Boston School Committee - Regular Meeting

Evening, and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee. I'm Chairperson Jerry Robinson. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoom. I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptops or other devices so it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting.

Thank you for your cooperation. Tonight's meeting documents are posted on the committee's webpage, bostonpublicschools.org/schoolcommittee, under the October 29 meeting link. For those joining us in person, you can access the meeting documents by scanning the QR code that's posted by the doors. The meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BPS languages. Any translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized.

The meeting will be rebroadcast on Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's webpage and on YouTube. The committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and American Sign Language. The Zoom interpretation feature has been activated. Zoom participants should click the globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language preference. I'd like to remind everyone to speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters.

We'll begin with the approval of minutes. I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the October 8 meeting. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. We will now move on to the superintendent's report. I present to you our superintendent, Mary Skipper.

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to begin my superintendent's report by congratulating you on being presented with the 2025 Sister Margaret Leonard Hope Award from Project Hope earlier this month. For those of you who are not familiar with the organization, this is a Roxbury based Project Hope, which provides individuals and families impacted by homelessness, support with job training, childcare and housing. Chair, thank you for all you do, as we said last night, for children and families of our city, and congratulations. Thank you.

I'd like to give a brief follow-up to the October 8 meeting where we shared the district's state accountability results in Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System data or MCAS for school year twenty four-twenty five. We reported at that time that the district is moving in the right direction. Boston's data shows encouraging progress in Literacy for grades three through eight, with more students meeting or exceeding expectations in both Math and in ELA across nearly all student groups. For grade 10, ELA and math remain areas for continued focus. Overall in the state's accountability system, the district was deemed to be making moderate progress toward targets and was not identified as requiring assistance or intervention.

Earlier this month, all of our school leaders had the opportunity to meet with our regional teams in PLCs or what we call professional learning communities to review the state's accountability data. They look for gaps and started to develop plans for the next forty five days for each of their schools based on where the gaps are. Later tonight, the transformation schools team will give their first update for the school year twenty five-twenty six and will share the data for this group of schools. Last night, I had the honor of joining many of you and Mayor Wu's at the state Boston's first State of the Schools address at the Josiah Quincy Upper School. It was an opportunity for the district, the city and our entire BPS village to celebrate our progress and to recommit ourselves to the work ahead.

I felt such a sense of renewed hope and possibility for our students, families, educators and staff and confidence that our partners in the business, philanthropic, community and nonprofit sectors will continue to build our BPS village. It was a proud night for all of us. It was an extra pep and step for everybody today, I think, here in bowling and in our schools. From the venue itself, the new Jaziah Quincy Upper School was just amazing to see, auditorium with stars on the ceiling and the performance of the participating students to hearing about the numerous accomplishments highlighted in our mayor speech, everyone there had a reason to feel invested in our collective determination to do our best for BPS students. I want to give a quick update on BPS Global Travel.

In BPS, we have broadened our focus beyond global travel to include global experiences that are deeply connected to the curriculum and aligned with each high school's academic pathways. We are thrilled that nearly two fifty students from nine high schools will participate in global learning experiences and explore different parts of the world during the spring semester. This spring, 10 students from Boston Green Academy will travel to Costa Rica for a transformative service learning experience focused on sustainability, environmental stewardship and global interconnectedness. The Boston Arts Academy will bring 12 students and four teachers to Dominican Republic during February break for a community service trip. The experience will allow students to contribute to local communities through home building, school support and cultural exchange projects.

The program supports BAA's mission to foster cultural awareness, empathy, leadership and global citizenship with special significance for students who are familiar ties to the Dominican Republic. In April, the Snowden International School will have 10 students traveling to Taiwan for an immersive Mandarin language and cultural experience. Upcoming trips also include Boston Latin School going to Paris. Many students there in the trip will also go to Italy, Kenya and Peru. The Dearborn, where 13 students will be going to Dominican Republic.

