The School Committee approved an independent audit of district hiring and personnel protocols following a high-profile staff departure and received a comprehensive report on 2026 MCAS performance. They also recommended the appropriation of over $23 million for the Roberts Elementary School repair project.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: 20th regular meeting of the Medford School Committee, November 9th, 6 p.m. Meeting is held at the Howard Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, and via remote participation, and this meeting is being recorded. The meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community Media, on your local cable channel, Comcast channel 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon channel 43, 45, or 47. Participants can log or call in by using the following Zoom link, and the meeting ID is 966-0887-4674. Member Ruseau, if you could call the roll, please.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham. That's loud today. Member Mastrobuoni. Yes. Member Olapade. Here. Member Parks. Here. Member Reinfeld. Present. Member Ruseau, present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: present, seven present, zero absent. I don't see any student reps right now, but unless there's any online, okay, we'll welcome them if they get here. All may rise please to salute the 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. We have the consent agenda, approval of bills and payrolls, approval of donations, Medford Educational Foundation donation in the amount of $18,815.17. Approval of field trips, MHS Model UN, Ivy League Model UN Conference, Pennsylvania. That'll be January 21st, 2027 to January 24th, 2027. And the MHS Model UN Dartmouth College Model UN Conference in New Hampshire from April 9th, 2027 till April 11th, 2027. We also have the approval of meeting minutes from our regular meeting on October 19th, 2026. Is there a motion on the floor? Motion to approve. By Member Olapade, seconded by Member Mastrobuoni. All those in favor? Aye.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Yes, thank you. Do you want a motion to sever?
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, motion to sever the minutes from the last meeting.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to sever by Member Reinfeld. Seconded by?
[Unidentified]: Second.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Olapade. All those in favor? Aye. Motion to sever has been approved.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, I'm just curious how on the approval of the minutes last time, Member Mastropone seconded and is marked as absent. So just make that an amendment. I think that's probably member Olapade, because he and I were both slightly late to the meeting. So amend to move. Mastrobuoni, yes. Olapade, absent.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: OK. Motion for approval by member Reinfeld as amended. Seconded by?
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Olapade. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes as amended. Thank you.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Roll call on the consent agenda.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Consent agenda, yep, has been approved otherwise and seconded. Did you want a roll call on that? Yes. Yes.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Mastrobuoni? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Parks? Yes. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Langenkirchen?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Consent agenda is approved. Is there no reports of subcommittee? I'm going to turn over to a report from our superintendent, our Mustang moment.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you very much. Good evening. So this evening we have our Mustang moment. We have some students from the CCL CTE program here and they are going to talk to you a little bit about the OSHA training that they do. So I'm going to have executive director Fallon come up and do a little bit of framing before we have the students give their presentation. Thank you.
[Chad Fallon]: Thank you Superintendent. Good evening. I'm here tonight for the Mustang moment to do things a little bit differently. Students in our construction and craft laborers program as well as a few of our other construction trade programs recently completed their OSHA 30 hour certification program. And one of the great things about CTE is that we assess by observation. And these students definitely were able to take what they learned, put it into action, and then present to others. And when I watched them present their final project on the last day of the OSHA 30, I thought this would be a great way to share with the community one of the things that we're doing in our programs. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to the students. And they're going to give you a quick rundown of job safety, harness safety, based on what they learned in OSHA.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Welcome. Come on down.
[SPEAKER_23]: Hello, my name is Jenkinson Duma. This is my friend Ryan Gautrap and Sam. Recently all three of us completed our OSHA 30 class and we all have our OSHA 30 certificates. Now, today our presentation is about the importance of fall protection and how to stay safe on a scaffold. The first subject that we're going to be talking about is the focus four. OSHA recorded the four most common worksite injuries and deaths. OSHA calls this the focus four. Now the focus four consists of falls and trips, struck by accidents, electrocution, and caught in between accidents. But at the very top of this list is falls and trips. So how do we avoid falling and tripping on a work site or on a scaffold? We use PFAS, which stands for Personal Fall Arrest System.
There's many, Basically, personal fall arrest systems, or PFAS, is supposed to protect you from falling while on a scaffold, or while on a worksite, or on a structure. Now, speaking of scaffolds, there's many things that protect you when you're on a scaffold. For example, you have guardrails, midrails, and towboards, or towrails. Basically, guardrails protect you from falling off the scaffold, The mid rail kind of does that too. The toe rail or the toe board prevents stuff from falling off the scaffold. For example, if you had bricks on the scaffold or your hammer, it will basically prevent your hammer or the brick from falling off and hitting someone. You also use a harness on a scaffold. In certain cases, you would have a harness to protect you from falling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Scaffolding has been used since prehistoric times. However, the traditional scaffolding didn't become a thing until the Industrial Revolution. They are used to support workers and tools as they are building structures. Scaffolding is also required to have tow boards to stand on and guardrails to prevent trips and falls. Another one of the most important parts of the scaffolding is the base plate, which holds up the entire structure and keeps it secure so people can work safely without dying or getting hurt.
[SPEAKER_22]: So, hold on. This is one of the lanyards, and this was in our most recent OSHA book that we read, which is in subpart M, and that's what they call it in the books, because there's a lot of rules and stuff to survive. Fall protection will include harnesses and different objects that connect to it. This is the lanyard. And the lanyard is mostly known for stopping falls. And this has like a strong rubber to it because it holds like all the layers on it. Because when the person falls, all the weight the person has, it really depends on how much, how heavy the person is. It will release and it holds up to like 5,000 pounds, the other lanyard. It's more of like, it's kind of like a stretchy one.
It really matters where you set it on the clip that it has. It's kind of like this. If you set it too low and you fall, it's going to stretch too much and you could pretty much die. And that was one of the lanyards that we did have. And this one can hold up to 5,000 pounds of force. And the other lanyard that has elasticity, it holds up to 832 pounds. And it mostly depends on the body weight and height.
When you fall, the most amount of time you got before rescue is at least 15 to 20 minutes. And since you have the harness and the harness, like one of the straps goes like through your legs, it cuts circulation a lot and your body could react differently. So you could have a heart attack before probably 10 or 15 minutes. So it's really important to stay calm and not increase your heartbeat, and that's one of the most important things if you fall.
This is the beam clamp. The beam clamp is what holds on to a structure called I-beam. There are many different sizes on a beam clamp depending on the size of the I-beam. Clamp is what holds onto the I-beam. And these little hooks is what keeps it still. And you could slide around with the hook so you can work on one place to another. And you have these little cuts over here. You could make it short. It really depends how big the I-beam is or how small it is.
It's really good to work on one side and the other, and pretty much good for multitasking. And it's probably one of the most used things in construction.
[SPEAKER_23]: This right here is the yo-yo. I'm going to explain how this works, but let me give you a quick scenario, right? Let's just say if you're on a structure, right, or on a scaffold. This would usually be connected to your anchor point, but let's just say if you're on a structure, like I said. And let's just say you're walking, and then you were to trip. See how I locked right there? The yoyo basically detects how much force you produce if you were to fall, kind of like a seatbelt, right? If you were to get into a car crash, hopefully that never happens, but if you were to get into a car crash, your seatbelt would detect that force and then lock. And the yoyo does the same thing. This will prevent you from falling, but the amount of force you will produce while falling, and then it locking up, that will all add up. And it will hurt, but it would prevent you from falling and getting hurt, falling and getting killed.
[SPEAKER_02]: The weight of an average worker. The average height and weight of a worker is six foot and 220 pounds. When a dummy in a test video fell from six feet in the air, the strapped lanyard, the compact was 4,961 pounds. However, when he fell from the bungee lanyard, it was only 832 pounds. This shows how effective the lanyard is when keeping workers safe on the job site.
[SPEAKER_22]: So this is one of the harnesses we were talking about, and this is called a D-ring. And anytime you pick it up or something, you got to hold it up by this. We like to think of it as like a backpack. You just put your arms through these and then you clip it on your chest. You need it to be like on the middle of your chest, not too high or not too low. And this will go through your leg, like I said. This is what, this is like the most effective part when you fall and it cuts circulation through your legs.
That's where the lanyard is connected to. It can also connect to the I-beam. One important thing that we learned about in OSHA, when you fall at a certain height or in any height in general, the company will hear about it. They're going to want to talk to you and stuff because this is their material and stuff and their product. This is from Guardian Fall Protection. So if I were to use this one day and fall off of it and it saved my life, they would want to talk to me and stuff.
And this really saved everyone's life.
[SPEAKER_23]: And basically, you're kind of free promo. They're going to call you, and they're going to talk about how their product was good and how it saved your life. You're basically a promo.
[SPEAKER_22]: One important thing is, when you fall, you can't use this again. Your boss or whoever, they will ask you to cut it up in pieces and stuff. And they'll provide you with a new harness, as they should. Like, you shouldn't really buy it with your own money. The company should get you a new one. And yeah, this can really save someone's life. Depends how heavy you are and how much circulation you could lose. It could also have ups and downs. But overall, it's pretty good to save anyone's life in general.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great job. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_23]: I just want to say thank you for having us. We love to be here. We love to teach you about our trade and what we do at work and how we stay safe. I want to say thank you. Thank you again for having us. Thank you for letting us have this opportunity.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Congratulations on the certification and great presentation. Good choice, Dr. Galussi.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Executive Director Fallon, thank you very much. You're very knowledgeable and you take this very seriously, which we can see here this evening, so we also appreciate your time here. I think there may be one or two questions and then we'll take a quick picture.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?
[Member Paul Ruseau]: do these products have like a expiration? So like you explained that if somebody falls, obviously you can't reuse it, but do they have a lifespan like five years and then they have to be replaced?
[SPEAKER_23]: I mean, you should replace them from here to there. But if, let's just say if you were to use a lanyard, for example, right? And let's just say if you were to fall and the lanyard protected you and harness protected you, you should, you should immediately get rid of that lanyard and harness, because it's already used, it's already damaged, and get a new one. Great. Thank you. That's kind of the expiration date. I think, yeah, you could have them for a while, but if they were used, or if you fell in them, you have to replace them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. And backing up what you said, because if someone at a different weight, or someone, or even the same person were to use it again, they could potentially snap or permanently break, and they could fall, get injured, or potentially killed, which is backing up what Jenkinson said, which is why it's super important that if something like this does happen, it saves your life. It's a good thing, no matter how expensive it is. don't make alternatives by a certified one, so make sure that you stay safe. So if it does happen again, you won't fall, you won't be killed, you won't be injured, you'll be perfectly fine. And this goes not just for one person, but for everyone. Everyone should always keep that in mind when working with equipment like this.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Olapade.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. I had two quick questions. The first question is, when it comes to the certification, is there a period of time before you have to recertify, or is it a one-time certification that you're able to maintain through, like your professional career?
[SPEAKER_23]: When it comes to, I'm assuming you're talking about OSHA 30, right? Yeah. You don't have to be, in most states, you don't have to be recertified.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You're getting the answer over there.
[SPEAKER_23]: Why don't you get it? Once you get it, you already have it.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: There you go.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: It's there for life. And then my follow-up question to that, it was good to know, are there multiple levels of certification? So once you do your OSHA 30, do you go to a next level and you become an instructor of the course if you wanted to? Or is it a one-time, like you mentioned, the one-time certification only? So I might even know. They may not know, yeah.
[SPEAKER_20]: They might know. Yeah, I definitely know.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: And now you do OSHA 30.
[SPEAKER_20]: Is there anything higher?
[SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, I heard there was an OSHA. I know there's an OSHA 60, but there is something called an OSHA 500. Our OSHA instructor actually took that. And once he took the OSHA 500, I'm pretty sure he could teach OSHA 30 and levels below that to people. Awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not really necessary for us, especially at our age. It doesn't really give you any extra safety skills. All it really means is that you're allowed to teach it. The fact that the three of us already have OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 is already more than enough. Unless any of us want to become instructors and actually teach it to other people, we do not need the OSHA 500. We could get it if we wanted to, but it would be expensive, take a long time, and it's just not necessary. Because like I said, it just means that we're allowed to teach it back to other people.
[SPEAKER_23]: That's two full weeks of training, by the way, hours on end.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Someday.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys so much.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you so much for presenting. We appreciate it. Great to learn. If you want to come around, maybe with some of your safety gear, we'll take a picture.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Motion to take item four out of order and suspend the rules.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: A motion by Member Graham, seconded by Member Reinfeld to take item four out of order. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Member Graham?
[Member Jenny Graham]: We're going to take item number four out of order.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So we're going to present now on the audit scope and then we'll resort back to the regular schedule for this evening. And I'm just going to wait one minute for Mr. Pippicelli to just do the screen share or present. So for people at home if they want to follow along. So good evening. Thank you, Mr. Pippicelli. Tonight I'm bringing forward a formal scope of work for an independent external operational review of our district's hiring practices, high-profile personnel protocols, and communication structures. I do want to take a moment to frame a bit about why we are here tonight, the recent personnel matter covered in local media, and the news shone a light on systemic deficiencies within our operations. While our intent as leaders is always rooted in a deep, unwavering commitment to the safety, well-being, and care of our students and MPS community, we must acknowledge that good intentions do not lessen the impact when things fall short.
When systemic gaps exist, the real impact is felt in the trust of our families, staff, students, and community that they place in us every single day. So as the leader of the district, I acknowledge where we must improve and I commit to a stance of continuous learning. We are not here tonight to justify any past practice or defend the gaps that may have been or were or to be exposed. We are here to learn from them and take decisive action. This audit is our clear, accountable roadmap to correct those deficiencies and ensure our standard of operations reflects the high expectations that our community deserves.
What you will see here is that the audit is broken up into two parts. Part one is an assessment of the operations of our hiring practices and our procedures. Part A is a review of our current practices, and so to establish a clear baseline for district operations, we will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of our existing recruitment, screening, selection, hiring, and onboarding practices. This review will analyze current strengths while proactively identifying procedural inconsistencies, compliance gaps, and opportunities to align our operations with DESE guidance and establish best practice. Throughout the process, we will ensure full compliance with federal and Massachusetts employment laws, DESE regulations and district policies, including all non-discrimination equal opportunity standards.
