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[Lungo-Koehn]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Medford families.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I see a lot of families still logging on, so I'm gonna give us maybe one or two more minutes just to give a few more members of the community a few minutes to jump on to this afternoon's presentation. I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful spring-like weather, and hopefully very soon we won't have to worry about any more snow.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Good afternoon, so I'm, whoops.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dr. Maurice-Edouard-Vincent. I am the proud superintendent of the Medford Public Schools. And this afternoon, I am here with my colleague, Dr. Bernadette Rigodelli.
[Ricciardelli]: Hi, everybody. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you very much for joining our informational session this afternoon. I expect that this presentation may take us about 20 minutes to go through the slide deck that we have. And then once we go through the slide deck, we will be willing to answer any questions that you may have. And if by chance you have a question that we're not able to answer right away, we will take your information and get that in response to you as quickly as possible. So I'm glad to see that we have a great number, a growing number, and a great number of families that have jumped on this call. I just love to interact with everyone. So those of you who are on, whether it's your phone, I'm going to just ask if you can raise your hand. and lower your hand when I say your school. So if you are representing the Missittuck school, can you please raise your hand?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Thank you, you can lower your hand.
[Edouard-Vincent]: If you are representing the McGlynn Elementary School, please raise your hand.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Welcome, welcome. Welcome, welcome. Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: If you are representing, oh, we still have families signing up for the McGlynn, so I'll wait a second. I know your children are the experts on Zoom, but I'll give you a second to figure it out. Welcome, McGlynn Elementary School.
[Lungo-Koehn]: If you are representing the Brooks Elementary School, please raise your hand. Welcome, welcome. Seeing a lot of families, hands going up.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Fabulous. Thank you so much. And you can lower your hands if you are representing the Roberts Elementary School. Please raise your hands.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Welcome, welcome. I see you, I see you. Fabulous.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you so much. And I see some of our wonderful little Mustangs right next to you. Welcome, our wonderful fifth graders. You're going to be sixth graders next year, going to middle school. So it's a big, big transition, but it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful experience for you. Thank you. So all of those, I see you, Bill and Rosarda and Carl, and it looks like Sweeting. I see you. You can lower your hands. Thank you for indulging me and maybe later at another point in time, I'll give you an opportunity to use the reaction bar and you can react with a thumbs up or react with a happy or laughing or. hopefully something wonderful that said. So we're here today to discuss the Middle School Lottery for the Medford Public Schools. And what I'm going to do is I'm gonna take you through a slide deck, an informational slide deck with data kind of telling you where the Middle School Lottery started, the beginning, and then where we are right now. So just give me a moment. I'm going to share my screen with you. I also saw that we had some administrators on the line. And so I wanna thank those administrators for jumping on. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. I saw Ms. Demos online and I'm not sure some people don't have their names showing, but thank you for jumping on and I'll keep my eye out to recognize any other administrators who may join the call. Thank you for that. So just give me a moment to share my screen and hopefully everyone can see it. And I'm going to begin the slide deck. So the name of the slide deck is Correcting the Imbalance. And in 2019, That was the first time that the lottery was actually done. So what I'm gonna share with you is the history of why Medford Public Schools has a lottery. This, what you're looking at right now is a demographic data for the McGlynn Middle School in 2019. And if I just move to the next slide, This was the data for the racial breakdown of data for the Andrews Middle School. In addition to the racial breakdown that there was a noticeable disparity between the two schools, We also, at that point in time, were able to show you the socioeconomic status breakdown. And so this was the McGlynn School.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And the next slide was the Andrew School.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So this was data. This was a problem of practice that was presented to me when I came to Medford. with how would you propose finding a way to better balance the two schools? Because there were significant discrepancies between the two schools that you could see that there were differences, not only in racial breakdown, but also in the socioeconomic status of the students that were attending the schools. And so there was an ask of how could we make the two communities become better balanced? And so we knew that we wouldn't be able to have both schools be exactly the same, but how could we bring about greater balance between the two schools? And as a result of that problem of practice, that challenge that we were facing, the middle school lottery was birthed with the intention of balancing, better balancing the two schools. They're both middle schools, which you know, they're both essentially located on the same campus. You can look out the window and you see one building, you look out the other window and you see the other building. And so there were a lot of questions about why was there such a discrepancy? And let's do a lottery and see if we did a lottery, would the data change? And so the next two slides that I'm gonna share with you are this year's current data. So with the birth of the lottery, it did change. This is the 2022-2023 data for the McGlynn Middle School.