[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you very much.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: I will display it proudly.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, Peter needs to wear the belt.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Dr. Cushy.
[Paul Teixeira]: The EL Summer Enrichment Program, we have various programs that happen starting in the end of June.
[Paul Teixeira]: It starts with a one-week STEM camp at Hanscom Air Force Base through STAR Labs, which is a week-long STEM camp for students in fifth and sixth grade.
[Paul Teixeira]: They do robotics, engineering, computer design.
[Paul Teixeira]: They build rockets.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to launch them.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's kind of fun.
[Paul Teixeira]: and after that ends then we roll into our summer enrichment program which it's basically uh k through eight uh k through five is at the missatuck our numbers actually doubled this year we typically have about 45 students in the program during the summer and this year we had almost 100.
[Paul Teixeira]: Then at the middle school, which we host up at the high school, we run a middle school summer enrichment program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we do an add-on program for credit recovery for high school students to get what they need.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if they failed a class, it's a combination of enrichment and credit recovery.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we also offer tutoring at the Medford Public Library, and that's for our secondary students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Teachers will do office hours, just one hour, and it fluctuates based on availability.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's mornings and evenings.
[Paul Teixeira]: And students who need help with getting their summer reading done, picking out books, any other math or history packets at the secondary level, there's a teacher there to kind of guide them through that through the summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those, Dr. Cushing, if you want, I just have pictures of what we did.
[Paul Teixeira]: Also at the elementary program, we contracted with High Touch High Tech, which is a science organization that's in Massachusetts and Maine, I think.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they come and we get to pick what they're going to do.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think last year was bridges, beams, and columns.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year they did electricity.
[Paul Teixeira]: They learned how to build circuits.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the scientists come and they rotate through the grades throughout the day.
[Paul Teixeira]: Dr. Cushing?
[Paul Teixeira]: And then with the elementary program, because this is enrichment and it's paid for out of Title III, we try to plan a field trip every week.
[Paul Teixeira]: Because of our increased numbers, we actually had to separate out.
[Paul Teixeira]: So all of the students got to go to the Franklin Park Zoo.
[Paul Teixeira]: But the Children's Museum and the Aquarium, we divided it K-2 and 3-5 to offset the numbers because Title III will pay the admission, the transportation costs, everything for the students for the enrichment program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Dr. Cushing.
[Paul Teixeira]: These are just various photos of the field trips that the students went on.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the summer curriculum is tied into what the students are learning.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, you know, there's an animal component, there's sea life, there's, you know, general academics that also happen.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then these are photos from Starbase.
[Paul Teixeira]: This was actually building bridges.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this was CAD design for programming the robots too.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then again, as Ms.
[Paul Teixeira]: Bowen said, this wouldn't have happened without the support of the teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is the list of all of the teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: I was also fully staffed.
[Paul Teixeira]: I was very lucky because of the increased numbers that I managed to get some additional staff to support the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then also a special thanks to Anthony Petralis because
[Paul Teixeira]: what we do is our program ends at noon but what we've done with him is arranged that we have 30 slots for the after-school program that they can go into summer fun i provide the teachers as an add-on so students can stay and get the full day in if they choose
[Paul Teixeira]: So we took a list.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we send out a separate permission slip after students show up and register, and we keep a separate list.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as students, not every student that signed up could go on to Summer Fun because we only have the 30 slots.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can't overwhelm the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: but anyone that signed up for it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if a student was absent, we could rotate through, we would call and say, oh, you know, child can stay today.
[Paul Teixeira]: So almost everybody got, you know, that wanted to got to experience it at some point.
[Paul Teixeira]: I wish I had an answer.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was a surprise when the registration started coming in and we were counting up the numbers and making the class lists.
[Paul Teixeira]: I just, I don't have a reason.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like I said, it gave me it because of the registration and we'll accept registrations the day of, because again, it's enrichment.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, it allowed us to give us a little lag time because we had that week off to recruit two more teachers for the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, it all comes out of the Title III grant.
[Paul Teixeira]: So like I said, they were building bridges, so I don't know if that's what that program would be for, but then the other program in the other picture was coding so they could actually program their robots to follow a track, and then the robots fight the little robot wars.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's amazing.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was a little more than just one week.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um, sure.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, I'm Baltic Sarah.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm the director of the English learner education program for the Medford public schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, we can see you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we use the map data a little bit differently.
[Paul Teixeira]: We'll have all of our students, whether they're newcomers or Yale pullout students, they take the math map test because that's informing us, obviously,
[Paul Teixeira]: Fifth grade looks different in Brazil than it does in China, than it does in Haiti, than it does in the US.
[Paul Teixeira]: So because it is based on the standards, we can target what our students are missing, not due to lack of instruction here, but what they didn't get in their countries prior to coming in, because we place them by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if they're in seventh grade and they missed fifth grade skills, we can hone in on that using the map data.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then for the ELA map, only our pull-out students who are level 3-4 EL or higher will take the map ELA test.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we use that data to make our placement decisions.
[Paul Teixeira]: If they're ready to exit from the EL program, it's another piece of data in addition to the access test, if we can place them in mainstream classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we also just, we use the science in a similar way.
[Paul Teixeira]: MCAS is just fifth and eighth grade there, but it helps us kind of hone in on what skills that they may be missing because of cultural differences with educational systems in different countries.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, so we do have a separate ELD curriculum, English Language Development curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I'm not sure.
[Paul Teixeira]: I have a different list that I added, and I may have missed this, Suzanne.
[Paul Teixeira]: As you were going through it, I didn't add my stuff.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have English language development curriculum based on students' grade level and their English language proficiency level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so currently right now what's happening in the elementary, because we now have a new program into reading, the HMH program, our EL curriculum hasn't changed, but we're updating the curriculum to support the new materials being used to deliver that curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: I will be fast.
[Paul Teixeira]: All right.
[Paul Teixeira]: So you guys got a pretty thick packet.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're not gonna go over the whole thing.
[Paul Teixeira]: I sent you the ELE requirements because even though it just says like parent notification, there's like three pages of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I just wanted you to understand what the requirements are.
[Paul Teixeira]: on everything that this review does.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it occurs every six year with a three-year check-in.
[Paul Teixeira]: And for the past year, I've been working on this with DESE, uploading, they wanna know our procedures, they wanna see samples of all of the documentation that we send home to caregivers, our report cards, our progress reports, and then they pull individual student records.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they look at, you know, they want to make sure if it's a student who's bilingual who has an IEP that there was an interpreter at their meeting and they, you know, want verification for the sign in sheets and all of this gets uploaded to Desi's portal.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was probably about 1000 pages of paperwork that they got in preparation for this review.
[Paul Teixeira]: They do that every six years.
[Paul Teixeira]: They came to the district, they interviewed caregivers, students, teachers, administrators, and then they did walkthroughs through the classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's what the tiered focus monitoring is for the EL department.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is the criteria.
[Paul Teixeira]: There are 12 different areas that they look at.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like I said, each area has subgroups and pretty involved compliance at the federal level and also at the state level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is the legal requirement and the implementation.
[Paul Teixeira]: This was a sample just to show you what they look for for one criterion.
[Paul Teixeira]: So upon their review, they give a rating system for each criterion, and then if it's implemented, the requirement's substantially met in all important aspects.
[Paul Teixeira]: If it's partially implemented, the requirement in one or several of those aspects, like the subgroups, may not be met, and then not implemented is the requirement is substantially not met.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we met or exceeded the state and federal implementation requirements in 10 out of 12 focus areas.
[Paul Teixeira]: we received partially implemented in two out of the 12 focus areas.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the two areas we had were ELE program placement and structure, which again, that's like three pages of requirements, and ELE 14, which is the licensure requirements.
[Paul Teixeira]: The program and placement structure was a result of being under 50% for students making progress on the access test.
[Paul Teixeira]: we are at 38%.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I did pull the state data and surrounding districts just to show you we're all in the same boat.
[Paul Teixeira]: We just happen to have a curriculum, I mean, a coordinated program review or a tiered focus monitoring this year, but we are at 38%.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now, I realize we don't wanna be in line with the state, we wanna be higher.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we do have to do corrective action on how we're going to adjust that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we did.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is a report that came out in November 23 about the rising numbers of unmet needs with immigrant newcomer students in Massachusetts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So again, this isn't a Medford issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is a statewide issue, but we are taking steps to help course correct with this.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is the action plan to get us out of corrective action for ELE 5, and I'm not going to go over it because you have it all in your packets.
[Paul Teixeira]: This was submitted to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and they approved this plan as a feasible plan to make the adjustments that we need to.
[Paul Teixeira]: There are a lot of things happening in the district that I do believe will contribute to increased scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: Everything from our new curriculum for early literacy, the science of reading that's happening in the schools, because our EL students are integrated in all of those classes, that will be a factor.
[Paul Teixeira]: in achievement and growth.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we have the MAP growth, we have DIBLS testing, so we can do our formative assessments and check-ins throughout the year and adjust accordingly.
[Paul Teixeira]: ELE 14 was on licensure requirements.
[Paul Teixeira]: This wasn't licensure for EL, this was a concern with Gen Ed classroom teachers not having the SEI endorsement.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is a relatively easy fix.
[Paul Teixeira]: Because our numbers have grown dramatically in the last few years, there were many teachers who couldn't take the SEI class because they had to have EL students in their classroom in order to take that class.
[Paul Teixeira]: That was one of the requirements when DESE was offering that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so if they never had an EL student in their class, they were never flagged with DESE as needing the endorsement.
[Paul Teixeira]: But as our numbers have grown and our EL students are in more and more classrooms, that's what triggered this.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we think we have about 18 teachers who need the endorsement.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're working with principals to get an exact list.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then in the fall,
[Paul Teixeira]: We will work with the teachers to help them get the endorsement that they need.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so by January of 2025, we should be all set.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions?
[Paul Teixeira]: Have a great night.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our new members.
[Paul Teixeira]: Tonight's presentation is an overview of the EL program to kind of help the new members understand what's happening in Medford with our English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: The program that we have is a sheltered English immersion program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's a two component program where we ensure that students get access to grade level content curriculum, as well as English as a second language instruction to support English language development among our learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have programs in every elementary school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have newcomer programs for students who are at the foundational level of English language acquisition at the McGlynn and at the Missituk in grades one through five.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we have EL pullout in every elementary school for students who are at the transitional level, which is three through five.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then at the middle school, we have a program at the McGlynn Middle School, which encompasses newcomers as well as ESL.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then at the high school, we have a newcomer program and ESL program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we offer, we have a dedicated teacher on the vocational side of the house to support newcomer students as well as transitional students with the CTE programs that we offer.
[Paul Teixeira]: How these decisions are made is based on when students register, they fill out a home language survey form, which is a federal form that everyone's required to complete.
[Paul Teixeira]: When we complete the registration, we test the students for their English language proficiency.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a test that include all four domains.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's four separate tests and listening, reading, writing, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: We administer the test, we get a level, we create a schedule and determine which program the students will go in.
[Paul Teixeira]: Once the students have been in the program for a year, they take something called ACCESS.
[Paul Teixeira]: That is a state mandated test similar to MCAS, but it's specifically for English learner students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, it measures the four domains of language.
[Paul Teixeira]: And based on this, they take the test in January, we get the results the end of May, and then we make our placement decisions in June for the following September.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is only one piece of data that we use to make our placement determinations.
[Paul Teixeira]: We use a lot of district determined measures, such as map scores, we do writing prompts that are used, that are scored using the WIDA writing rubric, which is what the ELD curriculum is based upon.
[Paul Teixeira]: So enrollment numbers, I have the history going back to 2015-16, and I'm keeping it in there because eventually we're going to hit 700 students, and I want to know how many years it took us to double our numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So at this moment, and this says 631, but today we just had 632 join Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have 632 English learner students.
[Paul Teixeira]: That number is in real time.
[Paul Teixeira]: At the end of the year, when DESE runs their report, the number will go down because if you see 22, 23, that was at 528, but we actually at one point had 580 students last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: DESE counts a student as an English learner in the previous year if they are recorded in our SIMS data, our student information management system, for two cycles.
[Paul Teixeira]: So when we do our October report and our March report, then the student counts.
[Paul Teixeira]: If the March report and the June report, the number counts.
[Paul Teixeira]: But any students that leave us in the interim, even though they may have been with us for three months, don't count in those numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if you look at the bottom, we have how many students were tested.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, which one?
[Paul Teixeira]: This year, just since the school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've tested 391 new students.
[Paul Teixeira]: in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: Of those 391, 259 qualified for EL services.
[Paul Teixeira]: But then we've also had 134 students withdraw from the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a very fluid population of English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have students who will come here because they may have existing family.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get started here in Medford, then they find their own housing, they move out.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have students that go back to their home country.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have students that just leave the district to, unfortunately, many high school students, they go into the workforce to support and help their families.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we've had 134 withdrawals this year, but basically 765 students have passed through our doors to date for English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with that, we have university partnerships.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have a partnership with Lesley University.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have an elementary education program with an add-on Yale license.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what that means is while they're completing their coursework, they do a year-long internship in one of our newcomer classrooms in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we get,
[Paul Teixeira]: a teacher candidate from August through June.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the great piece of this is that essentially we get to train the teacher, and when we have openings, we can hire them.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're certified in both areas, and they're familiar with the district, they're familiar with our protocols.
[Paul Teixeira]: The other university partnership we have is the UMass program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Last year, I presented to you that we were part of a grant opportunity with the US Department of Education to have 15 seats for a free half masters in applied linguistics.
[Paul Teixeira]: and that gets teachers an ESL certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's for existing teachers in the district to kind of broaden their teaching acumen so that they can put forth all of the teaching strategies beyond retail into their classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this program ends in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had 13 people successfully complete the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: and they'll be duly certified in their content area as well as ESL if they pass the MTEL.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have a District English Learner Advisory Council that is similar to Special Education CPAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: I call this, many districts will call it an LPAC, English Language Parent Advisory Council.
[Paul Teixeira]: I like to take the word parent out of it because many of our students are here without their parents.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so this is the equivalent.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's the District English Learner Advisory Council.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have monthly meetings.
[Paul Teixeira]: Eventually what should happen with this group is that the caregivers will eventually take it over.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's challenging because they all don't speak the same language.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we utilize high school students who are bilingual to come to these meetings, to serve as interpreters, kind of bridge the gap between the different languages in the group.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have people who have signed up to be leaders.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they haven't started scheduling and running their own meetings, but it's a work in progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: And with that, we've also contracted some seminars for caregivers through the Massachusetts Partnership for Youth.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in March, the presentation was on a healthy balance screen time.
[Paul Teixeira]: This was to support our caregivers with establishing boundaries with devices in their home, how they can support the school, how they can use them as learning tools and some internet safety.
[Paul Teixeira]: and next month's presentation is going to be on vaping.
[Paul Teixeira]: Then we've also partnered with the Welcome Project in Somerville.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Welcome Project helps provide...
[Paul Teixeira]: caregivers with English classes for free.
[Paul Teixeira]: They got a grant a year and a half ago to expand outside of Somerville.
[Paul Teixeira]: I was working in partnership with Sarah Londgren from the Welcome Project and we ended up creating classes here in Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: We hold them at the Medford Public Library.
[Paul Teixeira]: This way here, families don't have to come into the schools, get quarry checked for the classes or anything like that.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have a beautiful new space in the library that they've been using.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've run three in-person classes, and then those are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then we have virtual classes in the evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the funding for this grant that the Welcome Project got is ending this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: This will be the last class, but we're going to continue with the classes in the fall, and we'll use a federal grant, Title III, to continue these for our caregivers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then Tech Goes Home is another partnership we have.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is an organization in Boston that allows us to teach digital literacy to our caregivers.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've trained Medford teachers who will work in the evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've created a curriculum for the caregivers.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's everything from how to navigate the Medford Public Schools website, how to check for school lunches, how to communicate with your child's teacher, how to send an email, how to find English classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a 15 hour course.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I actually just found out two hours before this meeting, our course was approved.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we'll be running another one.
[Paul Teixeira]: It begins August 8th and it will end in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: And at the completion of this, the caregivers get a free Chromebook, a free year of internet access, headphones, carrying case.
[Paul Teixeira]: In other news, the Yale department just completed its tiered focused monitoring.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is similar to what special education just had to go through with the Department of Ed.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every three to six year, every three years on a three year cycle, Desi comes in and does a complete audit of the department.
[Paul Teixeira]: There are 12 criteria.
[Paul Teixeira]: 11 seems to be cut off.
[Paul Teixeira]: I mean, number 12 seems to be cut off on my computer.
[Paul Teixeira]: But these are the criteria that they measure the efficacy of the EL program with.
[Paul Teixeira]: So for the past year, I've had to upload hundreds of pages of documentation for each of these criteria and then
[Paul Teixeira]: criteria.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they came into the district in February, and they did classroom walkthroughs at the McGlynn, the Missittuck, the McGlynn Middle, and then also the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: They interviewed caregivers.
[Paul Teixeira]: They interviewed teachers, general education teachers, EL teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: They interviewed students and administrators.
[Paul Teixeira]: They'll be putting together a final report.
[Paul Teixeira]: We should have it in the next few weeks.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm sure I'll be back here to explain the findings in their report to you.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the new literacy program at the elementary level into reading.
[Paul Teixeira]: These are the new materials that were purchased that the teachers have received extensive PD on the EL teachers are included in this, whether they're a newcomer teacher or pull out teacher, even though we have our own English language development curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: What the EL teachers are doing is they're modifying the curriculum to support components from the inter-reading program so that the goal is that students leave newcomers, will go into a mainstream classroom, and while they're in the mainstream classroom, they'll still get EL support, but all of the inter-reading, all of the strategies for early literacy will be the same, so it's not,
[Paul Teixeira]: a culture shock when they change levels.
[Paul Teixeira]: So there's a team of teachers putting together the curriculum, taking the old curriculum and aligning it with the new materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then talking points is you'll hear people talk about this all the time.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is a two-way communication platform that the district purchased.
