[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You can call in or click on the link and the meeting ID is 912-316-2986. Member Ruseau, if you could please call the roll.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham. Here. Member Mastroboni. Here. Member Olapade is almost here. Member Parks. Here. Member Reinfeld. Member Ruseau. Present. Mayor Longo.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present. Six present, one on their way. If you all could please rise to salute our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next up, executive session pursuant to General Laws 30A, Section A2, to discuss strategy and preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or contract negotiations with non-union personnel, our superintendent of schools. The Medford School Committee will reconvene in public session immediately following the conclusion of executive session at approximately 6 p.m. Is there a motion on the floor? Seconded by? All those in favor? Roll call.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Mastroboni? Yes. Member Olapade is absent. Member Parks? Yes. Member Reinfeldt? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Mayor? Yes. One absent. Motion to go into Executive Session has been approved. We'll be back. Good evening. We're going to just run through our consent agenda real quick, and then we'll go into our Mustang moment. Consent agenda, approval of bills and payrolls, approval of capital purchases, approval of donations. We have a PTO donation of $2,000 to MHS, MVTHS for athletic mats. Approval of grants, approval of field trips, approval of meeting minutes from our regular meeting, February 2nd, 2026. Is there a motion on the floor? for approval by Member Olapade, seconded by? Member Mastroboni, thank you. All those in favor? All those opposed? Consent agenda is approved. We do not have any reports of subcommittee, and we have three reports of our superintendent. I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. Galussi, to introduce our students for Mustang Moment. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you. This is the highlight of our school committee meetings is the Mustang moment. So it is my pleasure and honor to introduce the middle school select band. We are going to have director Emma Baptist come up. She's going to talk a little bit about the middle school select band, what you are going to listen to this evening, and introduce some student speakers. We'll just wait until it turns red. There you go. It's good. Yes.
[Baptiste]: Am I on? Oh. Hello. Hi, everyone. My name is Emma Baptist. I am the director of the Middle School Band. So tonight, I brought with me members of the Select Band, which is a group I started maybe about three years ago, I just kind of noticed there were a lot of school events that were happening after school or in the evenings, and I felt like they could use a little bit of music for them. So I kind of started this group, and it's really for students that really embody what it means to be a band student in Medford. So they're exceptional musicians. They work really hard. great social skills, and they're really good kids. So some of them have been in this group with me for one year, two years, three years. And actually I just want to draw some attention to Charles and Grace. Can you guys just raise your hands for a second? So Charles and Grace actually started the band program five years ago. They're both in eighth grade now. Five years ago is when we started the fourth grade band program. So it was our first year with that program, brand new to fourth grade. And they were two of the original students that joined in fourth grade. They're on the same instruments that they played five years ago. And so it just goes to show all the hard work that we put into this program and to give really great experiences to these students. So I'm going to stop talking. They're going to play for us. They're going to play three pieces, Living on a Prayer, Twist and Shout, and Enter Sandman by Metallica. That piece was actually requested by one of the saxophone players, Ben. Ben has been with me for four years. And this was a song that he has asked for literally for four years. I thought, OK, now's the time. He's in eighth grade, so we'll play this one. And we hope you enjoy. And then at the end, three of them are just going to kind of speak to their experience in band. So thank you so much for having us, too. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you.
[Baptiste]: So the three students that are going to be speaking tonight are all 8th graders. So we have Noah and then Liliana and Ben.
[SPEAKER_12]: Hi everyone, my name is Noah. I'm in 8th grade and I've been in the BANG! program since 5th grade. I play both the alto and the baritone saxophones. I probably picked the saxophone because it sounded cool and looked funky. All my teachers and directors have been phenomenal. They've always helped me and others improve our skills. The band program means a lot to me. Out of all the years I've been in it, I've had nothing but great experiences and I've met some really awesome and cool people through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, my name is Liliana, and I'm in 8th grade. I've played the clarinet since 6th grade, but I've been in band since 5th. I originally played the bell kit, but after I found out that my mom used to play clarinet in high school, I promptly switched over. I never thought I'd actually stay in band, but after 6th grade, I found myself loving it and the people who did it with me. Now, band is one of the most important things in my life. With me doing middle school band, select band, and high school marching band, I'm so glad that I pushed myself and went to band camp when I was 11.
[SPEAKER_11]: Hi, my name is Ben. I play alto and tenor saxophone. I've been part of the band program since fifth grade. I first joined because my dad said it would be a great opportunity to get better acquainted with music and boy was he right. Though that didn't stop me from complaining about it every second I could. Once I started playing, I was hooked. I'm really glad I stuck with it, because I've learned so much and enjoyed it every step of the way. My first year was amazing. I was the only student to sign up, so I pretty much got private lessons, which was awesome. I even got an epic solo on It's a Small World. Since then, the band program has grown a lot. For starters, I'm not alone anymore. I even got a chance to see what the new fifth grade classes were like, and it was huge. I felt amazing looking back and seeing how much it had changed. Band is one of the only classes I actually look forward to in the school day. It sure beats doing algebra. All in all, the band program is amazing and it's a wonderful opportunity that is available for everyone.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Ms. Baptiste, we're just going to do a quick picture. If you and the students could come in the middle, please.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, that was wonderful. Next up, we have MCAS Results and Accountability. I'll invite Dr. Kim Talbot, our Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instruction up, along with Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities, Rocco Sierci, Director of Science, Dr. Faiza Khan, Director of Mathematics, and Chelsea McNiff, Director of English Learners Services. Welcome, everybody. And I'm going to pass it over first to Dr. Galusi.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you very much. So, as Madam Mayor just said, Dr. Kim Talbot, our Assistant Superintendent for Academics and Instruction and her team are here this evening to present on our accountability data. This is an important presentation. in where they will review the components of DESE's accountability rating using the MCAS results as well as the access or English language proficiency. Accountability data serves as a diagnostic tool for us to identify where students are thriving and where additional resources or instructional shifts are needed. As you know, for the past two years, we have really been focusing a lot of our work on strengthening our instructional planning and practices. This continued work is pivotal and has provided us with insights to inform our upcoming strategic planning process. Capturing this data is critical and will serve as a foundation for us for our long-term goals. This evening Dr. Talbot and her team are going to go through the framing of the presentation and the specific department results. We do ask if you could hold your questions until the end. The slide deck is numbered by pages and would just be helpful for you to see like the arc of the presentation from the beginning to the end.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Without further ado turn it over.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: There you go.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: This is the academic version of Metallica that you just heard. That's what our team is. So we hope you enjoy our presentation as much as Enter Sandman that you just heard. So as Dr. Galusi said, today we're going to report on the state academic testing results and accountability from last spring. So in our agenda, which is a little lengthy, but it's important, we are going to talk about why the MCAS matters in framing for state accountability. The Medford accountability data from last spring, and then district MCAS achievement and growth results by department. I'll be joined by Dr. Chiesa, Dr. Khan, Mr. Seary, and Ms. McNiff to present the findings from their department. Ms. McDuff will talk about the access outcomes with a little bit of framing. This might be the first time you've heard this presentation, so we want to make sure you understand what access looks like. And we'll talk about some district trends and next steps. And as always, the appendix that follows this has all the data that you could possibly want along with the DESE website. So accountability and why MCAS still matters even though it's not a graduation requirement anymore. So the MCAS supports our instructional vision by helping us stay data informed and work toward high quality instructional practices. These are two critical components of our instructional vision. The MCAS is one measure of data that we use to inform our instruction. From the student level through the classroom, school, and department level, the information in MCAS provides us, whoops, a little dark here, provides us to help serve our students. It should be noted also that even though it's not a graduation requirement, a passing score on the grade 10 