I think we too and then it isn't on here as a separate topic. So it's now time to talk about math. If I would talk about math in the context of this. So there's math in here. So if you want to talk about an item on the plan. I guess I'm a little disappointed that what we agreed upon didn't end up on the agenda as a committee. I don't know what you asked for it. But I decided not to have it on the agenda because I thought this was too much to do in one meeting. Or perhaps it's not important enough. But I think it's important. And so I have a few questions about about the math. It's sure it's related to this plan. Well I mean this is an update. I thought tonight we're doing an update that we're being updated on the progress of the district improvement plan. Right. Well that's after we talk about the remember Kathy said we're switching to talk about the 11 and 12 plant first and then Maria is going to update us on last year. So you want to wait for. So the question I would have for this year. And I think one of the things that was that I found missing from effective leadership was sort of rigorous evaluation of teaching and programs. So we're implementing a professional development plan that costs sort of in excess of four hundred thousand dollars a year in math and literacy combined the elementary schools. And I'm not sure because that's the cost roughly of pulling six teachers out and having six replacement teachers plus a math coordinator. And I'm not sure what the middle school and high school are doing or what Pelham is doing. But it seems to me that one we have to rigorously evaluate whether that plan is effective not in whether it feels good for teachers or administrators but whether it's working. And because it involves pulling out some of our best teachers who are already involved on a day to day basis talking to colleagues. But I think it also we have to figure out and I think as committee know what's going to happen to those teachers particularly teachers lacking professional status for whom the professional development is not working. And when we talked last time with Ms. Graham Ms. Graham pointed to the limitations of our ability to evaluate teachers in the contract which I'm not aware of having read the contract. And I guess I'd like to know given that even the most effective programs don't teach everybody what the plan is to make sure that all the kids are getting very good instruction. I'd like to just speak to a piece of this. We will be evaluating our coaching model. I am having conversations with various consultants and other people can help us do that work. And we will be doing some internally. We need to look at all of our practices to see if they're actually being effective because if they're not we need to change that. In terms of evaluating specific staff we do have goals within the district improvement plan because we will be looking to implement the state mandated evaluation process. And that will take us this year of planning for it doesn't relieve us of our obligation to evaluate staff now under our current model. However we will be looking at the model this year because we will be implementing next the following year. So I don't see that that relieves us of our obligation to evaluate the program or the intervention strategy we're trying and it doesn't relieve us of our obligation to evaluate the effectiveness of our staff in terms of their teaching. And as you know I mean the standards the regulations have changed in terms of what they're expecting of us for evaluating staff. Did anybody have any questions on page 11 any of those specific items. Debbie. That's kind of a follow up with that because actually that was one of the things that sort of struck me in general with the document is I'm also kind of struggling with how do you measure the effectiveness of these programs. And I mean yeah Steve says you need to measure good instruction but how do you measure good instruction. And is there I'm just wondering if you have thought about a year from now two years from now. What are you going to look at to say is this working or is it not working. Part of the decision of creating the position of director of student achievement and account abilities to in fact do just that to identify what are the outcome measures and student performance because everything we're doing should be shown in terms of the improvement of our children. We have to have those scores individual children and they're they're learning and they're growing based on whether it's the map assessment showing incremental growth three times per year within a classroom. Or whether it's based on individual students MCAS scores or it's based on groups of students within classrooms or groups of students within schools. We have to become much better at using this data and then creating outcome goals so that we can then hold ourselves accountable to. So I think the commitment to doing this work is by really putting a position a person in place who will be on some level auditing us internally. So in order to do that a year out or two years out we need to be sure that before we start in these new programs that we have baseline data in the same way that we're going to measure how things have changed because we have different data it's not going to be a comparison. Right and Marta in particular and I know Beth is saying we have that as well. Marta has been looking at some of the data that we would want to look to compare between where we are right now and where we intend and hope to be and where we will be. So this is some of the last page there are a number of different data points that we can take a look at and she'll be helping us move in that direction. I guess I guess to sort of chime in on Debbie's point I think the best way to learn about these models is not to learn from ourselves because there's no way. There is no way we're going to be able to figure out whether a an element of the changes we have made the particular contribution of that element. We're seeing many many changes in many areas. There was an excellent random assignment rigorous study done of both coaching and intensive professional development in literacy and mathematics done by a very high quality group which found that they were not effective at all. And I think it's unfortunate that we're not paying attention to the research and just because there are feelings in some districts that they work that's anecdotal and observational and there were feelings in these districts too. Because people like them but in the end they weren't shown to be effective. I think in terms of evaluating teaching I think that's why you have very good experience principles. They go in and they should you know they're in the classrooms and they can evaluate their teaching and I think the fundamental change with the new evaluation regulations is that there's a requirement now to validate the observations made by an administrator with student outcome data. Sometimes it's simple because they're teaching an MCAS tested subject. It's not even simple with that because it's hard to identify the growth. Sometimes they're not so simple if they're in other subjects or grades. But I think the premise of what it means to be an effective principal and building leader in terms of making sure that we have high quality instruction hasn't changed. And I think the regulations like all regulations they're not the meat of the matter because you can do a good job with regulations are not such a good job. I think the meat of the matter is that we have a requirement from the top that permeates the whole system that what we demand is excellent teaching and that if teachers and that and that we will provide teachers with very good feedback. And if it doesn't get better to the point that we think is OK not just OK but very good because we get lots of applications for our jobs then something will be done. And I think the evaluation is not put in place as a gotcha to get people out. It's really put in place as a means of fostering improvement. And I think an unfortunate notion has been this notion of evaluation is the opposite of collaboration. To me the only kind of productive collaboration occurs when there's serious evaluation and high stakes. And I guess I don't see that as a central part of this plan. I absolutely actually agree with you Steve around evaluation. And I would suggest that true collaboration has a whole lot of tension involved with receiving feedback on your work by either your peers or the others sitting in the room with you. This is not for the faint hearted to sit in the room and just talk happily about what they're doing. This is about really looking at how did the children in my classroom perform. And what was my contribution to that. And what am I going to change to make a difference. I think absolutely teachers need to be evaluated. And if any of us are not doing our job we need to make some choices in our profession and we are coached to do so. I do think the district also has set a strong standard in the period of time that I've been aware of what's happened in the new teacher induction program which I witnessed the other day starting with new teachers stating the expectation that you will move from great to outstanding in three years. And these are the expectations with having ongoing mentoring and induction. And our principals have been involved in those conversations and those actions with as well as Beth Graham. And so I think the standard is set and now it's about us holding the bar high because we don't have time. So I actually agree with you Steve, but I see that I don't see that there's a difference that there's such a divide between collaboration and evaluation that it's pinned against each other. I think that it's one in the same. It's all about improving the outcomes for students and you have to support staff and evaluate staff to do it. The privilege