The Mary Lyon High School, 27 students to Paris and Amsterdam. New Mission High School has a trip going to Costa Rica. Boston Latin Academy and Brighton are also in the process of planning trips. I know that when I sign authorization for these, I'm very jealous that our students are getting so many worldly experiences. These are the kinds of things that sometimes we don't celebrate enough in BPS.

And so just wanted to share since I know the committee no longer signs off on the global travel. A few other bright spots. This morning, the city celebrated Boston Reads Day, part of Mayor Wu's new literacy initiative that we kicked off on September 8, the first day of kindergarten. There were more than four fifty volunteers from across the city who read to students in every BPS classroom, K-two, first and second grade, including our own chair Robinson who read to second graders at the Nathan Hale Elementary School in Roxbury, The school she attended is a BPS student. Pictured here is Kristen McSwain, who's the senior advisor and director for the mayor's office of early childhood at the Shaw Taylor Elementary School.

Led by the mayor's office of early childhood, Boston Reads brings together BPS, the Boston Public Library, the Boston Health Commission, and community partners. This initiative aims to streamline family access and deliver a more cohesive literacy experience citywide. From StoryStops, which we know Chair Robinson is a part of, these pair short stories with Boston landmarks, activities in neighborhoods throughout the city, to story starters that ask engaging questions for adults and children to use as story prompts. The campaign is designed to create a culture of reading throughout our city. I look forward to not just having it be about this one day or this one week, but actually all weeks.

And I look forward to continuing to read to students next week and continuing collaboration with our partners to make reading engaging and fun and would love if school committee joined in that as well. Over the past few weeks, it's been a thrill to attend opening celebrations for three of our schools, the Carter School in the South End, the Sarah Roberts Elementary School in Roslindale and a newly renovated P. J. Kennedy Elementary School in East Boston. Thank you, school committee members, coming to these events, true celebrations of our long term facilities plan and all of the joint work the city and district are doing together on our facilities.

On Friday, September 26, we cut the ribbon on the brand new Carter School, which serves students with complex disabilities and learning needs. The upgraded facility will expand the Carter School's enrollment capacity from 25 to 60 students, and I believe it's actually full, and allow for new early childhood programs. On Wednesday, October 8, I joined the members of the merged Philbrook and Sumner elementary schools to celebrate the opening of the new Sarah Roberts School in Rossendale, serving students in grades K to six, including two strands of Spanish dual language programming starting in K-one and rolling up each year. The nearly $91,000,000 renovation totals 109,000 square foot and includes updated classrooms and kindergarten spaces, specialized STEM and music, a rebuilt cafeteria and dining area, new systems, a new vestibule, nurse's office, a media center and refurbished auditorium, which the auditorium beautifully blends the old and the new of the two buildings, and outdoor improvements. The highlight of the event was hearing from the descendants of Sarah Roberts and all that the school meant to them.

On Monday, I attended the ribbon cutting for the newly renovated P. J. Kennedy School in East Boston. The more than $16,000,000 renovation means that the P. J.

Kennedy's building now meets the needs of this special school community. From improvements that can be seen like the new entrance, main office, expanded kindergarten space and music room to the less obvious improvements but really important ones like air conditioning in every classroom, new lighting, security cameras, these upgrades breathe new life into an old building. And ADA accessibility was prioritized across the entire project. Also earlier this month, I joined the Kearley K-eight School in Jamaica Plain for a ribbon cutting celebration for the new playground. The renovation was funded with a $1,000,000 grant from the City of Boston Community Preservation Act funding, which was written by current and former members of the Kerley Family Association.

The project goal was to create an inclusive play area for all grade levels. The playground features an inclusive play area for all grade levels with both an active social zone and a quieter zone for varied opportunities for play. And that was an amazing one where after we cut the ribbon, the kids just rushed the playground and just we're having so much fun on it. The Deborah Elementary School community closed out the Hispanic Heritage Month twenty twenty five with a celebration of the artistic contributions of Hispanic and Latina culture on Friday, October 17. Students in kindergarten through six treated families and staff to performances featuring upbeat, dancing and colorful artworks.