Part B focuses on future practices and procedures. So to establish effective and sustainable high-quality operations moving forward, this phase will comprehensively document every stage of our hiring workflow from position posting all the way through onboarding, including all associated forms and documentation. It will clearly define the roles responsibilities, and decision-making authority for everyone involved in the hiring process, ensuring full alignment with Massachusetts law and district policies. Additionally, we will develop objective vetting structures to catch candidate application discrepancies or omissions, refine reference check protocols and confidentiality protections, and complete actionable recommendations for policy updates standardized forms, and staff training. I know I said it at one of the other school committee meetings, but I do want to mention that we have also looked internally at this section of the audit. We have made some internal updates and changes to our hiring process. process and practices, but making sure that we're vetting this with an external independent consultant firm outfit is needed at this time. But I do want to say that we have already internally made some updates and informed all administration.
The second part of the audit will review protocols in the event of high-profile personnel action. This is like our reporting and our communication structures. This also is broken up into two sections. The first are a review of our current protocols. So to strengthen our response mechanisms, this phase evaluates the district's existing policies and practices for receiving, documenting, investigating, and resolving employee-related allegations or concerns. By examining the action steps and stakeholder communications from the recent high-profile personnel matter I referenced at the beginning of this report, we will identify opportunities for systemic improvement evaluate our public and internal messaging, and correct any administrative or record-keeping weaknesses. This review will reaffirm our full compliance with all mandatory reporting and state notification requirements, including those that are like the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Education, community law enforcement, all respectively.
The second part, and I noticed we lost our screen share, Mr. Pippicelli. Do you want me to wait? Oh, I lost it. My apologies. The second part is informed recommendations. So part A is a review of our current structures. Part B is our ask for what recommendations would be moving forward. So to turn the findings of this audit into long-term practice, this phase will establish standardized guidance and communication templates for internal and public updates while navigating legal privacy boundaries. It will clearly define what constitutes a high-profile personnel action and build standardized intake workflows for any report or tip, regardless of how it is received. Finally, it will create explicit decision tree mappings, so it will show clear escalation pathways to HR, to executive leadership, to legal counsel, state authorities, culminating in an actionable protocol, and will also tell us what professional development is needed for our staff.
I do acknowledge that not every situation is going to be perfectly predicted or captured in some of this work that we are asking for, and that many personnel matters are still gonna come down to a case-by-case basis. However, establishing these clear pathways is going to be essential and greatly inform our overall practice. So what we anticipate the timeline and expected deliverables to be, we want to have this information as soon as possible so that we can start planning and informing our practices, and we're hoping that by the time we secure the firm to do this, or the individual to do this, that we would have something completely implemented by early spring of 2027. What we are asking for, and as referenced above, is a detailed report that maps out workflows, the relevant legal and regulatory standards, our strengths, what our risks are system-wise, and what the recommendations are. This report will be made available, will be presented at a future school committee meeting and also made available.
We are asking for an updated comprehensive operational manual that helps finalize and standardize our hiring procedures. We are hoping that this would include checklists, formalized personnel reports, matrix, decision-making pathways, incident procedure protocol, and any mandatory reporting notifications. We are also asking for an executive summary that would be suitable to be public facing for people to understand what the totality is of the report that would identify what those major findings are and what improvements have been recommended.
And then the fourth thing is standardized guidance and templates so that we have some internal documentation under best practice that we can use for communication and reporting measures. So for this evening, What I'm asking of the school committee is to authorize me to engage in finding a qualified independent external reviewer to conduct this systems review and approve the expenditure to not exceed more than $30,000 for this contract and I do want to say just in closing that we 100% owe it to the community to operate with systems that are resilient, consistent, coherent, and transparent to the community that we serve. I thank you and I welcome any questions at this time.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Questions from the committee before I take public comment? Mayor? Member Ruseau?
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you very much. Maybe it's too soon to vote, but when we hire somebody to do this, how do personnel laws interact with this person that we're bringing in? I mean, do they have the legal rights to review employee records? Some of the stuff I feel like they need to look at is stuff like the committee doesn't have access to and shouldn't have access to by law. How do we know what's the avenue for such a person to have access to such details? Because without the details, it feels like a really hard thing. I mean, it's going to be hard work anyways. But without the details, the work would seem wildly harder.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So first and foremost, there are like I would explain this in two buckets. One would be the specific case that kind of brought this to light. That will be reviewed and the contents thereof. Individual employee records will not be reviewed. Our internal mechanisms for how we are hiring All of that will be reviewed. And then in places where examples are needed, we can submit some things that are redacted so that they are not part of a personnel matter because that is beyond what this is. This is to inform our practices and to provide us with mechanisms around hiring, reporting, and communication.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Great. So they won't have the access to personnel. They will just rummage around in the file cabinets. All right.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Just to this one specific case.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Okay. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Parks?
[Member Jessica Parks]: Do we know of firms that are doing this? Have there been any recommended to us? Are they legal firms?
[Suzanne Galusi]: All of the above. There's a superintendent list serve. I did put an email out to superintendents within the Commonwealth. I did receive some recommendations from those superintendents. I have called a few of them. Some of the recommendations were similar. Some are individual reviewers. Some may have a law degree. And some are firms. And more of like a, so it's more than just one person. Within the firms from the superintendents that I have spoken to, usually they would deploy one to two individual reviewers to the case.
I also have had conversations with the Department of Education, who also gave me some recommendations. That is also how I came up with the cost from all of the informal conversations that I've had. The range in cost, depending on the size of the district or the work that is being asked, ranges anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000. which is why I just put like a cap for 30,000. And then I will now, when this is approved, I will be reaching out following procurement regulations and see what we get and I will inform everybody.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Thank you. I was also going to ask about the budget. I appreciate that this includes communication as well. There's a lot in here about the legal aspects and the compliance. I'm wondering what is the extension on the communication when it comes to potential disclosures and those disclosures that require support for community members, whether it's hiring or sorry, people within the MPS system or students, families, something like this. I don't see that in this scope, and I don't see that the firms you described would provide that, but would that be part of the protocols in terms of seeking out additional counseling support? You mentioned training, which I think is really important, but what are the downstream effects, and how does this inform those?
[Suzanne Galusi]: I just want to make sure I'm understanding. Do you mean for some of those case-by-case basis situations? I am hoping that we get some of that information from this review. I have received some guidance on that piece. through the Department of Education and through the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. There are also avenues at district's disposal to maybe query what the risk management pathways may be for specific scenarios. I'm hoping that some of that information is going to be part of this review.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: I know it's a very vague question because there's a lot of confidentiality and we don't know what the mechanics are, but I can just imagine that some disclosures could cause discomfort among various members and so understanding what's in place to mitigate or support people.
[Suzanne Galusi]: The learning that I have done a little bit with this case is There are, of course, laws for staff and personnel confidentiality, but when situations arise that may be similar to this, there is like a risk management kind of conversation. So if you decide to, let's say like adhere to the confidentiality specifically, this may be the risk you're taking. If you maybe expose part of what is a personnel matter that is confidential and covered by law, But you are doing it for A, B, and C reason. Here's the risks that the district, school committee, city may be exposed to or may take on. And so there's that conversation around the different paths for each scenario. that then we receive the information and we can discuss which risk management path we want to engage in.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Great, thank you. And I can see these communication protocols being useful even for things that aren't necessarily sensitive matters. I think we've seen long-term absences where communication hasn't been clear about when a sub is coming in or what's going on to find a sub even in, I had this happen with a maternity leave.
[Kim Talbot]: Correct.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: So, I think this has potential to strengthen things across the board, not just in extreme scenarios.
[Suzanne Galusi]: No, I thank you for that. That was feedback that we received directly, even from students, and it seems so simple, but it is just so impactful and profound, and that is something that we have talked about as a leadership to make sure that we are touching base. There's a lot of times that staff go on leaves that are planned or not. And making sure we have better communication channels with groups of students is 100% on that.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you. Member Mastrobuoni?
[Member Mike Mastrobuoni]: Thank you. I have just three probably pretty quick questions back and forth. just want to confirm I heard correctly that you expect to do a competitive process for selecting this vendor?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Mike Mastrobuoni]: Great. Second question, you've identified $30,000 to fund this. You're asking us to reallocate. Did those resources come from savings throughout the year so far, or are we putting something else down? Or do we have a contingency on budget? Question number two.
[Suzanne Galusi]: No, that's a great question. That we have had internal conversations. There has been, I know Mr. Velez is here. There has been, we will be able to cover it, but we're waiting to see exactly from where and where the savings are until I know what the scope will be, because that will determine, that will determine our ask or how we shift things around. If it's okay, I am happy once we go through the competitive process and someone is selected, then I can update this committee about the firm or reviewer that has been accepted and how we will fund it.
[Member Mike Mastrobuoni]: Sounds great. And then last question, who from your administration team is going to be responsible and accountable for liaising with this consultant? And who's going to be responsible for selecting the consultant?
[Suzanne Galusi]: So I will be part of this process from beginning to end, and my executive team that's here, as well as, which also includes our director of HR, will be part of the process.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Olapade, then Member Ruseau, and we'll take public comment.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. I have a few questions. In the last portion of the, of the paper, it talks about the deliverables that we're looking for, or that you're aiming for. One of the questions I have about the final review or the findings of the audit, it talks about a comprehensive report that's going to be able to, like an executive report that will be shareable to the public. Is the school committee going to receive the formal findings of it? I guess it's like the first question. Yes. Okay. And then how is the district gonna be communicating the progress measures that you talk about? Because I think that's a really important thing we wanna see over time how this is being implemented for the spring 2027 period.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you. I want to be as transparent as possible so I plan on doing that through this body during regular scheduled school committee meetings and then making sure that these materials are available.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: This actually goes back to my first question. When it comes to the actual report itself, will we have an opportunity to interact with the auditor themselves or will this be going primarily through your office when it comes to the report and the results?
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's a good question, Mr. Altman. I'm fine with either. I think that can be part of the conversation with the firm or the reviewer. If there are members that would like that, then that's your problem with it. If you want, like, input.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: Sure. Thank you. And then the final question, this is somewhat dependent, obviously, on the firm and their kind of protocol, as well as our internal expectations or rules when it comes to internal policies and contracts and things like that. in the review is the expectation that we're going to see the current policy then what is the change policy, whatever policy points may be changed over time and the implementation of those when we see the shift from what it once was to some level to what it's going to be so that we might be part of the actual progress measures we just talked about.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's exactly what I'm hoping for, yes. I would say that we have internal structures that we have updated and so to see the iteration of those and then what are strengths, what are not, what are some risks that have been identified, where do we have to make our practices or protocols stronger. That's what I'm hoping that we get out of this entire process.
[Member Aaron Olapade]: Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I have two things. One, don't we already have, I'm pretty sure we have access to a network, you know, if something horrible happens we can, every school district when there's something and they're in the news and like, you know, whether it's, I don't want to talk about the reasons, but like counseling comes in from somewhere else to support staff or students or families or all of the above. We're already in some kind of network of that sort, right? Like if something happens, we're not going to just pick up the phone and start trying to find Councilors, correct? Okay, good. That's a yes?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, that's a yes. Thank you. That's a yes. Dr. Shulman has been working with Principal Cabral and myself to identify some external agencies or individuals that are able to provide needed counseling.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: This will come during the process and engagement of this but very early on I don't remember who I said this to, it might have been you. I do think that we need to make sure that the decision path includes the opportunity for the school committee to decide to accept risk. So, the law may say we cannot disclose something but the school committee should have the final say, we're going to disclose it anyway even though it's going to expose us to potential, you know, lawsuit. If we decide that that, the reason we want to release it is more important than the potential loss that we might face, we do need to be able to have that. So I just want to make, I appreciate that there's just like the high, the slide's not in front of me right now, but like there's gonna be set rules for sort of like, not every little detail, because every case will be different, but when something happens, you'll know, oh, we gotta get the school committee together so they can decide, is this a situation where we should accept the risk and go public even if it's violating personnel laws and violating this law and that law. Because, I mean, I can't speak for the school committee, but I know I have plenty of scenarios I can imagine for which I'll be like, the heck with the law. Let them sue us because the impact on students and families is just not acceptable to hide behind the law. And hide behind the law is kind of a, I don't like that actually because, you know, the law is the law.
really hoping that ends up in these documents where we come in when that risk analysis has to be done. So I just wanted to say that. That's not really a question. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Erica?
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: I'm sorry. I just had a quick request on the expected deliverables, number four. So I appreciate that you integrated student updates into earlier text. Just want to make sure that the deliverable includes student and caregiver or age appropriate student and caregiver updates. Thank you. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Members of the public? I just wanted to also acknowledge and say out loud that there
[Member Jenny Graham]: are likely going to be things that are provided to you that do not belong in the public conversation about how we are going to proceed forward. So just like we don't publish details of our, like, emergency evacuation plans on the Internet because then it provides bad actors, like, a free roadmap, right, to do something to do harm, like, Part of this is figuring out how to handle the changing landscape of how people have access to manipulate information, and combating that is an evolving thing. It's changing every single day. Exactly how they recommend that we do that, I don't believe belongs in the public, because it basically, again, gives a roadmap for somebody to be a bad actor and to use that all the good intentions of the process. So I just wanna acknowledge that this is not, we're gonna just dump all of this on the public. There will probably be things that, for lots of good reason, belong in a confidential space that we even may not have access to because it doesn't rise to the, putting it out into the public rises it to the level of compromising the value it's intended to provide.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I thank you so much for that. That's the piece here with the executive summary, because I do want people to know what the results were of this review or audit. So here are the strengths, and here are the weaknesses, and here are the recommendations, and here's what we need to do immediately, long term, so that people know that information. But I do appreciate you for saying that, if I wasn't clear. So thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I think just in seven years, right? We have had our share of incidents that have left people feeling like they wanted to know something more than they were able to know. And I will say, having this chair times seven years, what I have seen is over the course of time, we are getting better at saying something without saying the wrong things. a huge work in progress, but I just want to acknowledge that that has changed really dramatically since I started on this committee, where I can remember having really passionate conversations about, you can't say that because you're saying a lot of words and you're saying nothing. Getting to a point where you can be reassuring without still disclosing things that don't belong in the public for whatever that reason might be. It may have nothing to do with a personnel matter, is really hard and there's a lot of art to that, not just science. So I think there's always work to do there and we'll never get it quite right. But I also want to acknowledge that this is a far cry from seven and a half years ago when it was really bad.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Name and address of the record, please. My name is Mike Fowler, 28 Whitesmere Road.
