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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSchool Comm. 07/20/2021Mansfield School Committee Meeting Minutes for Tuesday, July 20 2021 Workshop / Open Meeting Approved 08-24-21 5 RECEIVED KS OFFICE toll AUG 25 A cF 45 An Open Meeting/Workshop of the Mansfield School Committee was held in person on Tuesday, July 20, 2021. The open meeting session was called to order by Chair Kiera O'Neil at 6:08 pm. �JANSF IELO M'xSSACHUSETTS Members Present: Kiera O'Neil,Chair Lynn Cavicchi, Vice Chair Linda Fernando Lauren Scher Jenn Walsh Members Absent: None New Business: Consideration of Policy: Administration Present: Teresa Murphy, Superintendent of Schools Code Title Notes Action Mod Motion 2 Disc Vote on 1 Y N ECA Buildings and Fix cross New LF IW N 5-0 Grounds reference Security ECAB Access to Delete LF Iw N 5-0 Buildings and Grounds IJNDB Responsible Modify LF Iw Minor 5-0 Use Policy corrections EEAEC-R Pupil New Delete LF lw 5-0 JICC-R Transportation language Conduct & moved to handbooks Discipline Transportation New Language LF lw 5-0 Conduct for handbooks Language Consideration of School Committee Meeting Dates for 2021-22: Meeting dates reviewed. The next open meeting will be held on August 24th. The goal is to have this as a full in person meeting. The primary focus of the first meeting will be financial items as well as anything required before the start of the school year. Remaining dates were discussed. Possible town meeting dates are 10/26 (we would need to reschedule our meeting) or 11/4. December 21 is on the books but only as an emergency if Dec 7 or 14 is cancelled. May and June dates will be reviewed at a later date. Meeting times for this year will be 6:30 for Open Meeting and 6:00 as needed for executive session. Lynn Cavicchi asked Diane to reach out to Mary Watkins in order to plan the first Student Advisory Committee meeting. Page 1 of 4 Mansfield School Committee Meeting Minutes for Tuesday, July 20 2021 Workshop / Open Meeting 1.111TIVICTL1]Z Approved 08-24-21 District Goals were reviewed including Equity Audit, Professional Development in Cultural Proficiency, Data & Assessment system, Updating Dyslexia Guidelines, Aligning IEP goals to disability rather than content, Scale up McLean Partnership, and Evaluate educational spaces. Mass Insights will assist Mansfield Public Schools in completing this Audit. Professional Development for leadership will be focused on cultural proficiency. School Committee asked if a cultural proficiency professional development event be setup for the committee. Discussion on Equity Audit Lauren Scher asked how we identify the increasing gaps among students. How do we make up the student groups so we can evaluate our goals? She expressed frustration that the district did not provide an impact on learning study until the end of the school year and she was concerned with the outcomes once presented. She asked that the district provide more frequent updates during the course of the year. Superintendent Murphy noted the difficulty in pulling administrators from daily tasks to perform the data analysis. Lynn Cavicchi suggested we start with some baseline measurements such as MCAS, SATs, AP scores, Dibbles, Star Math. It was also suggested we use last May's presentation as a baseline. Outstanding question: What benchmarks should we use for the beginning of the year? Ideally we will target gaps and subgroups. Lynn noted that those students who do not typically perform well will have even more difficulty next year. Superintendent Murphy noted that this was one reason the district worked to build new RTI and PBIS methods. Teresa noted that we have a very low enrollment in summer school compared the number of invitations. Parents indicated a need to give students a break after the long, difficult year. Teresa agrees with the parent sentiments and no students were forced into summer school unless there was a risk of retention. We provided opportunities for summer school in order to meet the guidelines set by Governor Baker and DESE. Gaps, student needs and progressions will need to be looked at on a student by student basis. We have plans in place to do that. Lauren noted that the district worked very hard in the past to reduce student gaps and now those gaps will widen. She is very concerned on how far students will fall behind. Teresa agrees and the distict is concerned about student impact. However, we are in a situation forced on us by COVID. We have to work as hard as we can with what has been dealt to us. We know that students will not be where they should be in June. Our job is to provide the best opportunities possible for student growth. Linda Fernando worries more about the social emotional impact to our students as anxiety rates have jumped. Lynn asked Lauren to identify certain data points that are of interest to help administration focus on those data elements. We need to allow administrators time to do their daily work. Lauren asked if we could focus on a mid -year review. No baseline indicators were established. Regarding a student learning goal, Lynn asked how big of a sample we have for evaluation. Teresa noted that it is a very small sample due to the small percentage of students attending