[Paul Teixeira]: It pulls information from our student information system to allow teachers, administrators, district administrators to engage in two-way communication with our families.
[Paul Teixeira]: This isn't just for English learner families.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's basically a text message system.
[Paul Teixeira]: And if in our home language or in the home language is identified as something other than English, the app automatically translates the message.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if it goes, you know, if Portuguese was selected.
[Paul Teixeira]: Teacher sends a classroom message home.
[Paul Teixeira]: It gets translated into Portuguese just for that family.
[Paul Teixeira]: The family responds in Portuguese.
[Paul Teixeira]: It translates it back to English for the teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teachers have been using this now for a little over a year with the district subscription that we purchased.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I just pulled last week's data to show you like almost 1,700 messages were sent home in a week.
[Paul Teixeira]: Another translation device that we purchased for teachers and for school staff who interact with multilingual families is something called Pocket Talk.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's an oral translation device.
[Paul Teixeira]: So you hold the button, you choose your target language, you speak, it interprets it, flip it, the other person speaks their language, it transfers it, translates it back into English.
[Paul Teixeira]: These were given to all building principals, all building secretaries, nurses, anyone that comes into contact with caregivers where they may need on-the-spot instant translation.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this isn't going to take the place of talking points.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's not going to take the place of hiring interpreters for in-person meetings.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is just the on-the-fly, you need an interpreter.
[Paul Teixeira]: We ended up purchasing 45 in the district and then Chad Fallon bought 15 for the CTE teachers because they'll have newcomer students going through the CTE rotations.
[Paul Teixeira]: And sometimes it's really helpful for those teachers to be able to translate, especially where, you know, safety concerns in the shops right there on the fly.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then all of the newcomer teachers have them as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then for professional development, the EL department offers professional development outside of the typical professional development days.
[Paul Teixeira]: All content teachers need to earn 15 hours of professional development in SEI or ESL strategies.
[Paul Teixeira]: So these are on optional PD days.
[Paul Teixeira]: These are in the evenings.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teachers, it helps them recertify, but these topics were based on what teachers have asked for and what we've seen in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then coming up, we have summer enrichment planning.
[Paul Teixeira]: We offer summer enrichment for elementary, middle, and high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: This slide has changed from what I gave you, because I realized I missed some stuff.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I'll give the new one to Lisa for you.
[Paul Teixeira]: We run an elementary summer program, K-5 at the Missittauk.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then I've partnered with Anthony Petrelis with Summer Fun, and I will fund teachers to work in the afternoon program, so they can take Yale students who want to stay longer for the day, and it's at no cost to the families.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a program for students in grades five and six.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's called Starbase.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's at Hanscom Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a STEM lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a week-long STEM lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students get to use 3D printers.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have robotic wars with cars.
[Paul Teixeira]: They do the derby cars.
[Paul Teixeira]: They launch rockets.
[Paul Teixeira]: They do chemistry experiments.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's offered through Starbase, and we've been doing that now for, I think, six years.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we have middle school summer enrichment at Medford High School, and then we do credit recovery for students in grades nine through 12, nine through 11, and then in grades six through 11.
[Paul Teixeira]: We offer summer reading support.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can use Title III funds to pay teachers to do office hours at the Medford Public Library.
[Paul Teixeira]: So any middle school and high school students that need help with their summer reading, choosing a book, any of their math packets or history packets that they get, there's somebody there
[Paul Teixeira]: two times a week, mornings and late afternoons to get that support.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then this leads me to my last slide, which is an ask for the committee.
[Paul Teixeira]: As our numbers are increasing, we have a large influx of students in kindergarten this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I never have a crystal ball, I can never tell exactly how many students we're going to have.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I have to base it on trends from the previous year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so, Basing, we had, I think, 38 newcomer students last year in kindergarten, and we currently have 32 students in first grade newcomer classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now, that's not all from that class, that's students who have come in through the year, but that's how I gauge what my numbers are going to be.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year, we have 20 more newcomer students than we did last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we are going to need another first grade classroom for newcomer students, and preferably at the McGlynn, because that is where the bulk of the students are.
[Paul Teixeira]: I won't know the exact number until the end of May, beginning of June, because with the kindergarten students, they take that access test in January, and there is so much growth in a kindergarten student from January to June, that it's not an accurate measure.
[Paul Teixeira]: we take the two options.
[Paul Teixeira]: If the teachers say this student is ready to be reclassified as a former English learner student, we give them a test called the WAPT.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, it measures all four domains, reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that will give us the determination if they have the cut score to just go into a general education classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: If they were a newcomer student and the teacher is recommending that they go into first grade newcomers, they also give that WAPT test.
[Paul Teixeira]: That will give me the data I need to know that, yes, they have to remain in newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that won't happen until the beginning of June.
[Paul Teixeira]: But based on previous trends, this is what I'm predicting.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions?
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, and that happens with the CTE exploratory programs.
[Paul Teixeira]: All of the new students go through the same rotations, and they're not a cohort.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's six in this group, five in this group, so they are.
[Paul Teixeira]: the students are integrated with everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those rotations include all the CTE exploratory programs as well as the arts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have been increasing staff throughout the years, and that is something, especially the elementary strand of newcomers at the McGlynn, which is where the biggest numbers are.
[Paul Teixeira]: The way the program is structured is it's sustainable to continue to add new students, but that's why I brought up the first grade class, because I know that's not sustainable, because they can't have two first grade newcomer classrooms with 25 students in them each.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is, but what happens is with any other new students who are non-Yale that go to the Andrews or that come into middle school, if they don't need Yale programming, they go to the Andrews.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the numbers are actually, and I'd have to look up what the exact numbers are, but the numbers between the two buildings are similar.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's equitable.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the last thing that I want to say on the last slide is that none of this work could happen without the EL teachers, because every committee I mentioned, every DELAC, there are people that I have EL teachers who work on all of those programs that I just described.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Tech Goes Home, the summer programs, none of this work could happen without those teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So thank you to them.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Can you hear me?
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as part of DESE's coordinated program review, which is happening at the same time with special education, they will do a complete review of the EL programs and services in this school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: The recommendation that was posted in the AIR report
[Paul Teixeira]: was about the fact that we have two middle schools right next to each other and only one has an EL program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I just wanna point out that that's equal services, it's not equity.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not quite sure how it was interpreted that it wasn't equitable because if equity is giving every student what they need, the EL students at the McGlynn are getting what they need in terms of services.
[Paul Teixeira]: That model and program was reviewed by DESE when we made the changes four years ago, and it was heralded as could be a model for the rest of the state.
[Paul Teixeira]: But they'll re-examine it this year as part of the coordinated program review.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we'll continue to do professional development for teachers with SEI strategies.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every year we offer a 15 PDP course.
[Paul Teixeira]: so teachers can recertify for their licensure renewal.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have to get 15 PDPs in special education and SEI.
[Paul Teixeira]: And every year we've offered a 15 hour course in SEI.
[Paul Teixeira]: SEI is sheltered English instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: So anything, any classroom that has an English learner student in it is considered an SEI classroom, sheltered English instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: all teachers are responsible for meeting the needs of the English learners in their classroom, regardless of the grade level or the content.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then last, we wanna conduct a review to determine if creating a lower and upper middle school, lower middle school being grades five, six, and upper middle school, seven, eight, that will address the capacity issues that the teachers brought up in the,
[Paul Teixeira]: in the report that said about the equity, you know, having the program only in one middle school, but not the other.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I did run some numbers if anyone's interested, but our numbers have remained consistent at the McGlynn Middle School for EL students in both newcomer classrooms and ESL services per pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: through a partnership with UMass Boston's Applied Linguistics Department.
[Paul Teixeira]: They applied for a grant with the US Department of Education and we were supportive of that and talked about how we would use that grant for the Medford Public Schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what this would allow us to do is provide basically a free half of a master's degree
[Paul Teixeira]: and applied linguistics for teachers and paraprofessionals who already possess like a bachelor's degree going into a master's program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what this would allow us to do is increase our capacity for not only
[Paul Teixeira]: hiring teachers to work with English learners, but it would also give us the ability to have content teachers not only be duly certified in their content in EL, but they would have all of the theory for second language acquisition as part of what they could bring to the classroom every day.
[Paul Teixeira]: We will be starting this program and this is the first that it's been publicized in the district, so we'll be working to recruit teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have teachers and paraprofessionals.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have 15 slots available and the classes would begin in January.
[Paul Teixeira]: These teachers would work
[Paul Teixeira]: to get their five core classes completed as part of their master's program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And once they complete those five courses, they're eligible for ESL certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they can continue on in the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: They can take advantage of Medford's tuition reimbursement.
[Paul Teixeira]: It wouldn't cover the entire remaining portion of the master's degree, but it would pay for a chunk of it as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: This would be available to elementary, middle, and high school teachers looking to obtain this additional master's degree and certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then,
[Paul Teixeira]: With that, there's coaching that's embedded in this for family and community outreach, for providing professional development for other teachers in the buildings that they're currently working on, and they'll be doing that as a cohort throughout the process of their program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions on that part?
[Paul Teixeira]: The second news, which I just added on to this is, as you know, we have a partnership with Lesley University for elementary teachers or teacher seeking elementary certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: They go through a master's program to get their gen ed in grades one through six.
[Paul Teixeira]: They do a year long internship in the EL department.
[Paul Teixeira]: in any elementary school, typically a newcomer's classroom, but sometimes that doesn't work.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we do a balance of the gen ed classroom and EL pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: And Leslie is extending this program into middle and high school for secondary.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teachers that are seeking to get their master's degree in math, the humanities,
[Paul Teixeira]: can also do an add-on Yale license if they do this year-long internship at the secondary level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so Medford's also working with them to establish that and get some candidates in the district for that program as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't, you know, and so that is an interesting question because there are other cohorts that will be, that will begin like in September.
[Paul Teixeira]: And, you know, I'll stay in touch if we can't, you know, if they don't, if other districts aren't filling them, you know, to see if we can jump in on that as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this happened because I was looking for interns to come do their student teaching in Medford and,
[Paul Teixeira]: through meeting the director and going through that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I brought her down to the McGlynn Middle School to show her the program and program design.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's when she started talking about this opportunity that they were applying for.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I don't know what like years two, three, and four looked like for them, but Medford would definitely be a part of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's 15 people, 15 teachers and paraprofessionals for this January cohort, but they will have other cohorts throughout the school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: through a partnership with UMass Boston's Applied Linguistics Department.
[Paul Teixeira]: They applied for a grant with the US Department of Education and we were supportive of that and talked about how we would use that grant for the Medford Public Schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what this would allow us to do is provide basically a free half of a master's degree
[Paul Teixeira]: and applied linguistics for teachers and paraprofessionals who already possess like a bachelor's degree going into a master's program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what this would allow us to do is increase our capacity for not only
[Paul Teixeira]: hiring teachers to work with English learners, but it would also give us the ability to have content teachers, not only be duly certified in their content in EL, but they would have all of the theory for second language acquisition as part of what they could bring to the classroom every day.
[Paul Teixeira]: We will be starting this program and this is the first that it's been publicized in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we'll be working to recruit teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have teachers and paraprofessionals.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have 15 slots available and the classes would begin in January.
[Paul Teixeira]: These teachers would
[Paul Teixeira]: for to get their five core classes completed as part of their master's program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And once they complete those five courses, they're eligible for ESL certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they can continue on in the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: They can take advantage of Medford's tuition reimbursement.
[Paul Teixeira]: It wouldn't cover the entire remaining
[Paul Teixeira]: portion of the master's degree, but it would pay for a chunk of it as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: This would be available to elementary, middle, and high school teachers looking to obtain this additional master's degree and certification.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then with that, there's coaching that's embedded in this for family and community outreach,
[Paul Teixeira]: for providing professional development for other teachers in the buildings that they're currently working on.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they'll be doing that as a cohort throughout the process of their program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions on that part?
[Paul Teixeira]: The second news, which I just added onto this is, as you know, we have a partnership with Lesley University for elementary
[Paul Teixeira]: elementary teachers or teacher seeking elementary certification, they go through a master's program to get their gen ed in grades one through six, they do a year long internship in the EL department.
[Paul Teixeira]: in any elementary school, typically a newcomer's classroom, but sometimes that doesn't work.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we do a balance of the gen ed classroom and EL pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: And Leslie is extending this program into middle and high school for secondary.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teachers that are seeking to get their master's degree in math, the humanities,
[Paul Teixeira]: can also do an add-on EL license if they do this year-long internship at the secondary level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so Medford's also working with them to establish that and get some candidates in the district for that program as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't, you know, and so that is an interesting question because there are other cohorts that will be, that will begin like in September.
[Paul Teixeira]: And, you know, I'll stay in touch if we can't, you know, if they don't, if other districts aren't filling them, you know, to see if we can jump in on that as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this happened because I was looking for interns to come do their student teaching in Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: through meeting the director and going through that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I brought her down to the McGlynn Middle School to show her the program and program design.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's when she started talking about this opportunity that they were applying for.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I don't know what like years two, three and four looked like for them, but Medford would definitely be a part of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's 15 people, 15 teachers and paraprofessionals for this January cohort, but they will have other cohorts throughout the school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, good evening everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: We ran summer enrichment programs for our English learner students, we had an elementary program for students in K through five that was held at the mistletoe.
[Paul Teixeira]: We brought back the star base program if you remember that from a couple years ago this is the first year we've done the.
[Paul Teixeira]: But on on site in person hands on stem lab for the week and then we offered tutoring for students at the Medford public library in the middle school and then at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We support the credit recovery so y'all students can make up the content classes that they need in order to gain the credits to move on to the next grade.
[Paul Teixeira]: So these are just some photos at the Missittuck, the elementary program.
[Paul Teixeira]: They were doing some bug exploration.
[Paul Teixeira]: We try to infuse content into what the students are learning as they're developing their language skills.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we focus on the four areas, reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then obviously some enrichment play time as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then this was the STARBASE program this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is the week-long STEM camp at Hanscom Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had 15 students attend that.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's just a one-week program, full day, and it's a full hands-on STEM lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: They were building a bridge here that's Leonardo da Vinci Bridge in Italy.
[Paul Teixeira]: and they learn to recreate it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So there's physics, they learn chemistry, they do some coding, 3D printing, some robotics.
[Paul Teixeira]: Move on to the next slide.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it's just hands-on, fully engaged learning activities for the week.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year, STARBASE partnered with Bridgewater State University and they had student interns also working with our students, in addition to the scientists from STARBASE and the two teachers from Medford who accompanied our students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um, so obviously this program or any of these programs can't, um, go on without any of the teachers who gave up part of their summer work.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I just want to recognize may I put this on Alexander and Alexa and Nunziata, Alison Blanchard, uh, Adelaine Cahill, who also worked as the lead teacher for the elementary program for me, Abby Harris, Melissa Calendarian, Julia Mitchell, and Amanda Zahedi.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, all of the programs are paid for either out of a grant, so everything that the students do, the transportation to and from STARBASE, all of that is included under the grant.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can connect.
[Paul Teixeira]: I know that, um, Rachel Perry does, you know, safety during the year, stuff like that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And with summer fun, I know that the reason they do it at the mistletoe is so that they have access to the pool.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, um, I can connect with them and see how they do it.
[Paul Teixeira]: You know, and see how EL students can be included in that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the summer fun program was going on at the same time.
[Paul Teixeira]: Elementary Yale program going on.
[Paul Teixeira]: But summer fun.
[Paul Teixeira]: Is that five days a week or four days.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's five days and it's five so we do have that fifth day because our program was only four days a week.
[Paul Teixeira]: So maybe I can talk to them about how students, Yale students can, you know, tag on a day of the week to participate in summer fun next year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Paul Evangelista, I was formerly with Century Bank in that building.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this location is a terrific opportunity for that same team that now flies under the Needham flag to move and continue to support both the local clients as well as the high-risk clients such as the cannabis industry that's coming to Mr. Gavin Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: And just looking for Mr. Murphy.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm ready to go.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can share my slides.
[Paul Teixeira]: Do you want to do this or you want me to show mine?
[Paul Teixeira]: If you can show yours, I don't think I have yours at my fingertips.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Happy budget season.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is the chart that I give you pretty much every year when I give a presentation that discusses our enrollment numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And if you recall, our numbers are pretty fluid throughout the year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I always try to find that fixed moment in time that will indicate what our numbers are.
[Paul Teixeira]: These are the end of year numbers for going back to school year 17-18.
[Paul Teixeira]: So
[Paul Teixeira]: For example, in 1718, we ended the year with 460 students, but at some point during the year, we may have had 490 students because we have students coming in and we have students going out.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year, our current moment, at this moment in time, we're actually up to 577 students as of today, which is the highest number I've seen in Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: The majority of these are our newcomer students.
[Paul Teixeira]: I mentioned this in, when I presented back in January, we had, I took member Ruseau and member Graham to, you know, different schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we went into one of the newcomer classrooms that only had six students and that classroom exploded.
[Paul Teixeira]: We currently have 38 students between two classes in that room right now.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our numbers have grown significantly, and the majority of these students are newcomers who require the highest level of services in terms of periods of ESL a day, and also this includes content classes, as well as their English language development classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: With that said, I
[Paul Teixeira]: predict that these numbers are going to continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're still registering new students.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have 11 students on deck.
[Paul Teixeira]: And just in the time when I presented back in January, which was about 15 weeks ago, we've increased our numbers by 62 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is a result of the pandemic.
[Paul Teixeira]: The borders were closed last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're basically getting two years worth of students in a one year period of time, but I don't,
[Paul Teixeira]: I wish I could predict when this would level off.
[Paul Teixeira]: One of the other struggles that we're having with our newcomer students, because they are coming in at all different times of the year, they will be newcomer students next year as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we are still going to continue to get new students as we do every year, but we will be keeping students in the newcomer classrooms
[Paul Teixeira]: longer than we typically would because we don't have the time with our students that we would have in a typical year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's why I expect this to continue on to next year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Does anyone have any questions on this slide before I move on?