of sitting in on a KIP classroom about a month ago. Actually it was two of them, a third and fifth grade classroom. And one of the things that I was struck by was the after process, after the teaching had happened, because the principal was with me. The thing that struck me was that the feedback was targeted, specific, and came in actionable in terms of what was really good and what really needed improvement. Things that I had thought that both classroom teachers were excellent. And yet the principal went down through 10 things that the classroom teacher didn't do that should have been done that would have improved instruction. I believe that kind of feedback over time with a teacher really improves. Now this school was did set in the middle of Harlem and 99.9% of all students of color, plus on free and reduced lunch. And the achievement of that particular school was off the charts in terms of its comparison to other schools within New York City, within the suburbs, within the state. And if this is where we're going, that's where I want to go. That's where I would like to see us go. The other thing was that teachers over time under that kind of scrutiny and who really did not really want to improve their practice left the system quickly because that kind of scrutiny is intense. May I? I also, it's exciting to be able to watch that in action because that's what makes a difference in the classroom when you are actually witnessing and giving real feedback. Which is a, it's a skill to give real feedback that's meaningful and not just to kind of go over the surface with staff. I also believe that when you have teacher teams or teams of people who are working together, you're also using the expertise. You're honoring the profession of people who are exceptional teachers because they give really, they can on some level be much, and I mean this in a respectful way, very tough on each other and critical of their own work and each other's work in a healthy way. So I think that this really not only uses, it utilizes the internal resources that we have so that colleagues can feel professional, respected and learn from one another. So it's not, you know, the principal and the assistant principal are one person. So you need a team of people that are all collectively in it and willing to, you know, go the distance and give each other feedback. Any questions on page 12? Can I just ask one more on page 11? So with the last item, the 2010 evaluation of the special ed program, Action Plan Updates, how, I'd like to see them more frequently than once a year. Sure. I think we have one scheduled, I can't remember when we have, I think very soon we have one scheduled. And I am more than happy to give updates, whether that's within superintendent's update or have someone, because it's not separate from all of our work. It's the tiered instructional model and it's all children, so it infuses into our work. So I would be more than happy to make that happen. One more about math and I think it's more appropriate. Now, one of Dr. Chen's main comments was that there are issues with subject matter knowledge and sort of fluency in mathematics and comfort in mathematics, which is impeding people from being effective teachers in many of our classrooms. We received detailed comments on that. And I guess I have two questions. One is the coaching model does not address that and I'm wondering what is being done. I understood that a few teachers were cajole to go to get some extra work, you know, take some classes, but I'm wondering in a comprehensive way how we're going to address that. The second one is I've spoken to some people who were on interview committees for jobs for this year and it didn't sound like sort of at the elementary level math knowledge was playing any role in that selection process. And we had talked last year about doing something to ensure that when we are hiring new teachers, we would explicitly try to make sure that teachers were good in mathematics because that had been a well identified problem. And so I'm wondering what is the plan going forward to handle to deal with each of these issues, both of which are related to subject matter knowledge. I'll start and then I don't know if Beth or someone else wants to jump in with this as well. In terms of the selection process, I think that is a broad stroke to say that people were not examining applications. The courses that people took at college level to look at mathematics because it absolutely has been a priority and the principals look at this seriously when they are interviewing staff. Whether there's been specific questions in the interview process and who you receive the feedback from, I don't know. Do I think we have to become more formal in terms of whether we're going to evaluate staff's mathematical knowledge or just say that they have to have certain courses on transcripts. I do think we have to go there. Are we there yet? No. In terms of math content, we were extremely careful about who was chosen as coaches. And the amount of time and thought that went into hiring stellar teachers who had strong content knowledge in English language arts and math was substantial. So we wanted to make sure that coaches are the people that a classroom teacher would say, I want to teach like that and they have a knowledge base that will help me on an ongoing way in the classroom. In addition, when we look at teacher teams, we are going to be having teacher teams meeting together specifically around content. It's critically important. Even attending one course is not going to necessarily translate to the classroom in a meaningful way. So we did have a number of teachers which I would suggest were not necessarily cajoled because they went and they were really excited about taking graduate level courses and attending some workshops this summer. And did bring that information back and were very excited by it. But around the specific comprehensive professional development plan around mathematics, I think would take some time and I would ask Beth and the principals to speak to that more specifically. So I don't know if that's a time to go into it now or not. Great. Thanks. In terms of professional development this summer, there were between 90 and 100 teachers in our school district who voluntarily participated in professional development in math. Of that, there were 15 elementary teachers who were in the ability to computational, limits in mathematics, which is content course in North Hampton. And nine teachers participated in the spring graduate level course in math. So we really want to deliver content specific professional development to every teacher. It's our goal to do that. There are some plans of place for the fall to play the elementary level with grade level teams, with grade level teams working with teachers. And we're hoping that we're going to be able to accomplish past district grade level and band level content specific instruction in mathematics for the year. We share that goal. I guess it works. Yikes. They can share. I know this one's been kind of funky too. That's okay. Everyone's awake. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Beth. You're welcome. Any other questions? Sorry, I just have a question for Beth. It's an easy question. I'm thrilled to hear that so many teachers have participated in professional development over the summer. And I'm wondering if that's part of what's going to happen on Friday that we're going to really celebrate and recognize the teachers who have done this. Is there some way that other teachers can know also which teachers have participated in things so they can go to them with questions should they have them. And as we have teachers that become more knowledgeable and experienced in different things that they can find each other across the district. At many of the elementary schools right now, there are teams called math leadership teams of the information that people went off and learned about is being disseminated through the building and is driving the focus of that. I'm sorry, it's very weird going on. Yeah. It's driving the professional development plans and the grade level team content specific support through the year. So I think I'm quite sure that people at the elementary level know who the go to people are in the buildings. So I think it would be really nice for those of us who aren't in the buildings also to know. And the families might want to know if they have particular questions. You know what, that's a great idea. It might not be their child's classroom teacher they want to go to, but we're talking about all these things so much and they're so important. And I think that there is a lot going on. As much as you give updates in our meetings, we don't really hear about what are the specific things. So if there's some way to document that for people to see and have access to them. Thank you. Kathy had some great, great suggestion in the conversation we had the other day was trying to make more accessible topics that are covered around professional development and having that information be transparent for the community and for teachers so that people not only can access information, but have a greater sense of what's kind of happening in the day to day. So it's like opening up and having a window into the schools. So I think it's a great suggestion. Okay, let's keep going through the plan. Any questions on page 12, I guess? Everybody understand RTI? All right. That's a pretty key part of all of this. I'm trying to stay right now with a tiered instructional model because I think people can get very connected to things like RTI or PBIS. And it kind of, it can confuse people and it kind of helps people hang onto labels versus really talking about what they are. I was trying to figure out why. But I think, so the universal screening has been done K to 6 at this point or will be done this year. I'm trying to figure out when the universal screening is complete across all the schools and when it will be implemented. It looks like it's implemented into the secondary by 2012, but when is the universal screening being done? I'm going to pass to Mike. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. Because I think through middle school as well, Mike Hayes may also want to say something about middle school use of the data. It might be because the other one is still underneath it. I got it. Thank you, Mike. So we started last February. So the way the universal screeners work is that it happens three times a year so you can track growth. So we did do a winter session just for math for grades two through six last year. And that was because when we got involved with NWA, which is the organization that's working with us on this. And then they have certain because it is a norm reference assessment, there's certain time periods that it has to be done by. So we just couldn't squeeze. We didn't want to throw disrupt the school to get our first data point. So we did focus on math and we did focus on grades two through six. And then in the spring, we did do K to six, both reading and math. What's really neat is for the students in grades two through six and math, we now have two data points, which eventually need a lot more. But that we're able to really see growth or lack the rub and then come to some conclusions about it. So that's the exciting part. It's not the first one where we get a score is really to assess things over time. So we see how's the instruction and the interventions working for our students. So the idea this year now that we're kind of caught up in the process is to go one through six math and reading three times a year for kindergarten students based on their readiness and variety of other developmental factors. We're going to use a spring and the fact that we screen them before they even come to us using a different measure. We're just doing a spring screening for kindergarten. But for one through six, we'll have a fall one, which is roughly kind of early October. A winter one should be a little more like January, February and the spring one, which is late in the school year. Good. I also have a mic. Can you speak to the middle school just for a minute, please? Good evening. So we started, we did our first map assessment in the spring last year. We did math and reading. It replaced our DRP, which we were using degrees of reading proficiency, which we've been using previously. And we did not have a universal screening for mathematics. So one of the things that we're doing this year is in the past week we've started putting together all the data that we're gotten from the elementary schools plus our data for the seventh grade. So on the curriculum day Thursday for the middle school, we're actually going to spend the whole afternoon where we'll be broken up by teams and we'll be actually looking. We have a spreadsheet that's going to have the, for the incoming seventh graders, they now have a winter and spring score. We also have our MCAS score and we have our transition sheets. So for the first time in my recorded history at the middle school in the 15 years, we're actually going to be looking closely at where kids are at before we even see them. When previously, when we were just using MCAS, we would be into October, November before we really start sitting down. So it'll give us a jump start. And also over the last year, and I'll talk about this when I talk about the school improvement plan at the middle school, we have several interventions now in place. The VALA program that we've been working in collaboration with Amherst College. We're now bringing that so it will happen during the day as well. And then the academic study period that we ended in last year. We're going to be able to use that also in combination. Maybe haven't gotten to it on the improvement plan yet, but we're piloting Ren Zuli, which is a gift and talented for all type program. So we're going to be able to use that within that specific intervention time, both for students who need support, but also students are ready to fly at a higher level. And then I can also just briefly tell you at the high school. So what happens with these map assessments that kind of peter out in terms of effectiveness and in terms of how high they go. We are all our eighth graders took the math and reading. So Diane Chamberlain is the principal at the high school. She's going to be looking at that data. And one of the things they're going to do is particularly looking at the students that they now have coming in identified. Concerned about not working at grade level that they can now use this assessment at targeted place. So it won't be for say the, I don't know what the exact percentage are, but the 75 to 85% of kids who already kind of maxed out the effectiveness of that particular assessment. But then focus on the kids that are already coming in that were concerned about, you know, the kids that would be concerned about passing the 10th grade MCAS. So it's kind of permeating up through the, through the grades already. And could I, could I just add also I just wanted to say for the elementary level also teachers this year will have in their hands before school starts the performance of the classroom that they had last year to inform their instructions. So where do they see that, you know, their students by strand, they, their instruction really worked well and kids, you know, soared or where do they really need to look at their content and maybe how they were instructing. And they will have the information around the students who will be sitting in front of them so that that information both years will inform their instruction. So they will have that this year, which is the first. Yeah, so I was able to actually preview that today and Doug Slaughter has been putting that together for us and basically a teacher will be able to see, you know, for at the middle school will be for their 100 kids at the elementary school for the 25. They'll be able to see, and it's not just their overall raw scores, but it's also how they did on each, each problem. And the way Doug is laying out visually, you'll be able to very easily go through and see for your group of students, you know, what, what particular types of problems they were struggling on as a whole class, but then also looking at the individual students. So it's going to add another layer on the map testing and MCAS raw scores, give us one layer and then being able to do this. So when we start to raise questions about particular students, we can start to use this type of analysis to dig a little bit deeper into, into what types of supports we do in these intervention times. Yeah, so Mike, and then are you going to do these assessments? Yeah, so we do, we're going to do them three times. So, so we start our first one actually is late September into the first week of October they set these times the one in January one at the end of the year. So essentially what we'll do is we're starting this master file. And as we do each one we get to, to add on this new and we're going to really be able as Mike was saying be able to see that progress or lack of progress over time and then being able to make the parts that's exciting to me is, it's, it's really around for what it tests for because let's be clear doesn't test for everything. But for what it does test for it's going to give us an ability to recalibrate what we're doing to see whether it's effective or not at several times throughout the year. So I have a question it, it's not to you Mike, but it includes you and, and Marie, you and I have actually talked about this and I have a question about the process of the administration of these assessments and the evaluation that's being done around the process and the input that we're getting from teachers about how it's going and from students about how it's going and how we're comparing that among the schools and the grades and how we're responding to that. Because it's all finding good to talk about the data that we're getting from it, but then the validity of the data based on what the process of the administration is. So, so I think it's important to talk about that. And what I said to Kathy before is that we absolutely are working out the kinks the first time you're trying to administer an assessment tool when you haven't done that before it's like, how do you even go about doing this? Who's monitoring and making this happen? You know, how are we explaining this to children? What happens when, when children need additional support through the process? So I know building principles are getting feedback from the specific administrations that have been happening. Also Jerry's staff instructional technology. Thank you. We've changed the name recently from past year or so. Teachers have been helping and like critically important in the administration. So they also are the holders of lots of information and feedback. So I would suggest to Joanne who's been holding RTI to really kind of look at a little bit more of a formal kind of gathering of data to see what we need to tweak some of our. So I would just add to that also that so the spreadsheet that I'm talking about one of the things we're going to start doing is cross correlating MCAS scores to map scores. And then we'll also be able to add in grades. We're going to be able to add in the kind of qualitative information we're getting out of the classroom from teachers. So because that is a concern of ours is we don't want to say, you know, so our only administration right now it was in the spring after we had done MCAS. Everybody was worn out. So we're already feeling like we don't want to take that as a single data point and say, oh, well now you're going to need this program based on that. So which is why we're already adding