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And so this is what the data looks like this year. And the data for the Andrews is the following.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And so, although we were not able to again get them to be exactly the same. You can see that the needle definitely moved significantly. From the previous slides, if I just go back and show you the original two slides, when you looked at the breakdown of the schools, this being the McGlynn in 2019, where it was 46.1% of the student population were white students. And the following slide Excuse me one second, the following slide showing the Andrews where it was 73.6% in 2019, and if we advance once again to. The McGlynn right now it's 56% of our population is is comprised of white students and all the other races are also identified and 61% of our students at the Andrews are. of Caucasian descent and all of the other subcategories have also shifted. So there is definitely greater balance between Native American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, African-American, and then multi-race. So again, you can see that the schools, again, although not perfectly balanced, but better balanced in the McGlynn, 13% African-American, 10% Asian, 15%, 15.6% Latino, Hispanic, and 0.2% Native American. So this is just to share with you again, kind of what was behind the lottery taking place for the Medford Public Schools. So what does the lottery look like? This is a summary. 50% of students at all of our fifth grades at every elementary school will be assigned to one school, the Andrews, and 50% will be assigned to the McGlynn. Again, to the best of our ability. Now there are a few caveats that I wanna explain to parents. If a student has a program level, a specific educational need, whether they're an English learner or if they were to be a student with disabilities, they would be placed in the school that offers that particular program. So with the lottery, we have something with sibling preference. If you have a child that's currently at the school and will be at the school at the same time as a parent, you have the option to select sibling preference. And also for parents that have twins or children that just wanna be separated, you also have the option to opt out. So if you have one student at one school, and you're like, I don't wanna activate sibling preference, I want it to be an authentic lottery experience, then if that is the case, your child will go into the lottery, and as they go into the lottery, you take your chances, and it's a 50-50 chance. Please note that for sibling preference, the sibling does need to be either in sixth grade or seventh grade. So you would essentially have two children in attendance at the same time. And there was one other tiny note that we had for our English learner population. We allow buffer seats, and I'll explain that a little more as we go forward.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So here is an example of a sample school.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Here is an example of a sample school because the rules essentially apply. So at this point, you'll hear me say middle school A, middle school B, but it's essentially two schools. So there are 103 students in a fifth grade class, in a fifth grade at one of the elementary schools. We add an additional three buffer seats for our English learner population. Some of you may be saying, why do you need to add buffer seats? Well, our English learner population, they enroll within the district on a rolling basis. So it's not as if all students are able to start on the first day of school in August. Some students may transfer to Medford in November, others may come in January. And so as a result of it being a moving number, we added three buffer seats in for each school for a total of 12 seats for the district. I can say to you now that we've done the lottery multiple times, we have exceeded those 12 seats. So the sample school has 106 seats total. In this model, the lottery is taking place, 20 students are classified as English learners. and they will go to middle school A because middle school A offers the English learner program. There is one student that has a middle school A sibling preference. There are seven students that have a middle school B sibling preference. Two students have a program requirement to go to middle school A special education program. One student has a program requirement to attend middle school B.
[Lungo-Koehn]: 12 students have an IEP that will need to have their own separate lottery, their own draw.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And for that group of 12 students, we do a separate lottery because we try to balance the caseloads between the two schools. So in essence, those 12 students would be in a lottery and six would be assigned to middle school A and six would be assigned to middle school B. So once we do all of those deductions from the 106 students, there are 60 students that enter the general lottery. So those 60 students do not have a sibling preference or their parents opted out, and they do not have a special program requirement. So what I've just explained to you in words, I'm gonna show it to you in this table.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Oops, the table's coming.