[SPEAKER_19]: I wanted to say thank you very much for the opportunity to allow us to have public comment. We're a group of concerned marching band parents who we've previously met with Dr. Galusi and Principal Cabral at the high school to talk about what happened. And we also followed that up with a summary letter that was sent to Dr. Galusi, Principal Cabral, and then the school committee was also CC'd on that email as well. We wanted to acknowledge that the administration, and in particular Dr. Galusi in particular, has been very responsive to our request for information and has given this issue time and attention since the Boston Globe article came out. So we wanted to say thank you, first and foremost. We also wanted to recognize that in a situation like this, there's a tendency to scapegoat or blame people, and we're not at all looking to do that. We're looking to improve the process. We want to make sure that the kids in the program are safe. So our comments are really about that.
And then also just to mention just for important context that over the last several years, the band programs had a couple of different band directors have come and gone. There's been some influx of concerns from parents as well as students about, you know, being able to come forward and be able to be honest and truthful about what's happening in the program. And with situations like this, there's a reluctancy for students to come forward because they're concerned that there'll be pushback or blame on them or some sort of retaliation on the program. And so we as parents wanted to make sure that we came forward to say things that we felt like needed to be said on behalf of the students. And so a couple of us are gonna speak tonight about that. So thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_09]: Joyce Nicholas, 139 Arlington Street.
[SPEAKER_20]: Sorry, I was being shy. I'm Francis Chen, 153 Jerome Street. Thank you for the chance to speak and for moving us up in the agenda. So as you can see, we're a group of concerned parents, and I'm second among the group. And what I'd like to speak to is the fact that the scope of the current audit includes certain things around procedures and policies, and we'd like to see more on that. I think that's already been hinted at. And it's understandable that when looking into personnel issues, the privacy of the personnel matters, and so does the potential liability for the administration. But we also think that there's an important emphasis that's being missed, which is the best interests of the children. And we'd like that to submit that as something to be reemphasized for every teacher, administrator, and also legal and financial advisors to the district. So it seems like The audit's going to look at what the policies and procedures were, and I think that's really important. Thank you for doing that and starting the process to have an external audit about that. But it doesn't seem to address what actually happened from February to, I guess, October when the article came out. And so we wanted the audit to, like, look at that particular sort of known outcome more carefully. And that includes the fact that.
There was a departure and the communication around how that was handled and the things that came out in the meantime. And the net effect from some of our observations is that the students' trust and confidence was broken, first by the person in question and the whole set of folks that were tasked to protect the kids, but also by the administration in kind of failure to communicate adequately with the kids and with the families or to follow up to determine whether harm had been caused.
maybe to look into that or to ask some questions about that. So I guess our main question is how can the district mitigate the harm that was caused by the failure to consider the children's best interests in this situation? And I'll just say in closing that I work as a therapist, as a clinical social worker, I resonated with this sort of like risk path, like I have confidentiality with my clients, but there are certain situations where that can be broken or a judgment call can be made. And I'm also hearing that maybe the districts come quite a long ways in terms of being able to say something without saying too much. And I think once some things came to light and students knew about things and I think others, after we speak more specifically to that, maybe more could have been done in order to assess what might have happened, if anything, to our students. So, thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, I'll state it again for the purpose of procedure. Joyce Nicholas, 139 Arlington Street. The administration has stated that no one came forward with any allegations of misconduct, but it was never checked in with the students. As a brief recap, the administration in February knew about the previous allegations and that disclosure was inevitable given that the globe was copied. In the spring, knew that a subset of kids independently found these articles containing previous allegations of misconduct, and was asked by parents to follow up with the students. And yet no attempt was made to address the publicly available information with candor, and most alarmingly, no attempt was made to check in with the kids to determine whether a further investigation into the underlying issue was warranted. The kids, particularly the kids who knew of the accusations of alleged misconduct in the past and were instructed not to share the information were left wondering and waiting for some sort of follow-up. It is hard to imagine a student coming forward when none of the processes or procedures considered that there may be trauma to be addressed.
Instead, these factors created an environment of silence and secrecy. compounded by the ongoing fear of retaliation that they might lose their band program. Our kids really liked and trusted their teacher, and we've established they felt the band program was at constant risk. Even in the best, most carefully handled circumstances, most kids would be reluctant to come forward with any accusations of misconduct or may simply lack the perspective to identify whether certain behavior was appropriate. This was not the best of circumstances. And the way the recent departure was handled almost ensured that no one would come forward even if there was a problem. The kids saw plainly that the system is not intended to care for them. Rather, it focused on protecting the privacy of the personnel involved and the liability of the school. The administration seemed content to assume its obligation to the children had been fulfilled so long as no accusations spontaneously surfaced.
The assumption is dangerous and cannot be repeated in similar future situations.
[Julia Foster]: Hi, Julia Foster, 239 Wilburn Street. The podium is not meant for tall people, so I'm just going to wing it here. Comments that you just heard we have a couple of requests and questions that we'd like to make so specifically with regard to the audit scope Part two which is called review protocols in the event of a high profile personnel action We propose an edit that says high risk or high profile personnel action It should be very clear from our comments at this point that Our primary concern is the failure to consider whether our kids faced harm. Exposure by the Boston Globe just made the lack of that consideration apparent. High-risk situations are what need to be taken into account here, regardless of whether the personnel issue itself is considered high-profile or not. It could be done in the dark of night, and we still need certain actions taken in an instance where there's underlying known high-risk factors.
Bullet 3 to Part 2A, we would like to have it updated to, and I think this gets to your question. We'd appreciate if it could be updated specifically to assess the adequacy, timeliness, transparency, and appropriateness of communications with all affected stakeholders in this particular instance, including students, parent guardians, and staff regarding the personnel matter and its potential implications for students' safety and well-being. And I'm happy to email that to you. We would appreciate if a new bullet could be added. Again, going to your point, evaluate whether opportunities to communicate with and support students and families were missed, and how communication decisions, including the decision not to communicate, affected student well-being, family trust, and confidence in school.
there is an ability to be transparent about what you cannot be transparent about and share enough to give people a sense of calm. And we'd like specifically to add a new bullet that identifies steps to assess and mitigate the harm that our students, how they were affected by the most recent high-risk, high-profile personnel situation. And then we have a couple of questions. One is in regards to the counseling. We were wondering the timing of that. I know you are investigating options and we appreciate that, but sort of a firm understanding of timeline would be appreciated.
[Suzanne Galusi]: apologies. We were just waiting to Dr. Shulman and I had a meeting with one of the recommendations from the band parent and we had that meeting on Friday afternoon. We're just waiting to receive information from that to add it to our list of places that families can go for services. We're hoping that that could get out by the latest Thursday.
[Julia Foster]: Okay. And those services would be covered by the district?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes.
[Julia Foster]: Okay. We just wanted to make clear, it's not like we were waiting until the end of the audit. No, no, no. The scope timeline goal says by spring 2027. Curious what that means. Does that mean by the end of winter? Does that mean by the end of spring? Can you get it a bit tighter so that there's expectations that we can adhere to?
[Suzanne Galusi]: I am 100% prioritizing this work and would love it to be as soon as possible. I just left it general because I'm not quite sure once we put this out and we go through the competitive process what the timeline is going to look on the other end. So I want to make it very clear that I'm hoping to have this done by the end of winter. But I can give an exact date once we have secured someone.
[Julia Foster]: Don't need an exact date. Was just curious about the by spring, whether it meant before, during, after. And it sounds like the progress reports will be provided at each school committee meeting to the extent there is, even if it says no progress.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes, I can do that to the extent that I'm able to share, yes. Right.
[Julia Foster]: And then we're curious, I don't know if you're allowed to disclose, we're curious who you used to advise you previously and whether or not you are still working with them.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: on hiring or?
[Julia Foster]: Who did you work with to determine best steps for communication during the personnel matter?
[Suzanne Galusi]: As I mentioned during the meeting when I met with the caregivers for the band organization, I was conferring with counsel. So it was a legal decision around upholding the confidentiality of the personnel matter.
[Julia Foster]: I guess that legal decision, we were curious who that entity is and more importantly, are you still working with them? Do they remain your primary advisor?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Part of this process that we're doing now is exactly for the question that you're asking right now and part of the inquiries that I've done to see beyond that, beyond district council, what is available. to assist superintendents with high risk, high profile situations. And so I'm hoping to get some of that avenue out of this review. But I also now know that there are, like I had mentioned, levels within the Department of Education and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents that I can also reach out to. OK.
[Julia Foster]: It's district council that was previously being, it's just generally district council. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Is there a motion on the floor? Can I ask one quick question? Motion to approve by Member Olapoday. Before we call the roll, Member Parks.
[Member Jessica Parks]: Would it be possible, based on what I was hearing, to make some sort of edit in light of the kind of high-risk, high-profile, I think is the language? Because it sounds like in It sounds like, sorry, it sounds like in some of what we're saying, it's transitions that students are dealing with, whether it be in a case like this or when staff is out for a multitude of reasons, but staff disappearing for a period of time. whether that can be disclosed or not. Could it also, could we add in a bullet for the potential to look into some sort of stability plan for students? For whatever that means to the students to understand what stability looks like to them in this planning, if that's possible.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes, I don't think that's a far stretch from what, how we've updated our practices to date to include something like that. I think that's fine to add to in here as well.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member Ulopade. Okay. Member Ruseau.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. There was one thing. Joyce said that kind of stuck with me, and it's like, I'm a software developer. Very exciting, I know. And the most common thing people say is, we did a new release. There were no reports of any bugs. There's no bugs. And that is like a remarkably common way of seeing problems. Nobody called it a problem, so there's no problems. And I think that's a really, really important thing. The lack of a report does not in any way, shape, or form have anything to do with whether there's something to report. It really doesn't. I mean, we're not talking about, like, a murder or something where it's, like, there's no question something happened, like, or a house fire. Like, these are the kinds of things in particular that are, very likely to go unreported. So I think the lack of any report should in no way shape, should ever be considered a evidence that there is nothing that happened. It isn't evidence that something happened, but it just, you have to approach it the same ways as I do in my day job is like, it has nothing to do with it. Like we release software in the hospital, no physicians call to complain. It's because they're too busy. It's not because there's no problems. And this scenario is one for which no reports doesn't mean a thing. So it really is such an important point. I want to thank you for making that. I know there was a motion to approve the statement of work. I would just ask that it be to be amended thank you sorry i don't like glasses and it's very awkward tonight i forgot them out um to include any of the bullets that the superintendent wants to change or or add based on the conversation we've had i don't want to go through the exact wording right here but
[Suzanne Galusi]: Can I make sure I understand? So your recommendation will be for me to make the updates based on feedback from tonight, but not have to come back for a second vote so I can get this going? Yes. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Motion by Member Olapade as amended by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham. Do you want to roll call? We're spending money.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham. Member Mastrobuoni? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Parks? Yes. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Paper passes. Thank you for coming tonight to the parents as well. Thank you, Dr. Glucy, for the presentation. Is there a motion to revert back to the regular order of business? So moved. Member Reinfeld, seconded by? Member Mastermone, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Entry plan number two. Kim Clinton, Assistant Superintendent of Special Education and Student Services, welcome.
[SPEAKER_21]: Good evening. Do I sound okay? Thank you for the opportunity tonight for me to share my entry plan and the work that's taken place as I've transitioned into this role. This presentation represents an opportunity to reflect on where we are as a district, what I've learned from stakeholders, and where we need to focus our efforts moving forward. My approach has been to listen, to learn, to understand our existing systems, and begin identifying opportunities to strengthen our work. I want to emphasize that this is not about starting over. Medford has dedicated educators, committed leaders, and programs that provide important services to our students. Our responsibility is to build upon those strengths while addressing areas that we can improve. I want to begin by outlining the structure of the entry plan and the process that I use to inform it.
I organized the entry plan into four major areas. First, I will share the vision guiding our work and how special education priorities connect to the superintendent's broader vision for the district. Second, I will provide an overview of our current special education landscape, including our continuum of services and some student outcome data. Third, I will share what I have learned from stakeholders through surveys, listening sessions, and conversations. Finally, I will outline three priorities and action steps that will guide our work moving forward. Throughout each section, there are themes of belonging, consistency, and coherence. The purpose is to connect what I've heard with what the data tells us and identify concrete actions.
so that my entry process was intentionally designed to be comprehensive and collaborative. I held more than 30 listening sessions and participated in district-wide meetings, school-based meetings, and leadership discussions. I met with principals, special education coordinators, ETLs, and colleagues across departments, including finance, health, EL, and school counseling. I reviewed survey data, DESI data, compliance indicators, current procedures, and existing models. We also established more consistent leadership structures, including regular coordinator, ETL, and department meetings. An important part of this process is beginning to develop a shared instructional vision for special education. We created instructional look-fors and leadership teams consisting of coordinators, ETLs, and conducted more than 50 classroom walk-throughs. These visits were not intended to be evaluative. They were rather to identify common practices and consider where additional support may be needed. Moving forward, the focus is on strengthening our organizational structures, continuing instructional alignment, and ensuring that the special ed priorities are connected to the district's strategic plan. The entry plan is grounded in conversations, observations, data, and a better understanding of our current systems.
As we begin, I want to establish the purpose behind this work. Special education is not a separate initiative or a separate vision for the district. It is an essential part of the overall instructional vision of Medford Public Schools. The work ahead is not about ensuring students with, the work ahead is about ensuring that students with disabilities have meaningful access to high quality instruction, appropriate supports, and opportunities to participate and grow. The next slide will highlight how our department priorities align with the superintendent's vision.
