[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: and caregivers, so welcome, welcome, welcome to our school committee meeting this evening. So good evening and happy holidays. December is here, marking the beginning of the holiday season for many different religious denominations and cultures. Many members of our local Jewish community will begin the observance of Hanukkah for eight nights beginning this Thursday evening. Hanukkah, sometimes called the Festival of Lights, is timely and welcome, coinciding with some of the shortest, darkest days of December. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this is the perfect time to seek some extra light and warmth to your dark evenings. So we have many wonderful ongoing holiday fundraisers and I just want to take a moment to recognize them. Our wonderful band members that are here, they are still selling Christmas trees and holiday wreaths. This, this particular fundraiser is a personal favorite of mine. I get to pick a tree and with my daughter and pick some leaves and if you can get out there, they're wonderful quality trees and leaves, and I'm not receiving any commission for this wonderful. Shout out to the band fundraiser, but it is great. It happened this weekend and next weekend. So Saturday and Sunday come out between 10 and four. You can buy a tree or a wreath. And it takes place in the Medford High School parking lot. Again, all proceeds will benefit our wonderful award-winning band and color guard team. Also, we have our sophomore class at the high school. They're working with modern pastry this holiday season. And again, if you want to avoid the crazy lines in the stores, please put in an order. I shared the link last week in my Friday memo. All orders will be accepted until December 14th and all proceeds will support our sophomore class. Also, just for those of you who are here and for the Medford community at large, if you've been anywhere near the McGlynn Andrews Complex campus, the McGlynn Playground has fencing around it right now, and that's for everyone's safety. So we're really excited because the McGlynn School Playground is going to be our new universally accessible schoolyard. So there aren't many in Massachusetts, but it's going to be universally accessible. And I do believe we'll have a lot of visitors from neighboring communities coming to use our new park because it's accessible for all of our young people. So the construction was originally scheduled to begin in the spring. However, the timetable got moved up and demolition is going to be taking place this week with the hope of still completing the playground on time. And if we're lucky, they might even finish a little early. So while the construction is taking place, the playground will be closed to the public during construction. That's the sad bit of news I know for our young folk, but it needs to be closed because it's no longer safe. So we do know that it was short notice, but we were given short notice. And as quickly as we found out, we turned around and made sure that we communicated that to the community. So if the McGlynn Playground was your playground of choice, you now have many other options. Harris Playground, Magoon Playground, Logan, and the newly renovated Morrison Playground. So there are many other options nearby. Work will be taking place between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., and we are working with the construction company, so we want to make sure that we minimize disruption to arrival and dismissal times when you're dropping off and picking up your children. So please, you know, keep us in the loop. Let us know. I do want to extend a very special thank you to our mayor, Breanna Lungo-Koehn, and to the Medford School Committee. We want to thank City Hall staff, teachers, our staff in the schools and administrators. We want to thank our family and community partners. And we also want to thank Shanine Pellequin, who is a parent and a great advocate and expert in the area of playgrounds, lending her expertise to really help us get the best playground possible for our students. So we thank all of you and the community at large for your support. Also, another important update for the community. It's about our elementary literacy screening. Elementary caregivers and families are invited to join our assistant superintendent, Ms. Suzanne Galusi, over there, and our literacy coach, Kristen Howell, for a presentation on early literacy screening for elementary students. You may have already received a message from Ms. Galusi and your student's elementary school about results of your student's screen results and the presentation that will take place will be an excellent presentation and it's going to happen tomorrow, Wednesday, Tomorrow's Tuesday, correct. Wednesday, December 6th at 6.30 p.m. in the McGlynn School Library. Again, this Wednesday, December 6th at the McGlynn School Library, it's on the second floor. There will be an in-person presentation to really help families unpack the assessment. So thank you, Ms. Galussi, and thank you, Ms. Howell, for the presentation that you'll be doing this week. And we just want you to know that administering the early the universal screening. It's crucial to promoting reading success for every child, and we value our partnership with you. Just on a side today I was in a McGlynn school kindergarten classroom. And I got to see some students reading their early readers. They were so excited. I think I was more excited because I'm like, oh, it's only December 4th and you're reading. So our students are doing wonderful things. So have your little ones read to you at home and encourage early literacy and reading. I also just want our listening audience to know that kindergarten registration, which is critically important for us to have accurate numbers of students that are going to be coming to Medford Public Schools next year, that kindergarten registration is going to begin next month. in January. So we start in January and it continues for a few months, but if some of you remember, we did have a surprise this summer at the 11th hour. We had a lot of kindergarten students come and register and we were forced to open additional classrooms, you know, with a very, very short turnaround. So please be on the lookout for those, kindergarten registration opportunities and we will be providing child care and interpretation services. So again, the first event will be taking place on January 16. There are a few important upcoming events that are going to be happening district-wide. On December 5th, which is tomorrow, there is a financial planning webinar with the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority at 7 o'clock on Zoom. please go to the Medford High School website, or you can contact Stacey Shulman for additional information. So for juniors, for seniors, parents who wanna find out information, and possibly if you have even a freshman or a sophomore, and you're an early planner, take advantage of this college financial planning webinar. December 7, as I said earlier, it will mark the first night of Hanukkah, so happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, families, and neighbors. December 13 and 14, our wonderful band once again and our orchestra holiday concerts are gonna be taking place at Medford High School at 7 p.m. Save the date, mark your calendars, charge your telephones, get ready to take nice pictures and video, record them as well. So December 13th and 14th, save those dates. So I'm gonna just share with you a quick overview of what's gonna happen this evening. Tonight, in addition to welcoming and recognizing our wonderful band and color guard students. We're also going to hear a wonderful presentation from the Missittuck Elementary School today by Principal Kathleen Kaye, and she's here with her assistant principal, Ms. Nancy Sherman Hudson. And we're also gonna hear a wonderful presentation from the principal of the Andrews Middle School principal, Ms. Jennifer Skane, and her assistant principal, Ms. Farrah Riley, is here as well. So we look forward to hearing both of your presentations this evening. We're also gonna hear a presentation this evening by Ms. Galussi, Mr. DeLava, and Dr. Bernadette Riccadeli about our district's NWEA map results. So that's our, again, in-district assessment. I wanna just go now and recognize, because we're getting ready to tee up for our wonderful band members and color guard. Last month, our Mustangs placed not third, not second, but first place at the NESBA finals. Can we give them a round of applause? We're so proud of you. They received a platinum medal. And in addition to being the New England Division II champs, they also took home an award for best music, best visual, best overall effect, and best color guard. This is a first in Medford band history. And as a community, we're so proud to celebrate these exemplary Mustang musicians and performers. Can we give them one more round of applause? So, in recognition of this huge accomplishment, we're very pleased to present each of our students with a certificate on behalf of the entire Mustang community. Many thanks to Ms. Haley Weller, Coordinator of Fine Arts and Band Director, and Ms. Jackie Gaffney, assistant band director, for their hard work in supporting the band program, and our deepest gratitude to the parents, caregivers, and families of our band and color guard students for being their biggest fans and boosters. So thank you to all of you. At this time, I'd like to present with Mayor Wendell Kern, each student with their certificate, and then we'll figure out a way to take a photo with the entire school committee. So please hold your applause if you can until all the names have been read, because I do believe we have 48 wonderful students to recognize. Elijah Adamink. I apologize.