[Edouard-Vincent]: 50% of students from each elementary school will be assigned to one of the two middle schools. So what I explained to you based on the 106 students, we divided that to be 53 students attending school A and 53 students attending middle school B. And the breakout shows you the specific requirements. And so for middle school A, 29 students were already accounted for. So of the 29 students, the remaining 21 students plus the three buffer seats would give us a total of 53 students per middle school A. And for middle school B, the breakdown is similar. And there would be 39 students drawn from the lottery.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So this is the breakdown in a table.
[Edouard-Vincent]: For those of you that are visual learners, I know that I said a lot of words, but this is what it looks like. Total 106 students and how those 106 students got divided based on their programmatic needs or requirements. And the highlighted yellow bar shows you how many students entered the general lottery after the required categories were addressed. 21 students would be assigned to middle school A, 39 students were assigned to middle school B. And this is the process that will take place When we actually do the lottery, and it will take place for every school. So again, this is a an imaginary school, but I want you to see what the processes that will take place. So on April 12, when we do the lottery. and it's a random lottery, a number generator, and there are a lot of other specifics. I'll have Dr. Riccadeli talk about those specifics to you, but I wanna just continue to take you through the slide deck. And hopefully, again, if you have questions, we're gonna take questions at the end, but I hope I'm being clear. I mentioned earlier about our English learner students. We do have a growing EL population across the entire district. We have newcomers. And so we reserve 12 seats at the McGlynn Middle School because the McGlynn Middle School houses our EL program. So I want parents to understand that that's the building where all the English learner educators are assigned. And that particular program is housed at the McGlynn Middle School Complex. So the three buffer seats that are added, in the end, it's 12 seats that are coded as a buffer for the bodies that will be coming over the course of the entire school year.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So here is a timeline of events. We are on the Zoom call right now.
[Edouard-Vincent]: This Friday, March 24th, there's going to be a special letter going out to you. And that's the sibling opt-in, opt-out form. So I'm gonna have Dr. Riccardelli just talk about that for you.
[Ricciardelli]: Okay, so I'm in the same room as the superintendent. I'm not sure if you can see me. So yes, this Friday in the evening, I believe it is set for eight o'clock, the letter is gonna go out. So what we have been doing in preparation for the lottery for the past couple of months is going through, identifying those students who have siblings. So again, any student who is in grade six or seven this year at either the Andrews or the McGlynn, We've identified those students, we have identified students who are on an IEP, we've identified students who are in special programs, we've reached out to principals. There's a lot that has been going on behind the scenes before any of this has occurred tonight. So again, if you have been identified as someone that can assert their, their right for a sibling preference, you will be granted, you'll be given a letter will be sent to you from MS lottery. If you do not, you're not going to receive that email so I don't want everyone to think they'll be receiving an email, only if you've been identified as having a sibling. If you have children who are in the school system who you believe you should have received the letter, you can reach out to us and we certainly will follow up. I believe at this point, you probably have received a letter from the superintendent. I believe it was scheduled to go out right around five or 5.05 today. I believe Dr. Cushing was pushing that out. And it does have all of the information. It has the dates. for all of the events. So today, Wednesday, the 22nd, we're here in the Zoom session. Friday, the 24th, we have the sibling letters going out. We would like the sibling letters back, so it's an opt-in or an opt-out. So we need to receive a response from each family who receives one, so the student can bring it to their school and hand it in to the teacher, and we will collect them. We want those letters back by the 31st of March, so there's a one week turnaround on that. On Thursday, April 6 each grade five student is going to receive a lottery number in a letter. to the parent or caregiver, and the students are going to carry this letter home. So it'll be in their backpack, it'll come home, it'll include their lottery number. We will also give those lottery numbers to the principal of each school, just so they have them. We have a record, so if you lose the letter, we have a record of all of the numbers. The lottery draw is on Wednesday, April 12th at 3pm. We do that at three o'clock in the afternoon. It's relatively quick. You are