[Paul Teixeira]: All right, does the screen change to kindergarten?
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, okay.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one of the, starting with kindergarten, I'm trying to
[Paul Teixeira]: predict how many students were going to have a newcomers out of kindergarten.
[Paul Teixeira]: If you recall, we do not have a kindergarten newcomer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's best practice for our kindergarten students to be fully integrated in the mainstream, because most students are acquiring their English language development at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: and to be in a classroom with role models, with native English speaking students, help accelerate the learning process and English language development of the students.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year, we have 86 EL students in our K classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: That number is, again, the highest I've seen in my time here in Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: Of those 86 EL students, 44 of them are newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: How many of those newcomers are going to be recommended for first grade newcomers?
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't know yet.
[Paul Teixeira]: I won't know until June.
[Paul Teixeira]: But if I were to look at the percentages and the rates, if you go back to the 2018-2019 school year, we had 53 EL students in kindergarten.
[Paul Teixeira]: 21 of them were newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: Only two were referred to first grade newcomers because these students were here all year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We didn't have students missing huge chunks of school because of a pandemic.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, you know, those students became pullout students and only two needed newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: In the 2019-20 school year, that number increased.
[Paul Teixeira]: We only had 26 newcomer kindergarten students.
[Paul Teixeira]: but 11 were referred to newcomers because the building shut down in March.
[Paul Teixeira]: And March to June is a critical time for our kindergarten students with their language development.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then last year we had hybrid, we had students on remote learning, we referred nine students.
[Paul Teixeira]: That was out of only 15.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have three times that amount this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can safely say at this point in time, even though I can't predict, I am going to need another first grade newcomer classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: So looking at our newcomer classes as of, I guess I made these slides on 425.
[Paul Teixeira]: These numbers have gone up, I can tell you that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We currently have 20, well, I know we have 25 in first grade now.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can't speak for the other classes off the top of my head.
[Paul Teixeira]: We split this grade two classroom and added another teacher this year, and they're each up to 18 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Grade three, we have 21, grade four, we have 20, grade five, we have 18, and then six, seven, and eight, we have 20, 22, and 18.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, I think a larger percentage of these students that would typically be reclassified as pullout students are going to remain in EL, and we're going to continue to get new students enrolling.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is why I'm asking for four more teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Happy New Year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Welcome to Member Hays.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every January, we administer the ACCESS test, which is a single test comprised of four domains, listening, reading, writing, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's actually four different tests that measure students' English language development.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we do compare from year to year, and students get a report, and families get a report from year to year.
[Paul Teixeira]: The test is taken online in grades 1 through 12, with the exception of grades 1 through 3, the writing portion of the test is paper-based.
[Paul Teixeira]: And for kindergarten students, the entire test is paper-based.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's given one to one.
[Paul Teixeira]: one-to-one.
[Paul Teixeira]: As Dr. Cushing just mentioned, they extended the date out to March 4th.
[Paul Teixeira]: Typically, we have a six-week window because, and especially at the elementary schools, because the tests are given to students based on their language proficiency and their grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's a big puzzle to put together when you're administering the tests for the students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we staggered the tests throughout the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: Because we used Chromebooks last year, 100% of the online assessments were done on the Chromebooks.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had no issues.
[Paul Teixeira]: The technology department is working diligently right now to ensure that everything's up to date so the students can take their tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we get the score reports.
[Paul Teixeira]: They didn't announce with the change in dates.
[Paul Teixeira]: Typically, we get the score reports at the end of June.
[Paul Teixeira]: But now, I mean, at the end of May, beginning of June, but now with the delay, I don't know if they're going to give them to us in August again, which is what they did this year for the 2021 access test.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I put together last year's 2021 data.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if you look at page two of your packet that has figure 1.1, this will give you the,
[Paul Teixeira]: basic rundown of last year's access test for the overall test score for our students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this information compares Medford to the state access results and surrounding districts.
[Paul Teixeira]: You know, with the surrounding districts, the districts I chose are the districts that we have our English learner students transferring between.
[Paul Teixeira]: So these are the, you know, and coming into us from.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students can be exited from the EL program if they achieve an overall score of 4.2 so that's why you won't see a lot of students in level five and six because they exit typically before they hit that level.
[Paul Teixeira]: At the end of every school year, again, depending upon when we get the results, we have what we call language acquisition team meetings where I meet with all of the teachers and we use this data and other data to determine students' placements and if we reclassify them as a former English learner, if they can exit newcomers, how many periods of EL they need a day.
[Paul Teixeira]: Access is a big part of it, but it's not the only part of it.
[Paul Teixeira]: Going back to the data if you look Medford had the highest participation rate of our neighboring districts we had a 95% participation rate on the test.
[Paul Teixeira]: There was no remote option for access.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it was all done in person.
[Paul Teixeira]: Medford had the highest percentage of students making progress on the access test, which is 44%, and 44% doesn't sound like a huge number, but compared to other districts during this, the pandemic, Medford definitely stood out.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this data supports, you know, Medford Public Schools pledge to equity because central office, the school committee ensured that our English learner students were back in school for in-person learning safely on September 28th, 2020.
[Paul Teixeira]: And if we compare the other districts that did not do that, the results stand out that that was the right decision to support student learning.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this data supports the hard work that the teachers did last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, it was a very trying year this year too.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then it's also, these results are a reflection of the amazing work that the EL teachers in the district did because they were among the first in the building to bring in-person learning back to our students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I've said this before in previous meetings that yes, we can compare ourselves to the state because essentially Medford is a microcosm of ELs across the state.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we can compare ourselves to other districts, but I always like to compare ourselves to ourselves year from year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so looking at the previous year's data, so we administered the 2020 access test in January, February of 2020, and that was before the shutdown.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that data is an accurate reflection of a typical school year for us.
[Paul Teixeira]: We administered the 2021 access test in April of 2021, because they did extend the window.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the shutdown in March of 2020 and the hybrid learning for most of the 2021 school year and then increased student absences, this all accounted for an immeasurable loss of instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: And when I say immeasurable, I'm not saying a huge loss of instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm saying it literally can't be measured.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so when we look at our percentages, the percentage of students that were not making progress compared to the previous year increased by 9%.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that obviously is not an increase we wanna see, but given the year that we had in the previous year, a 9% increase, it isn't huge.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's not bad data.
[Paul Teixeira]: for what our students actually, you know, did on the assessments.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then when I drilled down further, I looked at, you know, the highest increase of students not making progress that was in grade six through eight, which was 22%.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what that tells me is our co-teaching model and grade six to eight is critically important for our EL students because we did not have the same co-teaching model during the 2021 school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And on your paper, if you go back to the previous page, I gave you a quick graph of students in grade six through eight making progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: So in 2019 46% of our middle school students made progress on the access test.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did have co-teaching in math that year only.
[Paul Teixeira]: In 2020, we had co-teaching in math and science.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so our progress jumped up to 54%.
[Paul Teixeira]: Last year, because of COVID and we couldn't cross teams and we couldn't integrate into other classrooms, our progress at the middle school level was 32%.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if this data tells me anything, it's that we need to continue with our co-teaching model and that the co-teaching model is
[Paul Teixeira]: a successful measure for our ELL students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then if we go to the numbers and percentages page, I like to give you the updates on our enrollment for EL students and using data from going back as far as 15, 16, and it tells the number of EL students and what percentage of our population that is.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so if we just compare us to last year, 2021, our numbers were down.
[Paul Teixeira]: We knew they were down, the borders were closed, people weren't permitted into the country.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we ended the school year with 410 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: At this moment in time, we are currently up to 511 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we've experienced, and this is our biggest increase.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've had over 500 EL students in the district at any given moment in the past, because we have a very fluid population of students coming in, registering, being settled for a small period of time, finding permanent housing somewhere else.
[Paul Teixeira]: But right now, these are our current numbers in real time.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that's 12.2% of the student population are current English learner students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our numbers are, you know, as we've shown historically over the years, are growing and continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then down below the student registration data,
[Paul Teixeira]: This I always give you around this time in January when I present to you, to give you the number of students tested and the number of EL students that actually qualified for services.
[Paul Teixeira]: So for 2021, the data wasn't available because of COVID-19.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our typical format for identifying EL students was not the same.
[Paul Teixeira]: The state allowed us just to use the home language survey, do phone interviews, we could
[Paul Teixeira]: use transfer paperwork from other districts, we didn't have to test every student who came through the door.
[Paul Teixeira]: They allowed us to actually use the access test to confirm our preliminary decision that the students were EL.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we didn't do the testing in 2021 like we typically did.
[Paul Teixeira]: or like we typically do.
[Paul Teixeira]: But as of now, we've tested 301 students, which is, again, a huge increase from 2020 when we were collecting this data.
[Paul Teixeira]: And of those 301 students, 244 have qualified for EL services.
[Paul Teixeira]: So again, our numbers do continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: Most of our growth is coming at the newcomer level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I've given you a chart to show you
[Paul Teixeira]: where the newcomers are at each grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So of our current 511 EL students, 195 are level one or level two newcomer students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the greatest increase is in grade two at the Mississippi and grades nine through 10 at MHS.
[Paul Teixeira]: And member Graham and member Ruseau, you were on the tours with Mr. Murphy and me back in September.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we went into that grade two classroom and there were only six students in it at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we now have 27 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we did,
[Paul Teixeira]: We did split the class.
[Paul Teixeira]: We hired a new teacher and we ended up splitting the class into two because 27 newcomers is not feasible for anyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so, you know, that took place right before the Christmas break or winter break that the split happened.
[Paul Teixeira]: And now we have two grade two newcomer classrooms, which is the first time that
[Paul Teixeira]: I've ever had to split classroom in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we've been capitalizing on you know as our funds, the title three grant to provide additional support because the numbers are high in the other classrooms as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: providing in-class tutors, EL aids.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have the two Lesley interns who are in grades three and grade two.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a bilingual in-class tutor at the high school, and we have an in-class tutor at the middle school, all to support teachers and students.
[Paul Teixeira]: But these numbers will continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: We do get another surge.
[Paul Teixeira]: at this time of year, especially from Brazil because their school year ended in December.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I am expecting these numbers to grow pretty quickly this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then on the last page, I just want to talk about some family engagement activities.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're in the process of building a partnership with an organization called Tech Goes Home.
[Paul Teixeira]: Actually, last year's Harvard resident, Tom Maliszewski, was the one who introduced me to this organization.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we tried partnering with them last year, but they weren't accepting any new districts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I've stayed in touch with them and they've now opened up where they can take Medford on as a partner.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so this organization provides training to educate caregivers on technology usage.
[Paul Teixeira]: Tech Goes Home will train the teachers to administer the test, I mean to administer the class on technology.
[Paul Teixeira]: The caregivers will get a Chromebook and they'll get a year of free internet.
[Paul Teixeira]: If they successfully complete the 10 hour course.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I've recruited for EL teachers who will take the tech goes home training.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm partnering I'm using title three funds to pay for the EL teachers to teach the courses.
[Paul Teixeira]: If they can complete the training early spring, we can offer a training this year and then start the school year with yet another training.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we can continue this partnership as long as TechPost Home can continue to provide the technology with it.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can use Title III to pay for the teachers to administer it.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then other areas of family engagement,
[Paul Teixeira]: Our family engagement begins the moment that the students arrive at the high school for their EL testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: Emily Plini is our new assessment specialist.
[Paul Teixeira]: If you recall, Jesse Reinhold retired last year in February.
[Paul Teixeira]: Emily has taken on that position.
[Paul Teixeira]: She immediately connects with families.
[Paul Teixeira]: She sets them up with talking points.
[Paul Teixeira]: She provides them all the information for Medford's multilingual resource line, the resiliency hub.
[Paul Teixeira]: She's the connection between the school and the registration.
[Paul Teixeira]: And she's really done an amazing job building this position even greater than it was under Jesse.
[Paul Teixeira]: She does a great job at making families feel welcome and supported by the entire Medford community, not just the Medford school community.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we're doing our building-based family engagement nights.
[Paul Teixeira]: They were originally scheduled for fall, but given the constant arrival of new students and families, the Yale teachers decided to wait until January.
[Paul Teixeira]: But due to the uptick in COVID numbers, we're now delaying until February, March for these.
[Paul Teixeira]: and those dates will be forthcoming.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the District English Learner Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 24th at 6 p.m.
[Paul Teixeira]: in the Library of Medford High School.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's over.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's up to the teachers who are delivering the classes to kind of make their own schedule for the 10 hours.
[Paul Teixeira]: We pay the contractual rate of $33 an hour.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then I'm actually paying them to go through the training with Tech Goes Home because that's technically their prep time for the course.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a 10-hour training course.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's on the, it's part of the Medford City Hall website and that supports families with where the food banks are and
[Paul Teixeira]: I think food banks and they help with housing and any issues that somebody's coming up with, especially for a new newcomer family coming into the district to get information.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have the multilingual resource line.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not sure if they're connected to each other physically.
[Paul Teixeira]: On the city website, somebody dropped off.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have the magnets that have like the telephone numbers for the multilingual resource lines.
[Paul Teixeira]: We give them that information.
[Paul Teixeira]: Emily directs them to the Medford City Hall website.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the DELAC is the District English Learner Advisory Council, similar to CPAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's supposed to be a self-run parent caregiver organization that will advise central office, advise the school on what they would like to see for their children and their students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's why that's pushed out that way, because what we find is that caregivers will respond more to something happening at a building level than a district level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're using the building level
[Paul Teixeira]: events to then springboard into the district level.
[Paul Teixeira]: None of these programs could have happened without the teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I just specifically have to call out Laney Cahill, Michelle Desio, Melissa Calendarian, Julia Mitchell, Matt McKenna, who ran the elementary program for us.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then Ami Sanye at the high school who coordinated the high school program with support from Joel Menasha and David Perez.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we had two EL in-class tutors, aides, who were doing family outreach, calling students when they weren't coming to the program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was Mona Massawi and Sabrina Pinto.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they worked in the classrooms with the students as well, in addition to helping, you know, keep the program going.
[Paul Teixeira]: With regards to other updates, we hired six new staff members in the EL department this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had three retirements, which I'll be talking to Susie about later, because I'd like to acknowledge them.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we also had two resignations.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have six new staff members, basically K through 12.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're entering year two of the change to the Missittuck for grades one through four newcomers and fifth grade newcomers at the McGlynn Elementary School.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we continue our Lesley University partnership.
[Paul Teixeira]: This year we have two full year interns working in the newcomer classrooms at the Missittuck.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then at the McGlynn Middle School, we're continuing with our co-teaching for math and science.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're going back to our pre-pandemic model where the students are actually part of the classroom and the teachers are co-teaching and we'll continue with that professional development because we do have some changes at the middle school with staffing.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we wanna make sure everyone's on the same page and continuing that professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we're going to be looking at our K through 12 curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: doing some updates, we're going to be in the process of putting together a team to develop a writer's workshop program, because when we do the analysis of the access test, writing is typically the last domain to develop, and we're looking for ways to strengthen that to increase our writing scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then last year, you approved the funding through the ESSER funds to continue with the imagined learning, and we're in the process of onboarding that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's the Early Elementary Urban Education Initiative through Lesley University.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teacher candidates have the, they're in an accelerated one-year master's program that will enable them to get their one through six gen ed certification with an add-on EL license.
[Paul Teixeira]: we have a target date for another DELAC meeting.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think it's in November.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the plan is for that to have teachers work at their building level to do, we always, when we come back to school, we'll do family information nights at the school level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it's just to help, you know, parents, caregivers, you know, navigate
[Paul Teixeira]: the back to school piece, how to use the website, how to email their teacher, and then we'll use that as a recruitment tool for the DELAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: District English Learner Advisory Council.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, it's just the EL curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: We follow the
[Paul Teixeira]: frameworks.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, they're not frameworks.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're the English language proficiency benchmarks and outcomes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our curriculum is based on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the WIDA standards are folded into that because the WIDA standards focus on listening, reading, writing, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's our own curriculum that incorporates
[Paul Teixeira]: So for the English piece, it incorporates the English language arts standards, the common core standards.
[Paul Teixeira]: We bring in the English language development through the English language proficiency standards, and then the WIDA standards are a part of that as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you for your time this evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: With regard to Imagine Learning, we used $5,000 of the CARES Act money last year to pilot test this with our newcomer students in grades six through 12.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it was hugely successful.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers liked it, the students liked it, the teachers reported progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's an adaptive literacy program specifically geared toward English learners that gives frequent formative assessment along the way.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the teachers can not only, it's a standalone program, but the teachers can use this data to incorporate the skillset into their instruction because of the vast formative assessments that are provided on a regular basis.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so what I'm looking to do is increase that to expand it to some level three and four students, as well as bring it down to fourth and fifth grade.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't think we need it with primary grades because we do have Lexia for the K one and two and Going from there.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I believe three is also using Lexia stop me if I'm not correct on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then, um,
[Paul Teixeira]: In terms of staffing I'm remaining level funded.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did add a position last year to the high school, which was critical this year, because even though our overall numbers are low.
[Paul Teixeira]: because of border closings and COVID, the numbers at the high school continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that position was desperately needed at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: Given how things may change in the next coming year, I believe we're adequately staffed to support any new students coming into the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: With regard to any additional expenses, I was looking to restore my textbook budget back to the funding from two years ago, which would be a $7,000 increase because of the changes in the US in the history curriculum at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: I do need to purchase textbooks for our level one and two students who would be taking
[Paul Teixeira]: uh history uh as a as opposed to because world history got is combined into one class now u.s one and two are now separated typically we didn't offer u.s history for our newcomer students because of the trajectory that the students follow would be in year one they would take world one
[Paul Teixeira]: year two they would take world two.
[Paul Teixeira]: In year three they could be in a mainstream history class.