in the MCAS and looking at, as I said, the other pieces. And I think that's going to be something over time that we'll get a better read on. And one of the things that I've been talking to staff about as well is at the middle school, it's very appropriate to start engaging students in this is what your scores are. These are where your strength. These are where your struggles. And so they start to see that when they're taking the time to take these tests, that it actually has an effect on them knowing where they are and then the type of programming we set for them. So I think that that's going to build over time as well. I just think it's important that it goes across the schools. It's consistent in how we're doing it in the different schools and people are talking about that we're doing that. Thank you, Kathy. I was just trying to think about connecting to what Debbie and Steve had been talking about earlier in terms of how do you know when you have good teaching and we're trying to figure out what are the outcome measures. Will these be an aspect of that? Is that your intention? The outcome measures around teachers specifically. We're very new in that conversation because we do have to have a committee including teachers and administration sitting together and really looking at what would be considered. What would be considered part of that evaluation process. So we really haven't even begun walking down the road about how would we, what information would we use, what would we not use in evaluating staff. That will be this year. So we should keep moving on this plan and get on to a summary of last year's plan. Any questions on 14 and 15? We can ask one more question on this page that I can't read. We've identified, I think last year, something where a great concern of ours over the years has been the race and ethnic gaps and disciplinary infractions. I think that our, any kid dropping out I think is of concern, a higher dropout rate among special ed kids I know is of concern of kids of color of disadvantaged kids. And I think we haven't to date gone and track these kids backwards. See how they were doing. See when the disciplinary infraction started and the troubles academically. And I think we should do that going backwards for the current groups of kids or the recent cohorts of kids who just graduated. And I think we need to do it going forward so that we can really see whether these new programs are working. And again, it's easy to say, wow, it's working. We're sort of implementing it with fidelity. But to know what's working, I think we're going to have to see some improvements both academically and socially. Because I can imagine a number of current and former teachers and intervention people hating what we're doing now. And saying, what we used to do was really great. Those sort of old therapeutic models were really great and wouldn't like what we're doing now, which is more standard. And I think they were claiming that what they were doing was really great without evidence. And I think we need, and I know we're collecting a lot more data, but I think that systematic reporting of this to us as a committee, including breakdowns by race and ethnicity and linking it over time. How were the kids doing as they go through our system would be really valuable? And I hope they're part of the plan. Absolutely, it's part of the plan. And one of the challenges we have of looking backwards is that our data isn't clean in lots of ways to be able to make some sort of an assessment as to the interventions we tried to work. Because we were not documenting in the same way historically around discipline data, interventions. We were not consistent necessarily across the elementary schools of if X infraction happens, we will be using a consistent approach. So that's a lot of what we're doing is really norming our expectations of how we will intervene with kids, but also how do we document that so that we really can be more objective in terms of our being responsible for making a difference for kids. Debbie. Yeah, I had a question along similar lines. I know that when we talked about the discipline data in the spring, we had a, I thought a good conversation about the need to improve or create a more positive school and climate better engagement in the classroom for kids of color. And there was a gentleman, I don't remember his name, I'm sorry, who just spoke during public comment talked about there was a lot of research out there, you know, talking about strategies that could be used. And I kind of hope to see maybe that we had our investigating those strategies and maybe are actually putting strategies in place and that, and maybe that's the high school school. I don't know. May I? We absolutely are. And that was Michael Burkhart who spoke. Right. Yes. And part of the work that Marta began with the inquiry equity group, which has made some specific recommendations that the principals will be reviewing. It's been it's on our agenda right now to really look at some of the areas that we've identified as barriers for specific groups of students. And also, do we have if in certain cases there aren't barriers, but we have students who are not benefiting from and what is that about. Marta, I know historically through MSAN has been involved with some of Ron Ferguson's work, which is a tripod project, which gives you some very specific steps you can take to make improvements in your school district. And I know through some of the work that Beth and the administrators and teachers leaders just discussed in one of the coaching institutes was specifically Ron Ferguson's work. So we are absolutely taking steps right now, which Marta will be developing action plans for the district that will be attached to the goal that has to do with. Let's see if develop and implement strategies for achieving equal access to educational and other opportunities regardless of race or class. Okay. As well as around PBIS, we're much more able to actually look at that data and make try interventions. And then we have to be held accountable. Did it work? So we will be extremely specific and be happy to report that back to the committee. So just in relation to that where you were on page 13 number C and what Steve was talking about in your comment. It looks like maybe under the resources needed that part of in addition to the baseline information that we're talking about integrating in some historical data as well to help to see it in perspective. Which we have in our equity group, but we will be incorporating that. So thank you. Anything else on this year's plan? Okay. Why don't we move on to a discussion of last year's plan and. Just on page 17, which I consider to be one of the most important parts of this document. Because here's where we start looking at measurement. And it's measurement that is really important in relationship to everything that is going on everything that we've seen before in the district improvement plan. All comes down to this DSE document, this dark document. And the school system is committed to having this as part of its evaluation process in terms of all of what we've been hearing. And it's important to note that this data goes across several areas. And will include all the other data points that are out there. So for me, I look at this and think this is the probably one of the most important part of this document in terms of all the questions that have been raised about measurement and evaluation. One thing before moving on, maybe we can say we'll have all this up on the website and maybe a link on the homepage to it. Yes, everything will be up on the website and a link as it was last year. And we'll just continue to put this information up for the community as well. Okay, for last year's plan, do you want to just walk us through it? Well, I guess the question, the goals are not terribly dissimilar. I did change some wording to make, I think, the plan clearer. So our goals now are based on the foundational work around mathematics program evaluation and implementing the action plan starting the science evaluation and where we are within science evaluation. We also have updated information on the anti-bullying work, which the committee's heard quite a bit about and positive behavioral intervention and supports, which is the tiered instructional model. I apologize that there are not page numbers on this document. It would have made it easier. So, which we've discussed much of today. So, we, as you know, we piloted PBIS at Crocker Farman. We will be now moving incrementally toward the other elementary schools and up through middle school, high school. We are applicable. We also are looking at school-wide enrichment, which is what Mike mentioned around the middle school, which is identifying students' strengths and talents and then being able to use that information to gear instruction in that direction. We also see goal number three, which is data analysis. We've spoken a lot tonight around the levels of data that we are using and how we are integrating that into our work. Quite honestly, this plan reflects using data to inform instruction. Also, we have spoken over the past year of how we use data to inform a budget process. So, we are continuing that work. Rob worked very closely with the Budget Subcommittee last year to create a comprehensive spending plan. And we will be adding to and updating that plan again this year for you. I found we were, in my opinion, we were less effective about when we had like a separate data team where we did not infuse it into the educational conversation because we didn't have the right voices in the room. So, we can talk about data separate from instruction, but then we weren't making the links, I think, that would really move us forward. So, we're not holding a separate data team. It's all connected to teaching and learning. So, our district instructional leadership