You go back one more. Thank you. The priorities for special education and student services are directly connected to the superintendent's vision for Medford Public Schools. I've organized the work around the themes of belonging, consistency, and coherence. Belonging means ensuring that all students are known, valued, included, and meaningfully connected to school community. This includes strengthening inclusive practices and our partnerships with our families. Consistency means that students have access to strong instructional practices and that IEPs and services are implemented with fidelity.
Coherence means that our systems, leadership structures, and communication practices work together. Families should not experience different processes depending on the school their child attends. These three areas are interconnected. We cannot create meaningful belonging without consistent practices, and we cannot achieve consistency without coherent systems. Ultimately, this is about creating a shared understanding of what high quality special education looks like in Medford. We cannot create a separate vision for special education. We are making sure that every special education student is included in the district's vision.
I wanted to include the district's instructional vision because it is important that our special education work remain grounded in the same expectation for teaching and learning. There are four components that are particularly important. High quality instruction, students with disabilities must have access to appropriately challenging grade level instruction while receiving individualized supports. Deeply engaging, we want students actively participating in meaningful learning experiences, not just simply completing assignments or receiving isolated services. Belonging, students should feel connected in their classrooms and school communities. Inclusion is not just about physical placement, it's about meaningful participation.
Data informed, we need to understand whether our instruction and supports provide, we provide, are actually resulting in the student growth we would expect. This requires looking beyond whether services are being delivered and examining their impact. These components should be visible in every special education classroom. As we move forward, our instructional look-fors and classroom walk-throughs will help us develop a shared understanding of what these expectations look like in practice. Next slide. Before identifying priorities, it was important to develop a clearer understanding of our existing programs, services, and student outcomes. Medford has a broad continuum of special education services designed to meet a wide range of student need. Understanding that continuum requires looking at more than the names of the programs. We need to understand how students access services, how programs are structured, and whether the current models are meeting our students' needs. I will share an overview of the continuum of services, followed by some data that will help us evaluate our current performance.
All right, this slide illustrates the breadth of special education program available across Medford from preschool to age 22. We have a range of services, including inclusive education, co-teaching, related services, language-based programming, connections, access, therapeutic learning programs, learning groups, and out-of-district placements. Some of these services span multiple grade levels. while some of them, excuse me, while some of them are designed for specific developmental stages or student populations. The continuum is important because it shows that students have different needs and those needs may change over time. Our responsibility is to ensure that we have an appropriate range of services and that students have access to the supports that allow them to make meaningful progress.
We need to examine how students transition between programs and buildings. Continuity and communication are particularly important as students transition and move from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school. An important part of our ongoing work will be evaluating whether our district programs, thank you, are aligned, appropriately staffed, and delivering the instruction that students need. The question is not simply whether we have the services, but whether the services are effective, aligned, and responsive. This slide provides a snapshot of special education enrollment across our schools, alongside with attendance comparisons for students with and without IEPs. District-wide, approximately 21.5% of our students receive special education. We see some variation across buildings, reflecting differences in student populations and specialized programs available throughout the district.
I also want to highlight our attendance rate. For the 25-26 school year, students with IEP had an attendance rate of 93%. This is a strong indicator that our students are accessing school and that we have an important foundation to build upon. While there is a difference compared to the 95.1% attendance rates for students without IEPs, I think it is important that we recognize the overall attendance rate while continuing to look at opportunities to close the gap. Our 93% attendance rate for students with IEPs is a strength to recognize, at the same time to use this data to identify opportunities to strengthen access and engagement for students with disabilities.
The DESE local education agency determination matrix provides a structured way to evaluate district performance across special education indicators. It allows us to look at compliance, student outcomes, and areas requiring improvement. For the 25-26 school year, Medford received an 83% determination rating, earning 29 of 35 possible points. One important distinction is the difference between compliance and student outcomes. Medford earned 15 of 16 compliance points, which demonstrates we're meeting the regulatory requirements. However, our performance score was 11 out of 16. This distinction is important. Compliance is essential. But it is not the same as ensuring that students are achieving academically and making meaningful progress.
Our greatest opportunity for improvement is our academic achievement of students with disabilities, particularly at the middle and high school level. We need to continue meeting our compliance responsibilities while placing an equally strong emphasis on the quality and effectiveness of instruction. Compliance is the foundation, but student growth and outcomes will be the true measure of our success. This slide highlights several important student outcome indicators compared with state targets. There are areas where Medford is performing above or at the state targets. Our graduation rate, our dropout rate, our preschool developmental gains. These are important strengths that we should recognize and build upon. At the same time, our percentage of students with disabilities spending more than 80% of the day in regular education classrooms is quite close to the state target.
We need to remember that placement alone does not tell us whether inclusion is successful. We must also look at participation, access to instruction, relationships with peers, and student progress. We have many positive outcomes to build upon while continuing to examine opportunities to strengthen inclusion and academic achievement. This slide highlights one of the most important areas of opportunities identified through the special education accountability framework. The charts compare Medford performance with state targets in reading and math for grade four, grade eight, and for high school. What stands out is Medford is below the state targets across all three grade levels. This is particularly important when considered along with our accountability determination, which is identified academic achievement as an area of growth. We need to look closely at the instructional experiences students with disabilities are receiving. Are students consistently accessing grade level instruction, grade level standards? Are specialized instructional approaches aligned within special education classrooms? Are we providing appropriate interventions and supports? We also need to examine how we are using progress monitoring data to determine whether students are responding to instruction.
This is not about placing responsibility on an individual program or an individual teacher. It's about understanding our systems and identifying where we can strengthen our instructional practices, collaboration, and professional learning opportunities. Improving outcomes will require shared ownership between all departments, general education, special education, school counseling, EL, Our focus must shift beyond whether students receive services to whether those services and approaches are producing meaningful academic outcomes. The data provides one perspective, but it does not tell the entire story. An equally important part of my entry process was listening to the people who experience special education every day. I want to understand what is working well, where people are experiencing challenge and what they believe should be prioritized. This included families, educators, school leaders, and staff across the district. The next several slides will summarize what I heard and the themes that emerged across these conversations.
In March of 2026, the district distributed a survey to gather feedback about the special education priorities and the functioning of the department. We received 90 responses from staff and community members. Respondents were asked to identify three of the most important areas for a director of student services to prioritize. The highest response rate was leadership and problem solving. The second was collaboration with staff members, and third was communication with families. These priorities reinforced the importance of building relationships, establishing structures, and ensuring that families and staff know where to go for support. The survey helped establish some initial themes, which I was able to explore through further conversations. The feedback reinforced the importance of leadership, collaboration, communication as foundational elements of a strong special education department.
In addition to the survey, I wanted to create opportunities for direct conversation. I met with eight building principals, the CTE executive director, four special ed coordinators, the director of health services, the director of English language learners, and finance. I held 11 caregiver engagement sessions, including one at each school and three virtual opportunities. I also held eight staff engagement sessions, one at each school. In addition, I offered individual meetings with caregivers and staff upon request. I wanted to make sure that the process involved different perspectives and that people had opportunities to have conversations openly. These conversations were not intended to provide immediate answers, but they were an opportunity to listen, identify patterns, and better understand the experiences of our stakeholders. The priorities in this plan are informed by multiple perspectives, not just one data point or one conversation.
When reviewing the feedback, I began to seek several consistent themes. From families, five areas emerged. Families emphasized the importance of relationships and communication, having a better understanding of the special education process, and having more opportunities for engagement and support. They also raised questions about instructional quality, student progress, and meaningful inclusion. From principals, coordinators, and staff, the themes were somewhat different but closely connected. There was a strong focus on grade level instruction, consistency in service delivery, and alignment across programs. Staff also identified the importance of professional development, leadership capacity, data-informed instruction, and collaboration. What is important is that these themes are all interconnected. Families want to understand what their children are receiving and whether or not they are making progress. Educators need clear expectations, consistent practices, and the resources and leadership to deliver effective instruction. Our work needs to bring these perspectives together. Families and educators may experience the system differently, but many of the priorities point towards the same areas of improvement.
As I reflected on the feedback, I wanted to distinguish between the strengths we should continue building on and the opportunities that require our attention. We have a broad spectrum of programming designed to support diverse learners and diverse needs. We have dedicated educators, committed leaders, and a strong foundation of program and services. At the same time, there are opportunities to strengthen consistency across program, improve grade level instruction, and ensure that service delivery is purposeful. We also need to use data more consistently to inform instruction and monitor student progress. I want to emphasize that this is not a reflection on a lack of commitment or effort from our staff. It rather highlights the importance of having shared expectations, aligned practices, and systems that support educators in doing their best work.
OK, based on the data, feedback, and observations throughout the entry process, I've identified three major priority areas. The first focuses on family partnership, communication, and trust. The second focuses on building special education leadership capacity. And the third, and most important, focuses on advancing instructional quality, inclusion, and our continuum of services. These priorities are intentionally connected. Strong family partnerships help us better understand student needs. Strong leadership creates structures and support necessary for consistent practice and implementation. Strong instruction and meaningful inclusion are ultimately what drives student growth. I'll walk you through each of the priorities and the action steps that will guide the work.
The first priority is strengthening our relationships and partnerships with families. One consistent theme through the caregiver conversations was a desire for clear, timely, and accessible communication. We want families to feel informed, supported, and included as meaningful partners. One action is to establish coffee and conversation with myself twice annually, offering both daytime and evening sessions. We are also implementing the EdPlan Parent Portal to provide families with improved access to the special education records and information. Another important area is establishing communication across schools.
We need to make the special education process for families easier to understand. This includes standardizing forms and processes, reviewing and revising our special education procedural manual, and maintaining an accessible special education page with important resources and contacts. Finally, we need to strengthen our opportunities for family engagement through the reestablishment of an active CPAC. My goal is to not simply have a CPAC in place, but it is to develop a meaningful partnership where families have a voice and drive special education priorities.
Family engagement cannot be limited to just IEP meetings. We need consistent opportunities for communication, education, partnership, and feedback throughout the year. So I'd like to provide a little bit of an overview of our special education leadership structure. So an important part is strengthening, has been reviewing our leadership structure and identifying how we can better support schools. We've had several leadership transitions, including two new special education coordinators, a coordinator with a new building assignment, three new evaluation team leaders, and an evaluation team leader with a new building assignment. We have also established a structure in which one special education coordinator oversees both middle schools. These transitions create an opportunity to strengthen communication, clarify responsibilities, and establish more consistent practices across buildings. It is important that our coordinators and ETLs have support, resources, and professional development to be effective instructional and operational leaders. Strong leadership structures are essential in creating consistency across schools and ultimately improving student outcomes.
The second priority is building leadership capacity across special education. We need strong leadership at every level, including coordinators, ETL, and our building administrators. We've established regular special education leadership team meetings, weekly ETL and coordinator meetings. These meetings are purposeful and focused on impact rather than sharing updates. Our agendas focus on student income, student outcomes, instruction, compliance, and problem solving. We also need to invest in targeted professional development and coaching so that our leaders have the knowledge and skills to support staff and students effectively. We need to strengthen our collaboration across departments. Special education does not operate independently. Our work intersects with school counseling, nursing, general education, EL, and other student services. We need to strengthen those relationships and develop shared ownership of all students' needs.
We will continue using instructional look-fors and collaborative classroom walk-throughs to establish more consistent expectations across schools and classrooms. We need to strengthen our district-wide approach to compliance-related procedures, such as individual emergency plans, restraint and seclusion, and disciplinary letters. The goal is to move from individual problem solving to systemic solutions that can be implemented consistently across all school buildings. We need to build leadership capacity so that strong practices are not dependent on individuals or individual schools, but are supported through strong district-wide systems.
The final priority is advancing instructional quality, inclusion, and continuum of services. The third priority is ultimately focused on special education students' educational experiences and outcomes. We need to examine the consistency and effectiveness of specialized approaches, particularly in literacy, writing, and other areas of academic need. This includes looking at curriculums, reviewing instructional practices, professional development, and resources educators need. We will continue to conduct learning walks with principals, coordinators, ETLs, and other teams and use those observations to identify areas of strength and opportunities. We need to strengthen meaningful access to general education. It's not simply about where a student is placed, but it's about whether if the student is participating, accessing instruction, and making progress. This requires stronger collaboration between general education and special education, including clear roles, shared ownership, and opportunities for common planning and co-teaching. And finally, we need to review our continuum of services. This means examining staffing, scheduling, program structures, service delivery models, and the transitions that students experience between schools and programs. We need to ensure that our programs are aligned with student need and that we are using our resources effectively. We will use student outcome data and formal program reviews to inform future recommendations and decisions. This is ongoing work that we need to continually evaluate whether or not our current structures are producing the outcomes that we hope for.
The ultimate measure of our work is whether students are receiving high quality instruction, accessing meaningful opportunities, and making progress towards their individualized goals. All right, final slide. I want to close by returning to these three words, belonging, consistency, and coherence. As I reflect on the listening sessions and the conversations that have shaped this plan, I'm encouraged by the dedication, expertise, and commitment that already exists in Medford. The opportunities ahead are not about starting over or suggesting that the work isn't happening. They are about building on strengths, addressing inconsistencies, and continuing to grow together. Ultimately, the work is not about a program, a department, or a particular service. It is about every learner. Our responsibility is to ensure that every student has access to meaningful instruction, the right supports, a sense of belonging, and the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Very thorough. That was a thick one. Member Ruseau.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. That was thorough, and I appreciate that you've done all that since you took the job, which wasn't that long ago. I have to admit I am stuck really early on a slide about reading proficiency, and I'm I'm wondering is our change in how we're doing reading instruction, like I wish I could see what the eighth graders were going to look like in another two or three years. Because it's like you set sail. and you have a destination, but if you just pick a spot way out in the ocean before you've gotten there and say, are you here? The answer is no. And this is a terrible analogy, which is why I was never an English major. But are these things going to dramatically improve our eighth graders and then our high school students reading? And I mean, math, all of these... Reading is a problem, then Good luck with math and good luck with all the other topics.