[Paul Teixeira]: All of the history teachers are SEI endorsed and they're typically level three students going into those history classes so you wouldn't need a separate program for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now with the changes we do need the separate history program which means we would need we'd follow the same curriculum but we would need a textbook that would be a little bit different from what the mainstream uses.
[Paul Teixeira]: And other than that everything else is staying the same.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: Could the interpreters introduce themselves and tell them which room they're going to?
[Paul Teixeira]: Dr. Cushing, what room will I be in?
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Happy New Year.
[Paul Teixeira]: In my report, I started with the access testing, which is typically done this month in January and through the first week of February, but the state did push that out to May 20th for us.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we've decided to start the testing in April because we won't get the test results any sooner if we start testing the students sooner.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're looking to kind of recapture some of the lost time last year with the building closures in March.
[Paul Teixeira]: and we'll work around the MCAS schedules as those come out in the individual buildings.
[Paul Teixeira]: There is no option for a remote access test.
[Paul Teixeira]: It has to be done in person.
[Paul Teixeira]: So even our remote students, we can make
[Paul Teixeira]: accommodations for them to come into the building to take the testing if they choose to.
[Paul Teixeira]: The state is aware that we do have remote students, so I'm not sure how they're going to calculate the participation rate this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think they'll be a little bit forgiving due to the circumstances, but we'll obviously encourage people to
[Paul Teixeira]: come in and test and that's the other advantage of waiting until April because people have been vaccinated.
[Paul Teixeira]: With the testing we have going on, I think we have a better chance of getting more students in if we wait until April to administer the tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think I share my screen, Dr. Cushing.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, so we have
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is the EL data dashboard that came out this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, this is what's in your report.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did take access in 2020, because it was done in January before the buildings closed, but the Department of Ed hasn't put the data up yet.
[Paul Teixeira]: Most recent data I have for access testing is, you know, 2019.
[Paul Teixeira]: I just wanted to show you, let me see if I can actually show you the actual website.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a neat tool because they're adding, in-cast data, you can compare yourself to a variety of different districts for the purpose of this.
[Paul Teixeira]: I gave you Malden and Somerville, and that's mostly because those are the communities that we share students with.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students who are enrolling into Medford, transferring from other school districts, are coming from either Malden or Somerville are the two biggest.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so if you look here, this was, I know it's kind of small, this is 2017.
[Paul Teixeira]: This was the 16, 17 school year, the entire, the state could dip, every community took a dip because they changed the test from access to access 2.0 and they changed the cut scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so this line here is the Medford line, because I realized you probably have a black and white copy and can't differentiate the lines.
[Paul Teixeira]: So although Malden has,
[Paul Teixeira]: decreased, Somerville has decreased, State has decreased, Medford has been going up for our test scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: And again, I don't have the 2020 data yet to see where we fall on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: and to compare us with some other districts.
[Paul Teixeira]: But we do get individual score reports on students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we know which students didn't make progress on access for 2020.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we have systems in place in all of the buildings where the teachers create an individualized learning plan for students who aren't making progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: We look at the area, because if you recall, the access test is actually four different tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: and it's listening, reading, writing, and speaking assessments.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we look at what area the student needs support in, and they put together a building-based team to give that student supports across all classes, not just in the EL classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so hopefully we will see an improvement the following year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then again, with the advantage of getting
[Paul Teixeira]: the tests delayed, we can kind of recapture some of that time that we lost last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I also wanted to give you an elementary newcomer program update, because last year we debated and discussed about moving the newcomer program to, from the Brooks for grades one and two, and the Roberts grades three through five, we put grades one through four at the Columbus.
[Paul Teixeira]: in grade five at the McGlynn because that's where the majority of our students live.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I know we debated with all of the changes happening this year, but I have to say that I think it really, it was the right decision to do it this year because bringing cohort A in first gave us the opportunity to kind of get used to the school, get the systems and structures in place before the rest of the students came, you know, came in.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it did actually work out really well and I'm happy to report that
[Paul Teixeira]: you know, the Columbus and the McGlynn, the newcomer classrooms are, you know,
[Paul Teixeira]: and they were kind of the leaders of the school when the other cohorts came in.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that was kind of nice.
[Paul Teixeira]: Additionally, we haven't had to utilize vans for transportation.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've been able to accommodate all of the students, transportation needs with the standard yellow buses.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the two vans that we're spending about $45,000 on last year, we haven't had to use this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I gave you a report a couple of months ago about a Saturday program.
[Paul Teixeira]: We got a grant to do a Saturday learning program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that's going to begin on January 30th.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're in the process of hiring and recruiting teachers for that, and then they'll do the outreach and recruiting of the students.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're targeting, again, newcomer students level one and two.
[Paul Teixeira]: That will be our first phase.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then depending upon the numbers, we can extend it out to three and four students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're doing this at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're targeting high school for this intervention because high school students have a finite period of time to develop their English language development to a point where they can pass MCAS and meet their graduation requirements.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we wanna give them as much support as we possibly can.
[Paul Teixeira]: We'll break it down into English language development, fundamental math skills, algebra one, and some social emotional learning in there as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: In addition to that, we've come up with some field trips that we can use Title III money for, for our English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is available at the elementary school.
[Paul Teixeira]: The New England Aquarium is offering some virtual field trips.
[Paul Teixeira]: I met with the teachers today who will be facilitating this.
[Paul Teixeira]: and coordinating this with the students and they're going to do the great sea turtle rescue and meeting the penguins, I think is the other one that was chosen.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that will be happening the first week in February.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we have professional development happening at the McGlynn Middle School.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're in year three of the co-teaching model.
[Paul Teixeira]: We obviously had to make a change this year in terms of what that co-teaching looked like.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was an additional challenge for the content and the EL teachers because we really have three EL programs in that building.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have our four day a week
[Paul Teixeira]: Cohort A, we have our typical hybrid students, and then we have our remote students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're juggling a lot where the EL students are.
[Paul Teixeira]: you know, are concerned.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I have to say the content teachers and the EL teachers, I have to give them a big shout out because they've continued with this.
[Paul Teixeira]: They see the value in this inclusion model, even though it looks very different from what we did when we were in person, they're still connected to the mainstream classrooms, even though they're in the same building, it's virtually because we can't over put a capacity over in a classroom, but that connection is still there.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the teachers are working really hard to ensure that that continues.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we've had some professional development, you know, on that and what that looks like.
[Paul Teixeira]: And right now we're in the coaching phase where, you know, teachers are signing up to meet with the EL coaches on either common planning time or observing a co-teaching lesson to get feedback.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's where they're at now.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we're also doing some PD on culturally responsive teaching.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're doing it in the form of a book club.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, this is a Title III sponsored event where Title III purchased the books for the teachers who sign up.
[Paul Teixeira]: It will be a three month PD.
[Paul Teixeira]: We'll read a memoir about a student's or a family's process of immigrating here to the United States and the challenges that they faced with that whole process and the impact it will have on students in their classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we have the Massachusetts Vision for Blueprint and English Learner Success.
[Paul Teixeira]: I mentioned this at a previous meeting as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm on the advisory committee for this.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's going to be piloted in three districts this year, but we're developing self-assessment tools that districts can use to evaluate their own English learner education programs, curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: I like this program because it
[Paul Teixeira]: is based on four different areas at the classroom level, the school level, the district level, and the state level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I included an attachment, it's I think nine pages, that goes into much more detail about what the program is.
[Paul Teixeira]: When we restructured the McGlynn Middle School, I was on the
[Paul Teixeira]: initial advisory committee for this, and they called it out as possibly being a model that fits their blueprint.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so I'm continuing with the work with them, because ideally, you know, this is something that will benefit the district and the EL and mainstream students in the district K through 12, not just at the middle school level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then I gave you updates on our enrollment numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our EL numbers are down.
[Paul Teixeira]: We do have
[Paul Teixeira]: As of Friday, when I put this together, we had 415 students, represents 10.3% of our total student population.
[Paul Teixeira]: Interestingly, the number of Yale students who have come in this year have been 114.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I think I told you, it's trying to hit a moving target.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a very fluid population.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I always look at that one moment in time to get my numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the numbers that you're looking at here for 2021 were as of that date.
[Paul Teixeira]: the numbers for all the previous years was how we ended the school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: But that doesn't mean we only had 454 EL students in the district, because we have students move in and move out upwards of 30 to 40 students a year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with that said, I don't know where our numbers will end for this school year, but we're currently at 415.
[Paul Teixeira]: With new students coming in, we have 114 students compared to 193 students at this time last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can't tell you how many students have come in.
[Paul Teixeira]: In the past, I've given you the number of students who have come in that we've tested, and some of them haven't qualified.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm only giving you the number of students who have qualified because the testing and how that was determined this year because of COVID changed.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I can only give you the actual EL student numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So even though we're down 80, almost 80 students, for new students coming into the district, our overall EL numbers are only down by about 40 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And our numbers at the high school continue to grow.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're, I think, 116 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's where the bulk of our students are coming in.
[Paul Teixeira]: And like I said, they're transferring in from other districts, not necessarily from other countries.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: I mean, the advantage to this model is that it's a shared responsibility.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's what we're seeing from the EL side as well as the content side.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we are lucky in Medford that we have a newcomer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't necessarily have to have it to the level that we do, but it's just about how we're using our resources.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I think we're using our resources much more wisely that allows us to have that newcomer program to provide support.
[Paul Teixeira]: to the students, but also to the content teachers, because it's challenging for a content teacher to have a non-English speaker in their classroom when they're responsible for getting through heavy duty content.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so this co-teaching kind of helps balance that out.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay, so with the return to students on September 28th, we brought in our level one, level two EL students, K through 12.
[Paul Teixeira]: All of the teachers in the district went through PD sessions in August with better lessons.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the EL teachers took what programs they learned about through the better lessons and made them usable for EL students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they also put together PD for the, you can go to the next slide here.
[Paul Teixeira]: They also put together PD for content teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: to kind of highlight what are some of the best practices in working with EL students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this kind of covers some of the major areas.
[Paul Teixeira]: Loom was one program which allows teachers to kind of record video messages for their assignments because our EL students rely heavily on auditory
[Paul Teixeira]: input in terms of direction and expectations and understandings.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our teachers put together exemplars and then can actually record voice directions for our students using that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Edpuzzle is another one that allows teachers to kind of embed open-ended questions, multiple choice questions on YouTube videos and teacher created videos.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the next slide, Peter.
[Paul Teixeira]: Screencastify was something else that the teachers used and shared with their colleagues.
[Paul Teixeira]: It also allows them to give auditory directions.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then Vocaroo, they all have kind of silly names.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, you can give oral feedback to the students on an assignment that they've submitted through Google Classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it also allows Yale students to
[Paul Teixeira]: It facilitates conversations between EL students and working groups and on papers back and forth.
[Paul Teixeira]: All right, Joan.
[Paul Teixeira]: Just to add to that, on those presentations, the EL teachers did do PowerPoint presentations for the entire school community, and they were placed in an asynchronous folder that was for the 10 days of opening of school, and teachers were doing professional development, some live, some asynchronous, and this was a asynchronous folder that was available to all teachers for these best practices.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm Paul Texer.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm the Director of English Learners for the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: and I was on the hybrid model as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're designing the EL program to mirror what the mainstream students are doing.
[Paul Teixeira]: DESE has not supplied us with specific guidance in relation to English learners, except for those English learners who are also duly identified as having an IEP.
[Paul Teixeira]: So once that guidance comes through, if we need to shift what the plan is for all students to accommodate DESE's requirements for ELs, then we'll do that.
[Paul Teixeira]: But for right now, we're sticking to the plan the way it's been written, and all EL families will have the same options as all the other students to choose remote, you know, or on what the model is that we go.
[Paul Teixeira]: We put together a hybrid model that would follow the same schedule for elementary, middle, and high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have two days of in-person instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students will be divided into a cohort, either Cohort 1 or Cohort 2.
[Paul Teixeira]: Cohort 1 will meet on Mondays and Tuesdays.
[Paul Teixeira]: Cohort 2 will meet on Thursdays and Fridays for live in-person.
[Paul Teixeira]: On Wednesday, that's when the teachers will do live remote learning to bring the two cohorts together as a full class, because the goal is that we will be returning to school and students will have the opportunity to know who is in their class.
[Paul Teixeira]: On the days that students are working from home, they will be doing asynchronous learning and dependent learning from their teachers, but it will be the same curriculum.
[Paul Teixeira]: It won't be a separate enrichment.
[Paul Teixeira]: It will be following the curriculum that has been laid out by grade level and subject matter.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can talk a little bit about that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm on the Professional Development Committee.
[Paul Teixeira]: So prior to getting these 10 days, the district was proactive by switching out the November PD day and making that happen in August.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our teachers could do some online training on remote teaching, hybrid teaching, asynchronous learning for students as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that's through an organization called Better Lessons, and teachers have signed up for three two-hour workshops.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then beyond those three two-hour workshops, teachers have access to coaches through Better Lessons to support the learning that they did in their professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that will go through pretty much to the end of October.
[Paul Teixeira]: So getting those extra 10 days at the beginning of the year will allow us to strengthen that and provide some additional PD options for the teachers to prepare for what the new school year is going to look like.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, no, to add on to that, it's not just teachers, it's teachers, paraprofessionals and all administrators as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's the entire district that will be getting this professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, we recognize this is a challenge for all families, whether we do a hybrid
[Paul Teixeira]: If we did half days, if we did two and a half days, if, you know, half, five days, half, you know, in the morning, half in the afternoon, there's no ideal scenario that works for all families.
[Paul Teixeira]: I am the other Paul in the group.
[Paul Teixeira]: My name is Paul Tispera.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm the director for English learners and I was on the hybrid committee putting together the hybrid schedule and logistics for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I'll turn it over to Joan Bowen.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we see Toni.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think she's having connectivity issues.
[Paul Teixeira]: Dr. Cushing, I can answer the second part of this question.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if a student has been in a hybrid classroom, they would continue on that path during the quarantine.
[Paul Teixeira]: They wouldn't jump into the remote.
[Paul Teixeira]: At least that's the plan at this time.
[Paul Teixeira]: Keep in mind, this is still a draft, and this is why we're looking for feedback.
[Paul Teixeira]: But we feel it's best for the student to maintain that consistency with the cohort of students, with the work that they're doing, and do that on a remote basis.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they wouldn't switch from like hybrid to the full remote if they're ill.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then also it's different for every student how, you know, to the level of illness they may have if they're not capable of
[Paul Teixeira]: jumping in and doing the work because they need the rest and whatnot.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we would keep the students where they are.
[Paul Teixeira]: So for this question, we decided to look at the chunks of instruction in four to six week periods and reassess at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I think we may have lost Tom as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I'm just going to go to the comment section.
[Paul Teixeira]: And with the hybrid model, the way it was set up is we divided the, you know, we would be dividing the students into two cohorts, cohort one and cohort two.
[Paul Teixeira]: Cohort one will be in school on Mondays and Tuesdays.
[Paul Teixeira]: and they will do their independent asynchronous learning on Thursdays and Fridays.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teacher will then be with cohort two on Thursday, Friday for the live in-person instruction.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the students in cohort two would do their asynchronous learning on Monday, Tuesday.
[Paul Teixeira]: Wednesday is a remote day for everyone and this is an opportunity for the teachers to bring cohort one and cohort two together because that is the full makeup of the classroom for some remote live instruction for the students because that will support students with whichever direction we end up going into.
[Paul Teixeira]: If we end up having to go full remote because the governor does another shutdown, the students will have had experience with the remote learning.
[Paul Teixeira]: from their teacher and that would be their class, or if things get better and we can return to school full time, those students will be able to have had opportunities to interact with the other students in the other cohort, which is the makeup of their class.
[Paul Teixeira]: I can talk about what we did at the elementary level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Joan, you were part of the high school, but at the elementary level, we're doing an asynchronous schedule for the elementary students when they're home.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're giving them the amount of time that they should be spending doing their asynchronous learning for each class on the days that they're home.
[Paul Teixeira]: Joan?
[Paul Teixeira]: There's a question about Monday, Tuesday holidays and how that would impact in the hybrid model.
[Paul Teixeira]: At least for the first half of the year, we did count out and the Monday, Tuesday group would have one less day than the Thursday, Friday group because we have Monday holidays, we have a Tuesday,
[Paul Teixeira]: the election day, but then in November, and we're not sure how long this will extend into, we have the Thursday, Friday for the Thanksgiving break.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's evenly balanced with the exception of one day.
[Paul Teixeira]: can't guarantee that at this point in time because we don't know what the structure will look like and we can't say every lesson is going to be recorded.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if the student is absent and attendance will be taken, they would make up the work like they typically would if they had missed a day of school.
[Paul Teixeira]: But school times and class times are not optional.
[Paul Teixeira]: like they were, you know, it was a little bit less structured in the spring with the abrupt closure of the schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: But this is a school day and the school times are something that, you know, teachers and students all have to adhere to.
[Paul Teixeira]: There was a question about recess that I can address.
[Paul Teixeira]: The recess schedules will be made by the building principals, but when we did the hybrid schedule, we did allot time for recess to coincide with lunch for all students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And, you know, every school is set up differently.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Columbus has two separate areas where one group can go to one side, one can go to the other.
[Paul Teixeira]: I know all of the buildings don't have that much space around them, but they're going to structure it where students can still play, but do it in a responsible manner.
[Paul Teixeira]: I just want to add, you know, we've spent the past couple months trying to look at how we can completely redesign schools in the middle of a pandemic and keep everybody safe and still provide a quality education.
[Paul Teixeira]: There were some questions about teacher professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: We are offering professional development for teachers to make this adjustment because we're asking teachers to completely change the way they've taught, whether it's a hybrid model or remote model, this is something completely new.
[Paul Teixeira]: Prior to getting the extra 10 days front loaded at the beginning of the year, we did opt to take that Tuesday election day and make that a PD day for teachers in August.
[Paul Teixeira]: They've been given a platform on a,
[Paul Teixeira]: by a company called Better Lessons, which is specifically designed to support teachers with their instruction in a remote model, a hybrid model, and how they can make that curriculum accessible synchronously and asynchronously.