ELA MCAS is a requirement for students earning the seal of biliteracy. So the MCAS, though not a graduation requirement, still matters. So we're fortunate to be paired with the new teacher project, TNTP. So any slides you see with this logo in the bottom left were graciously loaned to us by them. TNTP is a vast research and advocacy group, and they've been working on answering the question, how can young people's experiences become true engines of economic and social mobility? Their 2018 report, The Opportunity Myth, demonstrated that most students, and especially students of color, those of low-income families, those with mild to moderate disabilities, and English learners, spend the vast majority of their school days missing out on four crucial resources, great appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations. This is national data. In 2024, Paths of Opportunity, their next publication, shared the five factors that all young people need to create widespread access to economic and social mobility, which we'll discuss in our next slide. TNTP's new Research Center of Excellence is currently researching each of the factors that I'll mention on the next slide of mobility and critically exploring the connection between them. So these five factors for economic and social mobility include a strong academic foundation, career connected learning, social capital, personal support, civic engagement, all with a strong foundation of belonging with the student at the center. Today we're going to highlight some of TNTP's research on the importance of providing a strong academic foundation for all students and how that intersects with our work in Medford and the role that MCAS can play in helping us measure it. This slide is of national data. This national data reflects the real life impact of strong academic outcomes on the economic and social mobility in adulthood. namely the ability to earn a living wage by the age of 30. The bottom row represents that high school students experiencing poverty, excuse me, the bottom line is that high school students, sorry, the bottom row is of high school students of not low income background. regardless of their academic experience. And the second row up there is students of low income background who experience strong academic outcomes. You can see the impact of a strong academic outcome on low income students in closing the gap for them to earn a living wage by the age of 30. This matters to Medford because currently nearly a third of our students are reported as low income. The chart on the bottom shows the percent of students enrolled in honors or AP courses at Medford High School over the past three years, with the most recent year on the left. Like the others above, the black bars represent non-low income students. while the red bar represents low-income students. We're happy to report that there has been a slight increase in the percent of all students enrolled in honors and AP courses over the last three years, but the gaps between the percent of low-income and non-low-income students is closing only slightly, but the gap still remains persistent. To be clear, this chart is a lagging indicator that represents, that says as much about the K-8 student experience as our high school experience. High school teachers have clear entrance criteria for these rigorous courses, and it's our job to make sure our students are ready to engage. This next slide represents national data, again, from TNTP. Part of TNTP's nationwide research involved collecting samples of classroom assignments and student work. When they graded the assignments, they asked if kids met the demands of the assignments. And the answer was yes, 71% of the time. But then they graded those same assignments. And they asked the question, if students met the demands of the grade level standard. And they were only able to answer yes 17% of the time nationwide. This is nationwide data. That 54 percentage point gap. is full of assignments that did not give kids a chance to meet the demands of the standards. And that means that kids are getting good grades and succeeding on content that's not building a ladder of success for them throughout the grades. So given that nationwide data, it is reasonable to assume that something similar might also be happening in our community. And this chart represents students in grades six through 10 and the percent of students that ended last year with a grade of an A or B in any MCAS tested subject. And it shows the percent of students, those same students who in the spring of last year earned a meets or an exceeds on the MCAS. And this makes total sense because our teachers love our students. The care that our teachers have for our students is clear every time you visit a classroom or enter the school doors. Our teachers want our students to be happy and feel confident and feel successful and know that they are loved. And often that translates into asking students to do work that is below their grade level so that they don't struggle and so they're not upset. Teachers are working hard to create a sense of belonging for students And let's be clear, without that sense of belonging, students would not be able to access any learning. In every classroom visit, it is clear how much Melrose teachers love their students and how hard they are working to create a climate of community and belonging. Medford, what did I say? Oh my goodness, I meant Medford, I am so sorry. And success on grade-level standards also matters. And for our low-income students, it matters a lot. And so the state checks like an audit to help remind Medford and every other district of how important it is, in addition to belonging, that students achieve at grade level so that they have an opportunity to thrive and experience social and economic independence. And that is why the MCAS still matters, even though it's not a graduation requirement any longer. So, the MCAS also, those outcomes are also part of the state framework for accountability, but they're not the only part, because the MCAS matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. The state's framework for district accountability and assistance is a coherent structure for linking the state's accountability and assistance activities with district based on their level of need. And provide schools and district leaders with common indicators and tools for assessing systems and practices, diagnosing challenges, and identifying appropriate interventions. The purpose of the accountability system is to provide clear, actionable information to families, community members, and the public about district and school performance. Additionally, the accountability system helps the state to direct resources and assistance. I have lots of details about how this is calculated, but I know you've heard it before. I'm going to read the room and answer the main questions if you have them at the end of the presentation. Great. So Bedford's accountability from last year. So this is a chart of all of the schools and the district accountability is at the top with red. As a district, you can see we made moderate progress toward the state target and generally do not need overall assistance. However, our accountability rating decreased by percentage points, as indicated by the red downward facing arrow next to 45. As a result of our accountability ratings, one of our schools does qualify for targeted assistance, and we are thrilled to have been paired with TNTP, who I mentioned earlier, in a learning acceleration network for the next several years as a state-funded effort to help improve outcomes for our students. So I'm about to turn it over to my colleagues, my esteemed colleagues, to present their discipline-specific results from the MCAS. But before I do that, I wanted to provide a high-level view of outcomes, to illustrate some symbols to make it easier to read later on in the presentation, and also to set a broader context. This high-level data does not provide actionable data. but rather it's directional data. What you are looking at is the average of all of the MCAS taken of all of the students of all of the grades at all of the levels as represented on the chart. Big picture high elevation. The overall district outcomes are in the first row. The arrows indicate the relationship between this year and the prior year. So this year, 41% of students met or exceeded expectations. as an aggregate. This was an increase from the previous year as illustrated by the upward facing green arrow. Generally, we look to see a high number and green arrows facing upwards showing an increase in the percent of students scoring meets or exceeds. The second column shows that 19% of students were not meeting expectations. This was the same number as last year as indicated by the dash next to the number 19. In this column, what we want to see is as low a number as possible and arrows facing down. Ideally, the column on the left, arrows facing up, high number. In the middle, arrows facing down, low number, like what's illustrated here. That's the direction we want to see. The third column indicates the scaled score. The scaled score represents a student's outcome on the assessment. These scaled scores are divided into quartiles that signal proficiency ratings for each test. We know these as exceeds, meets, needs improvement, not meeting. In Medford, last year, the scaled score was 494. And this is the same as the prior year. Looking at the scaled score is helpful for two reasons. First, it helps to show improvement in achievement that may not be captured by movement in quartiles. For example, if a student who had been scoring 450 and now scores 469, we'll see an increase in scaled score, but it's not enough to move out of their category. Looking at scaled scores can help us can help us notice, my contacts are not settling for me, I'm sorry, can help us notice and celebrate any change in outcomes in a more nuanced way, much more actionable. Secondly, the scaled score is what is associated with the RIT score that students receive on our benchmark data from the NWEA map testing. This helps directors and principals, many of whom are on the call and in the audience right now, and teachers set and track their interim proficiency targets in that data-informed way that is part of our instructional vision. I wanted to leave you with this last slide, which is the high-level data. One last view of that high-level chart shows the gap between non-low-income students and low-income students in our district overall. Closing these gaps is our commitment to this community. I'm going to step aside for Dr. Chiesa to present the ELA, the civics, and the ELA results.