So I'm really looking for somebody to reassure me that we have reason to not be quite as freaked out by these numbers. So anybody who wants to do that, you could start now.
[SPEAKER_21]: So I had a lot of wonderings about those numbers as well. And I think some of those wonderings need further investigation. I do think we need to look at our instructional methodologies. of reading instruction. I think we need to look at the grade-level instruction, and I think we need to look at our interventions. So, yes, there is concern, and that is why one of the priorities is improving instructional quality to improve student outcomes.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: I realize that when we look at this, like, Reading MCAS proficiency. We are lumping all students at grade four and eight in high school together. And they may be in the access program or whatever program. They may be mainstreamed with just some supports and have an IEP. Like having an IEP gets you in this list. And that covers students in a very broad range of abilities and positions and like I know that EL students are always like, they show up, they may not speak a single word of English, but then they have to take the MCAS anyways, which I think is a cruelty, which I'd like the school committee to address someday.
So it's really hard to digest this data and I know that you have access through the MCAS portal to really slice and dice this data in a way that the public and school committee doesn't have for reasons such as, you know, when you have two students, you can't report that on the public portal because then you essentially can identify those students. But I really would like to hear a follow-up report on that very specific thing because these numbers, I mean, I won't lie. I mean, I don't have the website up now to know what the proficiency is for students who are not on an IEP.
[SPEAKER_21]: I think you're going to hear about that next. OK, good.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Oh, wait. Actually, that's the other presentation I already read tonight, isn't it? Sorry. Yes. You know, there was a lot to read for this meeting. So all right, I'll stop talking. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: The only thing I would also say in response to that is the The graph also shows what research says about students' ability to read. by the time they're in third grade, because you can see the gap getting wider as the years go on. And so there is urgency. It's why it's one of my goals. It's why Dr. Talbot and Assistant Superintendent Clinton have really focused so much this year on student achievement and equitable instruction. And so why we're starting with kindergarten and first grade and flooding those grades so that our goal is that students are leaving second grade knowing how to read because the gap just widens. And I think you can also see why Dr. Talbot and Dr. Chiesa who's going to speak a little later is focusing on high quality instructional materials at the secondary level because that data shows you the seriousness of why we need high quality instructional materials in middle school and high school.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Parks.
[Member Jessica Parks]: Thank you. Taking that into account and looking at the scores and then also thinking about your presentation about kind of the standardization that you're going through right now and the review and revision of the special education procedural manual, the reestablishment of CPAC, what kind of will kind of these special education goals be developed into measurable targets once this kind of establishment period and standardization is complete? And kind of what is the timeline for some of these action items? And then when will we start kind of digging into measurable, you know, points that we can then chart to, I guess.
[SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I haven't set a concrete timeline, but we'll be reviewing programs this year, some programs next year. We'll be making recommendations about staffing and enrollment, student skill development, program descriptions. having more clarity around how our programs are described. We've started some work around program alignment across different schools, aligning our practices. So some of the items like the procedural manual is a project for this year that I'm hoping to get revised by the end of the school year and published on the website. The CPAC I'm hoping to have reestablished and active by January. We have our first meeting November 19th. But in terms of student outcome I haven't set concrete targets. I feel like I need more time to examine the data and have individual teachers look at their student data to really identify what areas they need to change their instruction and they need to target. So I don't have measurable targets for improving student outcomes yet.
[Member Jessica Parks]: And that's completely understandable in this role.
[SPEAKER_21]: Some of the work that we're doing in department meetings is teaching and working with teachers how to use data. to drive their practices and adjust their practices and when to determine that something isn't working and that they need to change what they're doing. So a lot of our department meetings will be focused on looking at student outcome data and planning their instruction accordingly.
[Member Jessica Parks]: Okay. And then I guess a follow-up to that is as a parent who might be watching this and sees maybe that chart and then thinks about the standardization that's happening What would you tell them? What is the kind of standardization that you're doing right now going to lead to that would benefit their children?
[SPEAKER_21]: So right now, it's just making sure that the process looks the same across schools. So when you leave an IEP meeting, your IEP meeting summary sheet looks the same. That the agenda for the meeting is the same and consistent. Parents can expect what is going to be discussed in what order. the follow-up paperwork after an IEP meeting will be consistent with consistent language. That they'll have similar experiences regardless of what school, what ETL they're in. I'm standardizing.
So forms, processes, what, how, how teachers are providing updates for meeting, what kind of information teachers are providing that the ETL is presenting at IEP meetings, just a consistent process so parents know what to expect, caregivers know what to expect. But I do want caregivers to know I want feedback, so please reach out, communicate. I don't know if there's a problem if I don't hear about it, and I'd rather get ahead of it when it's still manageable and we can work collaboratively. I'm really focused on building trust with our families and caregivers in Medford.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you two things. One is when you talk about having standard expectations, I think that's good, provided that those expectations are high enough. Of a standard that a parent would leave those meetings feeling like that was worthwhile. So it's what it what I want to make sure we're not doing is just being the same like we need to be the same and. exceeding people's expectations, not like finding some middle bar to sort of operate to. And I don't think that's your intention, but, and I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but when parents seek me out to tell me about what's going on, all I hear about is like, it's always a fight. And like, we're not getting from the district what we need to feel like we're actually like in this together and that we're all looking at the same kid. I think certainly having common and high expectations on like what is happening in those meetings is really, really important.
But the quality of the meeting also, I think, you know, it needs some focus so that when people are hearing what the recommendations are, we should be trying to get to a place where there's a whole lot more agreement on what will work than contention about why this thing is or isn't needed. In pursuing that, it might be useful to find some parents who can provide you input on that consistent package. Does that hit their mark or not? It's good if it's consistent, but if you're consistent and you're not meeting anybody's expectations, there's a missed opportunity there. That's one suggestion that I would have before you start rolling something out that is like, we're going to do this the same way. Like, let's just make sure that people would actually like it before we, like, mobilize to that.
And then I think the other thing I would want to hear in follow-up is like, when will those measurable goals be set? I completely appreciate like wanting to dig into the data and wanting to spend more time like wondering about what we're seeing and why we're seeing it but like there are kids actively moving through our district every single day that are not being where their needs are not being met and like the longer we take to sort of set a goal, like the more kids are not served by that goal. So that always worries me when we're not ready to set a goal. And I think the other thing that's very hard in some of these presentations to understand is like, what has happened over time? has it gotten better, and I don't think we tell that story all that effectively, like, and there's a lot of data, so I can appreciate how hard it is to tell that story, but particularly when we're talking about the subgroups that are in your purview, like, I would want to be able to see that something is changing over time with these interventions, and we don't really get that usually. And I think, like, Parents will know that it's working right on an individualized level, like with their own student. But for us, I think we need to be able to see a broader picture of change to know that something is working or not working. And how to do that, I think, it's hard when there is as much data as is available to you all. But what are you going to focus on, and how do we How do we sum that up and get somewhere that we can see, like, it was X three years ago, and we made progress, and then we made progress, and then we made progress, and then we flatlined, oh, we have to do something different, right? That trajectory over time, I think, is often missing from our conversations.
But thank you for this.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. I think we're going to move on to number three. If there's no further questions, the MCAS report, ELA, Math and Science. First up is Dr. Kim Talbot, Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instruction, then Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities, Dr. Faiza Khan, Director of Mathematics, and Mr. Arco Sierre, Director of Science.
[Kim Talbot]: Good evening, everyone. I am excited to present to you the state accountability and academic testing results part two. So you may recall a couple of weeks ago I presented about the accountability and my action steps based on that. And I'm excited to bring you a more in-depth look at our MCAS outcome results with Drs. Khan and Keza and Mr. Cieri. So what we're gonna do today is frame the role of state testing and then I'm gonna provide you with some overall outcomes and reorient you to the kinds of slides and graphs that you're gonna be seeing later in the presentation. And then in turn, civics and ELA, math and science, technology and engineering will share the outcomes related to their departments and specific action planning examples.
So for the purpose of state testing, there is no way that I could do this slide the justice that Kim Clinton just did in her presentation. So instead, what I'm going to say is that our MCAS outcomes are not the end. They are a signal toward what we can do next. And I'm just going to ask Mr. Proposelli to advance through the slide. I will reiterate that the MCAS outcomes do, though, indicate a strong academic foundation, which, as we know, is one of the five factors for students' economic and social mobility and something that we're paying very close attention to.
So without any further ado, I'm going to present to you some very, very high-level overall MCAS achievement summary from last spring 2026. The purpose is to show you overall how we're doing as a district big picture and also as I said to reorient you to the kinds of tables you're going to be seeing from my colleagues throughout this presentation. So let's take the overall District numbers first. So overall, in our district, the percent of students across all of the schools and all of the tests who met or exceeded expectation was 41%. There is no indication next to it, which means that is the same number as last year, the same percentage. Big picture, different students, same outcome.
Moving to the right, the percent of students not meeting increased to 20%. You can tell it increased because there's a little red arrow and it's pointing up. We want that number to be going in the other direction. However, the scaled score, which is in the third column, was 494. You can tell that that is the same scaled score as last year because there's no indicator that's next to it. If you look at the key to the right that talks about color coding for scaled scores, you can see that this scaled score falls in the range of partially meeting, and we are knocking at the door on meeting expectations. One new column for this year, since we spoke about it a couple of weeks ago, is what the state sets for our overall target for the spring of 27, which is a scaled score overall of 496. Make sense?
So there are places on this chart that I do want to point out to you where we're heading in the right direction in lots of places. The places that are circled in blue have seen an increase in the percent of students who met or exceeded expectations. This is globally, so of the students in the school, of the assessments that were given in that school. which is looking pretty great. And those same three schools that are highlighted in blue here also saw the percent of students not meeting decrease. This is exactly the direction that we want to see happening. You can also see, though not surprising, that the scaled score in all three of these schools also increased. This is great news. Everybody is working very hard and there's something to be learned from these schools. And of particular note is one school with the green box highlighted around it.
This school met its targets from the state overall for that year. So I wanted to orient you to this graph and to give you an overall picture of the state of the district and how we're doing in general and to celebrate places where the data is moving in the right direction for kids. So I'm going to pass it over to my colleagues and I just want to warn you that what's coming next is not your typical MCAS presentation where we share slide after slide after slide of tables and data and all of those things. We did that in February of last year, and we heard your comments that really what you're most interested in is how we use the data to inform what comes next, and that's exactly what we're going to get in this presentation. It is not about the MCAS. It is how we use the MCAS and its signal for grade-level achievement to drive improvement in our district. So you'll see the overall data and trends presented by each content area using some of the similar graphs that I showed you. And then, because we love data, we're gonna dig in a little bit deeper to highlight some of the nuances in the data that actually came from your questions in the previous conversation. It's an example of some of the highlights of some of the work that drives our process. Then each director is going to share an example of their goal and action steps which span the gambit from looking at subgroup disparities like low income to focusing particularly on consistency and coherence within a grade level and even the case for why we need high quality instructional materials for an entire grade span. I want to be clear that this is a brief slice from each of the directors and is not at all intended to represent the full body of complex work that they engage with, nor is it meant to be a full examination of all of the nuances of all of the data. This is an example of how each of the departments uses data to inform their work. So as such, we'd love for you, I see everybody has a pen, which is great. We'd love for you to hold your questions until the end so that you can feel the arc of the work, because it is an example of how our brilliant colleagues use data. So I'll pass it along. Thanks.
[Chiesa]: Thank you, Dr. Talbot. Good evening, everybody. I get to go first, which means I get to do the first four slides that apply to all of us here. So just to continue to set the stage, as Dr. Talbot did, we as a team, academic director's team here, are really looking tonight with our data story, each of which is different, on coherence. How are we leading through coherence? We see our instructional vision. All of the things you're seeing on there are items that we are committed to and deeply engaged with. But for tonight, leading with coherence is really a strong theme for our data story.
And a lot of that is another slide you may be familiar with, as well as some of the work with TNTP. We can go on to the next slide. And similarly here, we're looking at the different steps, and you can see where we're circling. So again, the theme is coherence. With that being said, on the next slide, we see our guiding questions. So tonight, as we address you, we are looking at how do we ensure high quality grade level instruction for all of our students, aligning a lot of what Dr. Talbot and Dr. Clinton were both referencing. Secondly, how do we ensure instructional coherence while meeting the needs of all of our students? And finally, how can we narrow the gaps between our most vulnerable populations?
So that was for all of us. Don't want to take credit for just me here. And I'm going to begin with two different academic subjects. As the humanities director, we're going to begin first with civics. So when we look at civics, Just a friendly reminder, because this is a new test for us. This is only our second year. This coming will be our third year, but this was just our second year of the civics MCAS. A friendly reminder that the civics MCAS is comprised of two separate components. So our students are engaging in a state level performance task, as well as an end of course test. They're combined, but they are divided by those important categories. When we look on the next slide, we see that our district has done well and shown some improvement. related to civics. Now our eighth graders are the only students that take a social studies MCAS assessment, the civics MCAS. So this is just eighth graders, and that's why the data is so limited. We only have one score for one grade level. We see that within our district, between both middle schools, we have 42% exceeding in meeting on the civics MCAS compared to the state at 40. So we're slightly above the state and also something that I was interested in exploring was we are improving compared to last year as well. We were one percentage point below the state, now we've crept up. So we're moving in the right direction, still room for improvement on the civics MCAS. When we go to the next slide, this also shows you how the civics MCAS is reported. Students are assessed on the foundations of government, government structure, and rights and responsibilities. We can see that in most cases we were nearly on par with the state, slightly below on foundations of government and rights of responsibilities.
The students really knocked it out of the park with government structures. I'll take any applause. Not me, the kids, right? The kids did a wonderful job in understanding the structure of our government, supported by their teachers. And that is a testament to all of the hard work and all of the authentic opportunities as well that our students have been able to engage in in the eighth grade and beyond. When we go to the next slide, I do wanna take a minute, I'll dig much more deeply with ELA, you guys are gonna get tired of standing in a minute, but basically with civics, in the story of cohesion, what my data story is looking at tonight is looking at our high needs population, which encompasses multiple subgroups. If we look specifically at civics, We have, on the left-hand side, we have how the students performed, which is what I just showed you, all of our students. When we dig a little deeper, we see what Desi refers to as high needs.