team. In terms of goal area four, which is around attracting diverse staff, supporting, challenging, providing a challenging focus of professional development. I created and included a great deal of information around creating that engine, that vehicle that we spoke about. The district instructional leadership team, school teams, teacher teams. Mentoring induction program we touched on briefly. And effective communication, a number of different strategies we've tried this year. We're actually interested in looking to see how effective they've been. And I'm not really sure how to go about doing that. So, while we've used ACTV, Amherst Media quite a bit, I'm interested to see how many people are actually watching as a beneficial. So, I have to think about how to get that information. Also, the informal meetings with the superintendent. Some were well attended, some were not. Part of Marta's work this year will be to consider how do we actually engage the community in a more meaningful way. Clearly, just having meetings at the school level and say, come who wants to come is not necessarily the most effective means. So, we need to be out in the community. So, I think it would be great if we had some way to get feedback on the different things that you're doing. Rather than, I don't think attendance even means it's good or bad. Right. By itself. And if there was some way to have something that, like the high school had at orientation yesterday or Monday for students, they felt a quick little thing out. What do we want to know about the effectiveness of it and so we can respond to it and make changes. And also with the ACTV, I mean, I think it'd be great if there's some way to, if somebody watches it for them to then give some response about, you know, who they, who are the, what are the demographics also? Like who are we reaching with the ACTV and how are, you know, why are they watching it and what do they think about it? Sure. That'll take me a little bit of time to think about how to do it, but I absolutely agree. And I know counters are not just, it's just not enough information. Right. It tells you how many people are accessing, but not necessarily to benefit. And who? Yeah. And then also you see engaging and supporting the special education parent advisory council. Goal and you see some updates there in terms of collaborative work we worked with together as well as informational flyers we supported and such. And then some examples of partnerships. Which goal are you on? Six. I'm sorry. Yes. It is goal number five still. I have a question on fine. So, so on the part about the ombuds person, I think it would be great to have data on how that went, you know, like how that person was used and how many people what they use. And again, what they, the value of it to the people that used it. I think that would be a great suggestion. And I'm actually meeting with Barry this week, this week, and I can start to gather some of that information. I'm also considering how are we going to use his time this year? We're going to continue with community and family, connecting with community and family. But are there, is there a role for Barry to be connected in other ways if his time isn't being maybe fully used in that way? Because he has so many areas of expertise. So we will be talking about that. I'd be happy to report back on that as well. So, and then I talked about partnerships after school programming, partnering with the town, the five college superintendent's advisory. I won't go through each, but a number of examples around partnership, attempts at partnerships we've made this year. And then I just included a few other updates that I thought would be important for the committee to have around other projects and initiatives that might not be directly related to goals. But as I was typing this up, I thought I would add a few other things that would be helpful for you to know about our work. So just a general statement. Thank you for putting this together. I mean, it was obviously a lot of work. And I think it just demonstrates that there has been a lot of good work that's been happening. So I really appreciate having this as reference. And then I have a really, really quick question for you. Sure. On the K-12 science review, about two of the three team members for the outside review have been identified and secured. What does that mean? We're trying to bring in a team of evaluators. We're looking to bring in a team of evaluators to look at different aspects of the program than to develop a comprehensive and composite review of recommendations. And so actually the update says two of the three have been secured. It looks like at this point it will be two. So are these like paid consultants? Yeah, they'll be paid. Yes. Can I ask one more follow-up question? And when will they be here working with us? We're looking at October. And so it's either the beginning of October or the end of October. I'm sorry to be vague about it. One of the considerations is that a key person in the high school science department is on leave at the beginning of the year. And we really want her voice as part of the recommendation, as part of the review. So we're trying to schedule the consultants, you know, and this teacher. It's time to best leverage or maximize the conversation that we're going to have around science. You're welcome. Maria? Also I'm just kind of interested in the committee. Does this, and it doesn't have to be now, but I would be very interested in receiving feedback on the format that if there's a different format or if the links are a good thing, or if you'd prefer hard copy, I was trying to save, you know, trees and this. Yeah, so just, you know, when you get down to the progress, which I would be hoping to complete a self-assessment for the formal evaluation process, it would be helpful for me at some point if the committee would reflect on the format of this document if it was helpful or not. Okay, so I'd love that feedback. Yeah, and I certainly will, and I would also like to echo what Debbie said. This looks like an enormous amount of work. It's very informative, and I really appreciate it. I really feel like I have, you know, the information all in one place, which was really great. And I particularly like the links, because then I could sort of pick and choose and go, and it was all there. So thank you. This is really comprehensive. A couple of questions regarding, I'm not sure what page it is. I know, I'm sorry. That's okay. The Item Center for New Americans and ARPS Partnership and the Family Outreach. Yes. And how that does or does not dovetail with the action plan to raise literacy. Questions about the grant to the Center for New Americans? That's a one-year grant. No, I believe it's a three-year grant. I can check that with you, but I believe it is a three-year grant. It was, this was the first year. Yes. So I can, I'd be happy to give you an update. Youngsters are, it's a walk-in, it's recommended. How do you approach the clientele for this program? Parents are, are connecting with the Center for New American around their language courses. And when they are attending language courses, the children are there receiving early literacy instruction from a preschool teacher. So it's really connected to the adult education, but again, it's dovetailing connecting the schoolwork of early intervention with the parent's literacy work. Is there a cut-off page? Oh, I want to say three. Do you remember, Annie? I will check for you. I'm sorry? Where it ends for the age of children? Is that what you were? I want to say school age. I want to say once children are in school, they're not coming for that intervention. But I'd be happy to get a comprehensive update for you. Is it all, the staff involved at all with this? We have a staff person that was hired to work on behalf of us in the grant. So we did go through the hiring process to identify the teacher. So yes, they're technically our staff, but supported through the grant. And is there a relationship between that program and the family outreach in terms of reaching out to parents who might not be aware of the need for the literacy program? Well, family outreach of Amherst, I don't believe has their hand in that program specifically. But in terms of parent outreach, I could check. I'm not, truthfully, not sure about how the Center for New Americans go about making those connections. I know they're very well connected in the community, but I don't know how they actually go about doing that. Not to the degree that staff or anyone else connected with the district is going actually into homes? No. Nope. What about? It hasn't been. But years ago we did have, we had piloted a program, Birth to Three. I know I'm going to blank on the name. Does anyone remember what that program was that Jerry had in place? Parents as teachers. And at that point it was, thank you, Debbie, was funded where we had outreach. Former educators, current educators who went into homes to work with parents around working with their babies through, I believe it was through age five. And that also was a nice link to connecting to preschool. But again, we did not have grant funding for and when budgets became tight. So I would be very interested in looking at early intervention again. One last question. Of course. What, if any, is the relationship between those two programs and your action plan? Are you going to talk about that this weekend? They are not connected in terms of a specific goal other than developing partnerships which benefit our students entering school in any way prepared to benefit from preschool and kindergarten. So it is about mutually beneficial work. So when we look at the Center for New Americans, are we looking for partnering with the survival center? It is my belief and I believe all of our educators is that, I know it sounds corny, but it does take a village and we have our doors open between certain hours and if we don't extend past that in some way to partner with others who have different roles in the community, we are missing a huge opportunity. Our families access the survival center, our families access Center for New Americans and if we are not making those links and connections, I think we are more powerful if we actually partner together to make that happen. Thank you. You're welcome. Catherine. Yeah. One thing I might add to this is the community mapping task force. Right. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, and I don't have the update from the last meeting that you all attended, but the community mapping is looking at strengths within our community, specifically Amherst to start and we would hope that we can move into Pelham, Leverett and Shootsbury, but to start with mapping the strengths in the community, the resources and also identifying gaps in resources. So who are our families in Amherst and are they able to and are aware of accessing the services and then how do we bridge gaps? So how do we partner with Center for New Americans, the Human Service Network providers, the town of Amherst to put all the data out on the community mapping group? I think it's important for everyone to say here's literally a map of our resources and our families who need those resources and having the real conversation about it, are we okay with that we may not have resources in our community for people who need them? And I think that the conversation around the community mapping group is let's put it out there and then it's something that our community has to grapple with. Yes, we have a hand in because we have a responsibility and as well as one comment I guess on this literacy issue. During the past year and a half there's been a considerable amount of discussion regarding the math program K through 12 and what we should be teaching, what we shouldn't be teaching and the conversation around that particular topic has been endless. I'm of the opinion that regardless of how good or how knowledgeable teacher is regarding math unless a youngster is literate it's not going to really matter and I would hope that the devotion that we spend on math is equalized if not exceeded by our attention to making sure that every kid past third grade is capable of reading and writing and I know that's an elementary issue not a secondary issue but it seems to me that the chickens come home to roost in the secondary level. I don't think we've had enough discussion about that. I would love to have more of a discussion around that topic because it happens to be a passion of mine because if we are exceeding a certain grade level the window closes pretty rapidly around children with ease learning to read and then it becomes a whole host of other issues for children and we have actually been engaged in a substantial amount of work around literacy in our school district to the point of saying how much time needs to be spent literally during the elementary schedule around literacy and I would expect and I would also suggest that this is all of our issue while it is elementary from a certain perspective it is all of our issue and that's lots of our conversations at the district level that these are all of our children and if we don't meet that need early on we all sit with this issue. So I would love to have that conversation. I just want to wake up Mark with this one. Last year there was at one point considerable discussion about perception, teacher's perception in race and I hope that we will be addressing that because it specifically came up. It was talked about with newspaper etc. But one of the things that would be a really great goal and an objective of this school system is that we don't have kids feeling as if they are being treated differently and that we address that in very meaningful ways. I agree with you Irv and I know Mark is going to want to talk a little bit about some of the work the high school has been focusing on. So when I was here in the spring to talk about race in the context of discipline data I talked about the project we had undertaken with the MSAN kids. I told you that we had reprised the conversation from the previous spring that they had had in anticipation of going to the MSAN conference and just to recap that in my judgment that was one of the most moving provocative things that I've sat through in 30 years listening to kids of color talk about what their experience has been in a predominantly white organization. So we reprised it in the spring, we took an hour of footage, we edited it down. Kids have a lot of things to say about a wide range of issues, what it means to live in the community, how difficult it is to get jobs in the community, to how exchange programs are conducted, the state of the curriculum, their range is broad. For the purposes of the opening of school though, what I did was edited down to have their comments focused on two issues on how they feel just to follow Irv's comment, what it feels like day to day to live in a building where they are a statistical minority and all that means given the history of the country. And the second issue we focused on was their sense of the expectations that people have and how they're held to them. So my thinking was that those are two good issues to focus teachers on in the beginning of the year to begin to organize their thinking around. So today we had the new teachers in and we showed this. This is the debut, if you will. So Irv had asked Maria to make sure that I got a copy. This is Rick's copy. And so tomorrow or Thursday we'll meet with the faculty. I'm going to lay the plan out for them and it's going to be, and I think I referenced this when I was here last time, that what we're not going to do is the off the rock one size fits all. Putting 120 people in an auditorium and raising the issue of race is a prescription for an unproductive time. So we're going to try to do it a little differently. I'd rather talk to them on Thursday about it before I talk to you in terms of the specifics. I'd rather them not have to see this on television. I'd rather talk to them directly. But we showed it to the new teachers today and interestingly we combined it with the article that Beth had used in our training last week by Ron Ferguson. And he's got a very, very strong typology about how particularly white middle class people should go about thinking about what it means to organize their relationships with kids of color in an academic setting. And I'd love to come back and talk about that at some point. But for right now you should know that Rick here's your copy. Go ahead. I also, if I could, just add on to thank you so much Mark. Also at our district level meetings we have topics on our agenda each time we're meeting that are specific to issues of equity to the point of policies, practice, things related to field trips, even to the point of bake sales. Because there are equity issues embedded in all of the work that we do every day and we have to be able to surface these issues and have real conversations about them. So we are working on practicing what we preach at the district level and holding ourselves accountable. So we would be happy to report back. Steve, just something related and to extend the conversation about math a little bit more. So I think there are two issues from the work on mathematics this year. One of them is related to race. Actually they both probably are. And that is I think that there's a lot of disappointment in the community and the choice of the elementary school math curriculum, which hasn't been discussed in a meeting. And I guess my concern is that the best evidence shows that the type of curriculum that we're using in these investigations, which doesn't do so much modeling and showing problem solving. It's more about discovery. It has been shown not to be effective, particularly for disadvantaged kids. My view is one of the reasons for that, that it really focuses on disadvantaged kids, is because disadvantaged kids have a lot of options to learn at home and to learn in other places. And that modeling problem solving would appear to be a better, more effective way for children to learn math, not only the specific problems they see, but learn to be able to develop strong analytical skills. And I think I have a lot of concern about the way the decision was made with regard to the textbook. The second one is IMP. I think the committee voiced its recommendation for a serious evaluation of IMP. It's straightforward since we have kids from across the seventh and eighth grade MCAS distribution. Some chose IMP. Some chose traditional math. I'm really disappointed that it wasn't done. And I think it's a particular concern because I understand that there may be a movement of foot that IMP becomes our math curriculum. Perhaps not in name. And that we move to a math curriculum in the high school where students only have one choice and there's not division by level of preparation. So I guess in those two things, I'm concerned about what we did to our math instruction, those decisions, and particularly for disadvantaged children. Mark, do you want to respond to something? I'd like to talk to Steve a little bit. So Steve, before I got into business being high school principal, I was a middle school principal. And I was a middle school principal in an urban area. And with the middle school version of IMP connected math, we raised math scores dramatically over the course of three-year period. So I'd be real interested in what research you're looking at about the mismatch between urban kids and connected math. Because in my experience, it was the single best thing we ever did to raise their scores. So I offer that to you just as a way to begin the year if the conversation is going to go that in that direction. I think we'd want to lay out the full range of