[Paul Teixeira]: That contract with Better Lessons will go through, even though the training happens in August,
[Paul Teixeira]: they get to remain on as coaches, I think, through October.
[Paul Teixeira]: So teachers will still have access to that professional development once they're in the thick of trying to juggle this different style of teaching.
[Paul Teixeira]: And also if I could just add with the better lessons professional development, that wasn't, it's not just for teachers, paraprofessionals and administrators are also participating in this.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as a district, everybody is on the same page.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we lost Peter.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not sure if everyone can hear me well.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not sure if Dr. Cushing is still
[Paul Teixeira]: locked out or frozen, but we want to thank everybody who is on this panel for contributing your questions.
[Paul Teixeira]: We will be taking the questions and putting them into a frequently asked questions and kind of compiling them from the two sessions.
[Paul Teixeira]: It also gives us something to think about.
[Paul Teixeira]: The school committee meeting is Thursday night.
[Paul Teixeira]: you know, please come in attendance and share your views there as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: We'll be taking all of this feedback to tweak the plans as they have been presented to the Department of Ed, and our final plan goes in, I believe, August 10th.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you very much for attending, and we look forward to continuing this work with you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Still there.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I did the report.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not going to read it, but does anyone have any questions on the report?
[Paul Teixeira]: No, not a postal mailing.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's all been emailed, but the EL teachers are the ones doing the outreach.
[Paul Teixeira]: They've had systems in place prior to the closure of schools where they would reach out using online texting called talking points.
[Paul Teixeira]: Some use remind 101.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they've always had this outreach.
[Paul Teixeira]: So even with that, there are the 30 students that we haven't been able to get in touch with.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so they've reached out to the translators who are trying to call home.
[Paul Teixeira]: Somebody talked about using phones to call and dialing star 671st.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're finding that they don't pick up if it's a private number.
[Paul Teixeira]: Also, they can't leave their personal cell phone number.
[Paul Teixeira]: to call them back.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's not like we have the advantage of being in school, but the teachers are continually doing the outreach and they're keeping a log of which students they can't get in touch with and which students aren't responding to what they put out on Google.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we'll have that list and we'll just kind of keep going at it to try to get to the kids that aren't responding or the families that aren't responding.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: And welcome to the new members.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: And to follow up to answer your question, it's kind of like a three-way call.
[Paul Teixeira]: You call into the calling center, you identify which language you need, they get somebody on the line, and then everyone's dialed in at the same time.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we are in the middle of access testing, and for those of you unfamiliar with access, it is a state-mandated test.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is administered over a series of several days.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every building is a little bit different because the test is different depending upon your grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: This test measures the four domains of language, reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we get the reports at the very end of May, beginning of June, and we use this data to make our placement determinations for students for the following school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the high school has completed their access testing with the exception of make-ups.
[Paul Teixeira]: Currently the Roberts and the McGlynn Elementary are doing their access testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: Columbus will be starting on Wednesday, McGlynn Middle School on Tuesday, and then the following Wednesday, or I'm sorry, the following Thursday begins the Brooks.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we'll be completed with our access testing across the district by January 26th.
[Paul Teixeira]: We space it out so
[Paul Teixeira]: We can have the appropriate technology support in each of the buildings.
[Paul Teixeira]: The first couple days are the most critical because if there are any issues that need to be addressed, that sets the stage for the rest of the testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: I did give you 2019's access scores in the chart.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not going to read it to you, but if anyone has any questions on that or the test, I can answer those now.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with the Columbus, if you notice from 2017, they had a huge increase between 2017 and 2018.
[Paul Teixeira]: They went up over 24 percentage points.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I think maybe this is leveling off this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: In terms of the decline itself, what we do is we get a report from the state on each individual student who has not made progress on the access test, and each EL teacher in the building gets a progress monitoring form for that student.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get the previous year scores, the second year scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: They put together a building-based team, which would include the classroom teacher, the EL teacher, if they receive Title I,
[Paul Teixeira]: and kind of put together supports for the students across the board.
[Paul Teixeira]: They identify the areas of need, and based on those areas of need, so we're consistent, that's what's being delivered in the EL classroom for intervention and support, and that tier one is happening across the board for the students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that should continue to boost scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: We do that at every school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then with Medford High School, we looked at our curriculum and we actually added another class this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We added a level of EL between 1 and 2, 1.5, it's original, to support the students who
[Paul Teixeira]: may have come last year, but they weren't here for a full year, so they weren't quite ready for the level two, or some students test in at that level, so we added that level to try to catch students at the earlier stages of language acquisition.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's how the two areas have been met on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Not enough students to get the data.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I get the individual student reports, but the Department of Education doesn't have enough, there aren't enough EL students at the Brooks to put together the same data as the other schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, the individual student reports.
[Paul Teixeira]: So anyone who's not making progress, we follow the same protocols at the Brooks.
[Paul Teixeira]: And just with regard to the targets, meeting targets, those targets are established individually for students as well, and they do the same thing for the Brooke students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, there's just not enough students there to come up with the same calculations that they come up with.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, so every student gets an individual target.
[Paul Teixeira]: So based on where they were the previous year and so part of that progress monitoring report takes that into account that we know where that student needs to get for the next level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they take all that information and that's how they make the overall determination.
[Paul Teixeira]: if the schools met their target, and then as a whole, if the district met their target, which each school did meet a target, and the district met their target.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with the Brooks, it's a little bit different because they only, for the newcomer students, they house grades one and two.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if they're a first year student, we wouldn't get data on those students because we don't have something from the previous year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's only the students who have been here two or more years.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get breaks.
[Paul Teixeira]: So again, it's very different at every level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So kindergarten is an individual one to one test and it takes about an hour.
[Paul Teixeira]: So there are no, you know, the teacher can give breaks along the way if the student, if the teacher feels that the student needs it.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um,
[Paul Teixeira]: So, for grades 1 through 12, if they're doing the online, we usually do listening first and then reading.
[Paul Teixeira]: The listening test takes anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, we'll do that first while we have everyone in the lab and then students get a break before they jump into the reading.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the reading test will take about 60 to 70 minutes.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's all they'll do in one day.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the next day, they would come back and do the writing portion, which takes about 60 or 70 minutes for the writing.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the speaking is about 30 minutes.
[Paul Teixeira]: It really depends on the student's language proficiency level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Newcomers will, it's a, the test is tiered.
[Paul Teixeira]: So you start here, and once you hit a stopping point, you don't continue.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that could be as quick as 15 minutes for some students, as long as 40 minutes for others.
[Paul Teixeira]: This has been a, this is, we're in year two of this and we started last year with just science teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so Rocco Cieri was huge in helping to bring that, you know, Nick Tucci was huge in bringing about that shift.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um, so having the support
[Paul Teixeira]: you know of everyone and then this year we extended it Bernadette Riccadeli is kind of overseeing the Co-teaching across the two middle schools because we're also doing the same thing for special ed and the content areas So it's it's grown from there.
[Paul Teixeira]: There is no EL program at the Andrews.
[Paul Teixeira]: So in terms of number of students, they've always hovered anywhere between 75 and 90 students, EL students at the Columbus, grades K through five.
[Paul Teixeira]: Between 75 and 90 every year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So in terms of the increase, again, they went up.
[Paul Teixeira]: 24 percentage points, so you know that would be for anyone who was there in kindergarten Starting that you know you need to be there two years to get this growth You know so it's kind of the consistency the building capacity in the school with the curriculum the alignment of
[Paul Teixeira]: We started doing benchmark assessments with the students using journeys.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had PLCs come across the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: I know the Columbus teachers participated in that.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was voluntary in year one where they would look at student data.
[Paul Teixeira]: The assessments weren't for grading students.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was for finding out what they know and what we need to reteach.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so I think they embraced that.
[Paul Teixeira]: really brought that along.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we embedded for the, we use the journeys as our curriculum for what we call our pullout students.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't use that with our newcomer students.
[Paul Teixeira]: We might use bits and pieces of it in the newcomers program, but
[Paul Teixeira]: We use, you know, they follow the journeys in their English class, and the English language development standards have been matched with the appropriate chapters and units and pacing guides with journeys.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening.
[Paul Teixeira]: I will be quick.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's like 9,000 degrees in here.
[Paul Teixeira]: Sorry, I have to start the projector.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: The EL department had a successful summer, or successful summer programs, and that was thanks to the support of May Abu Hassan, Ghislaine Pinto, Emma Rangel, Laney Cahill, Amanda Davis, Teresa Casagnetti, and David York.
[Paul Teixeira]: I ran three concurrent programs.
[Paul Teixeira]: High school students were able to take summer classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: to make up missed credits or get extra credits during the summer to help with graduation.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was all funded through the Title III grant.
[Paul Teixeira]: Middle school students had five weeks of project-based enrichment activities, and they focused on social studies and science.
[Paul Teixeira]: Each week, the Yale Summer Enrichment Program had a theme with a culminating field trip.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the first week was learning about Massachusetts history,
[Paul Teixeira]: They got to learn interesting facts, the geography of Massachusetts.
[Paul Teixeira]: The week ended with a mini civics lesson and a trip to the State House.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students had the unique opportunity to view government, both past and present, here in Massachusetts.
[Paul Teixeira]: In the second week of the program, students researched famous bridges and structures from around the world.
[Paul Teixeira]: They learned the engineering design process, and the project ended with an in-house field trip from Rita Advani.
[Paul Teixeira]: She's a scientist and engineer who helped the students construct bridges, beams, and columns with paper products and tested weight loads with textbooks.
[Paul Teixeira]: Everything was created with paper.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students designed their own bridges.
[Paul Teixeira]: They did the weight loads using nuts and bolts to determine what load could be handled on their bridges.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the third week of the program focused on rules of the game.
[Paul Teixeira]: In the classroom, students learned grammar, vocabulary, number graphing, developing step-by-step, developing and following step-by-step instructions.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the week ended with a game day in the courtyard at MHS.
[Paul Teixeira]: Students played Paper Battleship, Cornhole, Headbands, and Yahtzee, Giant Jenga.
[Paul Teixeira]: During the fourth and fifth weeks of the program, students learned about oceans and marine life.
[Paul Teixeira]: They researched endangered species, analyzed the reasons for near extinction.
[Paul Teixeira]: The project ended with a field trip to the New England Aquarium.
[Paul Teixeira]: The third program was Starbase.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is our second year with our partnership with Starbase.
[Paul Teixeira]: and that's a STEM lab at Hanscom Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: So students got to design crash test cars, and they worked in teams to choose three safety features to a modified matchbox.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they crashed their car with an egg to determine which safety features would be the most effective.
[Paul Teixeira]: They got to pick the safety features.
[Paul Teixeira]: They could only use items that were available in the lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: Then students designed robot cars and they had to code, write the code to program them to have them go around the track.
[Paul Teixeira]: They had to start and stop in the right place on the map.
[Paul Teixeira]: They had to stay on the track as well as calculate all of the turns.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then these robot cars were kind of transformers that grew some arms and legs.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the students had to program these cars to travel on the surface of the moon and pick up garbage and throw it away.
[Paul Teixeira]: And students wrote the code to move, lift, and drop the trash into the designated areas.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then students made their own derby cars.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then they raced them using CO2 propulsion, and they made predictions on which cars would go fast based on design and design elements, again, going back to the engineering design process.
[Paul Teixeira]: All of this was covered under the Title III grant.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then it happens at Hanscom Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're not drafting students for the military, but this is where the STEM lab happens to be.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so students got to see a parade, and they also have people come in to talk about STEM careers.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's also part of the program that they get to take part in.
[Paul Teixeira]: I would have to look, but the males definitely, I think it's probably, one, two, three, four.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'd say six to three, so six males, three females.
[Paul Teixeira]: Although, there were 11 students in the program, so I don't know where some are right now in this picture, but I can look up the data for you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions on the summer programming before we move on to the next part?
[Paul Teixeira]: So for the enrollment data, last January I gave a presentation on the enrollment numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And as I explained back then, we have a pretty fluid population.
[Paul Teixeira]: It changes from year to year.
[Paul Teixeira]: week to week basically.
[Paul Teixeira]: At one point in the district, at one point we had 500 English learners and then that changes.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then of course in June we have our end of year meetings to determine placement and that changes the numbers for the following year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I did look it up and last year we reclassified 88 students in the district as from being English learners to being former English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that obviously brought our starting numbers down in this September because of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: But the Parent Information Center is registering new students and new families are coming in every day and it's still happening.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I just...
[Paul Teixeira]: put this together to give you that moment in time for new enrollments.
[Paul Teixeira]: So September 18th, 2018, we had tested 165 students, and of those 165 students, 110 qualified for services.
[Paul Teixeira]: September 18th, 2019, this year, we tested 211 students, and of those 211, 138 are English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: So these are our numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: for this point in time in terms of new enrollment.
[Paul Teixeira]: But this also doesn't count students who have transferred in from other districts that we have scores for.
[Paul Teixeira]: If they had taken access in their previous district, we don't test them upon intake.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the number of Yale students is slightly higher than that 138 for new students.
[Paul Teixeira]: There are also, as of the writing of this, there are currently eight students waiting to be medically cleared, and I don't know how many students are still somewhere in the registration pipeline.
[Paul Teixeira]: But most new enrollments at this point in time through the Parent Information Center are English learner families.
[Paul Teixeira]: I also want to take a moment to acknowledge Jessie Reinhold, who's the assessment specialist for the department.
[Paul Teixeira]: Jessie is welcoming to our family.
[Paul Teixeira]: She's exemplary at her job.
[Paul Teixeira]: She takes time with each family and with each student that she tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: She's extremely detail-oriented.
[Paul Teixeira]: She makes placement decisions with 100% accuracy.
[Paul Teixeira]: And she's a tremendous asset to the EL department and to the EL families in Medford.
[Paul Teixeira]: I couldn't do this without her.
[Paul Teixeira]: And these 211 tests, it's a four-domain test, reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
[Paul Teixeira]: The test can take upwards of three hours per student, especially if they're in high school and they have English and we have to administer the math test.
[Paul Teixeira]: So she does this single-handedly, and it's pretty amazing.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm lucky to have her.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the last part of the report is Lesley University.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is my second year with the partnership that I have.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is different from the district's partnership with Lesley University.
[Paul Teixeira]: We get, it's the Elementary Education Urban Initiative, EEUI program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the teachers in this program are in a master's program to get elementary ed certified.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they get an add-on EL license.
[Paul Teixeira]: And how they do that is,
[Paul Teixeira]: by doing a year-long internship in one of our schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: So last year we had two interns, Emma Rangel and Lisa Petri, and we actually hired Emma to fill a retirement at the McGlynn Middle School.
[Paul Teixeira]: She's sixth grade certified, so, and that comes in with the,
[Paul Teixeira]: partnership that I have with Nick Tucci and Faiza Khan with shifting the math program over to co-teaching as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: That allowed us to have co-teaching in both science and math.
[Paul Teixeira]: The math is new this year, but we're also continuing with the professional development we gave to the teachers last year, the science and EL teachers on co-teaching.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we'll go into year two of that, and then math teachers will run concurrently with that as year one.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the Lesley program gives us the opportunity to basically get second year teachers who have been trained by
[Paul Teixeira]: The best teachers we have, we use Christine Hingston, who is at the Roberts, was one of the teachers who mentored one of the candidates, and then Teresa Casagnetti was the other, who also mentored Emma, who we ended up hiring.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it's kind of a win-win program, where we get a pool of teachers who have been trained by our best teachers to come into the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then this year we have two more.
[Paul Teixeira]: One is at the Brooks School this year working with mainstream classroom teacher, Suzanne Sarami, and Allie Kennedy, an EL teacher, and then Christine Hingston has another intern in her program at the Roberts this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Which one?
[Paul Teixeira]: The Starbase or the enrichment?
[Paul Teixeira]: Both.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, I mean so the biggest struggle is finding teachers to do the program and that's again why I wanted to make sure I acknowledged everybody because without them there wouldn't have been a summer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: It was a struggle trying to find a teacher to do the entire five weeks.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then that's when we kind of brainstormed and came up with the idea of doing theme weeks and different teachers did the different weeks.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so that worked out really well.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so hopefully we can just expand on that next year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't need it just yet.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's kind of the tail end of this.
[Paul Teixeira]: I believe everyone has a copy of the report in your packet, so I'm not going to read it to you, but just to give you the high-level parts.
[Paul Teixeira]: The CPR, the EL department is in compliance and is out of corrective action as of November 15th.
[Paul Teixeira]: For the McGlynn redesign update, as I said, I've been meeting with teachers to, you know, get their feedback.
[Paul Teixeira]: to see what improvements or changes need to be made.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've been working on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We started a professional development program to help the co-teachers who are working with EL teachers that now have level one students in their classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's new for everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: I've received the evaluations and I've received positive feedback on the program that's being put into place to support both the EL teachers and the science teachers and obviously the students.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm sorry?
[Paul Teixeira]: No, that's a different, that was with, it's an organization, they're an EL consulting group called Confianza, and they specialize in working with English learners and co-teaching models, and it was actually perfect for what we brought to the McGlynn for our changes.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Lesley University partnership is an internship partnership.
[Paul Teixeira]: So Lesley University has a program where teacher candidates can get their elementary certification as well as their EL certification in like a 15-month period.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's pretty intense.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they do a year-long internship with a duly certified EL and content teacher, elementary certified teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have one at the McGlynn and one at the Roberts.
[Paul Teixeira]: They work Monday through Friday.
[Paul Teixeira]: They started in August.
[Paul Teixeira]: They'll finish in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: They take all of their classes after school hours.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's the intense part.
[Paul Teixeira]: But what works out really well is not only is it a benefit to those buildings and those schools having another person in, they get an educational experience that's, it's like coming in as a second year teacher in your first year.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's pretty amazing.