[Chiesa]: Thank you, Dr. Talbot. Good evening, everybody. Is that OK? All right. I'm going to start with the civics MCAS. As a reminder, civics is taken by our eighth grade students. and Civics MCAS exam has been piloted over the past few years. So this is the first year where we have hard data and therefore you won't see a comparison in the documents that were provided to you for years past because it wouldn't be a solid comparison. Just as a basic reminder, the Civics MCAS has two components to it. It has what we call a state level performance task. That's where the students are given one of the seven topics that you see listed there, and they're asked to create constructed and also respond to selected questions on one of those topics in depth. The second component of the exam is asking students the entire breadth of the grade eight civics curriculum. For this one, there's 32 selected questions. This year, our eighth grade students took the civics MCAS. And we have a few, I think the next slide is yes. Once again, I don't have my glasses with me, but I do have my slides. So what you will see is, you will see that in this slide is giving you how we did as a district, and then where we needed some improvements. The following slide is going to, thank you. differentiate for you the different categories of how the state looks at, how the state structure is civic. So you'll see three main categories, and from there you can see where Medford, how Medford fared in comparison to the state. You can see for foundations of government and for government structures, we were on par with the state. And for rights and responsibilities, we dipped two percentage points below the state. So in analyzing this, and again, we have one grade that takes social studies MCAS, so I can't compare it to other grades as well, nor do I have past data, but what I could do was pull out some celebrations, some opportunities for growth, and I wanted to share with you some action steps that we are taking and that we have been undergoing throughout this school year. So our celebrations are essentially on par with the state, other than the rights and responsibilities We were very close to meeting the state for exceeding and meeting expectations. And we performed well on two out of the three domains. We'd like to see it get above the state, but we were happy we were on par with two out of those three. Opportunities for growth. I did a significant deep dive and I did this with the eighth grade civics teachers for two different professional development days as well. Where we really saw some discrepancies were between subgroups and we saw a need for more targeted instruction for those particular subgroups. We also need to consider with civics, we have students that are new to Massachusetts. So a lot of that foundational pieces that they maybe got in fifth grade here in Medford, they wouldn't have. So there's some catching up to do with that. And so we have been working on finding ways in which to bridge some gaps with prior knowledge. And there's certainly some work to be done in the rights and responsibilities domain overall beyond just the subgroups. In terms of action steps, we were able to partner with the Center for Civic Education this year. They have provided two valuable professional development opportunities to the teachers. And we specifically looked at certain topics within there. and looked at to see what implication of that topic had on our MCAS results. This year, the state will be testing on topic three, which is the institutions of the United States government as the one in which they'll delve more deeply into. So we've been working to prepare a little bit more intensely now that we have the topic ahead of time in that specific category. We've worked closely with the teachers to ensure cohesivity across the eighth grade social studies classrooms. They've really appreciated having some professional development specific to them. And we will continue data analysis with teachers to continue to better understand student needs, see where those gaps lie, and how we can support them all. That concludes the civics. Does anyone have any questions for me on civics? Oh, we're doing questions. I'm sorry. All right. So we'll move to ELA. So this year, we had some celebrations. And we also found a lot of areas of growth. A reminder that this year, the grade 10 MCAS was no longer a graduation requirement. expected we may see a little bit of a dip compared to previous years. This basically spells out for you where we saw growth and where we saw decline. The next slide really pulls that out for you, or I think the next slide is actually growth. So let's look at the growth for a moment. Overall, although we fell below the state in several grades, we did experience typical growth for each grade. with two schools falling a little bit below typical growth. Take a look at that. When we go over to the summary, we have some celebrations. One of the celebrations is that we did all demonstrate growth in the typical range. So while we fell under the state in some grades, we do know that the students continue to experience growth. Grade three and five significantly exceeded state averages in the exceeding meeting expectations category, which we were very pleased about, particularly with all the hard work that has been done at the elementary level and with the new program, thanks to your generosity that we were able to purchase. And we see that over 2024, when we compare to 2024, we do see an increase in each grade in the percentage in which they achieved exceeding in meeting. This year also offers us opportunities for growth. We have several grades that did fall below state performance levels which usually does not happen in in ELA. So we are digging deep to see where that is lying and we've been doing a considerable amount of work looking at the domains the standards and at times the questions to see where we need to dig a little deeper. We've also closely analyzed the subgroups to see if there is a particular subgroup that may need some additional reinforcement as we continue to push forward with reading, writing, and grammar. The decline in grade four is a little bit confusing to me because it negates, when they were third graders, their success. So I've been digging very deeply to see what happened there. But that is certainly an opportunity for growth. And we have two schools that fell below the typical growth range. So what are we doing about this? This year on the action steps, we are applying intentional targeted placement and analysis for our literacy intervention classes at the middle school. We currently have one literacy interventionist. This is tier two support, not tier three. We have one specialist at each school. And we worked hard over the summer to re-sequence the way in which students could enter that class. That's a class that not all students take, but the students that have been identified with different data points will take that class in lieu of a challenge class, perhaps, or something like that. So we did make sure that we had a solid scope and sequence, a solid plan that was cohesive across both schools, and that targeted placement plan has played out this year. I'm also working very closely with special education and the English learner department along with each principal as we look at the targeted interventions and we look at where we have some additional supports that are needed for those, for different schools as well as the different departments. At the middle school level, at the secondary level really, I've also begun a PLC. to look at the curriculum and potentially be asking you all for some support in purchasing either a writing program, a comprehensive literacy program, grammar program, something to that effect. That's what's being decided now and explored. at the middle, at the secondary level. And I think we can see that when we look at our scores and we see the decline over the past few years, that that is a level that needs a little bit more support with high quality instructional materials. And the last action step, which I think I kind of already alluded to, was looking closely at the subgroups, also the domain analysis on where the declines were. We've also used MAP considerably to see where we need some additional support. For example, Just last week, grade 10 was looking at the most recent map scores. We saw a big lag in informational text for the students in terms of their ability to answer multiple choice questions, reading comp with informational text. So we've made multiple changes actually over the course of this year to insert even more informational pieces within each unit. I think that's my last slide. I think I'm turning it over to Dr. Khan. Thank you very much for your time.