welcome to join us to see the lottery. I think in the past, people have been expecting us to pull up numbers. We don't. It's done with an automatic random number generator. StatTrak is the program. So we have our data specialist, Kim Miles, working with us. It's televised, and she goes in, she types in, and the numbers are generated. Those numbers will be posted to our website by the evening on that day, usually within an hour, as soon as we can get them up onto our website. And then the official letters are going to go out with the assignments. The middle was middle school assignments are going to go out on Monday, April 24. So the reason why there is that that distance between April 12, which is the lottery. And April 24 is that April vacation is in the middle. And we have several staff members here who will not be here during that entire time. So again, you'll be able to, with your number, you'll be able to tell which middle school your child is assigned to on the evening of the 12th. And then the exciting part is in early May when the students get to visit their new middle school. So Tuesday, May 2nd is the McGlynn Middle School open house at 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock PM. And the staff and Mr. Tucci, the principal, are very excited to meet the students on that evening. And then on Thursday, May 4th, the staff and principal at the Andrews will be very excited to meet the incoming Andrews students. So all of this information is the letter that you probably have received in the past maybe 10 or 15 minutes. You can check your email at the conclusion of this. So that's kind of a layout of what the process is. We want to be transparent with this because we understand that there are know, people are concerned about, you know, friendships, they, you know, they're hoping for a certain school, perhaps. We want to be straightforward and transparent with everyone that this is a very clear, clean process. And that is why we televise it. And that's why we are explaining what the process is to you. Before I turn it over to the superintendent, one question that comes up every year, and I've got to think there are at least one or two sets of twins in this group. People usually ask if there are twins, how do they get to assert sibling preference or how does that work? Each student will receive their own lottery number. And let's say one student is assigned to the Andrews and one student is assigned to the McGlynn. Either one can assert their sibling preference and get transferred over to the other school. Or they can stay at the Andrews and the McGlynn. Or it's possible they both would have the lottery draw at the same middle school. So that is just a question that comes up every year. So I was just anticipating that question. So at this point, I'm going to turn it back over to the superintendent and if you have any further questions.
[Edouard-Vincent]: All right, so I'm going to go back to our screen share just to finish up the slide deck, and then we will take any questions that you may have. So, Dr. Riccadeli just went through the entire timeline of events. And again, Dr. Riccadeli, Bernadette Riccadeli, and Kim Miles, that's K-M-Y-L-E-S at medford.k12.ma.us, our data manager, they both will be overseeing all of the background work related to the lottery so if there are challenges, you can use this email Ms middle school lottery at Medford k 12.ma.us and. they will be able to help you very quickly. And as Dr. Riccadeli already shared, the principals of each school will also have the official lottery numbers assigned to your child. So there'll be another way to keep track of that special number that you're gonna be assigned prior to the lottery. Next slide. Again, we discussed it. I also will be putting this in my updates moving, continuing to put it in the updates moving forward. Wednesday, April 12th, the lottery Zoom is at three o'clock. It's actually very, very quick. We play Jeopardy music and we try to have it be an enjoyable process, but it's something that is generated fairly quickly and we probably are able to complete the lottery within, I would say like 20 minutes. So if you don't see the lottery, you're not able to catch it live, it will be available and the numbers will be uploaded as soon as it's done onto our website. So the Zoom link is there. And then finally, the, April 24th is the date where you will receive your official, Monday, April 24th, right after April vacation, you'll receive your official notification of which school you're assigned to. And then the following week, both middle school communities are ready to warmly welcome you again, Tuesday at the McGlynn. and Thursday at the Andrews. So those are dates. And again, I end with the purpose of the lottery was an attempt to balance the scales, balance the two schools to the best of our ability. We know that it's not a perfect system and you can never get it to be exactly 50 50 because we're dealing with some numbers that are fluctuating. But this is what the lottery has been doing for the Medford public schools.
[Ricciardelli]: So you have a question, we have a question.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Wonderful. I'm going to stop the share.