[Paul Teixeira]: So hopefully, you know, we'll continue that partnership next year and as numbers continue to grow, we can spread it into other buildings.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're currently in the middle of our access testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: If all goes according to plan, we will be done by January 26th, which I think is the earliest we've ever been done in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: Technology department, I have to give them credit.
[Paul Teixeira]: They really busted to make sure that we got everything up and running.
[Paul Teixeira]: The additional devices that have been purchased over the years also have contributed to us being able to decrease the number of days we're actually testing our students, and then we can get back to teaching them.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then I did put on here 2018, last year's access data.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's on the chart.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in every single building, we either met or exceeded our targets.
[Paul Teixeira]: DESE has a very complex system for establishing these targets, and they changed again for 2019.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I don't know what they'll look like next year.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's literally like trying to hit a moving target.
[Paul Teixeira]: It changes from year to year, but just looking at the growth, that's kind of what I was focusing on.
[Paul Teixeira]: The growth in all of the buildings was incredible.
[Paul Teixeira]: Even though at the middle school level we may have gone down, we still met the target.
[Paul Teixeira]: I will be curious next year to see how this redesign of the middle school program will change that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We get these results in June, like last day of May, first day of June.
[Paul Teixeira]: They won't actually give us these targets.
[Paul Teixeira]: We won't get that till over the summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: Over the summer, we'll get that.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I'll give you a similar report next year to see where that lands.
[Paul Teixeira]: Any questions on any of this?
[Paul Teixeira]: Oh, the N.A.
[Paul Teixeira]: means that there's not a large enough population to get the data to make a target and submit the target.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, because the numbers are so small, it's statistically insignificant and the department doesn't actually give us any data for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they do take it.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the struggle that we have with the Brooks is because the newcomers program is first and second grade, which is now our larger population, their first year was last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then in the other grade levels, there may only be five students in fifth grade, four students in fourth grade, and that's not enough data to actually put, to build the targets or to give us any
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't have that data, but I can look at individual students to see who's making progress and who's not making progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was something that we did at the beginning of this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And all of the teachers received a progress monitoring form, regardless of whether it was the Brooks or the Roberts or the McGlynn.
[Paul Teixeira]: They received a progress monitoring form for all the students who didn't make progress, all of the individual students who didn't make progress.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's one factor.
[Paul Teixeira]: Access isn't just for newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's for any student who is currently listed as an English learner in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: Of total population of English learners at the Brooks is not high enough.
[Paul Teixeira]: And with the first and second grade, which is our higher number, the students if they're first year?
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's no, it's based on their growth from the previous year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So those students can't be calculated into it, just like the students in the third grade at the Roberts can't be calculated into it.
[Paul Teixeira]: But there are enough other students in grade three to get that statistical figure.
[Paul Teixeira]: So yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: I mean, the McGlynn, the Roberts, Columbus, they're all anywhere from 75 to 90 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then obviously, kindergarten isn't included in this either, because that would be the first year, regardless of what building they're in.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, not by percent, but I can tell you Portuguese is our number one language, followed by Haitian Creole, and then Spanish and Arabic are kind of tied neck and neck for third, and then everything else is, yeah.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'd have to look it up.
[Paul Teixeira]: I wouldn't be able to guess that.
[Paul Teixeira]: With a registration process, I'm not quite sure.
[Paul Teixeira]: Right.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm not sure.
[Paul Teixeira]: For incoming, I wouldn't be able to determine that number.
[Paul Teixeira]: But for kindergarten, I can figure out how many we have currently this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: I wouldn't want to venture a guess.
[Paul Teixeira]: With regard to our Arabic-speaking families, because most of our Arabic-speaking families are coming here for medical reasons, there's an organization called, I think it's International House,
[Paul Teixeira]: And they always send translators with our Arabic-speaking families.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's very rare that we need to, for the registration process.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Parent Information Center has gotten to know many of the translators from this organization very well.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yep.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, hang on, let me just go down my list.
[Paul Teixeira]: That wouldn't be a factor on which school the students go to.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is still based on their neighborhood.
[Paul Teixeira]: The only difference would be for the newcomer students where we funnel them to
[Paul Teixeira]: The Brooks for grades one and two, and then the Roberts for grades three to five.
[Paul Teixeira]: So for the newcomer program, so at the Brooks, grade one has a teacher, grade two has a teacher, and then there's a pull-out, what we call pull-out EL, and she services grades three through five.
[Paul Teixeira]: So there are three teachers at the Brooks.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the McGlynn Elementary is all pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so all of these figures are determined, I mean, the number of staff that we have in each building is determined not only by grade level, but we have service hours that we're required to provide to EL students based on their level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay.
[Paul Teixeira]: Levels, you know three four and five students which require one to two periods a day depending upon their level So we have three teachers at the McGlynn elementary and they're all pull out and they're all pull out.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then at Columbus Elementary, we have three, same setup, three teachers, and same setup as the McGlynn, where they're mostly levels three, four, or five students.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then the Roberts, we have one dedicated teacher per grade level, grade three, four, and five.
[Paul Teixeira]: For the newcomers program, one teacher in each grade level, and two pull-out teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it will look like, well, the Roberts has five teachers, but three of those grade levels are for newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm sorry.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I just put together this PowerPoint.
[Paul Teixeira]: I actually did it for my department and thought you might find this interesting.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this is on a federal level.
[Paul Teixeira]: There are almost 5 million English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: This is from data from 2014 to 15.
[Paul Teixeira]: But English learners are the fastest growing population of students in grades K through 12.
[Paul Teixeira]: Nationwide, about 10% of the population are English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then this is what it looks like on the state level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the graph on the top shows the total number of students in K to 12 schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And you see it was going up from 2012, and it peaked in 2015.
[Paul Teixeira]: And something happened in 2016 where the overall numbers just dropped for total enrollment.
[Paul Teixeira]: in public schools, so I'm guessing baby boom years or something.
[Paul Teixeira]: And now it's on a steady, now it's going up from 2016, it's on the rise again.
[Paul Teixeira]: But if you look at the percentage, the graph on the left, the percentage of English learners in Massachusetts public schools,
[Paul Teixeira]: The line has steadily been going up.
[Paul Teixeira]: So Medford is reflective of what's happening in the country at large in terms of being the fastest growing population of students, school-age students in public schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: Across the state, we have about 100,000 English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then here's Medford's data.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we have about 11%.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're a little bit higher than the state average.
[Paul Teixeira]: as well as the federal average.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as of this, which was I think October, we had 456 students currently receiving English learner services, in addition to 235 students who are what we call fell students.
[Paul Teixeira]: These are former English learner students.
[Paul Teixeira]: After a student is exited from an English learner program, we monitor them for a four-year period, just to make sure that
[Paul Teixeira]: nothing's come up.
[Paul Teixeira]: With our younger students who are learning to read, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, they're proficient, and the data shows it.
[Paul Teixeira]: The access test shows it.
[Paul Teixeira]: Their class, you know, their classwork shows it.
[Paul Teixeira]: We might find out, oh, no, they still need some support, so we can bring them back into the fold.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then this, again, talking about trying to hit moving targets in terms of trying to figure out what our numbers are and where they're going.
[Paul Teixeira]: And there's a lot going on on this slide, so I'll try to explain it best.
[Paul Teixeira]: But obviously, we have it broken down by elementary, middle, and high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm just going to focus on the total ELs in the district.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I use October as my...
[Paul Teixeira]: moment in time, because that's when we submit our October SIMS.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the first band, the dark orange color, was October 2017.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we had 403 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's what we started the year with last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: By June, we had 487 English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that was our increase from October.
[Paul Teixeira]: Say that again.
[Paul Teixeira]: We had 487.
[Paul Teixeira]: 403.
[Paul Teixeira]: Wow.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're constantly testing students throughout the school year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're constantly adding students.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our numbers are growing.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that was our number in June was 487.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now through, you know, at the high school, obviously 12th grade students when they leave, any students that we reclassify as a FAL, a former English learner, they come out.
[Paul Teixeira]: Even though we're still monitoring them, they're not actively receiving the EL services.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then the following October, we started the year with 456 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if I use that October moment in time as my gauge, we're increasing about 20% each year.
[Paul Teixeira]: The overall population?
[Paul Teixeira]: I haven't been collecting that data.
[Paul Teixeira]: I haven't looked at total numbers, so I can't comment on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, so students got to, so Starbase is a series of STEM labs at Air Force bases throughout the country.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think there are four of them and we have one here at Hanscom.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the students get to go out for a week and they
[Paul Teixeira]: engage in the whole engineering design process.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to build pieces of the space station with a 3D laser printer.
[Paul Teixeira]: And each student gets a different part.
[Paul Teixeira]: They actually do reconstruct it.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have CO2 car races that they did.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's chemistry.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's all sorts of hands-on activities, focusing all on
[Paul Teixeira]: you know, science and STEM activities.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hi, good evening everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: Oh, sorry.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was the model that the Department of Ed wanted six years ago.
[Paul Teixeira]: But now that's changed.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's come out of retail for the state.
[Paul Teixeira]: Also, when this went into effect in the middle schools,
[Paul Teixeira]: the numbers were a lot smaller, so it was easier for all of our middle school students to get what they needed.
[Paul Teixeira]: As the numbers have continually grown, and with the changes in the regs, this model no longer works, and that's what they'd like to see change.
[Paul Teixeira]: probably the beginning of April, we started the McGlynn EL redesign program, which involved McGlynn middle school teachers and the McGlynn administration on looking at ways to
[Paul Teixeira]: redo the schedule to have our students be at grade level and still get all of the classes that they need to support their English language development and the content at grade level with their grade level peers, moving away from that school within a school model.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're at about 80% finished.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm sure you'll be getting a report on that, on what that will look like.
[Paul Teixeira]: We actually met today after school.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's about 15 people on the team putting this together.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with those changes is why when I go down, well, I guess let me finish the highlights before I go to money.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we offered some pre-K through 12 professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: We tied into the union contract with providing teachers with 15 PDPs that could be used for salary credit, and the focus on that was working with English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was on Saturdays at the McGlynn with a combination of face-to-face and online sessions.
[Paul Teixeira]: We also offered some PD on working with students from Haiti.
[Paul Teixeira]: And actually, Mr. Rousseau was in attendance at that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think there were about 35 teachers that came to the McGlynn on a Saturday to be a part of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We also offered professional development for our pre-K teachers, which even though we don't necessarily have an EL pre-K program,
[Paul Teixeira]: Our pre-K teachers do work with English learners, and so we provided professional development for pre-K teachers, which also gave them the opportunity to get their 15 PDPs for license renewal and just also kind of learn about the process of working with English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: One of the things instituted this year were grade level English language development progress reports, so every student in the district got a progress report that broke down the four domains of language, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and you can actually track the student's progress throughout the year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did the fall and spring common writing prompts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we did that across grade level in every school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're using, the teachers are actually finishing up the spring prompts now.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're using that as part of data collection to monitor student progress and also identify areas of need to help us group students better and support them with what they need.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a partnership with Starbase STEM Labs at Hanscom Air Force Base for a summer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a one-week STEM program at the Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have this incredible STEM lab where students get to go.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's only available for fifth grade students.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to go to the lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get robotics.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to work with 3D printers.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's the engineering design process.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every day is a different topic.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that will be offered as a summer program for the one, a summer camp basically for the one week.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is free, but I can use Title III to pay for the transportation costs to get the students out there.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're starting an English learner parent advisory council, although I may change the name on that because I was at a conference on Friday.
[Paul Teixeira]: I always struggle with parent advisory council because many of our students, especially our English learners, may not be here with their parents.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I might take the parent piece out and maybe call it a district council and call it LDAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that is part of what came out of the look bill in November 2017.
[Paul Teixeira]: All districts who have more than 100 English learners or 5% of the population need to have this LPAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the first meeting is to just inform parents about it.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I believe that is set for the second week in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't know the exact date off the top of my head.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we started a student translation community service program at Medford High.
[Paul Teixeira]: This allows students at the high school to act as translators for public events, not report card conferences or anything confidential.
[Paul Teixeira]: The students, high school students, went down to the elementary schools for their open houses.
[Paul Teixeira]: They went to the family math nights.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is also a program, we give the students community service hours for this.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're actually tying that into the seal of biliteracy because English learners are entitled to earn the seal of biliteracy.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, you know, our second largest language group is Haitian Creole, but there aren't tests for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the Department of Education is actually coming up with alternative criteria to allow students who can't take that online test to be able to earn the seal, and this is one way that we can fold that into it.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've established language acquisition teams in every building, and we're doing this for our end-of-the-year placement meetings.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're taking, like, the writing data, MCAS scores, you know, the history of MCAS, if available, when the students access scores, which won't be released until May 30th now, and then all of their internal measures, the DRAs that they, the DRA scores that they get are found to some, you know,
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're going to look at the whole student to make placement decisions, especially if we're exiting a student from the program or if we're moving somebody from newcomers to EL pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're establishing protocols to do that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, that's consistent, you know, throughout the district and we're looking at multiple data points to make that happen.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did have 100% participation in the access testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: I also worked with principals and lead teachers in the buildings to decrease the number of days that the students were tested.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we did actually decrease the testing time so we could get back to actual teaching.
[Paul Teixeira]: We streamlined the EL testing procedures and parent guardian notification at the Parent Information Center, and then also when the
[Paul Teixeira]: access scores come out.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're not waiting until summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're going to get that all taken care of before the students leave in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then there was a life after high school program at Medford High School run by Ami Sanye, one of the EL teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: She had speakers come in.
[Paul Teixeira]: She worked with the librarian to secure the space and set it all up for students to look at their options after high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it wasn't just for seniors.
[Paul Teixeira]: But it used to be done during the summer, but we moved it up to April so she could get the seniors, because waiting until the summer would preclude them from being a part of it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So those were our highlights.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the funding for 2017-18, the textbook budget, a big chunk of it went to the EL Intro to Physics course, which was a new course last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We do our summer testing and registration of L's.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's probably our busiest time of summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then instructional materials office supply for the Yale program K through 12, and then the translation budget, which it's my understanding that was also increased last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the funding request for 18-19, so we can level fund for the summer labor, for the translations, office supplies, and instructional materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: Where I'm hoping to have an increase is on the textbook budget from $4,000 to $7,000.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, I'm trying to streamline what's going on in the district across grade levels and also even within schools at the same level.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a lot of teacher-created materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: The Yale curriculum that was left by my predecessor is amazing.
[Paul Teixeira]: It really is streamlined.
[Paul Teixeira]: It allowed the teachers to bring in a lot of their own materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: The struggle with it is
[Paul Teixeira]: It's not, we don't have a consistent foundation.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we can have two EL1 classes at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And now at the McGlynn, with the redesign, we're going to have three EL1 classrooms because there'll be grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Three, you know, EL2 classrooms by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we need a consistent measure.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we need a foundation, which would be the textbook.
[Paul Teixeira]: not to replace the curriculum, because the curriculum is still the heart of what we do, but we need a common teaching and assessment tool across the board, and so that's why I'm asking for the additional funding for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've identified the textbook series that we'll be using.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's in the packet.
[Paul Teixeira]: For the middle school, it's National Geographics Inside, and for the high school, it's National Geographic Edge.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they actually do, it's the same format and structure, so it does go up basically from middle school to high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then for the positions, I'm asking for an additional middle school teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was actually something that they did ask for in the budget last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it ended up, I think, going to the high school because of that need.
[Paul Teixeira]: As you know, our numbers are fluid.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think I put in here we're 40 students above what we had last year, which is basically an entire class.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then that teacher is needed because now once we split the students, they're no longer by language proficiency level, they're now by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in order to give the students everything we need to give them, especially our newcomer students, we're going to need the extra teacher to make that happen.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we had a long-term sub at the high school asking that that position be converted into a full-time position rather than paying a substitute teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: There were issues with certification, which won't be a problem next year, and that's why she was a sub and paid at the sub rate.
[Paul Teixeira]: But that will be a full-fledged teacher next year, and that's the Intro to Physics course.
[Paul Teixeira]: So when I ran those statistics, the McGlynn is at 11.6% of an EL population, which is just slightly higher than 10%, which is kind of, I don't want to say a norm, because every district is different.
[Paul Teixeira]: But to be in that 10% range is perfectly acceptable.
[Paul Teixeira]: One of the advantages of the redesign is that the students are kind of clustered together now, so it seems like a bigger program at the MacLenn than it really is, because they essentially travel as a group, and that goes for their UA classes, it goes for their
[Paul Teixeira]: even their content classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're distributing the students, and they're all just on one team.
[Paul Teixeira]: So now, with this new design, we're putting them on two teams.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're on the A team and the B team, so the students will be more absorbed into the general school population.
[Paul Teixeira]: In terms of putting a program at the Andrews, I could do that, and I know space is an issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: But then, now once I put, and this came up in the Department of Ed's CPR, I asked, you know, we have two middle schools, we have a program only in one, are we in compliance?
[Paul Teixeira]: And she said, yes, that's not a compliance issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: But if we do move a program over to the Andrews,
[Paul Teixeira]: the program at the Andrews needs to look the same way as it does at the McGlynn, because then it becomes an inequity issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I can put a program at the Andrews, but that will require four teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, because then it would, so the, within the school, so, and, and if anyone from the McGlynn is watching this, this isn't set in stone, but one team would have the, um, the newcomer strand of students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that would be the A team.
[Paul Teixeira]: The B team would have the level three, four, and five students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if I took the newcomer program over and put it at the Andrews, say that A-team, which I think that was in the proposal that I gave you back in October, I could move that.
[Paul Teixeira]: That would require three teachers to go over to the...
[Paul Teixeira]: to go over to the Andrews, and two, to remain at the McGlynn to have the three, fours, and fives.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can just keep the newcomer program in one of the buildings, but as those newcomer students become fluent and become grade level and go from being a newcomer to a level three, four, well then they need an EL teacher as well, and that's where the equity is.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that would be,
[Paul Teixeira]: additional teaching, you know, in year two, year three.
[Paul Teixeira]: That is not a desired
[Paul Teixeira]: scenario for any of our students, because the idea, excuse me?