[Khan]: Thank you. Thank you for having me here. So I'm here today to present the MCAS results for grades 3 through 10. And next, yes, thank you so much. As we are looking at this first slide, I was expecting this year's results to be on the same trend as last year's. However, I saw certain places where we took a dip sometimes of even 1% and that's one thing that, or 2%, and that's one thing that Dr. Talbot mentioned is that with these downwards arrow or upwards arrows, it's difficult to show the exact dip, what we see is a dip. I'm hopeful that we will be, through our action steps, these downwards going arrows will be hopefully turning into upwards going arrows for next year. But for this year, We noticed that the exceeding and meeting in grade 7 went up. Grade 7 has held in both schools, held their upward swing. And then the not meeting for the 7th grade actually went down this year as compared to last year, and it was almost on par with the state. And so when we go on to the next slide, that's where you see the student growth percentile for the grades. We saw a couple of high growths, which was at the McGlynn, seventh grade, 61%, and McGlynn at the fifth grade, also 61%. Two of them, two of the schools at fourth grade level were not in the typical growth. Everyone else kind of fell, all the other grades at the other schools fell in the typical growth. So two high growth, two low growth, and other than that, pretty much most of them, all of them, are at the typical growth level. Thank you. So celebrations. I mentioned the first one that all grades except grade four at the two schools, they showed growth in the typical range. and two were at the higher range. Grades three and seven significantly exceeded last year's averages and they were on par with the state averages in the exceeding and meeting expectations. Not meeting expectations, I thought I should highlight it because as we saw the downwards arrow doesn't indicate much, was within 3% point of the state for grades 3 through 6 and grade 8 and also not too far from last year's. Grade 7 SGP for both schools grew such that the overall grade 7 SGP was seven points higher than the last year's. And of course we saw the higher growth of 61%. We are always looking for opportunities for growth. So while we improved over 2025 and experienced typical growth in most of the grades, several grades were below the state performance level when it came to meeting or exceeding. That's where we see the opportunity for growth. Grades four and eight experienced the largest meeting and exceeding expectations district to state differential, and that is on our radar. So, grade four last year also was on our radar. We have continued our work. with that team. So twice a year, we have been reviewing student work at the elementary level with all classroom teachers during common planning time. So I did that round earlier in October and November, where we asked teachers to bring a set of student work to see how they're performing, what's going on in the individual classrooms. We had a great discussion using a particular template. that I used from Achieve the Core. So this year, I will be continuing the work with the new, with the fourth grade team. A couple of members are new around the district as they always are. And I'll have another touchpoint discussion meeting. We already had the December one. I'm planning on having one in February and March. I look at the work that needs to be done to address the low scoring domain and standards. We have started work at the high school level. We started in our October meeting. In the middle schools, we started in our November meeting. It's important to look at where the foundations are. A lot of foundations for the proportions and ratios that happens at the middle school happens at the fourth grade level in mathematics when it comes to fractions and doing the basic operations on fractions. So we have looked at those scores and we have done a vertical alignment on how that has impacted our work on equations and expressions in upper grades. We have been having discussions with teachers during department meeting times at the secondary level to understand the challenges within the particular domain. As I mentioned, fractions, equations, and expressions, they're the foundations for pre-algebra and algebra. And that's where we see a lot of room for improvement. We have been providing resources to guide Saturday Academy and extended day teachers at the high school level. We have offered ST Math intervention and extension platforms for grades K through 5. Two of the schools are using a particular grant. and we hope that the data as I'm looking at it at those two school levels is showing that students are completing ST Math and I'm hopeful that next year we'll see improvement in those areas. ST Math is a very puzzle based fun online platform. Reviewing the map data with teachers on the particular domains, we have been doing that alongside MCAS. Ever since MCAS results came out, we looked at those. We have been trying to align that with the MCAS data. And sure enough, in most of the cases, we do see alignment. We see that wherever students have shown low growth on map, it's indicative of their scores on MCAS. As Dr. Talbot mentioned, that the scale scores are indicative of how they are doing on map and vice versa. So, planning professional development to extend the knowledge of K through veteran elementary teachers. We did that. We have had the TURC team come up and train our K through 2 teachers in academic discourse. And they emphasized on particular domains that happened at the November PD. And that we, at the beginning of each year for our new teachers, we provide a short training on how to use TURC. and what the pedagogy is behind this explorations-based program so that when they understand the pedagogy, that's what they will implement in the classroom. We have been working on subgroups data during department meetings and even during PD. For example, in the January PD, one of our middle school teachers offered two and a half hour PD to all of our secondary teachers on how to use data, how to make students feel a sense, get a sense of belonging, and how to keep it engaging at the same time that we are, you know, delivering grade level instruction. So, we have been thinking a lot about tasks, that the teachers are providing for the students as compared to the product that they're getting back from the students. So again, looking at student work is very important, essential for our work in math. And we have been setting a benchmark and targets using MAP and crossing it over to MCAS as in what's the score in MAP and what will it translate into when our students, current students will take MCAS. And we have set some targets based on that. And that concludes my presentation and off to Mr. Cieri for science.
[Rocco Cieri]: Good evening everyone. So we're going to take a look at the science data. Let me just get my computer up just so that I can see where we're at.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If you all want to sit down, please feel free. Yes, please relax. Seems like we're going to be here for a while.
[Rocco Cieri]: There aren't as many slides for science, but I'll start quickly. There are less tests, so there's less to discuss. So last year, the fifth grade and the eighth grade science MCAS were pilot exams. This included new question formats, which we went over last year, so I'm not going to review those again. This is the second year of the pilot. This year, all of the communities in Massachusetts participated. The test is administered over two days. Typically, like an MCAS exam, the first day is the traditional exam, and the next day is something called a performance task where they have multiple questions based on a more interactive type of format. So based on the testing, the grade 5 exam demonstrated some growth, the grade 8 exam also demonstrated some growth, and the grade 9 exam demonstrated some growth, as you can see in the chart. Just to, I did have to write the numbers down because arrows for me, again, are a little It's less data informed, so it's difficult to see. But in 2004, grade 5 scored at the exceeds and meets at 40%, so they're up 6 percentage points. Grade 8 was at 32%. They're at 35%, 3 percentage points there. And grade high school was at 51%. They're at 58% for those levels. In grade 5 for the not meeting, they were at 25%. They went down 6 percentage points, went down 5 percentage points in grade 8, and went up 3 percentage points in grades 9 and 10. You can also see that the scaled scores are They're kind of commensurate with the other tests you've seen so far. Maybe the exception to the rule right now is the grade 9 and 10 exam where we're up above a 500, which is good to have. It's good news. We'd like to continue that growth in the high school. It's been year over year growing. you know, we kind of have a couple of conjectures as to why that might be happening. We've got a pretty stable group of teachers that are teaching the biology course. The biology course teaches in a storyline fashion, so they're recurring themes and strategies that they have to use throughout the year. So we think these types of adjustments over the course of the last three to four years have really allowed students to really comprehend what they were learning in biology. So we hope to continue that. We haven't changed it. We don't want to change what's working. In terms of last year, what we tried to do, we noticed a little bit of a weakness with the grade 8. So we took the curriculum and we really broke it down in the grade 9 to support the learners early on. It seems that we've had a little success in that. There were some challenges at the schedule, within the schedule at the elementary school that was sort of brought into the conversation when the new negotiating contract came through, so there is a new schedule. And at grades K-2, we've been using some of that PD time on November 4th and January to work on some of these ideas around what each unit is supposed to be covering for the grade levels. At the middle school, I think, you know, we still have to look more deeply at the program, just given that we're a little bit stagnant there. But we have introduced a challenge course, which has shown a lot of sort of energy with the kids. You've heard of it earlier in the year. We're going to continue that. and then start to look very deliberately at what's going on in middle school in terms of a program. We have some good ideas. We've seen what works with the high school students. We think there are some opportunities to be able to do that with I don't anticipate a significant cost on that because some of these things are available for free. You just buy materials. So it will be a good addition for us moving forward. I did put this domain score in because oftentimes we never really see what is going on in the different domains of the sciences. In fifth grade, kids take the four sciences. 