[SPEAKER_03]: just to go down, or let them go? I think it's microphones, so. Okay, let me copy that. Thank you. Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Congratulations.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Gian Artaris. Congratulations. Nobutaka Ashihara. Kenza Balula. Alana Bruno. Micaela Callahan. Mandy Chow. Angel Colbert. Lucia Sataki. And Christine Dezotel. Lucia. Ann Doops. Charlotte Foti. Margaret Fowler.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not here, not here, oops.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Topper Fowler. Davis Frymark. Violet Frymark. Gavin Dania. And Gemma Giardino. Gagney. Thank you, Gavin. I thought it was French, my bad. Julia Halam Baker. And Sydney Hamill. Benjamin Hayes. Alexander Hopper. Taria Indana. Lennox Lafleur. And Kian Lau. Marcella Lucas. And Carmela Nogori. Charles Nguyen. Harrison Numa. Declan Mustone. Nevin Mustone. Lauren Mustone. Aya Najjar. Aya Najjar. And Maeve Nicholas. Addison Mitchie. and Isabel Olivera. Deja Parkinson and Bethaya Pierce. Lindsay Quinn. And Nathan Quinn. Desiderio Sessa. Magdela Rae Takeli. And Stanley Tang. Matt Delawid. Benjamin Roers. And Jonas Roers. Jane Ryan. And Sarah Youssef. Margie Vesra. Maria, I apologize.
[SPEAKER_06]: Quick round of applause for our superintendent.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to our band and color guard.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: You guys want to come up here?
[SPEAKER_06]: We should get up here.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Oh, all seven of us. Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: You want to come right in here? Well, first you three come this way. There's a lift. You can come up here so that we can. Band members, come inside. Come right in here. Band and color guard, right down here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Erica, come on up. Yeah, come this way. Yeah, right in front.
[SPEAKER_06]: Cover that camera. Yep. Tall people in the back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can have a row of people kneeling. I don't know why it's off of the microphone.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Superintendent, for your updates, and congratulations again to the Mustang Marching Band and our Color Guard. I'd like to welcome school committee elect, Erica Reinfeld and Aaron Olapade. Thanks for joining us. I know you'll probably be here tonight and on the 18th, so two meetings to get right in in January, right? Welcome. I'm not sure if we have any student representatives. Dr. Cushing? Not yet. We don't know. Okay. But I just wanted to say hello if we did. So thank you. Next up, we have number three, Misatoch Elementary School and Andrews Middle School updates. Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: We skipped over item five, the consent agenda. It was on the front page.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Oh, jeez. My apologies. Revert back to the regular order of business to consent agenda. We have bills and payrolls and regular school committee meeting minutes from November 20th, 2023. Is there a motion for approval of the consent agenda? Motion for approval by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Kreatz. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Now to number three under report of superintendent. It's number, the Missittuck Elementary School and Andrews Middle School updates. We have Ms. Kathy Kay, Missittuck principal, and Ms. Jennifer Skane, Andrews Middle School principal. Welcome. Come on up one at a time or both together depending on how you have it planned.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Missituk is first. And Ms. Sherman-Hudson, you're more than welcome to... She's here. Thank you for being here tonight.
[Kathleen Kay]: So thank you so much for inviting me to show all the things that have happened at the Missituk and are planned to happen moving forward, none of which would be possible without the amazing PTO that the Missituk has, as well as the dedicated staff that work at the Missituk Elementary School. And so one of which is here, Mr. Sherman Hudson, who is my right and left hand, sometimes my toes when needed. And also David Nguyen came with me. He is on the Mississippi School Council, so he's going to support tonight. So thank you so much, and I hope you like what you see. There's our school, and here's what's happening. So we always start the year off with our kickboard and playground.
[SPEAKER_03]: And on August 22nd, the kids are getting out there, and usually they're never Our ETO runs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
[Kathleen Kay]: How's that? Yes. Okay, so they get to meet one another once again, just to kind of get reacquainted and have some fun on the playground. And again, you're going to hear me say Missittuck PTO quite a lot because they really help us in amazing ways. One exciting thing we did at the Missittuck last spring was we did a pilot screening program. So the students who had registered for kindergarten came in and they were able to meet with teachers. So we were able to do that screening before school began. And it really did help us with placement. There are many days that Mr. Sherman Hudson and I say, wow, we're really glad we did this. So I would strongly recommend if we could do it moving forward, two thumbs up. The next event we did on September 8, and this is where normally we do it in the gym, but it was a really, really hot day. So we went out onto the playground, the whole entire school, kindergarten through fifth grade, and the teachers circled around the students out on our blacktop area. And then what the teachers do, because I want the students to know everybody in the building, and so they introduced the person to their left. So that teacher then has to kind of say hello and get acquainted again. And they've already done that because it was September 8th. But they tell something nice about that person to the whole student body. And so as you can see, they're laughing. They were having a good time. We passed around a megaphone and hardly anyone wanted to use it. So there were teachers who didn't need it, but there were some who did. Then in September, the PTO helps us organize our Ice Cream Social. So it's the PTO Ice Cream Social. And as you can see, we have, well, when the slide changes, hopefully soon, you can see that they have parents who help serve ice cream. And a lot of our students who went to the Mississippi come back almost every year. We kind of urge them, you can have free ice cream if you come as well. So that usually works out well. And then you can see they're having fun. And that was me in the middle, I took a selfie with some of the kids with my big, huge camera. So they got a kick out of that. And then the PTO sets up where they can do like a photo booth. So I usually have a lot of fun there as well. The next event that took place was on October 4, we do two a year. And I do believe a lot of the other schools participate in this as well. In October, it's a national walk, ride to school day. And again, the PTO gets really involved. They what we do to get all the students involved who want to be is I go around the corner, and I meet the kids on the bus. They get off the bus and then they walk up the street we have parent volunteers to make sure everyone's safe to have a little bit of a walk and then what the PTO does is they write, but you can see, I'm going to say it wrong I'm sure Wayne trabajo on the ground in Spanish and Portuguese to kind of welcome those kids into, you know, celebrating our diversity at our school. And then the PTO waits at the school, and they kind of have the kids sign in their name and their teacher's name. And then what they do is they decide, well, they count up, and by the end of the day, they let me know which class had the most participants. So they get the Golden Shoe Award, which you can see is one of the child's old sneakers that they just painted gold. But the kids really like it. And Mrs. Schrammowitz's class, fourth grade, they were the winners this year. So I took a picture of them. In October, we did a story night and a PTO book fair. This one was by Scholastic. And you can see the amount of the total sales that we made quite a lot, over $9,000, almost 10. And then some of that money comes back to us in Scholastic dollars. So sometimes the PTO will buy rugs or the movable chairs or even just books for the library, using those PTO dollars. And then on the same evening we had teachers, high school students, Mrs. Ingrid Moncada, who was here before, and we read stories to the children who came to our rooms in English, Portuguese, Haitian, Creole, and Spanish. The next event we had was on October 25, and this was a pilot program at our school that was brought to me by Hendrick Gideons, and he visited with me over the summer, and we planned it out where he's doing this not-for-profit organization called Down by