[Ricciardelli]: So I'm going to read a question that someone sent to me directly, but I think it's a really good question. So one person on the call asks, do students on IEPs who don't have a specific need that requires them to go to a specific school and go through the lottery have their drop posted at the same time as everyone else has posted? Yes, they do. So we don't separate. We don't say these are the students on the IEP, their numbers. you're going to get the numbers for the students from the Brooks. These are the numbers. These are the students who are going to the Andrews. These are the students that are going to the McGlynn. No one will know that there were two lotteries. If we didn't tell you, you wouldn't know that there were two lotteries, but we do want to be transparent with that. So the answer to the question is no one will know. The numbers will be together.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And we really respect student confidentiality. And so, again, with the spirit of transparency, we want you to know that there is a separate draw to balance those numbers between the two schools for some of the assignments, but everything just gets added. When the lists are put together, you're not going to see any names. the number that you are assigned for your family, that's your personal number. So you do not have to say my number is, you know, X, Y, Z, that's a letter, but my number is one, two, three. That's your personal number. That's why we wanted you to know when they go home, they're gonna go home by backpack on Thursday, April 6th. And if, again, if there's a challenge, the principal, has the principal will have a master list. You can also email middle school lottery, mslotteryatmedford.k12.ma.us. And Dr. Riccadeli and Ms. Kim Miles, they also will be supporting any of logistical questions that you may have regarding the lottery process. So that was an excellent question. And thank you for asking that.
[Ricciardelli]: So I'm looking at another question, and it has to do with new students to the district. So what we've done over the past couple of years since we've been doing the lottery is they're not included in the lottery because they're not currently enrolled in the metropolitan schools. So at a certain point, probably, I think it's been done in July, those students have been assigned to a school, or as soon as they, let's say they enroll in June, at the end of the school year, probably within three weeks or so, one of the assistant superintendents would assign them to a school that would be communicated with the Parent Information Center, and they would contact the family. So they're not included in the lottery. There's another question about students on a 504. How are they assigned? So a lot of the background work that we've been doing has been around communicating with our elementary schools, with the administration, with our support team in each one of the schools. And when there is a specific need about a program, then the students are assigned to the school that is most appropriate based on that program. There might be situations that it's not a program, but there are other things that need to be considered. So we do do that. If there are further questions, you certainly can reach out to me through that MS Lottery email, and we can have a conversation about that. Someone wants me to clarify the info about the twins. So as I said, if each of the twins, or if there were triplets, would get their own individual number. If they are assigned to different schools and the decision is made, the parent wants them at the same school, the parent can contact either Kim Miles or myself and we can assert sibling preference. So in that case, it's just a matter of communicating with us and we will honor that sibling preference. So you would get to choose.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Provided they get two schools.
[Ricciardelli]: Yes, provided you get two schools. If both are assigned to McGlynn, you can't choose the Andrews and vice versa. But if they're assigned to the two different schools, then yes, you would insert that sibling preference. So hopefully that answered that. If not, I am happy to talk to you individually.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't see any more questions. Anyone else? Anyone else? Any questions?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Delphine, yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, I typed in the chat, but I don't know if you can actually see it. I also have a question about twins, but my twins are coming from a different school. So they're already enrolled at the Medford Public Schools, but they are, I guess, they're not gonna be part of the lottery or how will that work?
[Ricciardelli]: So, so you registered them but they're not enrolled. Okay, so what we have done in the past is, unless they are enrolled they don't participate in the lottery, they will be, they will be assigned sometime sometime in the summer will be after the close of school will be after June.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it because we would like to go to an open house, I think they were very nervous to transfer, so it would be great to know before the summer, if possible, or should we just go to be able to attend both open houses because you since you're not enrolled in.
[Edouard-Vincent]: the Medford public schools, we would not be able to say what the assignment is. So the open houses, we hold them on two different days. So Tuesday, May 2nd, and or Thursday, May 4th, each school will be offering the open house, but the original lottery takes place for all students that are currently in the system.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what if I've already been to the registration office? Does that mean they're still not in the system?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Because they're currently attending another school. So because they're attending a different school, you've begun the registration process. But registration is officially complete when the students All of the prerequisites, what needs to be there, all of that documentation would be there.