9th and 10th, they only take one. They only take the life sciences. So how are we doing with trying to teach kids about all of the different sciences? And it's been fairly steady over the course of the last four years, but in particular, you can see that across all four grades, sorry, across all four domains, There's pretty consistent data. The gray bar is the state data and the blue bar is the district data. So we are in line with the state and also seeing that all of the different domains are being covered pretty well by FOSS right now. Initially I suspected something was going on in tech engineering because we don't really You know, FOSS is heavy on the other three domains, but it seems to be holding its own for reasons at this point. Some of it probably comes from the technology department, but also some pieces coming out from the FOSS that's done some of the creative parts that are put in. So that's where I think that is coming from, but we'll have to explore that as well. Seems like a strength as well, which is unusual. And finally, this year, again, grades five and eight. We're looking really good. We see that they have a broad knowledge base at grade five. The 910 scores continue to show a positive trend. One of the things that I do want to discuss is that we've been adding these data tools, such as the graphs that you've seen this evening. They've been really helpful in helping us understand the relationship between a MAP score and a MCAS score. And we've done some analysis on that, showing some positive correlations. Why that is important in science is because we're giving MCAS tests over the course of years, like you take it in fifth grade, you take it in eighth grade, with no understanding of what's going on in between those years, and having map data track with MCAS data, we can use the annual data that we get on a by, you know, twice a year to be able to say what we're trying to get at and set some targets with that. So I'm really excited about the prospect of how we're going to use that data and working with grade level CPT meetings to support that. Again, I've already discussed the middle school as we review curriculum programs and then the high school program. It's gonna continue to expand offerings in new areas. You'll probably hear about them later on in the school year as budgets become more important, but they'll be introduced incrementally and available to all students. I'm excited about them, but I don't wanna talk about them tonight. I'm gonna introduce my colleague, Ms. McNiff. to talk about EL and access.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. So we're going to switch gears a little bit and shift to a different part of the district's accountability and look at access results. Access is the state's annual assessment for English learners and it plays a different but equally important role in our accountability. While MCAS measures content mastery, ACCESS measures students' ability to access that content through academic language. So it's measuring their English language development. Together, these assessments, I think, give us a fuller picture of opportunity, of access, and of progress for the EL population in Medford. And I want to just look at this slide and start broadly and give a brief overview of the test. Access is administered annually to English learners in grades K through 12 in January and February. We're almost done with 2026 testing. And it measures proficiency across four domains, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. These domains align directly to how students engage in classrooms. We received the results in late May, and these results are used for instructional planning, program placement, and determining when students are ready to exit EL services. So in Medford, we currently serve 522 English learners, representing about 13% of our student body. And if you include former English learners, students who have exited EL services, that number is 879. Access data matters because it informs our instructional decisions and accountability, and for accountability purposes, only the percentage of students meeting their annual progress target is counted, not their overall proficiency. This means that it's fundamentally a growth-based measure. So before we look at the actual data, I did just want to define these terms a little bit with a little bit more detail. Massachusetts defines English proficiency using both a composite score and a literacy score. They're called the exit criteria and students are considered English proficient according to Massachusetts when they have achieved an overall of 4.2 and a literacy score of 3.9. But like I said, the accountability focuses on progress. So with the exception of newcomer students and kindergartners, every student receives an individualized progress target based on where they're starting and how long they've been enrolled in Massachusetts schools. The state also assigns a difficulty index, which helps us understand how ambitious the target is for a given student. And for our data, I think that this context is really important when interpreting the results. Because students who arrive in the United States at older ages have fewer years to reach proficiency. So they are expected to make larger gains each year. This gives them a higher difficulty index, meaning it's objectively harder for them to meet their progress targets, even when they are improving. So students who enter in grades K through five have more time to learn English and usually have lower difficulty targets. So with that in mind, this slide shows the percentage of students meeting their access progress targets by grade level compared to the states. And in previous slides, the red and green arrows reflect changes from last year's results, not the comparison to the states. We see particularly strong performance in grades 6 through 12, most notably 7, 8, and 9, where Medford not only outperforms the state, but also shows year-over-year increase in the percentage of students meeting their progress targets. So given that difficulty index, which accounts for how challenging their targets are, these secondary results are especially impressive. At the same time, the K to 5 results are less impressive. They're highlighting an area of concern. Most elementary grades trail the state, and fewer students are meeting their progress targets overall. When students do not meet their progress targets at earlier grades, this is more concerning as it may signal early instructional gaps that can compound over time. You can go to the next one. There's a lot of numbers here, but I have illustrations. So breaking access down by domain, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, helps us identify instructional priorities and see exactly where students are struggling to make progress. So this domain level data highlights reading as the key challenge in grades one through five. Compared to this year's state results and to last year's MPS data, elementary students are less likely to score at a level four in reading on access. So to me, this signals a need for earlier, more explicit alignment between their language development and their core literacy instruction. But in contrast, we see strong outcomes at the secondary level. Students in grades 9 through 12 are outperforming the state in reading, and writing is a clear strength in grades 7 through 11. Speaking remains the weakest domain across K to 12. This pattern is typical statewide, but the data does indicate that MPS is struggling more than the state overall, reinforcing the need for more intentional and structured opportunities for oral language development as we build on those literacy strengths and skills. So to summarize, there are some really important celebrations here. Like I said, grades 6 through 12 exceed the state averages. Grades 7 through 9 are standing out. Grade 1 also deserves recognition, as it had the highest percentage of students meeting their targets district-wide. At the same time, like I said, the majority of students K through 12 are not meeting their targets, and K through 5 is struggling across all four domains. The data points us towards areas for growth. At the elementary level, students need stronger, more consistent access to language development with their core literacy instruction. At the middle school level, we see an opportunity to connect strong writing instruction to improved reading outcomes. And across all grades, speaking stands out as an area requiring explicit structured support. So in response, we've identified several action steps. At K to 5, the newcomer programs are strengthening their alignment with core literacy curricula. We've had targeted professional development on this, and we are continuing our partnership with Hill. District-wide, we're expanding intentional opportunities for academic discourse and speaking. At the middle school, target literacy intervention is taking place during challenge blocks with a dedicated EL coach. And at the secondary level, we're revising scopes and sequences to increase access to grade level texts and we're reviewing the curricula, we're reviewing some curricula aligned to both Common Core and WIDA standards. Finally, we're building educator capacity to use access data more effectively and introducing student goal setting earlier to support their ownership of language growth. So I'm thankful for my team, my new team, our educators, our leaders, and the students for their support of our English learners across the district. Thank you.