perspectives on it. The second thing is I just want to point out an irony. And it might be a good thing to talk about at the beginning of the year as we frame the discussion for the remainder of the year. The traditional math sequence, Algebra 1, Algebra 2 geometry, or Algebra 1 geometry, Algebra 2 precalculus calculus, has never been vetted in any kind of scientific way by anyone. What it has going for it is a long-standing tradition. Conversely, IMP has been rigorously vetted by the National Science Foundation and is one of the five national curriculums that in their judgment best approximates the NCTM and now the Common Core. So it's curious to me that when we talk about rigorous evaluation of math, we don't talk about the thing that has gotten off scot-free. And what we focus our discussion about evaluation on is the thing that has been most rigorously evaluated. So I'm just trying to make it complicated. Hopefully I've succeeded. Thanks. Can I just let me clarify? Because I didn't really mean evaluation of IMP. I speak incorrectly. I meant comparison of our two programs. We have an opportunity to compare our two programs, horse race, fair start, and we chose not to do that. So I misspoke by saying IMP, we had a horse race. I hear what you said about your middle school. Mathematical policy research has conducted a really random assignment study where different schools and districts were assigned different mathematics curriculum. How about this? In the interest of time, let's focus on the high school. Because that was just really an editorial comment on my part. I'm really interested in that. No, no, I think for people in general, let me just say that there was one random assignment experiment scientifically rigorous, not a perspective on your school. You may have been doing a lot of things in your school. A connected math may have worked well in your school. There's one scientifically rigorous study and it showed that investigations did far worse than the other curriculum did. Significantly worse in a statistical sense. So I'm sorry I misspoke about the high school. I just think we had a great opportunity to actually compare at a level playing field the two curricula with high stakes outcomes and we've chosen not to do it. So let me say two things and we all got to get home. One is that over the last, I would say probably a year and a half there's been lots of aspersions cast on IMP. And the point that I simply want to make right now is that's ironic because the data is very overwhelming that IMP is a very worthwhile road to go down in terms of mathematics. So I didn't hear you say that, but if we're going to go down this road a little further I just want to note that. I disagree completely. Okay, okay. Lots of people write under the NSF. I'm almost finished. None of those are scientifically rigorous studies. I'm almost finished. Okay. And you made me forget my second thing. It was going to be good. Just a couple more comments on this. I would come back because I wanted to respond to this. I'd like to request the chair. Oh, I do. Can I do one more thing? I remember my point. No, because the conversation will just continue and I would request to the chair that we move on with the agenda that this is not the appropriate time for this conversation with all due respect. That's fair. This is not the appropriate time for this discussion. I'd like to be invited back. Move on with the agenda, please. Okay. Thanks. I think it's really important though, because Steve said something, and this is the second time he said it. And I don't, I mean, I want to know is there truth in it or not truth because this is how rumors get spread that IMP is going to become the only math program in high school. Is that in fact any, is there any basis in reality in that statement? We're going to continue or we're not going to continue. Because if we're going to continue, I have to respond to that. Yes or no answer. It's a yes or no answer. Well, to her. I mean, she has the straightforward question. So one response and then we move. Yeah. What's that? One response and then we move. Yeah. If that's the chairs. Right. So one thing I'd like to say, Debbie, to contextualize my answer to your question is that, is that I hear behind it some abiding fear about IMP. And I think that's a function of the fact that for a very extended period of time, people have been able to take shots publicly at it with no basis. So I just, I want to assert that, right? So IMP is this in the world of mathematics is this thing that stands up very, very well. And yet in the conversation locally, one would never know that. So to wit about the future of math at the high school, it's never, you have never heard it out of my mouth. I've never written anything about my judgment where we ought to be mathematically in five to 10 years. Okay. So any more discussion on the last year's planning and the update on that? If not, why don't we move on to next party agenda which is superintendent evaluations? We don't need this, right? You got things in your package and then also something in there. We'll just come around. Okay. I'll put just a couple of them. So there's a state. This is what we already have, right? You already have that. Yes. You already have everything but just one of them not by email. I just gave you a copy in case you didn't have it. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it. This was emailed. We didn't get a hard copy of this. We had to be emailed. Correct. Yes. Of this email. We did get a hard copy. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm stopping me from getting more paper. So there are state standards on how evaluations are done and that's part of what was in your package and was handed out again. So the evaluation, first of all, Kathy, Irv and I worked over the summer with Maria to come up with this and the outcome of that is a form which is this form which we suggest we use to evaluate the superintendent and it's based on the state standards so that you can see that standard one, standard two, standard three, and standard four are addressed in this form and each standard has an indicator that we came up with to help determine how the superintendent is doing in the standard areas. So this, it's pretty simple. This is the form we suggest we use per the superintendent's contract. She is to be evaluated on her before February 1st. So probably my suggestion time wise would be that we would start to bring this up in December. Maybe, you know, start talking about this then, collect the forms in January, early January, have one of the January meetings, perhaps January 24th meeting be the actual meeting where we do the evaluation. These forms would be filled out by each of us. The suggestion is that they could be combined into one summary form which would then be the public document that gets distributed at the meeting and discussed. It's also important that these indicators are, you know, have check boxes. It's not a very popular, proficient, needs improvement on satisfactory but there's also a comment section and that's where I think it's really important that you would reference things like, the way I look at it is that you look at how we're doing on the district improvement plan in where you think things are going well or not well, you would note those in the comments and they would inform which box you check off in the actual form itself. Kathy. I just want to add something to what you were saying. When we were developing this, we were noting the really strong connection to the district improvement plan and the idea being that, you know, between comment reports on the district improvement plan and just superintendent updates that we get on a regular basis, it seemed like it would be really conducive to making notes throughout. Like Rick is talking about, we're just going to start talking about it in December but I think this is really a live document and if it's going to be really effective that we would be looking at it on a regular basis and being able to make notes when things are being reported rather than, you know, in December saying, oh my gosh, let me look back at the last three months and see what's happened and what have we done. Does anything fit anywhere? But I think that there's such a direct correlation between the goals in the district improvement plan and the way that Maria is going to be reporting to us. I think we're really going to be able to do some keeping track of progress all along rather than just waiting until the end. That's a great point. Did I describe things? Yeah, I would just love to add two pieces. One is that I would intend to provide the committee with a self-assessment similar to the progress that I gave to you today, kind of mid-cycle, but also just kind of reflecting on my own work and leadership before you have to start, you know, compiling so I would be happy to do that. And also, if you look at the district improvement plan, I've included corresponding state standards next to each of the goals, which I thought would make it easier so that when we're thinking about what data, what evidence I would be compiling for each of these goals and where that would make sense connected to the evaluation, I thought it would make it just cleaner for people. And I think we were going to ask about, at some point, how the committee felt about gathering feedback from the community, from partners, from staff, that sort of a, which I know is often a standard. In the last, I guess the last go-around of the evaluation, this, while the form that was used then was also filled out by my key staff, I think, and that was, that was submitted to. We actually didn't talk about doing that at our meetings with Maria, but we could if we, the committee thought we should do that. Debbie. I do think it's a good idea to do that, but I don't think that the same form the school committee was given was