[Ricciardelli]: All right. Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: You're welcome.
[Ricciardelli]: So I see another question and this, this is about if the sibling is currently at the McGlynn elementary would the middle school or go to the McGlynn or just be part of the lottery. So, so this is something that came up a couple of years ago and we decided that yes, if that. that would be considered the sibling relationship. So if you wanted to assert the sibling preference and just go to McGlynn, that would be fine. So those individuals have been identified, and those individuals who have a younger sibling in the lower grades at the McGlynn can opt to do that. You will get a letter if you've been identified as that.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And some, the answer is yes, and some families actually, you know, opt to say, I would like to go through the lottery experience and, you know, take my chance 50-50 to see what school my child will be assigned to. So that also has happened.
[Ricciardelli]: Okay, so I see another question about the differences in the differences in the school. So I'll talk a little bit about the general education experience. So both schools mirror each other when it comes to the general curriculum, the core curriculum. English, math, science, social studies, art, music, computers, world language. They're all of the same, same curriculum. Obviously there are different teachers, but it's the same curriculum. In the middle school, those subjects are organized by department. So they have common department directors that hold meetings, that hold those teachers accountable to those those common standards and the common curriculum. So there's a lot in common with what is taught. The physical structure of the school is, well, obviously a little bit different because the McGlynn is a pre-k to eight school, whereas the Andrews is a grade six through eight school. With regard to the special programs. I'm going to ask the superintendent with regard to strutting eat well I know the EL program is housed at the McGlynn middle school, but with regard to the special ed programs.
[Edouard-Vincent]: There are different there are there are different specialized programs the Andrews. has one specialized program and the McGlynn has a different program. So again, depending on the needs of the students and those students, if their IEP requires them to be placed in one of the specialized programs, then we are obligated to place them in that appropriate placement. So the schools do have, They both service students with special needs, with disabilities, and they both, the McGlynn is the only school that does service our students that are English learners. So that is the, I think the one key difference that the English learner program is not at both of the middle schools. There are special licensed teachers and they work together as a team in helping our students move through the English language development levels. So that is how they do work. I hope that answers that question.
[Ricciardelli]: So someone asked, I think maybe one person had asked for my email, my contact information. I put it in there for everybody. So again, there's that MS Lottery, or if you wanna reach out to me directly, my email is there. All right, so someone is asking about how do they know if their child's IEP needs are dictating their placement? Is there more specific info on which IEP services are specific to which schools? So we're talking about a student who is on an IEP and receives support in a class, it's general support. That's where we do the lottery. So where that second or sub lottery within the larger lottery is done, because we have the same programs at both schools. It's when you get into those more specialized special education programs that are specific that's when they are assigned to an individual school. So I guess that's my best answer on that.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And if additional guidance is needed in the area of special education, we can definitely have you speak with the ETLs in your respective buildings. And Ms. Joan Bowen is our director of student services. But we want to make sure that we do respect student confidentiality. So when the lottery was created, we wanted it to be as equitable as possible. But at the same time, we are required to make sure that we are providing the required services for students in the right programs. And so the schools do house different programs, slightly different programs. And so if there are specific IEP type questions, we definitely can make sure we have special educators involved in that part of the conversation. So I didn't know you were going to have such wonderful questions. So this is a wonderful, inquisitive bunch. I can only imagine what your rising sixth graders are going to be like. But I want to just say thank you for jumping on the call this evening. And thank you for all of the questions. I see, Sarah, you've raised your hand.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sarah, we'll take your question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, working on unmuting on my phone. I had put it in the chat, but maybe I missed where the questions were supposed to go. Could it be spoken to just a little bit what the opportunities are for students from the two different schools to see each other if there's any programming or time during the day where that happens, and if not, or even also I had heard that there was also subgrouping within the schools. There's like a group A and a group B at each school, that maybe that only was during the pandemic, but that the groups were sort of further subdivided into groups within the schools. Is that still the case? And if so, is there, what are the opportunities for students to socialize sort of at the middle school level with students that are either in the other school or in another group within their school?