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to bring it home with the end of some overall action steps that we've been engaging in this year and beyond. I hope you're as impressed with our team as I am and the way that they've leveraged this data to make informed decisions throughout the course of this year. And then also looking forward, this is one of our prime instructional vision components. And I'm really proud of the presentation that you heard tonight. So these are the priorities for Medford Public School that have been in action throughout the course of this year. As you can probably tell, our leadership team, including the other directors and building leaders, has been acting on the data throughout the 25-26 school year. While this list here is not exclusive, these actions fall broadly into the categories of focusing on academic discourse and grade-level task, high-quality instructional professional development, student-centered data analysis and planning, learning walks, and continued and expanded partnerships for academic instructional vision of the district. So more specifically, within those categories, we are really focusing on academic discourse and grade level tasks. But broadly, we are empowering educators through high quality instructional professional development. We've had small group training from our partners Hill for Literacy for teachers in grades three through five in both November and in January. Unbound Ed continues to provide strong instructional guidance for our six through 12 educators in ELA and math through their standards institute and all teachers in grades nine through 12 through their modules. As Faiza mentioned, TURK has come in to also provide professional development to empower teachers in K-2 for math. We are recommitting to action planning with data. We've revised our templates to be very specific in using data, naming data, and creating action plans that are, well, actionable. I should have brought my computer like Rocco did. It is so small. Is it small, right? Thank you. And the last part is bringing Open Architect, which is a data platform that Rocco mentioned, to help equip all of our educators and having data at our fingertips. That's dynamic, that lets us dig deep where we need to and look at broad pictures where we also need to. We also are working hard to equip our instructional leaders. Learning walks have taken place exhaustively throughout all of the schools this year. And it's not just walk, it's walk and action. These walks are done in partnership with our coaches from Lynch, with our consultants from Hill, with Dr. Galussi and myself, building leaders, directors, directors and building leaders. And they all result in not just looking at what's happening, but providing direct feedback for our teachers who are working so, so hard for our students to ensure that they feel happy and loved in their spaces. Yep. So looking ahead, we know, yep. So looking ahead, we know that trajectory changing districts, which is what we want to be here in Medford, are focused on belonging, consistency, and coherence. And this is our plan in looking ahead for 25, 26, and then 26, 27, and beyond. We know that students are experiencing belonging here in our schools when they say things like, I feel like they make every effort to know who I am as a student and as a person. In this framework, we'll know that we are being consistent because we hear things like, we practice writing every day and I like that. Each lesson, each day matters. And we'll know that we've hit the mark in coherence in this framework. When we hear young people say things like, in math intervention, you see lessons and topics a little before your math class, it always helps me with the lessons that I have coming up. And we are very grateful with our partnership with TNTP to help us through these next few years as we build our sense of belonging, consistency, and coherence. So in closing, we will continue to focus on belonging and supporting academic discourse through grade-level tasks to ensure that we build an academic foundation that is strong enough for all of Medford's students, and particularly for the students who need us the most, so that they can thrive in their careers, in life, and in democracy. Thank you. So, there's a lot of us here to present, and if you have questions, I don't know, Dr. Galussi, might it be helpful for people to talk about what area they have questions in, so we can invite that leader to come forward?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for the presentation, and thank you all for being here. I think it was 60 or so page presentation, so we really appreciate it. I don't know if the committee has any questions, or just a thank you to our panel. Member Mastraboni.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Briefly, and I think Dr. Talbot, this is for you, how do we balance year over year data, right? It's easy to get lost in the most recent data. How do we balance that with the long-term trajectory that we've set for ourself, thinking, asking this in anticipation of how we approach strategic planning going forward?
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: I know that's such a great question, because what really matters to us are the students in front of us. We really want them to have a great experience. So I think that's where the strategic plan comes in. We need to set long-term five-year goals that include lots of elements about how students thrive, including academics, so that we can keep our eye on the long-term goal and still make gains along the way. That will help us to weather. You heard Dr. Chiesa talk about there's some unexpected fluctuations up and down, but having a long-term vision helps us maintain that trajectory over a number of years. Does that answer your question?
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you for the presentation. It's hard to have only one or two questions for such a long presentation. One of the earliest slides you brought up was the discrepancy between students that how well they're doing on their assignments versus how well they are meeting grade level expectations. And, you know, one of the things that's been on my priority list is for us to really dig into equitable grading practices, not dinging kids because their home life isn't perfect or they don't have as much support at home. I know there's a lot of that already happening. My own daughter, for instance, you can retake your test and you can do all kinds of things that when I grew up were literally not a thing. At first, I was like, you can just do it over. But of course, that makes sense from an equitable grading perspective is if we're gonna grade students on what they know and what they can do rather than their home life or whatever else is going on in their lives and not give them extra credit because they're quiet in class, which I'm sure are things that are still happening very much districtwide. But when I look at that slide that says 71% of students are getting A's and B's in 6 through And then only 38% are meeting or exceeding expectations. When I feel like some of the, I get a little nervous because would the 71% go up or would it go down? Or would it go down for some kids and up for other kids? And I'm wondering if you have parsed that by subgroups and I don't, not looking for you to present it, but this, percent of students that are getting A's and B's versus meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. Have you broken that out by subgroups to try and identify whether equitable grading is something that should be a higher priority?
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: That's such a great question. And I want to talk about that slide in conjunction with the slide before it, which talks about the national data. And so the purpose of those two slides is maybe less about grading and more about task. We really need to focus to make sure that students Our students will do whatever Medford teachers ask them to do. What we need to make sure of is that Medford teachers are asking them to do grade level tasks. Even before we talk about equitable grading, even before we talk about test corrections or reduce, it is absolutely critical that Medford stand apart from the rest of the nation and break the trend and ensure that students have grade level tasks in front of them, to engage with, to challenge, to grapple with, because we know we have the Medford educators there to support them as they grapple. So rather than equitable grading practices, focusing on the task was the purpose of those slides.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Olapade. Okay, go ahead. Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Thank you. does help me understand it. And you also, I don't remember who said it, maybe it was you, Dr. Talbot, but having happy students in your class is obviously a great thing, but as a parent I can tell you that when your child comes home and they're struggling and it's really hard, they're less joyful to be around. But that doesn't mean that that isn't a really good thing. What that is also getting at is having a bunch of students that are all really happy to be there. If you're not struggling ever, unless you're bored, you're going to be in a good mood, but that's not producing the student that the outcomes that we want. Is that part of that? The slide just feels to me like it could be a whole presentation, that one data point.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'd love to dig in more about that. I haven't taught and designed a class post pandemic, but we've just experienced a really hard time for a lot of our kids and you can't be human and not feel that when you look at our students in front of you you want. children to thrive and not just to be happy, but to feel confident and to feel like they're part of a community, because we didn't have that for a really long time. And I think that's what teachers are grappling with, wanting to feel students' energy and joy and love for each other, respect for each other in the community, which is very, very important. It's the most important thing. And now we need to do the next thing.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And can I just to extend that a little bit, because I've mentioned it briefly, but it just aligns right now at this very moment, just to draw the parallel to some of the things I've said before about you've heard data around how the majority of our students feel like they have a trusted adult that they can go to. We've talked a lot about belonging, but part of that belonging is not just feeling like there's a trusted adult you can go to, it's also a sense of their academic identity in classrooms. I feel like a mathematician. I'm recognized as a writer, as a scientist. Those are the pieces of belonging that we're trying to now push because those are the pieces where students feel that love and support from teachers. Now they need to feel that love and support through the academic rigor of grade level standards.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Lopate.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you for this. This is wonderful. I want to go back to the earlier portion of the slide deck. The five factors of economic and social mobility that TNTP uses as a kind of framing discussion. We talk a ton in education about supporting students in the classroom, but obviously many of those factors also discuss how to support students outside the classroom as well. understanding that this is how students are thriving, and as we're learning that, a lot of the time, the curriculum that we're teaching today is not preparing students, or students don't feel like they're prepared for college-level work or even post-high school experiences, both in professional development and careers and in academic life. I think that's a really important part of what we're trying to do, and I think that's a really important part of what we're trying to do. Many parents I've interacted with or people in the community wonder, how can we continue to support our students so they feel like they're actually ready for the day after graduation?