Our high needs for exceeding and meeting are high needs students, that's low income, former EL, EL students, students with disabilities. So all together, they achieved 21% achieve the exceeding and meeting proficiency rating. When we look to the slide to the right, excuse me, the chart to the right, we see that the state overall was 22. So our students, our high need students are pretty on par with how the rest of the state is performing. You can see as you go through the other numbers that there are some dips and definitely areas that we can look into. So with that in mind, we dig a little deeper. We look specifically at those students within that category, keeping in mind that some of these students may be accounted for twice. If I'm a low income student, I may also be a student with disability. I may be an EL. So these numbers aren't going to be an exact average. You can't take them and average them across. And where we see some encouraging pieces We see that our students with disabilities had exceeding and meeting of 16%, whereas the state had 14%. Our students, our low income students overall exceeding and meeting was 20%. That's on par with the state. We see with our English learners and our former English learners, we were only at 9% of students exceeding and meeting compared to the state's 14.
Based on that, that is a data story that we dig deeper with. That's something that Ms. McNiff and I have dug even more deeply on to build cohesion for how our EL students are receiving civics instruction, how much we're collaborating with the civics teacher on both sides, and how much we can come together to teach in more of a co-teaching fashion within civics to support all students. That's just a quick snapshot of how my story unfolds.
Okay. ELA MCAS. Are we ready for ELA now? So when we look at ELA MCAS, we have much more data. And so we want to highlight a few pieces before I delve into my data story. So first of all, when we look at our third grade, we have some wins there. We, as a district, performed at 50%. 50% of our students received exceeding or meeting expectations. compared to the state average of 43%, seven percentage points above the state. Overall scale score of 501. Grade four did also perform above the state. 42% of our students received exceeding in meeting compared to the state's 40, with our grade five being on par with the state. Does this mean that there's room for improvement? Do we want our numbers to be higher than 38, 42, and even 50? Sure, of course.
But it's promising to know that we are continuing to grow and that we are continuing to exceed or be on par with the state at our elementary levels, particularly given all the time, energy, resources, and support that have gone into the elementary. I'm not going to pull this up right now, but that pinkish red banner, That highlights the Medford Elementary Literacy Spotlight. So you may have already read it, but it will share all the work that I have done along with Dr. Galuzzi, Dr. Talbot, our literacy coaches, our whole elementary staff and principals of how we've transformed the literacy instruction into a coherent system. that's grounded on the science of reading. So that's an article from Hill for Literacy, one of our partners, that explains how we have been committed to cohesion and supporting all of our students.
OK. If we dig deeper, we do see, and we're going to see in a minute because I'm going to circle it, how grade 6, 7, 8, and 10 have certainly some room for improvement, falling below the state, some grades more than others throughout. I want to call your attention not to that. OK. Yes. I just called your attention to that slide. So we see that the secondary has opportunities for growth. What I want to name on the slide that's up right now is that In grades seven, eight, and 10, we see typical growth with our students. So there are, while we're below and while we definitely have room for significant growth, we do see that our students are growing, but they're not growing fast enough to align with the state averages. So we're seeing improvements over the past years. It's just not enough to at least be on par with the state or exceed the state. We certainly see in grade six that our growth and state performance continue to decline. So that is a real red flag for us. It's been one that's been creeping up over the past years, and it's something that is certainly shining through again this past year.
On the next slide, this graph is going to show us that while we are narrowing that gap between the state results and Medford's results, it still persists. We want that to be way above the state, right? We're creeping up near the state, but not quickly enough and not high enough. So the gap is narrowing, but it persists. So why? We know that our secondary staff, and this is including grade 10, have Grade-level techs, they all access grade-level techs. They all engage in making data-informed decisions, looking at the MCAS like we're looking at it today, looking at MAP regularly. We have notice and wonder protocols. We make instructional shifts. We know when we walk into a sixth grade classroom, whether we're at the Andrews, McGlynn, or whatever teacher, we know that we have the same offerings. We're going to see the similar lesson classroom to classroom. So we know we're working hard, and yet we still see this dip.
As I continue to dig, my next step, the one before that, please. is looking at these MCAS domains. Is there a domain, a certain thing that I as the director can pull out that tells me this is where the problem is and this is the only real thing we need to zone in on? Not really. We see that our reading and our language, if you see that gray behind the teal, the gray is the state. So we see our reading and language is a little below the state, but it's below the state. We see our writing is certainly below the state and not at the percentages we want. But in each of these domains, while we know that essay and writing indicates a target area for growth, All domains show a need for improvement. So, when we are looking at our literacy curriculum, we can't just look at, oh, we just need to improve writing and we'll be all set. No, we need to look at all of the components within the ELA curriculum.
That's going to show you the slides below, the bar graphs below, just show you what that looks like for grades six, seven, and eight. Now when I look at digging a little deeper before I get into the domains in grade six, which is the slide previous, thank you, I wanna take a minute and I wanna look at the same data story that I looked at with civics. I wanna look at my high needs. students, again, my low-income students, my students with disabilities, and my EL and former ELs. All this to say that we could improve in every category within the grade level, but this is a different type of presentation this year. This is my data story focused on my most vulnerable populations. So I want to look at how my most vulnerable populations are doing and make sure that decisions that are being made in the future are really with those students at the forefront. What do we see? We see that our exceeding and meeting for our district for grade six, which again was our lowest performing grade last year, was at only at 14%, while the state, which is in parentheses there, was 22. When I dig deeper, I see that my low income students We're at 17% with the state at 22. Again, keeping in mind that these students could be duly identified, so we may be talking about the same students as we move category to category. But we see some real discrepancies as we continue across the page. We see students with disabilities, 6% received exceeding meeting compared to 10%. Our EL and former ELs, we only had 8% achieving and exceeding meeting proficiency level. when the rest of our state got 18. We have room for growth.
Grade seven's gonna tell you a similar story, although not quite as distinct. If I look at grade seven, I still see big discrepancies between how our most vulnerable kiddos are doing compared to how the rest of the state is doing. So again, I see another need to really zone in on our most vulnerable group and see how we can make changes to support them. For grade 8, we see that our students with disabilities achieved 13%. They exceeded the state average of 10, but we still want to keep growing. We want to get those numbers higher.
So what's the next step? And this is a scatterplot to kind of show you another view of what that looks like when we look at grade 6 through 8. We see a lot of room for growth for our most vulnerable populations and for our district overall, which leads us to our action plan for our secondary. For our secondary, we want to increase the percentage of all students receiving exceeding meeting on ELA MCAS through a coherent approach to acquiring HQIM for grades six plus. We know MCAS is a snapshot, right? It's one assessment, we can acknowledge that. We can acknowledge that we're also looking at other data points, but receiving a coherent approach to acquiring HQIM is gonna be critical for improvement at the secondary level.
How do we get there? Our first action step We have shared the MCAS, so I'm sorry while I'm on the other slide. Our first action is to share MCAS, map, and walk through data. We have done a lot of this in our department meetings. We look at data consistently and we do make those shifts. The fact that the teachers now have open architects has really empowered our teachers to build their capacity to look at their data and see where the opportunities for growth are. So that's great, but we still need more. When we go to our walkthrough data, Our look-fors, on the next slide, are we're looking for students, we're looking that students spend the majority of the lesson listening to, reading, writing, and or speaking about grade-level texts. And so this is some data that has come from our walkthroughs, and we're seeing that the majority of it is positive for look-for one. Look-for two delves more into the questions or tasks. are the tasks engaging our students to deepen their literacy knowledge using details, evidence from text. So while each classroom has grade level texts in place, and while they are the same classroom to classroom amongst the grades, the tasks are really an area that looks, just even from this walkthrough data, an opportunity to growth.
This tells me that our ELA curriculum succeeds in offering our students rich text. However, to take our instruction to the next level, our focus has to shift toward creating multiple entry points through these tasks, through these questions, for all of our students, so that every student, regardless of their starting point, is going to be able to meaningfully grasp and access the grade level tasks. In order to do this, we have to build our teacher capacity, first of all, in recognizing what does that look like? What does it really mean to engage in grade-level tasks so that all students have the entry points to get to those hard analytical questions? And these questions on these writing MCAS are not easy. They require you to look at multiple passages, to delve deeply into characters, and therefore we need our students to have those entry points to get to that success on the MCAS in March. Building teacher capacity has been huge. I have partnered with TNTP.
And we have really zoned in on anchoring text within the classroom. And the last PD in November was looking at elevating grade level tasks for all students. Our EL teachers joined in that, as well as some of our special education teachers. So we are making sure that not just one section of teachers are engaging in this important work, everybody is. That it's a shared vision in the spirit of cohesion. The ILTs at the middle school, I am part of the middle school ILT at the McGlynn, as are multiple other teachers, is another way to build teacher capacity. Doing walkthroughs, engaging in department meeting PG, as well as the faculty meeting PG. I've been very closely collaborating with the high school as well as the middle school to do this.
With all of that in mind, by building the teacher capacity, by looking at our data, by engaging in our walkthroughs, by empowering our teachers, that brings us to action three. Action three is where we identify and select a stronger HQIM selection that builds consistency through grade level questions and tasks and offers those entry points for all of our students, most importantly, our vulnerable populations. Last year, We began our ELA Curriculum Council to look at different programs that are available, different curricula that are available at the secondary level. We began that work last year and then I submitted a grant in May and we were approved the $261,000 to acquire a high quality instructional materials for our grades 6, 7, and 8 that will support all of our students within the middle schools.
That has a significant timeline associated with it. So you may have read the press release that outlined, I'm sure you did, that outlined the fact that we attained that. What we now are embarking on is this journey. In order to do this effectively, we are on a tight timeline, but we start slowly and then we'll move more quickly. Currently, we are in, these are the four phases of the Massachusetts implement guide. Phase one is learn and prepare. We began that last year, we continue with that now. Phase two is investigate and select. This is when we will begin investigating curriculum material at the secondary level and then making selections. We're fortunate that we were able, as part of the grant, we are able to partner with TNTP, who is already familiar with our district's needs, who is already engaged in the professional development for our students, for our teachers, and has also done multiple walkthroughs with our students to see our students and see the classroom instruction. And then we will make a selection, launch, and then implement a monitor.
So where we're at in the process is assembling the Curriculum Council. That has been done. It's an updated council from last year defining the instructional vision for our council. which is not identical to our district instructional vision. It has to be unique to the council, and then building the curriculum literacy. I spent a great deal of time working with the council, and the next slide I just want to share with you how we have approached building this council to make sure that we are representing all of our students. The next slide is going to show you that we have curriculum chairs. Myself and Ms. McNiff have partnered as what the Department of Education calls the team leaders. So we have the team leaders. But we went back to DESE and asked if we could go from what they wanted a four, I believe it was like a much smaller, maybe four person council. We, with our data in mind, knew that we needed a much bigger council that was representative of all of our different student needs. So we have council chairs from every department. We have an ELA classroom specific council chair. We have an EL. council chair, we have our interventionist, which is our literacy skills teacher within our middle school as a chair, and we have a special education chair. And then we made sure that the council itself had strong representation from all of these different categories, along with additional admin support. The council has been created. The council is moving quickly. The council with Ms. McNiff and myself have been doing quite a lot of work as we engage in the instructional vision.
The next step will be partnering with TNTP, engaging in materials review, undergoing field testing or piloting, and then selecting and adopting. In terms of a timeline, The state has moved up our timeline. It was originally September. We received a nice email a couple weeks ago that said that decision needs to be made in June. So we have to, we'll move quickly. We're moving slowly first and then moving quickly once our partner comes into play to select and adopt a secondary HQIM for ELA prior to June. After that, our work will be making sure the teachers are ready, comfortable, and have the PD they need to do this, and then to monitor it and make sure that we are seeing some gains, which will not be immediate. We know that from the elementary process that we went through before, but we will continue to work and make sure that we have a strong HQIM for our secondary, most importantly, our most vulnerable populations.
Thank you so much for your time.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Could I make a motion for a five-minute recess?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for a five-minute recess by Member Ruseau. Seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor?
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Aye.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: All those opposed?
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thanks, everybody. We can get back to business. Dr. Kahn, you just press the button with the little face. There you go, and then they'll turn on for you. Or I'll turn it on for you.
[SPEAKER_15]: Yep, give me one second. The gentleman was doing in there. There you go.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Ian. Thank you.
[Khan]: Okay, thanks for having me here. I am happy to report that we saw some progress in mathematics scores, including the scale scores. So here they are for this year. We see that they have increased from last year in grades four, five, and six. They have also gone up the meeting and exceeding percentages in grade eight. And we see that grades three through eight, We saw the scale score for the district go up in mathematics. Actually, grade six stayed at 493, which is from last year, but the other five grades that are highlighted here have gone up. This is a good improvement from last year. We continue to look for further improvements. However, I was pleased to see that it's moving in the right direction and something that we have been envisioning for quite some time. Thank you. Here are the SGPs. Last year we saw nine of them with the red arrow down, and that means it had decreased from last year, those respective scores for individual schools. And this year we have seen a decrease in the red arrows and an increase in the green ones. The two I would like to highlight are the fifth grade at the McGlynn with a 71% SGP and the seventh grade at the McGlynn as well with a 68% SGP. SGP is, I have given a small definition on the right side. Feel free to read it if there is any, if it's helpful. But we know that the SGP of 40 to 60% is what is considered normal. Closer to 60 is what a lot of us like to achieve. But to see these two, I was very, very happy to see that. And also Medford High School was 56%. Last year, it was 43%. So that was an increase as well.
at the high school level. And when you look at the cumulative SGP on the last slide, we also see that there are only two this year, downward facing in red. All the other ones have increased. So again, happy to see this progress to be made. Next slide please. Thank you. So my data story concentrates on grade eight mathematics data. And this is something that I had been thinking about for quite some time. I took charge in 2018, and at that time, at the end of sixth grade, students were selecting between 7th grade standard or 7th grade accelerated, it was called, and then COVID hit and we had to make some changes and some adjustments.