the Riverside, and the email address is there if anybody wants to check it out. And he has partnered up with Willie J. Laws, who is a black veteran and he's a lifetime blues musician. He grew up in Texas and he tours all over the nation, but he has settled here in Massachusetts. What he did was with Mr. Gideons, they gave two 45 minute sessions so the entire school was able to participate. They focused on using music as a way to create connections between people and our communities. And so Mr. Laws also shared his own experiences at being a master performer in an intimate setting within our school and Mr. Gideons also sent me a link of some of that program but it was four minutes long and it also came today so I shared with Dr. Edouard-Vincent if she wants to share it with you then you can take a look at that. In October, many of you are already aware, I usually invite you every year to come to the school to read to the classes. for Jumpstart Read for the Record. I've been looking daily to see if the record has been broken yet. They're giving me lots of other email, but I haven't found out yet. It's become such a big organization that I don't know that we break the record anymore. But it's a lot of fun because the community members come in and they read to our lower students, and then the upper students read to the kids in the middle grades. And then I run around like a crazy person and I take pictures. So you can see some of the famous people who participated this year. And the book was With Lots of Love by Jenny Sanchez Torres. And I think the kids really enjoyed it. So thank you for everyone who volunteered their time. And to those of you who couldn't, I understand, busy lives. So one of the things that I've been doing for the past 12 years, because this is my 12th year at the Mississippi slash Columbus Elementary School, we do weekly awards. We call them works of wonder. I no longer post them as www because I got an email from a company in England who said that that was trademarked. But if I called it works of wonder we were good to go. So that's what we do. Basically what happens is every week, Mrs. Sherman Hudson and I run around, the teachers submit something wonderful that a child has done, and they just go, well, that was really good. And so we give them a certificate, we give them a crazy little handshake and a pencil. And the kids smile. They really, really smile from ear to ear. And sometimes they'll say, wow, this is my fifth one. And they're just so excited and proud to get it. It hangs on the refrigerator. And we do give them to staff and community members as well. So you may have been on the receiving end of those. And if you have, thank you for whatever you've done for the Mississippi. We also do a monthly called Conduct and Citizenship. And those are for the students who stand out just a little bit further by being responsible, respectful, and safe, following the school rules as often as they can throughout the month. And so the teacher submits one child, so there are 10 winners a year, and they get things like a ribbon. They get to cut the lunch line if they're getting school lunch. They sit on the stage with myself and some friends. We play games. I get to know them. And I take a picture. I post it to the website. And they get to help us pick the next Spirit Day. So it kind of takes a little bit of the pressure off me. Nancy and I count the votes. This one's going to be Pajama Day. Anybody who wants to participate, it's the end of December. This year for the first time, which I do have to admit I heard at another school's meeting, we did PTO trunk and treat. And what the PTO did was they invited family members to decorate their cars and their trunks and dress up in costumes and offer candy to the kids. And over 200 people came from the Missittuck and the greater community to trick or treat in the Missittuck parking lot. And the kids had a great time. The PTO also supports cultural events every year with the amazing help of Mrs. Christina McGordy. She pretty much organizes this for everybody. And as you can see on the list of events, every grade has at least one that has come in. The Afro-Brazilian martial arts, music, and dance came for the whole school. And they did two sessions again. And I'm really glad that they did not ask me to come up on stage and try that with them, as you can see in the picture. I wouldn't have been able to do that. Curious Creatures came in not that long ago on the 17th of November for kindergarten. And in the picture, you can see that Jabari has a snake around his neck. That's real. They passed around it, well, They didn't pass around. The person from Curious Creatures held the animals. But the kids were able to touch a turtle. That's a ferret that Jack has in his hand. And then in the left corner, you can kind of see that's not the turtle's head. That was a bearded dragon she put on the turtle's back. And it wouldn't stay on, but it kind of made a pretty cool picture, I thought. Right before Thanksgiving, two of our classes, Ms. Changelian and Ms. Penta, they did a famsgiving celebration. And so they invited the parents to come in, or grandparents, whoever could come, with their own food so we didn't have to worry about any allergies or anything like that. They sat down at a really big table and they just shared their snack and then just celebrated. The kids made placemats for their parents and told what they were thankful for and it was really a sweet, sweet event. Again, the Mississauga PTO sponsors so many things at our school, and here's a list of some of them. Book fairs, we've already had one, there'll be another one, Porter Square. This year, for the first time, we are doing closed caption in our PTO virtual meetings, and they've chosen, you can only do one language, so they've chosen Portuguese, because that tends to be the largest population of speakers in our school. And many of the others are listed. We did have our Village Craft Fair this Saturday, which was wonderful. And I'm happy to say I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. Thank you to the PTO. Once again, they helped me in my life. The Who's Reading is always a wonderful event, and it's always very well-participated, so that's exciting, too. And then, you know, a lot of schools do Teach Appreciation Day or week. PTO does a month, so that's pretty spectacular. The BTO also helps fund field trips that we go on. And so I just listed for you some of the places that the school will be going on. Again, they help pay for at least one trip for every grade level. And so you'll see that everyone's represented there. And then, of course, the district is offering us many training opportunities this year. And again, you'll see the list, bullying, Hill for Literacy, EPRI training, HMH, that's our new reading program, literacy coaching, data analysis with the help of Mr. Paul DeLiva, which I'm so happy he's housed in my building, the science of reading, and then ST Math. And so on the next page, I just thought it might be fun to see a picture of Gigi. Mrs. Cara Bates is going to be our ST Math champion. So she's going to be creating a bulletin board in the library, because the kids go there all the time, so they can see their stats and how far they're going. It's a spatial temporal program. And it helps the children use their reasoning to solve mathematical problems. And they use it in class. And they can use it at home. And then last year, Gigi was supposed to come. It was going to be a costume that I was going to put on. So it didn't happen, but hopefully that'll happen this year. And I think what we're going to try and do is get a little Gigi stuffed animal, and then the class who has them, so we can kind of pass that around, like the sneaker. And then we have more events that are coming. They haven't happened yet, but we'll have our winter concert, which we always video record. This year at the Missittuck, we're going to try something new. We're going to call it a, I don't know, we might change the name, but basically it's a specialist showcase. So the gym teacher will be there, the art teacher, the music teacher, the Nexus teacher, and the librarian. I feel like I'm forgetting somebody. They'll just kind of show the families some of the things that they may have done throughout the year that the children are learning in their classes. And that will be in the spring. There'll be a spring walk bike to school. We always have a fifth grade volleyball game, students versus the teachers and the students don't always win, but most of the time they do. We do a fun day that again, the PTO helps really fund and support with their man, woman, person power. And the PTO does an end of the year dance party, which is always a lot of fun for the kids. So thank you for listening. And does anybody have any questions?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. Thank you. We appreciate the presentation. Yes.
[Jennifer Skane]: Good evening.
[Sharon Hays]: Good evening.