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, there are other teachers, but it's also, it's challenging for any student to move around.
[Paul Teixeira]: You know, you're with your friends, you're with your peer group.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay, now we're moving you this year.
[Paul Teixeira]: Oh, next year you're moving.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, if it were a student who, say, came in at the end of fifth grade, who was a newcomer.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, you know, they're at the Roberts, and everybody does,
[Paul Teixeira]: move.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then they go to the Andrews for one year, and then we're sending them to the McGlynn for another year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's not an ideal situation for any student.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's a struggle that I'm having with the Brooks program being separated, because we could conceivably have a second grade student come in halfway through the year, so they're in the newcomer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now they still need newcomer in September, so we transfer them to the Brooks, I mean to the Roberts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then they finish their newcomer program, but their neighborhood school is the Columbus.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in a two and a half year period, we have moved that student to three different schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's not really what's in the best interest of the student.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so I'd hate to do that at the middle school level.
[Paul Teixeira]: No.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers were actually working on putting the schedules together today.
[Paul Teixeira]: I see.
[Paul Teixeira]: Hang on for a moment.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't have the number broken down by newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And a lot of this will be driven by those lab meetings that we have at the end of the year, because that's when we make the decision if a student is still classified as a newcomer, if they're going on to level three, or if they're being reclassified as a fellow.
[Paul Teixeira]: I wouldn't be able to give you those numbers, but after we, so the lab meetings are the first week in June because, or first into the second week of June because the access scores, which are a major component of that, like I said, don't come up until May 30th.
[Paul Teixeira]: Once we have that, I'll have a clear picture of every student currently in the district and where they're going to be.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay, thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, they don't.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'll, again, I'll know.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like last year, I don't know, because those decisions were all made before I came on board.
[Paul Teixeira]: But they did, the state came out with new exit criteria.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so there were students, even over the summer, that did, you know, I know of three students that did change schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And sometimes it's just for one year.
[Paul Teixeira]: which is problematic because you've had the student that's been, you know, has only known the Roberts and then in that final year is going to another school where they don't necessarily have a peer group that they grew up with.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one of the things that I could do this year, because I don't know what the official district policy is, but when we have our lab meetings, if we're recommending that a student no longer needs newcomers, I can create a form to go home to the parents that's translated, giving them the option to either stay at the Roberts or to
[Paul Teixeira]: go to their neighborhood school, because ultimately, the parents need to make the decision that works best for, or the guardians need to make the decision that works best for the family.
[Paul Teixeira]: But there's been no official policy that I know of on one side of this or the other.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm asking for a fifth.
[Paul Teixeira]: They all teach newcomers, and they teach all levels, because the program at the McGlynn Middle School is one that the students are grouped by language proficiency, not by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So a classroom at the McGlynn right now could have level one students, but you have students who are grade six, seven, and eight in one classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: One teacher can't do newcomers because of, see, it's not just one.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the state dictates how many periods of ESL the teacher, I mean, the students need.
[Paul Teixeira]: So newcomers are a minimum of two.
[Paul Teixeira]: recommended three periods of English language development daily.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one teacher couldn't teach nine classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's just not enough periods in the day to handle all the newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's just the newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: You have the level twos that also
[Paul Teixeira]: get two periods a day on minimum.
[Paul Teixeira]: Threes get one or two, depending upon where they fall on the range.
[Paul Teixeira]: Fours get one period.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we also have the support.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we also have what we call former English learners, FELs.
[Paul Teixeira]: Sorry, I don't make these acronyms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those students are monitored.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then if they need support, they're brought back into the fold to get the support.
[Paul Teixeira]: If we did newcomers in both buildings.
[Paul Teixeira]: If we did newcomers just in one of the buildings, which would be permissible, that would be four in one building, and then two, a minimum of two at the other building.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's an option under the Look Bill, and that would be,
[Paul Teixeira]: The old model was the transitional bilingual program.
[Paul Teixeira]: What's permissible is a two-way bilingual program, and that's what you're describing.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our major languages, our two top languages are Portuguese and Haitian Creole.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our Spanish numbers are on the lower side.
[Paul Teixeira]: We wouldn't be able to support a program for Spanish.
[Paul Teixeira]: Framingham is the only district that I know of that does the Portuguese program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And there is a Cape Verdean program in, not New Bedford, but yeah.
[Paul Teixeira]: Except for Framingham.
[Paul Teixeira]: So Haitian Creole would be the only one?
[Paul Teixeira]: Haitian Creole would be the only one.
[Paul Teixeira]: I know of no Haitian Creole.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the state's working on those regs right now.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what would be acceptable, basically, the draft, because the draft form that Ms.
[Paul Teixeira]: DeCarlo was just talking about included all of these other features of the look bill.
[Paul Teixeira]: And one of them was the requirements for educators to obtain, similar to the SEI endorsement, an endorsement, a bilingual endorsement that would allow them to teach in that native language.
[Paul Teixeira]: I was just at a meeting on Friday.
[Paul Teixeira]: Nobody gave good news, bad news.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm hoping it's at least at the minimum status quo.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, and that's the thing, to find the teachers who are, you know, and then to, you know, it's, that's, like, I'm excited if I can find an EL teacher who's certified in math.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's the uniform.
[Paul Teixeira]: So to find somebody who is certified in math who's also, you know, bilingual and, you know, Haitian Creole or English, you know, that's, that's going to be a tough, a tough one to find.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the total number of ELs are 499.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's district-wide.
[Paul Teixeira]: The 11% that I mentioned earlier, that was just the McGlynn numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I'm also wondering, are we in compliance with the federal government's policy on the
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, because we're meeting, it's not a ratio between students and teachers, it's are we delivering service hours based on their access scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so one of the things that we did this year was I do a monthly census, maybe more like every six weeks,
[Paul Teixeira]: And it goes out to all of the Yale teachers, and they have their students, they have their access scores, they indicate how many periods they're seeing them for because there are exceptions.
[Paul Teixeira]: When we have duly identified students who are getting support from special education, there's just not enough hours in the day for some students to get all the services, and the department recognizes that.
[Paul Teixeira]: you know, as long as we're, you know, honoring the spirit of the required hours, we're in compliance.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're in good shape there.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the curriculum directors have all been managing that for their departments, so they know if they have a teacher who needs to get the endorsement, and they're dealing with that within their department level.
[Paul Teixeira]: With re-licensure, definitely.
[Paul Teixeira]: And again, anything to do with licensing, as I tell teachers, that's your agreement between you and the state of Massachusetts.
[Paul Teixeira]: We just have to make sure that you're credentialed to do what we're asking you to do.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one of the things that we've talked about in the EL redesign committee is, you know, if the numbers continue to grow, you know, we would have to move the program over to the Andrews because then we would be repeating the issue that exists there now.
[Paul Teixeira]: Right now, once we spread them between the two teams,
[Paul Teixeira]: It's now taking some pressure off.
[Paul Teixeira]: But as the numbers grow, even between the two teams, so we would need to look at the program with the Andrews.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so, you know, it would be one teacher this year, and then next year, you know, if we do it in increments.
[Paul Teixeira]: As the incoming superintendent proposed her upper school, lower middle school, upper middle school plan, that would alleviate a lot of these problems.
[Paul Teixeira]: And one of the things that the McGlynn teachers are excited about is, because there is a lot of change on the horizon, that whatever plan we create as the EL redesign team will work in almost any scenario.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're very happy about that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the way I set up the team was, the email went out through Nick Tucci after he was appointed, asking for representatives from each grade-level team.
[Paul Teixeira]: So a representative from the A team, the B team.
[Paul Teixeira]: for every grade level, special education, guidance, administration, EL, the UA teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's why it's such a big group, because everybody's involved.
[Paul Teixeira]: Their task between every meeting is to go back to their team, whether it's their grade level team or their department team, and share.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we start every new session with getting feedback from the rest of the teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're excited about the change, and this has been coming for a while, and they're glad to be a part of it.
[Paul Teixeira]: I didn't bring any of my posters.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like I said, we just did this today.
[Paul Teixeira]: But they're glad the dialogue is happening.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're glad that they have a voice in it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're excited about the programs being built.
[Paul Teixeira]: Thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was the model that the Department of Ed wanted six years ago.
[Paul Teixeira]: But now that's changed.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's come out of retail for the state.
[Paul Teixeira]: Also, when this went into effect in the middle schools,
[Paul Teixeira]: the numbers were a lot smaller.
[Paul Teixeira]: So it was easier for all of our middle school students to get what they needed.
[Paul Teixeira]: As the numbers have continually grown and with the changes in the regs, this model no longer works.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's what they'd like to see change.
[Paul Teixeira]: Back in probably the beginning of April, we started the McGlynn EL redesign program.
[Paul Teixeira]: which involved McGlynn Middle School teachers and the McGlynn administration on looking at ways to redo the schedule to have our students be at grade level and still get all of the classes that they need to support their English language development and the content at grade level with their grade level peers, moving away from that school within a school model.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're at about 80% finished.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm sure you'll be getting a report on that, on what that will look like.
[Paul Teixeira]: We actually met today after school.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's about 15 people on the team putting this together.
[Paul Teixeira]: So with those changes is why when I go down, well, I guess, let me finish the highlights before I go to Mike.
[Paul Teixeira]: We offered some pre-K through 12 professional development.
[Paul Teixeira]: We tied into the union contract with providing teachers with 15 PDPs that could be used for salary credit.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the focus on that was working with English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was on Saturdays at the McGlynn with a combination of face-to-face and online sessions.
[Paul Teixeira]: We also offered some PD on working with students from Haiti, and actually Mr. Russo was in attendance at that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think there were about 35 teachers that came to the McGlynn on a Saturday to be a part of that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We also offered professional development for our pre-K teachers, which even though we don't necessarily have an EL pre-K program,
[Paul Teixeira]: Our pre-K teachers do work with English learners, and so we provided professional development for pre-K teachers, which also gave them the opportunity to get their 15 PDPs for license renewal, and just also kind of learn about the process of working with English learners.
[Paul Teixeira]: One of the things instituted this year were grade-level English language development progress reports.
[Paul Teixeira]: So every student in the district got a progress report that broke down the four domains of language, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and you can actually track the student's progress throughout the year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did the fall and spring common writing prompts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we did that across grade level in every school.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're using, the teachers are actually finishing up the spring prompts now.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're using that as part of data collection to monitor student progress and also identify areas of need to help us group students better and support them with what they need.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a partnership with Starbase STEM Labs at Hanscom Air Force Base for a summer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's a one-week STEM program at the Air Force Base.
[Paul Teixeira]: They have this incredible STEM lab where students get to go.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's only available for fifth grade students.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to go to the lab.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get robotics.
[Paul Teixeira]: They get to work with 3D printers.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's the engineering design process.
[Paul Teixeira]: Every day is a different topic.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that will be offered as a summer program for the one, a summer camp basically for the one week.
[Paul Teixeira]: It is free, but I can use Title III to pay for the transportation costs to get the students out there.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're starting an English learner parent advisory council, although I may change the name on that because I was at a conference on Friday.
[Paul Teixeira]: I always struggle with parent advisory council because many of our students, especially our English learners, may not be here with their parents.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I might take the parent piece out and maybe call it a district council and call it LDAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that is part of what came out of the look bill in November 2017.
[Paul Teixeira]: All districts who have more than 100 English learners or 5% of the population need to have this LPAC.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so the first meeting is to just inform parents about it.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I believe that is set for the second week in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't know the exact date off the top of my head.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we started a student translation community service program at Medford High.
[Paul Teixeira]: This allows students at the high school to act as translators for public events, not report card conferences or anything confidential.
[Paul Teixeira]: The students, high school students, went down to the elementary schools for their open houses.
[Paul Teixeira]: They went to the family math nights.
[Paul Teixeira]: And this is also a program, we give the students community service hours for this.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're actually tying that into the seal of biliteracy because English learners are entitled to earn the seal of biliteracy.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, you know, our second largest language group is Haitian Creole, but there aren't tests for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the Department of Education is actually coming up with alternative criteria to allow students who can't take that online test to be able to earn the seal, and this is one way that we can fold that into it.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've established language acquisition teams in every building, and we're doing this for our end-of-the-year placement meetings.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're taking, like, the writing data, MCAS scores, you know, the history of MCAS, if available, when the students access scores, which won't be released until May 30th now, and then all of their internal measures, the DRAs that they, the DRA scores that they get, or Fountas and Pinnell,
[Paul Teixeira]: And we're going to look at the whole student to make placement decisions, especially if we're exiting a student from the program or if we're moving somebody from newcomers to EL pullout.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're establishing protocols to do that.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, that's consistent, you know, throughout the district and we're looking at multiple data points to make that happen.
[Paul Teixeira]: We did have 100% participation in the access testing.
[Paul Teixeira]: I also worked with principals and lead teachers in the buildings to decrease the number of days that the students were tested.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we did actually decrease the testing time so we could get back to actual teaching.
[Paul Teixeira]: We streamlined the EL testing procedures and parent guardian notification at the Parent Information Center and then also when the
[Paul Teixeira]: access scores come out.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're not waiting until summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: We're going to get that all taken care of before the students leave in June.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then there was a life after high school program at Medford High School run by Ami Sanye, one of the EL teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: She had speakers come in.
[Paul Teixeira]: She worked with the librarian to secure the space and set it all up for students to look at their options after high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it wasn't just for seniors.
[Paul Teixeira]: But it used to be done during the summer, but we moved it up to April so she could get the seniors, because waiting until the summer would preclude them from being a part of it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So those were our highlights.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the funding for 2017-18, the textbook budget, a big chunk of it went to the EL Intro to Physics course, which was a new course last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: We do our summer testing and registration of L's.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's probably our busiest time of summer.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then instructional materials office supply for the Yale program K through 12, and then the translation budget, which it's my understanding that was also increased last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the funding request for 18-19, so we can level fund for the summer labor, for the translations, office supplies, and instructional materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: Where I'm hoping to have an increase is on the textbook budget from $4,000 to $7,000.
[Paul Teixeira]: Again, I'm trying to streamline what's going on in the district across grade levels and also even within schools at the same level.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have a lot of teacher-created materials,
[Paul Teixeira]: The Yale curriculum that was left by my predecessor is amazing.
[Paul Teixeira]: It really is streamlined.
[Paul Teixeira]: It allowed the teachers to bring in a lot of their own materials.
[Paul Teixeira]: The struggle with it is
[Paul Teixeira]: It's not, we don't have a consistent foundation.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we can have two EL1 classes at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And now at the McGlynn, with the redesign, we're going to have three EL1 classrooms because there'll be grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Three, you know, EL2 classrooms by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we need a consistent measure.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so we need a foundation, which would be the textbook.
[Paul Teixeira]: not to replace the curriculum, because the curriculum is still the heart of what we do, but we need a common teaching and assessment tool across the board, and so that's why I'm asking for the additional funding for that.
[Paul Teixeira]: We've identified the textbook series that we'll be using.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's in the packet.
[Paul Teixeira]: For the middle school, it's National Geographic's Inside, and for the high school, it's National Geographic Edge.
[Paul Teixeira]: And they actually do, it's the same format and structure, so it does go up basically from middle school to high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then for the positions, I'm asking for an additional middle school teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that was actually something that they did ask for in the budget last year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it ended up, I think, going to the high school because of that need.
[Paul Teixeira]: As you know, our numbers are fluid.
[Paul Teixeira]: I think I put in here we're 40 students above what we had last year, which is basically an entire class.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then that teacher is needed because now once we split the students, they're no longer by language proficiency level, they're now by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in order to give the students everything we need to give them, especially our newcomer students, we're going to need the extra teacher to make that happen.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we had a long-term sub at the high school asking that that position be converted into a full-time position rather than paying a substitute teacher.
[Paul Teixeira]: There were issues with certification, which won't be a problem next year, and that's why she was a sub and paid at the sub rate.
[Paul Teixeira]: But that will be a full-fledged teacher next year, and that's the Intro to Physics course.
[Paul Teixeira]: So when I ran those statistics, the McGlynn is at 11.6% of the Yale population, which is just slightly higher than 10%, which is kind of, I don't want to say a norm because every district is different, but to be in that 10% range is perfectly acceptable.
[Paul Teixeira]: One of the advantages of the redesign is that the students are kind of clustered together now, so it seems like a bigger program at the MacLenn than it really is, because they essentially travel as a group, and that goes for their UA classes, it goes for their
[Paul Teixeira]: even their content classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're distributing the students, and they're all just on one team.
[Paul Teixeira]: So now, with this new design, we're putting them on two teams.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're on the A team and the B team, so the students will be more absorbed into the general school population.
[Paul Teixeira]: In terms of putting a program at the Andrews, I could do that, and I know space is an issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: But then, now once I put, and this came up in the Department of Ed's CPR, I asked, you know, we have two middle schools, we have a program only in one, are we in compliance?
[Paul Teixeira]: And she said, yes, that's not a compliance issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: But if we do move a program over to the Andrews,
[Paul Teixeira]: the program at the Andrews needs to look the same way as it does at the McGlynn, because then it becomes an inequity issue.
[Paul Teixeira]: So I can put a program at the Andrews, but that will require four teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, because then it would, so the, within the school, so, and if anyone from the McGlynn is watching this, this isn't set in stone, but one team would have the newcomer strand of students, so that would be the A team.
[Paul Teixeira]: The B team would have the level 3, 4, and 5 students.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if I took the newcomer program over and put it at the Andrews, say that A-team, which I think that was in the proposal that I gave you back in October, I could move that.
[Paul Teixeira]: That would require three teachers to go over to the,
[Paul Teixeira]: to go over to the Andrews and two, to remain at the McGlynn to have the three, fours and fives.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can just keep the newcomer program in one of the buildings, but as those newcomer students become fluent and become grade level and go from being a newcomer to a level three, four, well then they need an EL teacher as well.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's where the equity is.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that would be,
[Paul Teixeira]: additional teaching, you know, in year two, year three.