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is such a great question. I will say that even though we focused on academic foundation, part of the GLEAM framework that UnboundEd has brought to the high school that we're using in 6 through 12 talks about making sure that there is an authentic purpose for learning academics. So I just want to be clear that it can be through academics that we learn about civic engagement. You just heard Dr. Chiesa talk about the grade eight civics work that the grade eight students are doing. We know that the high school students in their social studies classes are also deeply engaged in civics. We have a student representative right here who's walking the walk about being engaged in civics. And two online.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And two online. Two of our students. I just want to make sure that people know Christine and Jayden are online.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Great. Social capital is, I'm sorry, social capital is built through those morning meetings, through that, like that is what teachers are doing day in and day out. They're building that social capital with their students and providing that personal support. That's what Dr. Case was talking about with the interventions that you wanted to do. So all of this can be found within our curriculum. We need to name it and be really explicit about it so that we know what to do next for caregivers.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you so much for highlighting that.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. As I was listening to the presentation it seems like the tools that you're using to aggregate the data are becoming more and more important because there's so much data that you have to be able to. Digest it and parse it, and I think that's all great. I am interested as we go forward in talking about using this kind of data in a more evaluative way when we talk about investments that we're making. So, for example, we bought a new math curriculum. We did a bunch of things. We invested in professional development. Did we do it in the same way that they recommended, yes or no, whatever that answer is, and now what does that mean? Did that make did that move like a needle in some way or like Medford Academy like last year we talked about funding Medford Academy at the high school for students who needed additional support which is great. But. does it work I think is the other question and I just in general we don't ever really talk about like that piece of it. Did it work in a data driven way. We tend to get data when we talk about MCAS and I think MCAS is a piece of data but it's not necessarily the measure of all of all things data. So I just think like as we go forward and we're doing things like the Academy and some of our like summer programming that's targeted for students who may be struggling. Can we look at those students and say, did it work? If it did or it didn't, why do we think that is? Do we have to make a course correction, etc., so that we can start to understand what is moving the needle? Because I know we have to have an MCAS presentation, but the problem with that is, It's completely disconnected from like cause and effect that's happening along the way and then we get tired of hearing about MCAS and then move on to the other things. But really there's like if you're working on improvement you should be able to see change happen over time and I don't. think we have in the past done a great job of helping the community understand what those investments are and why they matter. And I think that's just something to think about, especially this presentation for MCAS is way more cohesive than I've seen. It was actually quite short, which thank you all very much. But it was more guiding through the data. There was, like, a lot more, like, context and storytelling, which makes the difference between, like, understanding, like, I have this pile of data, and it's good and it's bad, or it's something in the middle, versus, like, here's a journey that we're on, and this is how the data is telling us about that plan or that path. So I think there's just opportunities to do that when we talk about some of the particular programming, like, we think we need to get a new curriculum. Once we get the new curriculum, what did that do, and can we see that change over time? I think maybe to Mike's point about seeing change over time versus, like, I always struggle, like, what are we comparing? Like, comparing to the state, like, okay, like, good, but also, like, That doesn't help us assess our investments quite as directly. So just some thoughts for the future after seeing a completely different presentation than we've seen in the past year. So thank you for that.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome. I would like to just respond quickly to say that the people on this team are quite brilliant and I am glad that we have a data platform that was able to unlock That in a way that you that landed in that way for you. So the open architects platform that we have lets us access the data systems that were already in existence, but in a much more user friendly and dynamic way. It lets us be curious and figure out like what happened and what we're going to do next. And it gives us it draws data from a variety of different sources, including MCAS. to help us make those decisions in the moment, which I think is what you're getting at. That's going to be critical for us as we continue to use data to inform our instructional practices. So thanks for that. And thanks.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I echo the thanks and member Graham actually kind of did the big. big picture version of some of the littler questions I wanted to ask. I am really excited to have tools that allow the data to be actually not just evaluative but formative and so we spend less time wading through parsing the data and more time saying this is what it means and this is what we can do. And we could get into a lot of this. I'm really excited to see this reflected in the strategic planning and also as we rethink our elementary and middle school transitions. I think we saw some of those those points being quite influxed. So as we rethink what the middle school experience is and what it looks like moving from school to school, that'll be really helpful. So the piece I wanted to ask about, So, I went back and I did look at last year's presentation, which had a lot of these strategies for action embedded in it. Some of them were the same and some of them were different. So, I was curious what looking back at those strategies, not just the investments we've made, but the strategies that we chose, which ones we were continuing and which ones we weren't. But really, the question I wanted to hone in on, there are a lot of strategies of action for intervening in these places where things went in the direction we didn't want them to go. But I'm curious what kind of action, how we looked at those, the things that made a positive jump. Do we know why those positive things happened? Was there something, was there a strategy that we employed a year or two ago that really did pay off? And making sure that we're not just focusing on fixing, but really understanding where things went well.
[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Can I like have a sidebar for a second? Yeah. So I'd like to invite Dr. Khan to talk about the phenomenon that is seventh grade math outcomes.
[Khan]: So seventh grade team is where I have seen their collaborative work. They spend a lot of time together. Both teachers at the Andrews and the two teachers at the McGlynn have have taken their own time and collaborate a lot and they come up with resources and they plan together and they share resources together that they find. So I believe the success that we have seen at the seventh grade level is a result of those collaborative efforts. Sometimes I have given provided time during the department meeting and at times they have just taken an extra step and done that. So I'm really proud of their work and one of the members of the team has been stepping up and providing professional development and discussing more of the strategies that the team uses so that that can be mimicked and used at other grade levels as well. But I have seen giving teachers more collaborative time, having some strong leaders in the team has made a difference.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great. Are there then strategies for baking that into other levels and not just relying on the ability and time of people to step up and do that? I know Dr. Galussi in her interim report talked about more teacher leadership opportunities, so I would love to see that baked into. more of these areas.
[Khan]: Yes, and so do I. I would love to see it baked as well. But I do think that, you know, it's a combination of mindset and skill set both. And so we are working on it as the teachers, the seventh grade leaders, are getting an opportunity in department meetings to share their strategies, what are they using, and how they collaborate together. and how they have taken the newer hires at the 7th grade level under their wing. And so I feel that the whole department is benefiting from it, but definitely the 6th grade and the 8th grade team, there's much opportunity for them to to learn and use it from their colleagues because there's nothing better than observing the peers and using it and applying it in their classrooms. So we have used that strategy in math at the middle school level at least.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, that's always something that I want to see is teachers leading from practice, but also making sure that we're keeping the latest research and best practices that are out in the field and finding authentic ways, not just learning about them in theory. And I think this data can provide a bridge for some of that.