What we realized is that with the new frameworks in 2017, a lot of pre-algebra was being taught at the seventh grade level, so to split up students at that time wasn't fair and wasn't helping them build stronger foundations. And so we wanted to provide an opportunity for students to take the challenge, however, at an appropriate time. And that appropriate time, according to the way standards work at the seventh grade level, the best place to do was after seventh grade. So I concentrated on the grade eight data. We are concentrating as the math department on grade eight data. because the SGP of graded students at both schools and cumulatively this year decreased from last year. So it was something that stood out to me. I also noticed that that's the biggest SGP drop of all grades this year, and that also put the red alarm on in my head. I also know, we all know that grade eight is the first grade where students take CP or honors courses. So there's a lot at stakes here. And then the highest teacher turnout in the last five years has been at the eighth grade level at the middle school. So the data is right here for you. Eighth grade Andrews and the eighth grade McGlynn. The school mean SGPs dropped. Last year they were, 44 for the Andrews, and it's a 42, so a two-point drop. For the McGlynn 8th grade, it was 57 last year, and it's a 47 this year. When I looked at these data points, it seemed to me that my data story, my focus point, should be the 8th grade level. Next one, please. Thank you. So when we zone in on this, we are looking at the graded mathematics achievement levels over time. Meeting and exceeding was 40% 2023, then 30% 2025, 36% 2026. And so we are seeing that the 2026 rebound is encouraging, but it stays four points below 2023. And the other thing is that the not meeting is rising. It rose from 16% to 21% across the period. So notes to leadership, that's me and Dr. Talbot and Dr. Galusi, is that there is room for growth in the partially meeting, 43%, the students at the cusp, and we also notice that that's where the most discrepancy happens at all grade levels, but it's highlighted at the eighth grade level because it's such a crucial grade for so many students in Medford. Thank you. Next slide please. So 2026, we kept on looking at that data. We noticed that there is a proficiency rebound, but it's not a full recovery as we saw on the last slide. This is just another way of looking at it and we see that we need to note that that we need to keep the improvement in view without mistaking one year of recovery for a sustained trend because sustainability is the key to success. The up and down could happen because of the cohort changes. So we are shooting for sustainable mathematics recovery at this level and We also need to use the common interim evidence to check whether the improvement is broad-based or not. It's really important because, again, this grade impacts the incoming students, their confidence level in mathematics, and just the foundation as they enter integrated math one CP or integrated math one honors. We want confident mathematicians, students, walking into those courses, whether they choose to take CP or whether they choose to take the honors level, which actually is an open thing. They can choose, they can pick and choose, and we are there to support them through the summer programming if they choose to take honors or if they want to take the CP, entering into the ninth grade level. So thank you and next slide please. All right so here is what I saw that the decline is from 57 to 50 to 44. From 2024 to 2026 there's a negative 13 SGP points drop.
And I just let that sink in because I just want to make sure that, you know, we are keeping this in mind as we continue to work through our challenges. And with a positive mindset that our teachers can do it, our students can do it, but how can we support them? So, thank you. And next slide, please. All right, so here I was wondering, and my wonderings led me to this slide. Grade seven SGP of the same cohort of students was 54. For these students, when they moved up to grade eight, the SGP was 44. So I am wondering what happened here, because it's a 10 point difference across grade levels. and it's the same group of students. So we are not comparing apples to oranges, but rather apples to apples. And this is important that we, the instructional leadership team, keeps that in mind. And so we have the SGP right there, how many students were included in that, and we also have the meeting or exceeding expectations.
Thank you. All right, this is where we are digging really deeper into what's going on with the percentage possible points. This is just a sample. I picked these four because I am wondering why two of the biggest differentials as compared to the states, states scores are happening with the Pythagorean theorem. And so is that a pacing guide issue? Is that the way we are teaching it? Is it a curriculum issue? What's going on with this particular topic? And then of course we have something going on with the right triangle piece, which can be procedural for certain students, but it can also be very intellectual for certain students because that very closely relates to real life situations, like a light pole and the applications and the geometry piece of it. One thing that I have seen from last two or three years is a consistent issue with the last bullet point, which is find the quotient of the two numbers written in scientific notation. So as a team of four teachers at eighth grade level and myself, we need to look at What's going on with scientific notation piece? Is it the place value or is it, you know, how can it be taught better? Are we just concentrating too much on the procedural piece or are students actually understanding how to write it and then how is it written in the condensed form and how is it written in the expanded form? So there are many pieces to all of these and we just need to dig deeper. And so the blue arrows actually were pointing towards those two. where we need to concentrate. By the way, the illustrative mathematics that's being used to teach our standard 8th grade class, it starts with geometry. The very first unit is geometry. So I'm wondering if we are hustling through that unit to make sure that students get the algebra piece. But this is something that I need to continue discussing with the 8th grade teachers. The conversations have started, but I feel like we have much work to do here. And the next slide, please. All right. So here we are. So three signals from the data, as I mentioned. The teachers, 8th grade at the Andrews, there have been a huge, big turnover compared to other grades. Other teams are much more stable. The 8th grade team at the McGlynn has been the same. The 64% students below meeting expectations. was not the best of the indicators. Like, again, it just, I'm concerned about that. And the grade age average SGP, as you saw, was 44.
And that I would have ideally liked to see it closer to 50, at the very least. but the consistent decrease along with it being lower than 50 has me wondering. So notes to myself and the leadership is that the data identifies a priority for inquiry. They do not by themselves identify the cause. So we are looking at it and we are looking at there's a need for something. Now we need to dig deeper to figure out what the actual causes are and we'll continue to do that in our team meetings. Another thing is that since honors is first offered in grade eight, it's important to reflect on the teacher collaboration on instructional practice alignment and consistency. This piece is really important to me, especially because the seventh grade team across the two schools has been working seamlessly. And so because of the teacher turnover, I want to make sure that the teachers are learning from the experienced teachers, and experienced teachers are learning from what the new teachers are bringing to the table. That piece has always been very important to me, the learning, both ways learning, not just one way, and that just teacher collaboration in using the curriculum material and the delivery. That's very important to me that we have grade level tasks and that we have high expectations from all our students regardless of which school they're at or which classroom they're at or if they are an EL or a 504 or IP, it doesn't belong. We need to have high expectations and I think we have some, we have work going on in terms of the mindset shift that is Important, it takes time, but it's not going unnoticed and it's not going unchallenged at all the levels. And the last but not least is that the leadership question is not only how do we raise MCAS scores, but how do we organize our instruction to more student master grade level mathematics. And I know it has been a highlight at the high school. I would love to send students well prepared to do the grade level tasks at the high school, so that they hit the ground running with that. So thank you. And then the next slide is, so in mathematics, we always think about the guiding question. But before we have the guiding question, we have to think about what went on, and then we have to come to the core question.
We started from the district's work. We named instructional coherence. We named grade level access, aligned practices, and data systems as collective priorities. We have done that. My personal concentration continues to stay on grade level access, and the aligned practice, which is what I feel like there's much need to do the work on. Grade eight mathematics gives us a concrete place to examine what those priorities look like in practice. My guiding question is, where can greater coherence across grade 7 to grade 8 happen? CP to honors pathways, fidelity of curriculum implementation, assessments and teacher planning, and how can we create stronger opportunities for every single grade 8 mathematician? And the core question is, what does the grade eight mathematics data tell us about access, growth, coherence, and that transition, which is, oh, so very important. So thank you, and the next slide, please.
So here's what I envision, and we need to have a dream so that we can work towards it. Greater coherence in grade eight mathematics should look like this, the belonging piece. Every student experiences access to meaningful grade level mathematics and appropriate challenge. That will happen with the mindset shift. consistency, essential standards, assessment expectations, interventions, and enrichment are aligned across classrooms and pathways, that they're accessible. Enrichment is accessible to all students at all times. Again, it's a dream. We are working towards it. But if we don't have a dream, we are not going to be able to reach it. Coherence, which is our focus point, teachers have protected structures to co-plan, examine student work, respond to evidence, and adjust instruction. I can't mention enough times that this is something at the heart of what I'm thinking we need to work on. The data systems, we have MCAS, we have SGPs, we have common assessments, and we are working towards creating more common assessments. Course placement evidence and classroom evidence inform an ongoing improvement cycle. We are a big believer in improvement cycle. We always are improving, if not on one thing or the other, but right now we need to improve on. as you saw the SGP and the scores. The goal is not simply to improve a score. It is to strengthen the instructional system that produces opportunity and growth for every single student. Next slide, please. Thank you. So my action plans are as listed here. And I'm happy to go in detail on each and every one of them. But this is just a summary. The goal is what I'm looking at here. I want to decrease the percentage of partially meeting and increase the percentage of exceeding and meeting expectations at least by 3%. And I would love to see the increase in SGP to 50% for our grade 8 students.
We can go to the next slide and I can go into the action steps. Action number one, sharing MCAS data. All teachers have access to MCAS data, but it's my job to make sure that I provide a space for them to discuss their MCAS data with each other. We need to identify the group of students with lowest and cusp scores of MCAS, the lowest performing standards for the last two years. I just showed you for this past year. The placement of these standards in the pacing guide and the tasks used to teach these standards and the prerequisites for these standards. So the pacing guides are actually revised and reflected on by the teachers in our June department meeting. And we want to do that work sooner and earlier this year. And we want to make sure that it's being done.
Two pieces of evidence are here for you to provide evidence that the work has already started. And this is the grade eight pacing guide. Again, developed by the teachers, for the teachers, approved by me. But again, it's after much consultation with each other. And then we have shown a sample of the template the teachers just used in the October department meeting to take a look at their data and reflect on it and see what exactly. can be improved upon. Next action item is creating common grade level tasks and using common assessments. I have always believed that common assessments provide us a good dipstick across classrooms. I know students are different. We acknowledge that. in every single classroom, we have a different cohort of students, but there needs to be some baseline data. Other than MCAS, which is an adaptive test, and other than MCAS that gives us the results, you know, many months later, we need instant quick check, and I think common assessments will provide us with that. So I am thinking this will be done using common planning time across two schools to facilitate eighth grade teachers' collaboration on analyzing the data while maintaining high expectations from all students. This is the agenda from our just very recent PD on November 3rd. And the next one is a snapshot of a common assessment that the teams did as a part of that November 3rd PD. As you can see, it was done between 2.15 and 3.45.
The teachers are now putting in these common assessments the grade level standards so that we can quickly assess as to where the need is, what standard isn't doing so well in our common assessments. Next action item, please. Thank you. Of course, we continue to look at how to strengthen the feedback process. The math look for, simply put, the first one is about the curriculum. That is, are we using grade level tasks? Are we using a strong curriculum? The second look for is instructional practices. Most importantly, the instructional practice that the teachers are identifying. It's called collect and display technique as in the teacher starts from the group of students who got step one done and then display their work and then move on to the next level, higher level work by another group, then another group, and then the last one is basically stamping the learning. And some of that stamping the learning is done by the teacher when they see that the students are not there. and they have to move on to the next point or the next concept, then they actually just gather everybody together and make sure that the point is driven home. Students have gotten the concept and then next day they do a little bit of reteaching or a little bit of do now. and making sure that students get it before and the formative assessment before they move on to the next concept because math spirals and we all know that piece also very well that if the foundations are not there for that particular concept, the next concept will be weaker. I think we have work to do. But we are working on it. The last slide for me is the interim measures that we are using. We have open architects, which is an amazing tool. I'm using it. The teachers used it. And we'll continue to look at the NWEA map data as well, and of course the school brains where we have the class data for each of these common assessments. We want to make sure we provide teachers with research-backed professional learning in gap-closing strategies during PD day and allow collaboration time during department meetings. None of my department meetings are, you know, stand and deliver. We always give some time to the teachers to discuss and that's where we are at. We'll continue to do that work in the department meetings. Thank you. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Khan. Thank you.
[Rocco Cieri]: Good evening, everyone. We're going to round this out with reviewing some of the science results. We will start with the overall science proficiency. And as Dr. Talbot pointed out, the down arrows refer to the data from the year before within the district. And the up arrows, the same thing with the up arrows. So it's year to year data. And then you have the comparison to the state and the scale district scores. So, I'm just going to highlight on this particular slide at grades 5, 8 and grades 9 and 10 when the MCAS exams are given that while at grade 5 we've seen a decline From year to year, we are one percentage point above the state in the exceeds and meets.
Then in grade eight, we are five percentage points above the state in exceeds and meets. and also improved over the year-over-year last year, and then we declined in grades 9 and 10 year-over-year, but are above the state at this point. So in all three grade levels, we are, compared to the state, we are doing pretty well. If you recall from Dr. Talbot's intro, the scaled scores are in line with those previous ones. They're still below what we would call the meeting expectations baseline. Meeting expectations baseline would be at a 500, so we're trending below that right now, but we're within earshot of getting an average of meeting expectations in the district. So I will move on to the next slide. This is just to bring back the idea of the accountability. And you can see that overall, the district is considered moving forward, which means that they trend our scaled scores higher for the upcoming school year in almost every single category.
And while they They put together the grades three through eight information. Realistically, we only give the tests in grade five and grade eight. So just keep that in mind as you look at the data. But overall, we're trending forward. We're beyond pandemic effects, and we're progressing forward. The same is true for the high school overall. However, you can see that There are some subcategories that we need to work with, but this isn't much different than all the rest of the data that you've seen. We still need to work with some of our most need students. That includes the low-income students with disabilities, ELs, and the high-need students, which is sort of like a conglomerate of the data. Next slide, please.
So when I started to think about what data would seem an interest level to faculty and something to work on would be looking at the differences between our not low income students and our low income students. And I'm just reporting out the district level, not low income and low income compared to itself. And this is a really powerful number to look at. it resonated with faculty that these are the students that are present in our classrooms. There's really, it's indistinguishable in the classroom, and yet they're having these really divergent outcomes on testing. And so even being exposed and given the same supposed resources, the same teachers, we're seeing these disparate results. And at grade five, we have a gap of 35% on the meets and exceeds levels. And that gap is about 35. Sorry, it's 35%.