[Jennifer Skane]: If I put these on I can see you, but I can't see this. So thank you. Good evening. So it's kind of fitting that I'm here this evening because today is actually my 90th work day in the district. And I'm pleased to say that it has been an amazing, rewarding experience getting to know all of the MedFit public school systems and students and families. And I am eager to continue that work with staff and families in order to make a positive difference in the community. So I just started out with some numbers. Our current enrollment is about 455 students. We've seen a lot of students join us at the start of the school year, transferring to our school. And we've had some success in making sure that they transition successfully through support of our guidance program. And we're looking to even start a student mentor program where students can help mentor students that are starting at our school. Our honor roll for this first quarter, it was pretty amazing. And if you add up all that numbers and do the math, it's about 76% of our students made honor roll, either honors or high honors this particular quarter. Our teachers, we have 60 educators, either core educators, exploratory teachers, physical education, special education teachers, and then we have about 20 support staff. So those are our Councilors, et cetera. And I have to say that I think I have one of the best staff in the district. So in the classroom, we've been pretty active in the classroom. Oh, I didn't do attendance. I'm sorry. Let me just add that we do have 95.4. I'm ready to get that up over that 95 so I can highlight up to 96. That's my goal. I would like to get 96% attendance by the end of the school year and then maybe even increase that next year. We'll see. Um, so yes, uh, attendance and, um, very excited to say at least 133 students had perfect attendance. So that's pretty amazing. Um, so in the classroom, um, our students have been working pretty hard at learning some new skills, taking the skills they've already learned, So I just highlighted a few of the things that we have done in 7B. Our students in our social studies curriculum did a compare and contrast essay in Ms. O'Donohue's class, and they had to take countries' literacy skills and different points of research for different countries, and then they had to compare and contrast And they did this over a multi-unit lesson. And then the students were actually able to post their lessons in one of the bulletin boards in the main lobby. And students could select, if they wanted to, to identify themselves to their colleagues and other students. So many of the students did choose to put their names on their paper and identify their hard work. So that was pretty exciting. For Veterans Day, our students in Mr. Tremonti's class worked on the entire school all week. We had done some what does Veterans Day mean and try and highlight the different aspects of what Veterans Day incorporates. And then one of the culminating was that students were invited through Operation Gratitude to write letters to veterans members and current members serving in the military. I'm pleased to say we sent out 98 letters that will be sent off to current military members, and we also, students decided to make some poppies and decorated one of the boards in the main lobby. So those are there highlighting some of our current staff members, family members who are also veterans. So that's pretty nice. We also, I know Kathy mentioned ST Math, so we're pretty excited that We have a grant that is allowing for 75 math licenses for our eighth grade students, and the district is gonna pick up the additional so that all of our eighth grade students can use ST Math, which is a conceptual math program where students will be able to use that to not only build in some remediation skills, but also enrichment if they are ready to extend their learning. What else we got? It's all too little. So the pictures on the right are our Global Scholars Program. So Global Scholars is an opportunity for our 7th grade civic students to have the opportunity to work with students from all over the world. They decide on a topic of interest and then they work with students about how they might solve that problem, utilizing different cultures and different techniques from all over the world. So they may be on a Zoom conference with students in Spain or, you know, another country, and then the woman, Natalie Boyo, from the wildlife came in and spoke to our students, and they went out on a walk, and they looked at the Mystic River watershed, and they're incorporating that into their problem that they're solving this year, so that's pretty exciting as well.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Next slide.
[Jennifer Skane]: So when I started at the Andrews, I met with parents, I met with staff members, I met with families, I met with students, and I also met with other administrators from across the district. Two things that were highly encouraged for me was to build fun and enrichment opportunities for the students and also increase communication. So two of the things that I have done is we have a weekly newsletter that we post and I send to all families on Friday evening, just kind of highlighting what the students are doing or what's coming up for them. Also, you know, we put in there all of our PTO events because we have a very strong PTO. The PTO, I feel like I lost a page here. The PTO has had several successful events so far this year. We had a pie fundraiser, which I have to say I got the chocolate intensity pie for Thanksgiving. It was to die for. And we're doing a gut sneakers fundraiser and a donation campaign. also had an opportunity to host a family night where Kevin, a gentleman who runs lots of families, we played family feud, and we played bingo, and the kids had a lot of fun. And I lost but that's okay. So and then tonight we had a restaurant night at the Ford Tavern and we have one tomorrow night too. And obviously all of these events are to raise funds to help support some of the enrichment opportunities, as well as the other thing that I was asked to bring back, which is field trips and dances. So we've already had, I feel like I missed something here. Thank you. Okay, so and then we had curriculum night at the start of the year, which we invited students to come and help serve as leaders for the school so that they would help show the parents around the school. The students really enjoyed that opportunity to step up. They showed their pride in their school to their families as well. So that was really fun. Some of the pictures you see here, the item on the bottom was that we decided that we would ask people to bring their desserts to family night, and we asked them to bring something from their culture. So we got to try lots of different cultural desserts that evening, and I had some Brazilian chocolate balls, which I have to say, I asked her if I could have some for Christmas. Next slide. So student activities, we are very lucky to say that we have had such a high turnout for students that want to be involved in our student activities, that at the start of the year, with several of our advisors, I had to do some planning with them. How would we fit all those students safely? Volleyball, we had about 120 students turn out, and we were like, we can't do that in one particular afternoon, so we had to do it by grade every other week. We've just had a new staff member start at our school, so I'm pleased to say that we're going to have our own Andrews Middle School GSA club that starts next week. We have had an extremely successful CCSR so far. We have over 60 kids in the CCSR club. And we have done two very successful programs under the direction of Melanie North and Marissa Isbell. And the first one is that they raised over $300 in October by painting faces for students. The students loved it, and the monies were sent for breast cancer research. And the second was we had an extremely successful Thanksgiving food drive, which allowed us to make 36 baskets for families. that the baskets are a huge laundry basket filled with everything you might have imagined, plus money, a gift card for a turkey, and all the fixings, and the paper plates, and all the goods. And we had so many that we were able to reach out to the McGlynn Middle School. We supported students and families from the Andrews Middle School. We sent some to the senior center and also to the Community Frigerator, is that what it's called? The Community Frigerator? So that was a very successful day, very active day at the school. So student life, that was the next thing that I was asked to kind of take a peek at. Can you switch the slide for me? So we had our first spirit week in October, which started with pajama day I have to say that was my favorite day of the year to wear pajamas to work. And then I dressed up with the kids and I was weird Barbie which I had never even known about until that particular day. Oh, no, no, no, no, we don't share those. So we and then we had a day where the students dress like the teachers and the teachers dress like the students. That was quite entertaining. And then showing your Mustang pride and showing your favorite team support. And what we did was we asked the teachers to take points. and Tally, the most school spirit team. And that was our 6B team. So the day before Thanksgiving, you can see a picture of them. We went down to the cafeteria and the PTO helped me purchase some pizza for those kids. And they had a nice pizza lunch before they headed off for the Thanksgiving recess. We have a pretty active and successful National Junior Honor Society. Our students at the start of the year had to write their own speech, get up in front of their peers, present their speeches and be elected to office for the NGHS, which I think is pretty difficult to do as a middle school student and was super proud of them. We do have three field trips already planned. So next, on December 20th, the sixth