[Paul Teixeira]: That is not a desired
[Paul Teixeira]: scenario for any of our students because the idea excuse me well there are other teachers but it's also it's challenging for any student to move around you know you're with your friends you're with your peer group okay now we're moving you this year oh next year you're moving so
[Paul Teixeira]: If it were a student who, say, came in at the end of fifth grade who was a newcomer.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're at the Roberts, and everybody does move.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then they go to the Andrews for one year, and then we're sending them to the McGlynn for another year.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's not an ideal situation for any student.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's the struggle that I'm having with the Brooks program being separated, because we could conceivably have
[Paul Teixeira]: A second grade student come in halfway through the year, so they're in the newcomer program.
[Paul Teixeira]: Now they still need newcomer in September, so we transfer them to the Brooks, I mean to the Roberts.
[Paul Teixeira]: So then they finish their newcomer program, but their neighborhood school is the Columbus.
[Paul Teixeira]: And in a two and a half year period, we have moved that student to three different schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's not really what's in the best interest of the student.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so I'd hate to do that at the middle school level.
[Paul Teixeira]: No.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers were actually working on putting the schedules together today.
[Paul Teixeira]: I see.
[Paul Teixeira]: I don't have the number broken down by newcomers, and a lot of this will be driven by those lab meetings that we have at the end of the year, because that's when we make the decision if a student is still classified as a newcomer, if they're going on to level three, or if they're being reclassified as a FAL.
[Paul Teixeira]: I wouldn't be able to give you those numbers, but after we, so the lab meetings are the first week in June, because, or first into the second week of June, because the access scores, which are a major component of that, like I said, don't come up until May 30th.
[Paul Teixeira]: Once we have that, I'll have a clear picture of every student currently in the district and where they're going to be.
[Paul Teixeira]: Okay, thank you.
[Paul Teixeira]: No, they don't.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'll, again, I'll know.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like last year, I don't know because those decisions were all made before I came on board.
[Paul Teixeira]: But they did, the state came out with new exit criteria.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so there were students even over the summer that did, you know, I know of three students that did change schools.
[Paul Teixeira]: And sometimes it's just for one year.
[Paul Teixeira]: which is problematic because you've had the student that's been, you know, has only known the Roberts, and then in that final year is going to another school where they don't necessarily have a peer group that they grew up with.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one of the things that I could do this year, because I don't know what the official district policy is, but when we have our lab meetings, if we're recommending that a student no longer needs newcomers, I can create a form to go home to the parents that's translated, giving them the option to either stay at the Roberts or to go to their neighborhood school, because ultimately the parents
[Paul Teixeira]: need to make the decision that works best for, or the guardians need to make the decision that works best for the family.
[Paul Teixeira]: But there's been no official policy that I know of on one side of this or the other.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm asking for a fifth.
[Paul Teixeira]: They all teach newcomers, and they teach all levels, because the program at the McGlynn Middle School is one that the students are grouped by language proficiency, not by grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So a classroom at the McGlynn right now could have level one students, but you have students who are grade six, seven, and eight in one classroom.
[Paul Teixeira]: One teacher can't do newcomers because of, see, it's not just one.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the state dictates how many periods of ESL the teacher, I mean, the students need.
[Paul Teixeira]: So newcomers are a minimum of two.
[Paul Teixeira]: recommended three periods of English language development daily.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one teacher couldn't teach nine classes.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's just not enough periods in the day to handle all the newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And that's just the newcomers.
[Paul Teixeira]: You have the level twos that also
[Paul Teixeira]: get two periods a day on minimum.
[Paul Teixeira]: Threes get one or two, depending upon where they fall on the range.
[Paul Teixeira]: Fours get one period.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then we also have the support.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we also have what we call former English learners, FELs.
[Paul Teixeira]: Sorry, I don't make these acronyms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those students are monitored.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then if they need support, they're brought back into the fold to get the support.
[Paul Teixeira]: If we did newcomers in both buildings.
[Paul Teixeira]: If we did newcomers just in one of the buildings, which would be permissible, that would be four in one building and then two, a minimum of two at the other building.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's an option under the Look Bill, and that would be,
[Paul Teixeira]: The old model was the transitional bilingual program.
[Paul Teixeira]: What's permissible is a two-way bilingual program, and that's what you're describing.
[Paul Teixeira]: So our major languages, our two top languages are Portuguese and Haitian Creole.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our Spanish numbers are on the lower side.
[Paul Teixeira]: We wouldn't be able to support a program for Spanish.
[Paul Teixeira]: Framingham is the only district that I know of that does the Portuguese program.
[Paul Teixeira]: And there is a Cape Verdean program in, not New Bedford, but, Brockton.
[Paul Teixeira]: Except for Framingham.
[Paul Teixeira]: So Haitian Creole would be the only one?
[Paul Teixeira]: Haitian Creole would be the only one.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the state's working on those regs right now.
[Paul Teixeira]: OK.
[Paul Teixeira]: And what would be acceptable, basically, the draft, because the draft form that Ms.
[Paul Teixeira]: DeCarlo was just talking about included all of these other features of the look bill.
[Paul Teixeira]: And one of them was the requirements for educators to obtain, similar to the SEI endorsement, an endorsement, a bilingual endorsement that would allow them to teach in that native language.
[Paul Teixeira]: Do you have a sense of that?
[Paul Teixeira]: I was just at a meeting on Friday.
[Paul Teixeira]: Nobody gave good news, bad news.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm hoping it's at least at the minimum status quo.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, and that's the thing, to find the teachers who are, you know, and then to, you know, it's, that's, like, I'm excited if I can find an EL teacher who's certified in math.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's the uniform.
[Paul Teixeira]: So to find somebody who is certified in math who's also, you know, bilingual and, you know, Haitian Creole or English, you know, that's, that's going to be a tough, a tough one to find.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the total number of ELs are 499.
[Paul Teixeira]: That's district-wide.
[Paul Teixeira]: The 11% that I mentioned earlier, that was just the McGlynn numbers.
[Paul Teixeira]: And I'm also wondering, are we in compliance with the federal government's guidelines on
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes, because we're meeting, it's not a ratio between students and teachers, it's are we delivering service hours based on their access scores.
[Paul Teixeira]: And so one of the things that we did this year was I do a monthly census, maybe more like every six weeks, and it goes out to all of the EL teachers and they have their students, they have their access scores, they indicate how many periods they're seeing them for because there are exceptions.
[Paul Teixeira]: When we have duly identified students who are getting support from special education, there's just not enough hours in the day for some students to get all the services.
[Paul Teixeira]: And the department recognizes that.
[Paul Teixeira]: And as long as we're honoring the spirit of the required hours, we're in compliance.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we're in good shape there.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the curriculum directors have all been managing that for their departments so they know if they have a teacher who needs to get the endorsement and they're dealing with that within their department level.
[Paul Teixeira]: With re-licensure, definitely.
[Paul Teixeira]: And again, anything to do with licensing, as I tell teachers, that's your agreement between you and the state of Massachusetts.
[Paul Teixeira]: We just have to make sure that you're credentialed to do what we're asking you to do.
[Paul Teixeira]: So one of the things that we've talked about in the EL redesign committee is if the numbers continue to grow, we would have to move the program over to the Andrews, because then we would be repeating the issue that exists there now.
[Paul Teixeira]: Right now, once we spread them between the two teams, it's now taking some pressure off.
[Paul Teixeira]: But as the numbers grow, even between the two teams, so we would need to look at the program with the Andrews.
[Paul Teixeira]: would be one teacher this year, and then next year, if we do it in increments.
[Paul Teixeira]: As the incoming superintendent proposed her lower middle school, upper middle school plan, that would alleviate a lot of these problems.
[Paul Teixeira]: And one of the things that the McGlynn teachers are excited about is, because there is a lot of change on the horizon, that whatever plan we create as the EL redesign team will work in almost any scenario.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're very happy about that.
[Paul Teixeira]: So the way I set up the team was the email went out through Nick Tucci after he was appointed, asking for representatives from each grade-level team.
[Paul Teixeira]: So a representative from the A team, the B team.
[Paul Teixeira]: for every grade level.
[Paul Teixeira]: Special education, guidance, administration, EL, the UA teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: So that's why it's such a big group, because everybody's involved.
[Paul Teixeira]: Their task between every meeting is to go back to their team, whether it's their grade level team or their department team, and share.
[Paul Teixeira]: And we start every new session with getting feedback from the rest of the teachers.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're excited about the change, and this has been coming for a while, and they're glad to be a part of it.
[Paul Teixeira]: I didn't bring any of my posters.
[Paul Teixeira]: Like I said, we just did this today.
[Paul Teixeira]: But they're glad the dialogue is happening.
[Paul Teixeira]: They're glad that they have a voice in it.
[Paul Teixeira]: So they're excited about the programs being built.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this bill allows districts to choose what type of programming works best for their communities.
[Paul Teixeira]: Unlike the old TBE, they had it set up where it was mandatory if you had 20 or more students who spoke in the language group.
[Paul Teixeira]: During that time, students in their first year, it was 20% of instruction was in English, 80% was in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: Year two, it was a 50-50 split.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then year three, it was 20% in the target language and 80%, I'm sorry, 20% in the native language and 80% in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't know what guidance the state's going to come out with regarding this.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have to look at licensure because all of the bilingual licenses were put on hold by DESE 15 years ago when that ended.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we don't know what their requirements will be.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't know
[Paul Teixeira]: really what their guidance will be with programming.
[Paul Teixeira]: It doesn't, my understanding of it as the bill is written, is it doesn't have to be a full-on program as it was in the past.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can now have just individual classes that can support our students who speak other languages.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as Mr. Belson and I were talking about this initially, we're thinking, you know, start out when we look at our language groups, Portuguese is our highest
[Paul Teixeira]: highest number of speakers at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our high school students are at a disadvantage because they have a finite period of time in which to learn language, pass all of their MCAS tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if we were to introduce something here in Medford, we would look at those protocol, you know, the protocol set out by the Department of Ed, look at our student population, which again, changes on a regular basis, and make those decisions at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, when the students come here who don't speak English, they're set up with special, with their classes that are with an ESL teacher or a duly certified teacher who is certified in the content as well as ESL.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those are our newcomer classrooms even here at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers in collaboration with the building, with the assistant principals and guidance
[Paul Teixeira]: kind of have an informal protocol to set up students with other students, but it's not formalized, it's not a specific program.
[Paul Teixeira]: But the actual classes, the students are with all newcomers in these newcomer classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And like I said, that's done informally.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's not a formal protocol or process for that, but the teachers work in collaboration with the guidance department on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I would wait until guidance comes out.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm actually going to a state meeting this Friday that will give me some additional information and maybe I'll have a timeline on when the state will, you know, come out with their guidance.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I wouldn't move forward with anything until the guidance came forth.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's based on um
[Paul Teixeira]: WIDA testing, we're using the WIDA screener, and that gives us the level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So students may have had English in their native country, which is why they would test as a level two, but they're still a newcomer, you know, just arrival.
[Paul Teixeira]: Other students, you know, that are level one most likely didn't have English in their native country.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'd have to, I mean, are you looking for something specific?
[Paul Teixeira]: I know that the Parent Information Center has been struggling with trying to do the placement that best meets both children, and in some cases that hasn't actually happened.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's intense, it's a 40 hour course.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it's only certain providers can give it because this was governed under the Department of Justice.
[Paul Teixeira]: So like Medford can't just offer their own training and say, okay, you're retail endorsed.
[Paul Teixeira]: It has to be through one of the state providers because the Department of Justice is still overseeing it.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, this bill allows districts to choose what type of programming works best for their communities.
[Paul Teixeira]: Unlike the old TBE, they had it set up where it was mandatory if you had 20 or more students who spoke in a language group.
[Paul Teixeira]: During that time, students in their first year, it was 20% of instruction was in English, 80% was in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: Year two, it was a 50-50 split.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then year three, it was 20% in the native language and 80% in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't know what guidance the state's going to come out with regarding this.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have to look at licensure because all of the bilingual licenses were put on hold by DESE 15 years ago when that ended.
[Paul Teixeira]: So we don't know what their requirements will be.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't know
[Paul Teixeira]: really what their guidance will be with programming.
[Paul Teixeira]: It doesn't, my understanding of it as the bill is written is it doesn't have to be a full-on program as it was in the past.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can now have just individual classes that can support our students who speak other languages.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as Mr. Belson and I were talking about this initially, we're thinking, you know, start out when we look at our language groups, Portuguese is our highest,
[Paul Teixeira]: highest number of speakers at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: Our high school students are at a disadvantage because they have a finite period of time in which to learn language, pass all of their MCAS tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: So if we were to introduce something here in Medford, we would look at those protocol, the protocol set out by the Department of Ed, look at our student population, which again, changes on a regular basis, and make those decisions at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, when the students come here who don't speak English, they're set up with special, with their classes that are with an ESL teacher or a duly certified teacher who is certified in the content as well as ESL.
[Paul Teixeira]: And those are our newcomer classrooms even here at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers in collaboration with the building, with the assistant principals and guidance kind of have an informal protocol to set up students with other students, but it's not formalized, it's not a specific program.
[Paul Teixeira]: But the actual classes, the students are with all newcomers in these newcomer classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And like I said, that's done informally.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's not a formal protocol or process for that, but the teachers work in collaboration with the guidance department on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I would wait until guidance comes out.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm actually going to a state meeting this Friday that will give me some additional information, and maybe I'll have a timeline on when the state will come out with their guidance.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I wouldn't move forward with anything until the guidance came forth.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well those levels are based on what we do as a screener test when the students arrive it's based on
[Paul Teixeira]: WIDA testing, we're using the WIDA screener, and that gives us the level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So students may have had English in their native country, which is why they would test as a level two, but they're still a newcomer, just arrival.
[Paul Teixeira]: Other students that are level one most likely didn't have English in their native country.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'd have to, I mean, are you looking for something specific or?
[Paul Teixeira]: I know that the Parent Information Center has been struggling with trying to do the placement that best meets both children, and in some cases that hasn't actually happened.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's intense, it's a 40 hour course.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it's only certain providers can give it because this was governed under the Department of Justice.
[Paul Teixeira]: So like Medford can't just offer their own training and say, okay, you're retail endorsed.
[Paul Teixeira]: It has to be through one of the state providers because the Department of Justice is still overseeing it.
[Paul Teixeira]: Good evening everyone.
[Paul Teixeira]: So this bill allows districts to choose what type of programming works best for their communities.
[Paul Teixeira]: Unlike the old TBE, they had it set up where it was mandatory if you had 20 or more students who spoke in a language group.
[Paul Teixeira]: Uh, during that time, students in their first year, it was 20% of instruction was in English, 80% was in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: Year two, it was a 50-50 split.
[Paul Teixeira]: And then year three, it was 20% in, uh, the target language and 80%, I'm sorry, 20% in the native language and 80% in the target language.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um, we don't know what guidance the state's going to come out with, um, regarding this.
[Paul Teixeira]: We have to look at licensure because all of the bilingual licenses were put on hold by DESE 15 years ago when that ended.
[Paul Teixeira]: Um, so we don't know what their requirements will be.
[Paul Teixeira]: We don't know, um,
[Paul Teixeira]: really what their guidance will be with programming.
[Paul Teixeira]: It doesn't, my understanding of it as the bill is written, is it doesn't have to be a full-on program as it was in the past.
[Paul Teixeira]: We can now have just individual classes that can support our students who speak other languages.
[Paul Teixeira]: So as Mr. Belson and I were talking about this initially, we're thinking, you know, start out when we look at our language groups, Portuguese is our highest
[Paul Teixeira]: highest number of speakers, uh, at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: Uh, our high school students are at a disadvantage because they have a finite period of time in which to learn language, pass all of their MCAS tests.
[Paul Teixeira]: So, if we were to introduce something here in Medford, we would look at those protocol, you know, the protocol set out by the Department of Ed, look at our student population, which again, changes on a regular basis, um, and, and make those decisions at that time.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, when the students come here who don't speak English, they're set up with special, with their classes that are with an ESL teacher or a duly certified teacher who is certified in the content as well as ESL, and those are our newcomer classrooms even here at the high school.
[Paul Teixeira]: The teachers, in collaboration with the building, with the assistant principals and guidance,
[Paul Teixeira]: kind of have an informal protocol to set up students with other students, but it's not formalized, it's not a specific program.
[Paul Teixeira]: But the actual classes, the students are with all newcomers in these newcomer classrooms.
[Paul Teixeira]: And like I said, that's done informally.
[Paul Teixeira]: There's not a formal protocol or process for that, but the teachers work in collaboration with the guidance department on that.
[Paul Teixeira]: I would wait until guidance comes out.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'm actually going to a state meeting, uh, this Friday, uh, that will give me some additional information, um, and maybe I'll have a timeline on when the state will, you know, come out with their guidance.
[Paul Teixeira]: But I wouldn't move forward with anything until the guidance came forth.
[Paul Teixeira]: Well, those levels are based on what we do as a screener test.
[Paul Teixeira]: When the students arrive, it's based on
[Paul Teixeira]: WIDA testing, we're using the WIDA screener, and that gives us the level.
[Paul Teixeira]: So students may have had English in their native country, which is why they would test as a level 2, but they're still a newcomer, you know, just arrival.
[Paul Teixeira]: Other students, you know, that are level 1 most likely didn't have English in their native country.
[Paul Teixeira]: I'd have to, I mean, are you looking for something specific or?
[Paul Teixeira]: I know that the Parent Information Center has been struggling with trying to do the placement that best meets both children and in some cases that hasn't actually happened.
[Paul Teixeira]: It's intense, it's a 40 hour course.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yes.
[Paul Teixeira]: And it's only certain providers can give it because this was governed under the Department of Justice.
[Paul Teixeira]: So like Medford can't just offer their own training and say, okay, you're retail endorsed.
[Paul Teixeira]: It has to be through one of the state providers because the Department of Justice is still overseeing it.