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So the first piece that I would definitely wanna just share is that if we're anticipating about 300 or so rising fifth graders, it could be a little over 300, that number is split in half. And when you think about class size, you're not going to be able to have a class, one class of 150 students, you know, taking grade six math. It's not the, you know, the college level. So once you get to that number of 150, it has to be broken down into smaller classrooms, homerooms, if I can use the term homeroom, since you just left, like groups of 25 as they move, to math and history and ELA and world language. So when you're hearing A and B or the different groupings, it's just taking the large number of 150 and putting them into respective classrooms. And so the classes have to rotate. Which is one of the big differences between elementary and leaving elementary school level and entering secondary. So from six through 12. The students will be rotating and the teachers that they will have will be content. area content experts in a specific domain, whether it's science or ELA, humanities, math, etc. So the students will be divided into homerooms because, you know, it's just impossible to have the entire cohort travel as one. So it's not a a subdivision in terms of something bad. It's really just breaking them up into manageable numbers so that they can rotate. through the different content, the different classes. In terms of opportunities for the middle school students to actually engage and see one another, those would be primarily afterschool opportunities because we have, both schools have a significant amount of club offerings and we're a part of the GBL, the Greater Boston League of, So sports are also available at the middle school level. And at the respective open houses, they will talk to you about all of the programs and afterschool offerings that are available for the students. So both schools offer afterschool programming and there is a late bus. And so you have from arts, you have sports, you have, you know, chess, I believe there's a chess club, there may be like acting or drama. There are a lot of, there's a diverse array of offerings for students to participate. And so if you were assigned to the McGlynn School, but your friends or someone in your class was assigned to the Andrews, And the after school program that was a greater interest to you was offered at the Andrews, then during those days you would be able to go to the Andrews so they, you're allowed to cross register for just the purposes of saying there are those opportunities. where the students can see each other in many of the extracurricular events and activities. Also, because of how transportation goes, if students were taking the school bus transportation, then they would be on the same buses in the morning and in the afternoon. because the buses drop off at both schools. So they're on the same transportation. So they could see each other at the start of the day, see each other in extracurricular afterschool programming activities, and then be together when they're leaving or be together playing sports. So there are definite opportunities for the students to be together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great, could I just follow up on one thing you said just to make sure I understood it right you said that students are sort of assigned to we'll call it a homeroom. Does that mean that they stay with the same you know classroom size group of kids through all of the subjects or like for each subject that just gets reshuffled.
[Ricciardelli]: The answer, this is Bernadette speaking. The answer is no. So it's not a, you know, it's not a tracked group of students. So I just, I wanna, you know, talk a little bit more about what the superintendent said about the teams. So we're broken up into teams. So there's an A team, there's a B team in grade six. The team A, so the students that are assigned to team A do have the same science teacher, math teacher, history teacher, an English teacher. And then language is a little bit different because we have three operands for language. But those students are not necessarily in all of the same classes together. So hopefully that answers your question. So they have the same four teachers, but they may not be in the same English class with the same students. So there's a rotation. A question that came up just related to this is, if one child was assigned to team A, will the sibling be assigned to team A? No, not necessarily. I mean, it could happen, but it's not an automatic. We do support students moving between the teams. We think that that is a healthy thing. It should not be anything that is stagnant.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So the answer to that question is no. Any other questions? So I want to say thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you for jumping on the call this evening. Thank you for the wonderful questions that you've asked. If there are more questions, please email mslottery.org. at medford.k12.ma.us and your questions about programmatic offerings and all of the other specifics of the schools, once you get assigned, which is on Monday, April 24, you'll know which open house you'll be attending. So again, those are not open houses, which orientation you'll be attending. And those dates are Tuesday, May 2, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the McGlynn, and Thursday, May 4, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Andrews. Thank you to everyone again on the call and have a good evening.
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