grade is going to see the Lightning Thief at the Stonem Theater. In the spring, the 7th grade is going to see a Wrinkle in Time at the Wheelock Theater. And in the 8th grade, we'll go to Canobie Lake and have a little bit of fun before they head off to the high school. We also had a 6th grade dance in October where all the students wore neon and there were neon bracelets and it was extremely successful. This Friday night, Principal Tucci and I Miss Lally and Miss Bruno will be at the McGlynn again. We're going to have an eighth grade dance called Winter Wonderland. And then in March, we're going to have the seventh grade dance. And we haven't thought about a theme yet, but I'm sure the PTO will come up with something wonderful. So a couple of other things that we'll be doing in the upcoming weeks is during our wind block. We have been fortunate that the Massachusetts Partnership for Youth is going to be able to present us two different opportunities for students to have some educational time. One is the January, the seventh grade will have a presentation on vaping. And one is in February, the eighth grade will have an opportunity for kind of the dangers of social media. And unfortunately, something that they have to be aware of is sexting. So we're going to talk about that and the dangers that can come from that. And then we also have had the opportunity to do start with hello and say something, which are both programs through the Sandy Hook Foundation. We did the I Decide survey and we had some staff train this year. So we're looking at how we can implement if we have any students that need support through substance abuse. And we're doing the SBIRT screening this December 13th. So that's all coming up pretty quick too. We had a staff meeting today and it was very nice for me to be able to say at 90 days, where are we going? How will we, who do we want to be at the Andrews Middle School? So we did some visioning and brainstorming and decided some of our next steps as a school and how we're gonna approach that together. So that's pretty exciting. So thank you for having me. Does anyone have any questions?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, all four of you, for being here. Happy holidays. All five of you, sorry. Next up, we have the NWEA MAP presentation by Ms. Suzanne Galussi, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Mr. Paul DeLeva, Executive Director of Data and Reporting, and Dr. Bernadette Riccadeli, Director of Professional Learning and Assessment. Welcome, thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to wait one minute. Is it okay if I just wait one minute for. Okay, good evening.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you. I'm just going to welcome Dr. Bernadette Riccadeli and Paul DeLava. They're going to do the bulk of the presentation. We do have, I believe, joining us Faiza Khan, Director of Math, if at the end there are any questions for the Director of Math. Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities, will be joining us shortly. And unfortunately, Rocco Sieri, the Director of Science, I believe this is his soccer banquet. I think he has his banquet this evening for the soccer team. So he will not be here in attendance. But we want to thank you very much for your time. And I'm going to pass this to Bernadette Riccobelli.
[Ricciardelli]: Good evening. Good evening, everyone. So nice to see you, and welcome to the newly elected members. It's wonderful to have you here with us. So tonight, we're presenting a little differently. So I am going to be actually controlling the slide projection from here, because if the members had an opportunity to go through the presentation, you're going to see that there are links embedded in, and it takes you to specific data points. So we're trying something a little bit new with this tonight, at least for me. So again, Mr. Paul DeLeva is here with me. Several of us worked on analyzing the results of the latest MAP growth testing over the past month. Originally, we were slated to present to the committee on November 20th, and then that was delayed a little bit. So we took another look, and another look, and another look, and even as late as Friday, we were making some adjustments. So in terms of the agenda tonight for us, just a little adjustment here, we are going to be talking about the test itself. So many of you are aware of what the test entails, the overview, but for those of you that are new and for people watching from home, we're going to provide some information on the test itself and its design. We're going to take a look at some results. We're going to take a look at the data utilization, because that is what is important. How do we use the data that is yielded? And then lastly, there'll be some appendix information with more data that is available to you. All right, so let's first start with an overview of the test. So what is MAP growth? So MAP stands for measures of academic progress. And it measures what students know regardless of what grade they're in. It allows us as administrators and for teachers in the classroom to look at growth over time. And that is really what's important. We wanna see what their growth is. It is computer adaptive, and what that means is that the questions change as the student answers the question. So if a student answers a question correctly, the next question has a little bit more difficulty. And the opposite is true, if the student answers the question incorrectly, the next one is a little bit easier. So it's important to note, unlike MCAS, this is adaptive. So it's not the students in the classroom don't have the same questions. Right, so that's a really important point. That really differentiates a lot of the other type of summative informative assessments that we use. And then what is a RIT score? A RIT score is really important. And in a couple of slides, I'm gonna go over what a norm RIT is. So a RIT is a standard score. Okay, it reflects a student's academic knowledge, skills, and abilities. It's stable. It's like marking height on a growth chart. That's the typical way that it is described. And it provides a student's percentile ranking and conditional growth percentile. And it really can show how much the student has achieved in comparison with their peers. So this is a very widely used test. So we're talking about over 16 million students are tested each year. Over 9,000 school systems use the MAP growth system, nine state systems. Massachusetts is not one of them. Massachusetts leaves it up to individual districts. Medford obviously has opted in. Over 50,000 schools, and it is also given in 149 countries. So again, it is pretty broadly used.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Paul Ruseau]: Yes, thank you. Is the 14 million students, is that worldwide or within the U.S.?
[Ricciardelli]: Those numbers are the 16.2 million students. That's worldwide. So we administer the test three times a year, and you can see the different levels, the different subjects. In general, we're talking about September, January, and May. You can see the specific dates there. Obviously, we try to vary it a little bit, but in general, three times a year during those months. All right, now moving on to the MAP test results, which is, I think, what the committee really wanted to hear tonight, among other things. All right, so before we go into the actual data, it is important because the way that we have presented the data to you, we have measured Medford scores against the RIT or the RUSH 2020 norm scores. So Medford's district school and rate this ethnicity subgroup data is compared to these 2020, BAP national norms in this report. Okay, not 2023, but 2020. And the reason is because these norms are done every few years. They're not done every year. So they conduct norming studies every three to five years to provide the best and most up-to-date information about student achievement and growth. The 2020 norms describe achievement and growth trends for the US public school student population in language usage, mathematics, reading, and science over the 15, 16, 16, 17, and 17, 18 school years. All right, so that's just important for you to know. We're talking about pre-pandemic numbers. When we look at Medford's numbers compared to the norm, the national norm, we're talking about that 15, 16, 16, 17, 17, 18 data that got compiled into the 2020 norm numbers that came out. The results are based on K-12 grade level samples. Records are sampled between 3.6 and 5.5 million test scores. from 500,000 to 700,000 students attending over 24,500 public schools in 5,800 districts and spread across all 50 states. So these norms are based on public school data, not private school data. It's rigorous sampling, as we know when we're gonna make projections about data, it is important that the sample be wide, and we can see with the numbers, it is wide, and they try to make it as representative as possible to the public school population. All right, so looking at some data here, you can see that we have in blue, we have the ELA. Okay. You can see in blue, we have the ELA mean RIT data. We have the national numbers and we have district numbers. In yellow, we have math and in green, we have science. So for ELA in grades two, three, four, five, six, seven, and nine, the mean RIT scores in Medford were higher than the national mean RIT score. In math, you can see the grades one, four, nine, and 10 mean RIT scores were higher than the national mean RIT score. And in science, we're looking at all grades tested in the district had a mean RIT score higher than the national norm.
[Sharon Hays]: Thank you. I just had a quick question. So when we're looking at those scores, what's a significant difference? So we've got, just looking at second grade, we've got 172.35 for the national and we're at 175.8. Is that significant? a significant difference? I found myself wondering that as I was looking through the scores. I don't really have a good handle on that.