handed out to the public. It wasn't done quite that way, so we should. Debbie would know. Yeah, we should just look at the process that was used, but I do think that's a really valuable piece, that's valuable information to gather. Kristen. I would just say that I guess it was last year the evaluation process has changed in Massachusetts where things became public documents, like if we were, we can't gather confidential data, or excuse me, anonymous data and things like that, so we'd have to be really clear about how we're doing it, that it's public, that people's comments would be public and signed, so I think it, and also I'm not clear in terms of union 28 that we couldn't write on certain documents, and it was very, very different, so I think checking with our lawyer or having some piece of that would be really important about this right now. I mean, I think that makes sense from both of our perspectives. I could check with the MISS lawyer and the school committee should check with the school committee attorney just so that we have a clear sense of where we're going, just so that we're all comfortable and know how we're proceeding. I think it makes sense. My personal opinion is that it should be only us who fills out this form, because it's us who are in charge of evaluating the superintendent. Getting input, getting other input about how things are going comes from a lot of different places. You know, it could be on surveys about how math is doing, but plenty of places we get information, we should get information on how things are going. I don't know about having a specific survey that's housed a superintendent doing, you know, filled out by the public is a really good idea. I'm just curious, why not? I mean, it seems like that's pretty common practice. Didn't they do that with the town manager in Amherst? We can explore then. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think it would be important information for us to have in making an evaluation. And maybe we can think of a way to do it so that it's not, you know, people aren't filling out specific surveys, but sending feedback perhaps in some way to the school committee. I'm not sure, but we can think about it. So why don't we look at that, and it's a great idea to look at how the town manager's process worked and not reinvent the wheel. Thank you. Any other comments on this? Just one other quick question. So last time we did this, we talked about how you would, those of us who were both on Region and Amherst or Region and Pelham would fill it out twice, once for Region, once for Pelham. But it seems like this really, we don't need to do that, that it's sort of one person, one evaluation form. Is that accurate? That's the way I'm looking at it. Okay, good. Kathy. I'm not so sure that it's simple as that. I think we may have to have a conversation because there's a Union and there's a Region in terms of an evaluation. And so we have to just make a decision about how that's going to work. Herve. Have these proposed regulations been adopted? Because I look at their schedule. I believe so. I would expect them to be sure. They would have been adopted. Yeah. I believe so, Herve, because it's consistent with teachers' evaluation process, which has been adopted. But I'll check it all for you as well. Right. Because if you look at these things, there are things in here that I didn't realize. In terms of the school committee, we look at the 35.04 standards and indicators of effective administrative leadership. The school committee shall establish evaluation systems and performance standards for the evaluation of all administrators that include all of the standards, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As we... I'm sorry if I can. As we look at the new evaluation systems, I think there's going to be a lot of questions that come up because we will have to look at the administrators, the process for evaluating administrators as well. Could I suggest that it makes sense for the three chairs when we get together again that we revisit these points just so that we can make sure we don't... I just want to be conscious that time will be fleeting before we know it will be here. I'm sorry to say. Okay, let's move on to accepting gifts. Would someone like to make a motion to accept these gifts? I would like to make a motion to accept a gift from Stop and Shop A Plus School Rewards to support the principal's discretion. $6,335.77. I do have to read all of these, right? Yeah. You do? Okay. I'd like to make a motion to accept the list of gifts totaling $10,823.02. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Opposed? All right. That passes. Calendar. You have the school calendar. The next regional meetings on September 13th and we have one scheduled pretty much two a month. So we have plenty of meetings scheduled. Are there other items you'd like to see on the future agenda, future agendas? Yeah, Rick, I just have a question of some guidance on the policy so committed for several months now. And I just want to make sure that the members are going to be the chair. It's going to be the same. Are the members going to be the same? Can we proceed, pick up or lift off? Yeah, that's a good point. So we should, if we could tonight, figure out the policy subcommittee and budget subcommittees. Are you willing to continue to be chair? Yes, I am. Okay, that's great. Kristen, you're currently on the committee. Are you willing to keep serving there? Is anyone else good? And that's it, I think. Kathy, you want it? Yeah, you're on it. Okay, sorry. Good try, Kathy. Let me just sit back. Are you willing to continue? Oh, sure. Okay, is anybody else interested in being on the policy subcommittee? Yeah, I'll try to come as much as I can, but I won't say I'm actually on the committee. Now the budget subcommittee, anybody interested in chairing that? Me, you, and Debbie. Is that it? Yeah. Debbie. No, I'm looking at her over there. The chair. Is there a second? Well, we don't actually vote on that. Are you interested in doing that? It depends on how much support I get, meaning I'm not doing minutes. Okay. Who else is on the committee? Is that it? As long as we discuss the minutes, I'll bear a man. Okay, I'll do minutes. Okay. All right, so us three will continue to be on that and Debbie will be chair. Okay, great. Oh, items for future agenda. One thing we have to do is the early start date or start time. I'm trying to think. I don't have a copy of the report schedule with me. I think we have school improvement plans during the next meeting. So it would have to be the one later in September. So what we should probably do is meet on that issue on September 27th, and then sometime have a public forum about it and then meet again to decide whether to do anything or not on that issue. Probably on perhaps the October 25th meeting. Does that sound good? So we're still in conversation, the administrator. So at this point, I have not formalized a recommendation to the committee. So I think it's helpful for me to have it be at the end of September. We've been in the conversation a couple of times. So we need one more meeting. Debbie. I'm sorry. Did I miss something? The October meeting? Did you just say? I said that I thought we could meet on, it's the September 27th meeting. We would meet to discuss that and talk about the report and Maria would have her recommendations. Then we would have a public forum about it. Wait, so are we meeting twice a month? Yeah. Okay, that's what I missed. He just slipped it in with a memo. It was never actually a discussion. Right. So we do schedule per month except for this month. But we can always drop a meeting if we have to, but that's what we have scheduled. Just remind me when Amherst is in September then, Amherst committee. Amherst is the 20th. Okay. So between the 13th and the 27th, which is region. So 13, 20, 27 are all meetings. That schedule was sent out. Yeah. With no school committee meetings. It's just a lot easier for us to drop meetings than it is to try to reschedule after the fact. So I know that that's tough for some people's schedules. I just think we should always consider dropping meetings because it becomes very easy to see a meeting and plan. Should we have a meeting on the 13th? I have no problem if we need it, but. Well, we should, we could become very efficient with our meetings. So Debbie, would it be possible for you just to resend out school here, school committee calendar? Probably posted. It's just on the website. But if it's easier to get it, it's fine. Thank you. Any other comments on future agenda items? I would like to possibly hear more about the findings of the inquiry equity group. Yeah. Absolutely. It will take us a little bit to work through that conversation. So it probably would be, you know, October. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. So the inquiry equity group. That's right. Equity. Kepp, there are a number of policies. Yeah. One for first reading. Yes. Quite a list for second reading in a vote. That should really be on the 13th agenda as well, I think. Okay. I think everyone should have copies electronically at least. That's quite a few. Okay. Great. Okay. So if there's nothing else, we're going to adjourn into executive session for the purpose of discussing contract negotiations to do so. And we will not be coming back to public session after that. So to do so, we have to do a voice vote. You state your name and say aye. Am I part of that? What do we have to do? Regent and then Amherst and Pellum? We're just in one shot. We could just in one shot, I think. Amory Foley, Pellum School Committee. Aye. Say aye. Yep. Spence, aye. Oppie, aye. Wilderstein, aye. Wanchai. Lucian, aye. Rhodes, aye. Hood, aye. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Did you just adjourn all three meetings? No, we'll actually adjourn the meetings. In the executive session.