If you go on and look at the high school, I left out grade eight just to kind of condense the story and allow you to see what happens at high school. The graphs are different because this data had to be pulled from the DESI website and not from our open architects in order for me to get the data itself at the point at which I needed it. And you can see that non-low income is at 62% exceeds and meets, and our low income students are at 22% exceeds and meets. So the gap persists as students travel through the district curriculum. And then, in some ways, it It widens. And so my thought was, well, we have an opportunity to make a change here. There's clearly...
something that can be improved through instruction and it is meaningful to the entire district and the system and the teachers that they feel like they can use this information to be able to raise the level of instruction. So while this is a really serious thing to look at, I think Collectively we would all find a way to move this gap to narrow the gap and move the kids forward. And that's where this goal comes from. So it's to increase the number of low income students receiving exceeds and meets on the science MCAS from currently from 34 percent to 38 percent and more.
and then to decrease the gap for low-income students from 35% to 28%. And there are three action steps there, and then some measurements, which I'll go through on the subsequent slides rather than read them on this particular slide. So, we can go right to the next slide. So, the first action will be to share the data just like I've shared with you. I've shared with faculty 6 through 12 and 3 through 5. what this data looks like and how it impacts their outcomes in the future. So this is one example of it. And then the next slide has another data set that I'd like to share with you, which is that this is from the NWEA map fall test taking session. and highlighted on this slide are the average RIT scores. Now the reason I'm sort of zoning in on that is because those scores can be used to create a predictive algorithm for the current students that are in those grade levels so that we can move them, progress them forward. So we know where they are right now and we can make predictions about what might be if they remain at that level or if they improve. And I will tell you, I'm confident that teachers work and make an impact on students. And so knowing that, these scores are not static scores. They, through the course of the year, experiencing instruction, they improve. So it gives us an opportunity to make some predictions about what we believe the scores will be. On the next slide, you can see it.
So on the left-hand most column is a MAP-RIT score. Directly across from the MAP-RIT score would be their predicted MCAS score. And then what they would, it's the 95% bound rate of where they would score in their lowest versus highest, their worst day and their best day in some ways. The interesting thing is this isn't available anywhere. There's no sort of, I don't think this is done anywhere else. So Medford is the first, I think, the first district that gets to see this kind of data and use NWA map in this way.
But it is pretty powerful. Just using the map data allows us to see where student gaps may be. And then we can target instruction which is part of the action steps to support learners all the way through. And we can get some sense of where they might be, you know, moving forward grade to grade. As we, yeah, before we leave this one, usually when we look at MCAS scores, at least in the past, all other testing subjects, math and ELA, would have annual testing that you could look at, cohort level and grade level. In science, you're giving a test in grade five, you're giving a test in grade eight, you have no way of knowing what's going to happen, and so it's a very reactive kind of result.
And so by using the NWEA map, we can almost have a sense of where the kids are going as they go through the school year and through the years before they get to the test and plan some better strategies around what makes sense for them. So this is the power of that predicted MCAS score. And this is partially work that I requested of OA, but the year prior I requested of my son, who can do statistics better than I can.
We de-identified the scores. I asked him to create a graph. We looked at the correlation. I was shocked to see the correlation. I think I went to Dr. Talbot's office and with a piece of paper, like a crazy scientist, look, look, look. And it was really exciting that the next, the weekend, that weekend, I had him do the numbers for grade eight and grade 10 because I needed to see if it held all the way through. And it did. And then we used it this year with a new data set so that we could make sure that we were always dynamically improving the model. rather than just using the old model. So it's living and it's very, like the numbers are very stable compared to last year and this year. They're really, the data set gets bigger and it stays exactly where it was. So it can be very, it's a very good data set.
And it's based on our own students. So we're not asking for generic sets of data. We're using our own student data to make the model. In the classroom, we're really looking at tier one instruction. And what that really means is what are we using with the students to improve their understanding of science. And I really think that communication is critical, both writing and verbal communication. And in particular, being able to write in a structured way at the elementary level, in the middle school, and in the high school. High school and middle school often use what are called claim evidence and reasoning tools to write, and we just introduced very similar things down in elementary school so that we can look at student work both how they're writing their responses to activities with the same framework and then trying to drive into what it means to cite evidence from experimentation versus citing evidence from a text or a first person account or things like that that you would have in other subject areas. So it's important to understand that difference.
So that's one area where we're making a difference using grade level tasks and then aligning rubrics. Next slide. We are also looking at walkthrough data and similar to what you've heard from my colleagues, we look at walkthrough data. The graphs that you're seeing are two of the areas that we're collecting data on together. Both are sort of in a similar vein as to what is going on in the other subject areas, but I was really interested in finding out how teachers are chunking information and then checking on understanding because when we go into classrooms and try to understand, find the temperature of the classroom. If you were trying to identify what kind of learnings were happening, you would want to look at those transitions. If an educator were lecturing for 55 minutes and never took the time to check to see whether kids were learning. then they would never know whether the students were absorbing the material. So this is a way to check on that, that every 10 or so minutes, 10 to 15 minutes, there's some kind of check for understanding. This is one of the things that we're looking for in the data. I believe it's a graph that says, Teacher deliberately checks for understanding throughout the lesson and adapts the lesson according to student understanding. And then the second one was, at the end of the lesson, how do you tie it all together?
The reason that some of this is coming in, it says no evidence and none expected, because we're not often going in at the end of a lesson. And so you can't check for a summary unless you're in there for the end. We wanted to leave room for making sure that we weren't collecting the data on something that wasn't expected to be present at that time. So you see about half the time we go in when it's at the summary, and half the time we don't. It just depends on what we're visiting. Also, there's got to be some strategic grouping, which is another thing that we work on at department meetings. How do people group? Do you just let them pick a partner? Do you let them pick their friends? Do they work strategically? What is the teacher doing to group students when they're doing experimentation, when they're, you know, collaborating to create an argument, make claims, all of those things need, you know, there are different ways of arranging the classroom and strategically putting students together so that they're communicating across one another. And then what roles do they have when they're doing that so that they get a chance not only to do the experiment but also to present and lead some of the discussions around it.
You know, in terms of observations, not only are we doing walkthroughs, we're doing observations on and providing feedback to educators along the way. Finally, the last thing is to look at these data systems. And you've heard again through our colleagues that Open Architects is one of our tools. School Brains is another tool. NWEA Map, as you can see, is a really strong, it has the capacity to allow us sort of, it's not standards-based, but it is standardized in the sense that we deploy it universally across the district and to all our students so that we can collect data. And it gives us some, you know, good information that is big picture. You can look at it small picture and look individually at student scores and support learners in that way, but we can also look big picture to try to make some predictions and adjustments too.
curriculum, and also see if there are some hot spots that you really need to keep track of. And then providing, again, you've probably heard this, the research-backed professional learning and gap closing strategies and talking about these things during department meetings, CPT meetings across the district and across grade levels. So these are some of the things that we've been working on already in the past few months to try to work on that bigger goal of narrowing that gap that you just heard about and also improving scores for the students in not just the MCAS, but it really it's MCAST is kind of like one test amongst things, but it allows us to try to make an impact on student learning overall. It's kind of like a pressure tester. And we really want to make sure that we're giving kids the best opportunity to succeed in the future. So that's the way we use it.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. All right.
[Kim Talbot]: So, wow, so that was our MCAS presentation. That wasn't really an MCAS presentation, but using MCAS as a way to peel back the onion so you can understand with confidence the kinds of people who are leading instruction in our district and the thoughtful ways that they use MCAS outcomes as well as other data systems to plan for change. So I'll invite everyone to come back up. I'm not sure if you're ready for questions or not.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not sure if there are any questions, but we really appreciate the detailed presentation. Thank you very much to all four of you. Great job.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Mayor? Member Ruseau? I just want to say thank you, and I'll send an email with my questions, and I encourage my colleagues to as well, because, I mean, obviously ask away, but I'm too tired.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: No, I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you put into these. I know this was a lot and for experimenting with a new format from what we've typically seen. I will also send comments over email. I think one of the questions I have particularly for Dr. Chiesa and Dr. Khan is how this matches and lines up with what you're seeing in the classrooms. I know you have a lot more data because your subjects test more frequently in terms of the ELA and math. So, I'm just curious. And I will say there seems to be a focus on middle school data and with some unevenness. And so, I'm just curious how much of that could potentially be tied to the experimentation around new schedules. I think that was the only theme I saw. So, I'd love reflection. Because I think it matches some of the unevenness we're seeing in middle school matches some of what our great configuration task force is finding of really wanting to look at middle school and that transition between elementary and into high school. And so I'm just curious. There's a lot happening at middle school and so it's probably worth a deeper conversation than we have time for.
[Kim Talbot]: Well that's great and I invite you to send your questions to me and I'll forward along to my team and we'll find the best way to bring that information back to this body. So you can send them all to me. Thank you. Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Next up we have recommendation to approve Roberts accelerated repair funding. Mr. Ken Lord, Chief Operations Officer.
[Kenneth Lord]: Thank you, the MSBA, Massachusetts School Building Authority at their October 28th board meeting approved the Roberts Accelerator Repair Program, and we're here to start the process of seeking funding for that program.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Mayor? Member Graham? Thanks. So for the rest of the group, there's a paper that will go before the City Council next week?
[Kenneth Lord]: 17th.
[Member Jenny Graham]: The 17th to appropriate the $23,547,692 for the Roberts Accelerated Repair Program. And I think the vote that we're seeking tonight is just a recommendation to support the passage of that paper from the mayor to the council and for the council to appropriate the funding so that we can move forward. And there's some time sensitivity to all of this because The funding needs to be in place in order to be able to begin construction next year. I'd make a motion to recommend the passage of the paper that will go before the council.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Do you want a roll call? Member Ruseau, thank you.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Member Graham?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Member Rastraponi? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Parks? Yes. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Rossell? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, motion passes. Next up is a recommendation to approve Misitech Elementary and Brooks Elementary CM-R application for ARP project. Again, Mr. Ken Lord, Chief Operations Officer.
[Kenneth Lord]: Thank you. At your last school committee, you received a presentation on using construction manager at risk process for the Roberts School project. And our OPM is asking that we also approve that for the potential projects for Brooks and Missituk. This will allow them to proceed with one application to the Office of Inspector Generals rather than three separate ones to expedite that process. So it's very simple. If you're in favor of that, to just to make that motion to approve that.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Is there a motion on the floor?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Motion to approve the Missittuc and Brooks to go see them at risk for accelerated repair.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: By Member Graham, seconded by Member Reinfeld. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Lord. I asked you to be quick and you were very timely. No presentations of the Student Advisory Council, no presentations of the public, no continued business. We do have new business 20-26, revision to policy IC school year slash school calendar policy offered by member Graham and member Reinfeld.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Mayor?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham.
[Member Jenny Graham]: In your packet, you have a compare of the current policy versus what is being proposed, and there's essentially two changes that we are bringing forward. One is to formally recognize Orthodox Easter as a holiday. Orthodox Good Friday. Sorry. Orthodox Good Friday as an E and a B, which means it's an excused absence for students and it is blocked from major tests, et cetera. And then an alignment of the Lunar New Year to also be an E and a B to be more consistent with time required away from those subject, from Instead of being a no school day, being aligned with similar treatment to Orthodox Good Friday and other holidays for which we have student populations, but not large ones.
[Member Erika Reinfeld]: And there's a minor text change to remove Chinese New Year because Lunar New Year is celebrated by multiple cultures, including Chinese New Year. But just acknowledge the diversity of Lunar New Year celebrants. Motion to approve the first reading. Motion to approve the first reading by Member Reinfeld seconded by
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Parks, all those in favor?
[Julia Foster]: Aye.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: All those opposed? Paper passes. Motion to waive the second reading. Second. Motion to waive the second reading by Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Second reading is waived.
[Member Paul Ruseau]: I'm just picking names at this point.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: 20-26-26 resolution to approve press release supporting the Medford High School project. contact Steve Smurdy and Will Pepicelli, Medford's elected officials, support the Medford High School building project and outline next steps. Motion to waive the reading? Motion to waive the reading if everybody's had a chance to read this in their Friday packets. There's a press release. We're hoping to get the city council and school committee to sign off on, so all 14 electeds support the press release and put it out sometime soon. Is there a motion on the floor?
Motion to approve? I move to Graham, seconded by member Mastrobuoni. All those in favor?
[Member Paul Ruseau]: Aye.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: All those opposed? Paper passes. 2026-27 offered by member Mastrobuoni. Be it resolved that the Facilities and Capital Planning Subcommittee will meet to review the status of the district's capital projects, identify and prioritize outstanding needs, and recommend an updated plan. Is there a motion or would you like to speak on it?
[Member Mike Mastrobuoni]: Briefly, yeah. I suspect this will be a pretty similar process to last year. Call meetings to update where we are on existing projects, look at the next in the hopper, make sure everything is prioritized the way the district wants and then share that to mayor and city council. So I don't know how we dispose of these. Does it get sent to subcommittee or?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, motion to send to subcommittee. I think it says that anyway.
[Member Mike Mastrobuoni]: So motion for approval. I move for approval.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Mastrobuoni, seconded by Member Reinfeld. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes. No reports requested and we do have one condolence. The members of the Medford School Committee expressed their sincerest condolences to the family of Maureen Hufford Rossi. Maureen devoted 30 years to teaching in Medford. as both a special education and a first grade teacher. If we all may rise for a moment of silence. Thank you. Our next regularly scheduled meeting is in two weeks, Thanksgiving week, November 23rd, 2026, Alden Memorial Chamber.
|
total time: 9.3 minutes total words: 1293 |
total time: 9.39 minutes total words: 1539 |
total time: 3.92 minutes total words: 622 |
total time: 2.02 minutes total words: 420 |
|
total time: 8.85 minutes total words: 1344 |
total time: 2.53 minutes total words: 317 |
total time: 1.24 minutes total words: 182 |
|