[Ricciardelli]: So I'm not sure that I have an answer for you on that. I think that question has been raised in the past, I think, by Mr. Russo, who I think has in the past asked about statistically significant numbers on MCAS differences. I can't answer that question. It's difficult to do the comparison. It's a little bit easier to do comparison with MCAS numbers. It is a little bit more difficult with MAP, because the only thing we can really compare it to is that 2020 mean RIT score. So we're not saying here that because we're above in these areas, it's great news. It's an observation to make. So again, I will go back to when we look at these map growth scores on the district level, on the school level, on the classroom level, what's really meaningful for us and what we think is really meaningful for students' families is when we look at those individual student reports. and we can see the growth of an individual student. We can look at the reports, and Mr. DeLave is going to go over some of the reports. We can look at a report and see student A is developing in this area, is ready to develop in this area. So I think the most important results that we get are on a lower level. I'm not diminishing this. I wish I had an answer for you. I guess all I can say is in these areas that we've highlighted, we are above the national mean.
[Sharon Hays]: So I guess part of what I'm wondering is I know in terms of the ELA scores, we're looking to see, partly we're hoping to see that both with our new reading program, which of course we wouldn't see that influence yet, but with the ECRI that's been in place for a few years now, How is that impacting our scores? Are the kids doing better than they were previously? So how do you make that judgment if you don't know what a significant difference is, I guess is what I'm wondering. Do we have a way of looking at that?
[Ricciardelli]: So I believe it was last spring when we delivered the results, the spring results for MAP. I believe it was a 70% growth in, it was a grade three, or we did see growth. So when we do this report later on in the year, I think we're gonna be able to make that connection. MAP doesn't allow, there's not a lot of flexibility with the analytical tools to make a link between one year to the next. But when you're doing it within a year, you have a little bit more that you can play with.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I just want to reiterate one thing that Dr. Riccadeli said beautifully, by the way. And Mr. DeLaver is going to cover the reports again, but I just think it's very crucial that the importance of MAP data is to inform instruction. It is very difficult, it's clunky to do this district-wide view because you're not going to really be able to do that dive that maybe you're talking about. The importance of map data for us as educators, both administrators and teachers, is to have that information to inform instruction, to help which I don't wanna, Mr. DeLay was gonna talk about how we're using all of this data. So I don't know if maybe we wanna like, I don't know, maybe press pause and then come back to it because the other pieces with the emergence of the early literacy screening tools, we've also brought in DIBLS, which as I informed the community and parents, K and one are using that explicitly for early literacy. screening. And we're not starting MAP until grade two, which is more appropriate when we're really looking at how they're applying those skills and when the comprehension comes in. So I know we may not have answered your question wholly, but maybe if we could like keep going and then we can get to the nitty gritty. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Mayor, can I just ask one more question? Yes. I thought the value of math was that you could connect performance year to year, and now you're saying that's not true. Which is it?
[Ricciardelli]: So you can by student, but so I think, Mr. DeLeva, correct me if I'm wrong, doing it, linking from say spring of 2023 to fall of 2023 on a large scale basis
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, we were talking, it's like the funnel, so the district's the top of the funnel, and we are going all the way down.
[SPEAKER_02]: District, school, class.
[Paul D'Alleva]: And I think the hard part is, you know, just getting to know this a little bit better. On a district level, I think the next slide is kind of
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I think the reason I'm asking, let me just like tell you why I'm asking. If that's true, then why are we crushing students and teachers under three iterations of this in a school year? The last of which comes like hot on the heels of MCAS. And then we're saying, well, it's not really like data we can use the next year anyway. And if that's true, like. Why are we testing for the sake of testing, I think is what I'm wondering about. If there's value in that carryover in terms of informing instruction, then I think it makes a lot of sense. But I feel like I'm sort of hearing either we're not using it that way right now or it's not true. And I don't know which, but I'm just really trying to understand there's a lot of testing that goes on. And I know that we can't just say we're not going to do MCAS. I get it. it's still, it's a lot, like it's a lot of days of testing and could the kids be actually learning something instead, is my question.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So, trying to see where I want to begin with this. You are correct in, we've been having a lot of these conversations internally as well, because we want to make sure that we have the appropriate data to inform our instruction. Part of this part of this as we go along with the iteration of it all, there's the reason that I just spoke about why we are no longer using it for reading for K and one, because dibbles is giving us, and some of the other things that we're doing with the QPS and additional screeners, that's giving us the information that we need. So K and not K, but grade one is, is we're using it for math because it's an important data point. We're also having conversations and, um, maybe Nicole can speak to it as well, around the validity for 10th grade because of MCAS and how much we are using the data. So we are having a lot of those internal conversations to make sure that we are using the data appropriately to inform our instruction. I think the piece of it is, We can, just to go back to the way it's scored, it's all of the norm measures that Dr., and please correct me, that Dr. Riccadeli spoke about, but it also targets the exact time in which the students take it. So nationally, we're not going to be, our students are gonna be scored against other students that took it within that timeframe. So sometimes with the way our cohorts go, there are different blocks of time in which we can use the data based on when the assessments were taken. And I think the other piece that we're kind of growing with this program and with the data is also we don't want to over test students, but we want valid data that we can use to inform our instruction. And last year there was a little blip because Again, this balance of not over-assessing, but some of the EL students did not take, map all three terms. And so that makes it difficult for us to then use that data and say that the data from last year is going to be exactly accurate when we're looking at the growth of students because it wasn't the same participants in each data set. This year, we are going to have all students participate, in that so that we are going to have clear, clean data to be able to use.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Ricciardelli]: So just moving on, so this slide is really a depiction of the, let me just go back, of this. So we took a look at this data. This one, this is a depiction really where you can see the red norm line. And then the same for, I apologize. This is grade six to 12. So really it's just a visual depiction of that first chart of data that we looked at. All right, moving along. So this slide, this is where we, several of us that got together, we looked at the data, and the full set of data can be found in the appendix at the end of the presentation. So it yields some descriptive information about the variations in schools, grades, and ethnic groups. And while there are many, many observations that we can make, what we decided to do here was just to highlight some of the ones that that we saw that kind of stood out. So the first bullet here, it says, in science, the mean RIT scores for all elementary schools, so all four elementary schools in grades four, five, seven, eight, nine, and 10 across the district were higher than the national mean RIT score. So again, that is in science. We're just gonna take a look at that. All right, so when we look at science, We can see here that, so in grades three, four, and five, we can see in science at the Brooks Elementary School, the school-rate scores are higher than the national norm. If we flip over to the McGlynn Elementary, we look at science, we can also see that they are above the national norm. And I know I'm going quickly here. I'm going to scroll next to the Missittuck Elementary, looking at that green column, looking at science. We can see the same, where the school scores are higher than the national norm. And then lastly, to the Roberts, we see the same thing in the green column, where the school WRIT scores are higher than the national mean. So again, it's not that we are equating the norm with excellence, it's something that we're taking a look at, and we can obviously see that our schools scored higher than that norm. Moving on to the second bullet, taking a look at the Brooks data. At the Brooks Elementary School, the mean RIT scores for ELA, math, and science in all grades were higher than the national mean RIT scores in those same content areas. So taking a look at that data at the Brooks Elementary School, you can see in the ELA column in blue, the school scores are higher than the national mean. The math scores identified in yellow are higher than the national mean, and the same for science in the grades that were tested. So clearly at the Brooks, we're seeing we're seeing higher than norm scores. Going down to the third bullet, in grade four across the district, all schools had higher mean RIT scores than the national norm RIT in ELA and science. Not math, but ELA and science. Math was close. I think there was one school that was off. So if we look at the ELA and science scores at the Brooks, okay, we already kind of took a look at the science, but we can see the ELA scores. At the McGlynn, we can see the ELA scores, the ELA and the science scores are higher. At the Missituk Elementary, the same. And then lastly, at the Roberts Elementary School. So again. Okay. Next one. Other side. All right, the next bullet, the Asian, Black, White, and Latino subgroups in grade two with the Roberts all had a mean RIT higher than the national mean RIT in ELA. So with regard to, again, those subgroups, the subgroups that are available in the MAP test, we can see that the means in those different ethnic groups are higher than the national mean in grade two.