[Khan]: I agree. I agree. One of the seventh grade team members who provided PD for us, Megan Wagner, she has truly been a trailblazer. She also presented at a conference in October along with one of her colleagues, and she was invited out of, you know, many proposals that were there. So we do see some results coming out. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Just to kind of add on to what Member Graham had said earlier, and I'm surprised we hadn't thought about this before, but When we purchase a program, it would be good, and I realize that making promises ahead of time of when you're buying a program is a pretty dicey endeavor. But if you were to, say, purchase a new program, there should be some, whether the program says it or we say it, like we would expect a certain percent increase in year two or three of whatever grade level. And then we can literally put that on a timeline. And then I guess part of what I'm also wondering is like the assumption is that when we buy a new program, things will get better. But I think that assumption is not necessarily always true. And so having a literal timeline that shows here were the scores in this grade level. We purchased a program that year. Implementation year is always, you know, challenging. And then not only did things not get better, they got worse, or they got better, a lot better, or nothing changed at all, and we just spent a million dollars. So I think doing that across the district as we're making some of these purchases, and even if they're not costing us anything, as Mr. Cieri mentioned, I think would be helpful because the tail is so long. and the students are changing and the teachers are changing and hopefully you all aren't changing, but you know, you could change too. And having some kind of like a way to see that like, look, three years ago we adopted FOSS and in these grades, everything got better. And in these grades, it didn't get better. So was that FOSS? Was it implementation, professional development? So, you know, I know that, It's just one more thing to keep track of, but I think it would be a really important thing to keep track of, and also when we're presented with other purchases, I think that would be good.
[Khan]: Yes, I just wanted to mention that all the purchases that we have made, the middle school didn't cost us much because we were using open resources and still doesn't for illustrative mathematics. We have Turk at the elementary level that has cost us money. And at the high school level, we just did the pathway change. We did not invest heavily in it, just some online resources and the books. And all three of them are high-quality instructional materials, all three of them. They are state-of-the-art, you know, what we are using. And we were purposeful in selecting them. They were done with a collaborative effort. There have been many, many factors. And whenever we adopt a program, the one thing that has shown results and one thing that does not, one thing that we should be careful about is providing teachers a one-time PD and thinking that we are gonna expect results from it. Unless and until we commit to providing ongoing PD, that adopting a curriculum is a great thing, but it ties into instruction, and that's a matter of, again, mindset and skill set. So I believe that that one piece, if we can keep that in mind, you know, as the budget is here, I will appreciate it. Thank you. I had to do that pitch. Sorry.
[Chiesa]: I just wanted to add one thing to both of your questions, which is if we look at the teacher's ability to better understand their data and to spend time on their data really speaks to building the capacity. for them to get comfortable with these numbers, whether it's the results of a program, whether it's a DIBL score, whether it's MAP, whether it's MCAS. So Open Architects is going to allow us to do some of that, which is wonderful. But in addition to that, it's like building the ability to do that. And I say that as an English and social studies person, not a math person. I've seen a lot of growth at the elementary level with getting comfortable with data, and what does this say? What does this mean? How can I tweak my instruction to better support the students, no matter what the program is? And I've done a lot of that in middle school as well with the data. And I think that speaks to some of the capacity that you're speaking of, is how can we use these numbers, not just tonight, but regularly, and feel comfortable having those conversations and digging deeper. I just want to add to that. Thank you.
[Paul Ruseau]: I just want to add one comment on that. Just looking at the Open Architects website, it's very revealing. Obviously, I'm not seeing the actual data for our students or our district I mean, I am in some reports you've given us, but it's like, here are the students. And, you know, that's always been my biggest beef with MCAS is like, oh, eighth grade science is not doing great or is doing great, but those students are gone. They're not being tested again. And I guess we say, whoop-de-doo, too bad for them. It just seems really wrong. And, you know, that's the other thing about that map data from especially for science, where it's like, if you find out in eighth grade this isn't going well, was it in? second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, like what a mystery to try to unpack. The students in eighth grade went through all kinds of different teachers and schools and curriculums and having that access on a regular basis through the map data I think is the only way to target interventions. So I'm very excited by this. It's a beautiful dashboard. I don't usually say that because I'm pretty particular about these things. It's very nice. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Yes. Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I just wanted to say that I agree with Dr. Khan that you cannot do a one-time PD and expect results. But I want to make sure that you all know that in my six years on this committee, we have never asked you to do that. So I say that because I think it's been really impressive that this committee over the course of my tenure here has repeatedly asked, what do you need in order to do this well? So I would just encourage you all to tell us what you need, not what you think we might or might not like. I don't want to spend any money that is not money worth spending. So instead, I want to spend all the money that is worth spending for the results that we are setting forward as goals. So I just want to reiterate that, particularly if there are people listening. who are used to seeing like committees pushing and squeezing administrators to do like things that are unreasonable. Like that is not my experience here and I just want to be really clear about that. Like I think this committee tries to be very supportive and make sure that particularly when we're investing in curriculum we're doing it right so that students actually benefit from that instead of just being thrown into like change chaos for no actual benefit.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you very much, Member Graham. Moving on to number three, MAPS April vacation camp approval. I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Galusi. Thank you very much.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So I do have this. This will be brief unless there's any questions. I do have director Fidler-Carey on the call if there are any specific questions but we would like to try to offer a vacation camp. This one would be targeted for April. It would run the Tuesday through Friday. The only school really available to us in April, due to some ongoing facility work, would be the Brooke School, which is why the location would be the Brooke School. Very similar to the... and ask last year for the summer program. We would start with a fee of $60 a day, but also have the sliding scale in place. And this would be a camp that is over the people that are offering administrative oversight would be the two full-time site coordinators, that is the one from the Brooks, the one from the Missituk, and it would be staffed by our own after school lead and assistant group facilitators as well as some city or core members from both the McGlynn and the Missituk. And happy to answer any questions, but just looking for approval to run this in April.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a motion on the floor or any questions? I remember Reinfeld seconded by. Member Graham, all those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. Good luck with the camp. We do not have any presentations for us tonight, nor continued business, but we do have new business. 2026-6, offered by Member Ruseau, be it resolved that all members shall submit the recommended amendments to the rules of the school committee to the secretary of the school committee no later than February 23rd, 2026. The secretary shall compile these submissions and prepare Number one, a summary of all proposed changes. Number two, a draft revised set of rules incorporating the suggested amendments. Both items shall be presented for review and discussion at the school committee meeting on March 2nd, 2026, where the committee shall consider each rule in order to liberate on the proposed changes and vote on amendments as appropriate with the goal of adopting a complete and updated set of rules at the meeting on March 16th, 2026. Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. So I had sent all the members their own copy of the rules in a Google Doc a while ago so they could get going because it's a very large document. So I'm hoping that this timeline is not too tight. I do want to just reiterate that In my own copy where I'm making changes, there's significant changes to the structure like the order of the rules because the first set of rules we adopted a few years ago were, you know, it was sort of like as we thought of them, they kind of came out. And in hindsight, they weren't the most properly structured. But anyways, so I'm hoping everybody can get this done and send their suggestions to me and then I will present hopefully a brief summary of changes. I don't anticipate it being like it was the first time we did the rules where we were looking at 86 rules for the first time. And that's all.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Is that also a motion for approval, Member Ruseau? Yes. Seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes. No reports were requested. We do have two condolences. The members of the member school committee expressed their sincerest condolences to the family of Linda C. Magaldi Iacona who was a graduate of Medford High School, worked for the Medford Chamber of Commerce and was a school crossing guard at the corner of George and Winthrop Street in Medford, crossing students going to the Dame School. and also the members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Mary Ann Cerrone Mahoney. Mary Ann worked in the cafeteria at Medford High School for close to 40 years before retiring in her early 80s. If we all may rise for a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Our next regular meeting is March 2nd here in the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Motion to adjourn by Member Graham, seconded by Member Parks. All those in favor?
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