summer school. Lauren noted that we must have comparable students to look at. For example by socio Page 2 of 4 Approved 08-24-2I Mansfield School Committee Meeting Minutes for Tuesday, July 20 2021 Workshop / Open Meeting economic status, race, etc so that we can identify if summer school provided a positive impact. Teresa noted that the student learning goal was established to evaluate and improve upon our summer school program. We made a lot of changes this year including in person, live teachers, the addition of social studies and science, an onsite counselor at all schools. We would like to see how these changes helped our students. There was general discussion related to Teresa's goal on summer school. Will the data be valuable? If there are so few students will it be a worthwhile goal? Perhaps there should be other more hard hitting goals. The committee asked Teresa to document improvements and lessons learned regarding summer school. There was a sense that this goal was expanding so Teresa noted that we need to keep the goal focused and contained otherwise, the district will not be able to complete the goal. Chair O'Neil would rather the district be able to focus on the equity audit rather than expand the requirements of the summer school goal. It is a lot of work for a gain pertaining to a small group of students. Teresa noted that the expected outcome of the effort would be to provide hard data we can give to parents showing them the benefits of summer school. Approval on the student learning goal was deferred. Educational Space Study Goal: As a district we need to start evaluating our buildings and property. Most of our schools are very old and we need to have a long term plan. This process can be compared the master plan for our town. We need to hear from key stakeholders and complete our own master plan. Eventually this will lead to a detailed strategic plan. Kiera O'Neil noted that we need to keep it focused to the strategic use of our educational space. Lauren Scher noted that it is important to hire the right consulting firm. We need someone who knows how to get buy -in early and create a positive experience by building allies and partners. Teresa noted that there are immediate needs such as the modulars at QMS and additional space for our preschool. Lynn is concerned that the Town of Mansfield Master Plan does not account for our aging structures. Part of the issue is that the district has done an amazing job making our old buildings and grounds look appealing from curbside. Teresa asked if a couple of school committee members would sit in on the consultant interviews. Or if preferred, Teresa can do the interviewing and then bring candidates forward to a public meeting. Lynn recommended a subcommittee to screen vendors and then bring a subset to the entire committee. At that time the committee can vote. Lynn suggested we learn from how the town managed their master planning. Perhaps Michael Connolly can provide some insight with his experience in Stoughton. Kiera O'Neil and Jenn Walsh will be point persons. Canton, Stoughton, Sharon and Franklin have recent experience with new building. Teresa will reach out to vendors to start planning interviews. Next, the committee discussed who would be on the steering committee. Ideas included District administration, teachers, principals, FinCom (Sara Walsh?), Town Administrators, Select Board, Planning Board, two community members, school council, SRO. The list started to grow so it was determined that we would start with Teresa Murphy, Ed Donoghue, Mike Connolly, Matt Jacques, 2 school committee members, 2 principals and a few teachers. Then we can expand to bring in other Page 3 of 4 Approved 08-24-21 Mansfield School Committee Meeting Minutes for Tuesday, July 20 2021 Workshop / Open Meeting stakeholders. Lauren hopes that the consultant can help us identify who should be part of the key stakeholder group. Discussion returned back to student learning. Kiera likes the idea that the summer school goal can show student growth. Linda Fernando reminded the committee that equity is so important to the district and must be a part of every goal discussed. Lauren noted that Teresa's role in each goal should be articulated. The committee is not evaluating the district performance but does evaluate Teresa. The committee agreed upon the student learning goal. Formal vote of goals will be held at an upcoming school committee meeting. SCHOOL COMMITTEE GOALS: Ideas discussed: work with town to devise budget timeline, monitor and reflect on how well the budget timeline worked for our needs, equity audit, support of master plan, subcommittee responsibilities, roll and responsibility of school committee members (leading to sustainability of committee as members move on.), outreach to others/training program for new members, work with town on special education stabilization fund. The committee will finalize goals at the 8/24/21 meeting. Motion to adjourn: At 9:32 p.m., Motion to adjourn the open meeting by Linda Fernando / Jenn Walsh Roll Call vote: Lynn Cavicchi aye Jenn Walsh aye Kiera O'Neil aye Linda Fernando aye Lauren Scher aye Motion Carries 5 - 0 Respectfully Submitted, Diane Nugent, Administrative Assistant to Superintendent & School Committee Page 4 of 4