[Paul D'Alleva]: We knew you were going to ask that. Sorry. Okay. We're having an issue because what's pulling the student data is the Clever from School Brains is putting it into MAP. So we were able to get this subgroup data, but I'm trying to figure out why we're not being able to pull the other data because School Brains does identify those factors. So we haven't been able to grasp at this yet. And again, I'm sort of jumping ahead in my part of the presentation, but we're also trying to get, which I think Ms. Galushi is going to bring up as well, a program that's going to kind of tie everything in together so that we can isolate that quicker. But the hope is that we can get that when we get to the fall, the winter, the winter time, but we weren't able to pull it from this report. Otherwise we definitely would have put that in. I, whatever the committee wants. Yeah.
[Ricciardelli]: All right, so we're just moving on the second column on that page. At Medford High School, the school mean RIT scores were higher than or equal to the national mean RIT in ELA, math, and science. So if we take a look at the Medford High School data, we can see that. Moving on, at Medford High School, and that includes Medford Vocational Technical High School, the Asian subgroup scored higher than the national norm in ELA, math, and science. So this is, okay, this is the right slide. And we also can see that the white subgroup also scored higher.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I've been confused by this slide. It's come up a couple of times now. When it says the national, that's the national of all students. And so I'm just confused why we would compare subgroups to all students, which make that comparison sure. But I would like to know how our Asian students are doing to the national Asian students. I mean, because I guess this is, to me, seems like not terribly important data. I wanna know how our black students are doing compared to the black students nationally. Because that's why we even have subgroups. It's not to compare them to the big number for all students. It's to compare.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Point of information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin, or I would question that. that it's important to compare subgroup to subgroup, but it is also very important to compare subgroup to national or international, so that you're getting it across sector of data.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I didn't say that it wasn't important. I said it was not the only important thing.
[Kathleen Kay]: That's correct.
[Paul Ruseau]: So that wasn't a question, though. Point of information is a question. OK. Anyways, so this slide does not give us the information we need, and I'm assuming NWEA map does provide that, or maybe they don't. So then I'm not sure what the point of this slide is.
[Paul D'Alleva]: We wouldn't put it in. We were thinking the same thing. We just couldn't find the numbers on their website or anything to get that.
[Paul Ruseau]: So I guess I'm confused why they would provide us the ability to see how our subgroups are doing, but then also not provide any information about how subgroups are doing nationally. That does not seem like a reasonable thing for a product to provide. They must have those things because they are providing those delineated pieces of information to us. I mean, we didn't do these calculations, they came from their product. So they know how these subgroups are doing nationally. Whether they're willing to share it, maybe they have a reason for not sharing it, but I really feel like somebody needs to figure that out because it's just critical information. I mean, I feel like if we're not gonna know that at all, Anyways, I just think that this slide is definitely missing something and somebody should call them up and ask them what the heck's going on because it's critical. It is certainly critical to know against the, like these categories right here, by the way, these are Medford's categories. Where's the Medford ninth grade? I see national, there should be another column there for district also that covers all students. It should be on the same slide though. I mean, these four, Asian, black, white, and Latino are all Medford numbers, right? because nobody really wants to sit here and just discuss their data nationally. So all of those things averaged together based on the number of students, et cetera, would provide us with the district number is, which I think was on another slide somewhere. So slide eight, thank you.
[Ricciardelli]: You're gonna hear from Mr. DeLeva in just a couple of minutes, the connection, actually a very real connection between MAP and MCAS that I think has a lot of utility for us, our students and moving forward. So at this point, I am gonna turn it over to Mr. DeLeva.
[Paul D'Alleva]: Before I get started, I wanted to, this might be the last time I see some members. congratulations on your service. Thank you for everything. And then welcome our new members as well, uh, to the committee as well. And, um, also want to make sure that I do give credit to Dr. Riccidelli, uh, Rocco Sieri and Faiza Khan, because we've sort of all been, yep. Sorry, I said Dr. Kia, I didn't say Dr. Kia, I apologize for that. Is it me? Do I keep hitting it? All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate the help. Thank you. I'm wearing glasses now. I used to never have to do that. But to reiterate the point is that I think we use multiple data points. And map is just one of those data points that we use. Yes, we use MCAS. As Ms. Galusi said, we're using dibbles on the upper grade. So we're trying to get a picture on that data, and we never really before delved as deep as we have before. And I think we're doing that now. Part of the work that I have been doing, and I'll get into it a little bit more later too, is I've been going and meeting with, it's been great, across the whole district, I've been meeting with teams of teachers and sort of reviewing their map and kind of coming up with plans. And then we're already excited to go into the winter season and then review that again. So on a level of instructional data, I think that's the bigger piece here. I know on the district data, it's kind of so broad, but I think when we funnel it down, it gets to be a little bit more inclusive and identifying things and making groups on students and talking about areas of focus and stuff like that, because MAP does identify that. So what you have here on this slide here is MAP actually has a predictor. So it takes the, what I have here is the third grade fall from ELA projection to what we actually scored on MCAS in the spring. So if you look here, we look for the little trends. We were hoping that the red means not meeting expectations. yellow, orange is more partially and green is meeting and blue is exceeding. And the hope is that that trend is pretty close. Obviously there's a close trend, but we have a greater number of students that we're not meeting in third grade for ELA based on what map had projected. When we move to the next one, which is math, a different kind of story where it projected that we would not meet expectations greater in the fall and we actually have less students that actually had done that and we have more students that are exceeding expectations. for third grade math. So we've done all the grades, but we've decided to make sure that we did third and eighth. Uh, 10th grade isn't pulling MCAS, but it is pulling SAT scores. So we've been using that a little bit.
[Jenny Graham]: Can I just ask a quick question? I'm looking at, um, what is this third grade math, third grade math. And it looks like the numbers on the left add up to more than a hundred.
[Paul D'Alleva]: Oh, you're right. It does look like that.
[Jenny Graham]: Because I was trying to figure out like it looks similar, but it's.
[Paul D'Alleva]: Yeah, you're right. Actually, I was looking at the LA. It looks the same on that too.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there a reason for that?
[Paul D'Alleva]: So this is the graph I literally pulled from map. It came from the map report. So I'm not quite sure. What is the story with the numbers? I'd have to double check. But right, everything should be equal to 100, right? It shouldn't be.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, yeah, it's just hard to compare. If this is a predictor, did we meet the prediction, or did we do better or worse than the prediction? But you're never going to meet the prediction if you're not on the same scale, right? Because on the right, 41.32. 95, yeah, the one on the right adds up. So you can't eyeball this and say we were on target or we weren't. And I can't tell if it's because the left adds up to more than 100 or if we're really on target or not. So it would be great if you could get an answer to that question.
[Paul D'Alleva]: Yeah, obviously not now, but I'll follow up and re-look at the numbers and see what came up on the predictor slide to see what what pulled up and hopefully I can get to 100 and figure out what the problem is. So then moving on as well with the eighth grade spring ELA scores and comparative to the in the fall compared to what we did in the spring. I mean, I'm looking just at the bars, but again, if the numbers don't add up, but You know, again, when the number goes higher, you know, I'm looking at the trend on the red. I mean, we want more students not, you know, we don't want more students not meeting expectations. We want more on the blue side of exceeding expectations or meeting expectations. So when I look at that kind of trend, those are the things that I'm trying to talk about when I'm meeting with teachers as well, when they look at it from, a grade level or a school level or anything like that. Your presentation is more on a grade level. But again, we're talking about funneling it down. So again, when I move to math, same kind of idea. I want to see greater greens and blues and less partial. But I think across the district, the partial is the bigger number that's there on every slide. So we want to try to work and make sure we get those students since the meeting?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think on the eighth grade one, the charts both add up to 100. So is what this is telling us that MAP predicted we would have better MCAS results than we actually had?
[Paul D'Alleva]: We're looking at the math one? I'm sorry.
[Jenny Graham]: Eighth grade, slide 16.
[Paul D'Alleva]: For ELA, right?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, ELA. I'm sorry.
[Paul D'Alleva]: So yeah, so exactly. That's exactly what it says. Based on the map scores in the fall, it was saying that this is if they were to take MCAS at this point, this is what they would have received. But then when you look at the actual MCAS that did happen in the spring, that's what occurred. So yeah, that's not the story where we're looking for. We want to try it again, move more greens and blues.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Paul D'Alleva]: You're welcome. Thank you. So when we do data analysis, and again, I want everyone to think of the funnel. Really, the work that has been done has been working on a classroom level at each school. So I'll meet with the third grade, for example, at the Mississippi. I did it this time. All right, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Like I'll meet with the third grade teachers, I'll meet with the third grade special ed teachers, and we try to drill down things from the reports that I'm going to show you. So we do a class report, we do some sorting, we then drill down on a student level. We talk about doing interventions and how we would group students into reteaching or as well as enrichment as well. So, you know, you have two sides to the coin. We also want to make sure that our top students are getting what they need, right, with the win, as well as the students that need certain instruction to make sure that they're at the level of everybody else that's there. So the differentiation that goes on. And then we use a data protocol. So there's a data protocol that's in that link that sort of was developed by myself and a couple others so that we're also using time because time is a commodity when we're meeting with the teachers. And I wanna thank the committee because I don't think if it was the change for the elementary side, they actually have time to meet because they always have that 1.30. difference and now that they're following the same schedule as everyone else, you know, I can plan on where I'm meeting with everybody. And kind of we make observations, we make certain inferences, and then we come up with action plans. So coming around the next time around in the winter, that's where I'm gonna use the data and meet with them again to kind of say, okay, now we have the growth from fall to winter, because we don't have that right now. We only have the fall at this point in time. So I want the fall to winter to see where our students are at. moving forward. And again, we do that comparison of MCAS as well so that they can look at it. They actually have a separate sheet that was created by myself over the summer. So they've been kind of comparing points on their own when they're working with their students. So if you look at this potential, everything's redacted and it's just a general report. But this is the first report that the teachers go into because they go right into their classrooms. And again, I made the colors very similar to the other reports where greens and blues, we're doing good, yellows and reds, we really need to drill down and see. We tend to sort that. And we try to look at what the needs are of every student, meaning the blues and the greens as well as the reds and the yellows. So when I move into the next one, a little delay there, and I didn't touch any button. The quadrant chart obviously is what we're always looking for, which is growth and achievement. Now what this is doing is it is, this chart is taking previous student scores and making a growth chart from that. So you have students that are in the upper quadrant there, that's their achieving and growing, and you have students in the yellow down below that are showing high achievement. And a reminder that with that, it's possible that students are achieving, but they're already achieving at a high level, right? So that they're going to end up staying stagnant, right, at a level. And even though we want everyone in the green, some people are already high scored, and that's why they're down in that ever. But again, each one of these dots, you can unclick and identify student's name. So that's what the teachers do when they look to see where are our achievers using the MCAS data that I've given them already and this data to see what they can do to group students because they do have a period within the day called their wind blocks. Elementary uses them on a literacy basis, but the middle schools have them and even the tier two intervention that we can do at the high school of identifying students that could use it, you know, You have to pick and choose. Unfortunately, you lose an exploratory to get that. But at the same time, if you're looking at your predictor, it might warrant that you need to do it. And as we talked at the MCAS meeting, and I'm looking at, remember, so we don't want to have a you're not graduating scenario. So again, using not just because you didn't do well on MCAS, but using this data as well as where they're at is a way for us to do some rescheduling. This is another way that they regroup as well. So map goes by areas of instruction. And so if you look at it, and it's a little fuzzy, I know, but it's, For algebra, right, algebraic thinking and numbering operations. So these students are put into groups by their RIT scores. So again, now a teacher already sees, okay, these students are here, I need to work with these students here, and figure out what I need to do in order to get them to move over in their instructional area. So when I look at this report with them, our goal is to see everyone start to move more to the right from there. This is probably my favorite report that I go with the teachers because this is the individual student report. So from that class report, what you're able to do is really drill down on a student individually. And if you look a little bit in the middle there, you can see what this particular student, they have identified suggested area of focus and they identify a student's strength. So here in math, this particular student really has some number in operations and I've shown teachers, if you click that, it gives the skill where the student is at and what they need to develop to improve that area of focus. On the other hand, the operations of algebraic thinking, they've met a lot of those criterias because they're above the mean of where they had scored. So that's how that gets identified. But again, when we're talking about when and regrouping, teachers are now looking at these charts, and they're also grouping their students because they want to do more of number and operations with certain students while, for example, with this student, if they were to go to more of an enrichment piece on operations and algebraic thinking.
[Ricciardelli]: Can I just add something?
[Paul D'Alleva]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Ricciardelli]: So this is a report that some parents do request. I'm not going to touch it. And I think it's, I mean, what it looks, it looks like one page here, but it prints out to 32 pages and it talks with the development in each one of these areas. So there's a lot of information that is yielded. So again, I will go back to on the individual student level, there's a lot that is yielded with the map information. I think, you know, on the district level, you know, I'm, I'm in, I'm sensing some frustration and you're not alone. because it's just not as advanced as it is on the individual student and classroom level.