On Saturday, October 18, I visited the annual citywide College Career and STEM Fair at the Reggie Lewis Center here in Roxbury. Each year, the event showcases the many resources available to students to help them get prepared for, enrolled in and through college. This year, more than 800 participants visited over 140 exhibitors from local colleges and universities as well as employers offering internship opportunities, STEM agencies and local organizations that offer free college prep services. It was a fun atmosphere with interactive exhibits, music and food. Our twelfth grade students had the chance to get support from their financial aid applications, from professionals and learn about scholarship opportunities.

There were very long lines for the three sixty degree booth where students learned about the BPS vision of the graduate and took a roving video in graduation regalia. It was a very popular site. I even got to participate in a live podcast hosted by Holland Tech students. Thank you again to the students and school leader Doctor. Arda Street for including me in that.

Special thanks to the BPS Office of College Career and Life Readiness and our partners for really what was a tremendous day for our young people. BPS Food and Nutrition Services was notified that it's earned the Good Food Leader Silver Status from the Center for Good Food Purchasing last week, a national organization that manages the framework used by public institutions to shift their food buying to support local economies, environmental sustainability, workers, animal welfare and nutrition. Considered a national leader in providing students with fresh, nutritious, locally sourced meals, BPS was selected for exceeding national benchmarks in several categories, including nutrition, reinvesting in communities by spending 18% of its food budget on locally sourced products, investing in small and midsized local suppliers and nurturing relationships with New England growers. BPS' silver status is based on the center's independent assessment of BPS food purchasing practices for the twenty three-twenty four school year following the baseline assessment of the twenty nineteen-twenty school year published in 2023. Before we close tonight, we'd like to share a video from our communications multimedia content team about the district's leadership in creating healthy school environments.

This work was featured on the global stage last month when our Director of Planning, Engineering, Sustainability and Environment, Catherine Walsh, a BPS alum, presented at the United Nations on the district's groundbreaking air quality management work. Catherine shared BPS' successes and lessons learned with international leaders, policymakers, scientists and health experts at the Healthy Indoor Air, a Global Call to Action inaugural side event held during the UN General Assembly at its headquarters in New York City on September 23. Kathryn managed the installation of 4,400 air quality sensors in schools district wide and the creation of a public dashboard that provides real time data. The scale and scope of the initiative made BPS a world leader in school air quality management and led to Kathryn's recent presentation at the United Nations. So with that, I think we'll show a quick video.

Event. Healthy indoor air.

I was honored to be invited to the United Nations to represent Boston Polk Schools. During the first two years of the pandemic, Boston made the courageous decision to modernize its existing manual IAQ testing program. We were the first school district in the world to invest in district wide monitoring program for indoor air quality. We are reporting the data from those sensors live on a public online dashboard, and we are using the data to make evidence based decision making to improve our school facilities with health and well-being in mind.

We have students that I'm just seeing the alertness level increase. We're seeing engagement within the building increase. We aren't seeing people looking, feeling fatigued.

We've been able to educate the community about behaviors that they can take in their classrooms to either

I think Kasim really believes and and shares for all of us that the importance of having these resources in schools will make it for a better learning environment for

all our students. Everything we wanted to do to take our vintage building and make it new and exciting and sustainable, she has been with us. From the air quality sensors to the water bottle refilling stations to the freight farm to the outdoor classroom.

Caring about sustainability and having that as a career has been just such a part of my identity. It's probably one of the most salient parts of my identity. So being able to go to work and live out the values that I have and believe in the mission of Boston Public Schools and believe in the values of sustainability and equity. The fact that we're able to show what's possible here and that other districts can relate is very motivating.

There's nobody better to be presenting to the world the work of and value of healthy sustainable schools than Katherine.

We try

to just do the right thing in Boston, and it's led us here in as part of a global network. And it's a privilege to be part of that network with schools. So thank you.

President Black.

You can learn or anyone can learn more about the district's progress in this area on our website. And with that, Chair Robinson, it concludes my report.

Thank you, Superintendent. I'll now open the floor up to questions and discussion. Anyone? Go ahead. Doctor. Ahmad, yeah. Ahead.

Based upon the efforts that we have at the fair, which I think are awesome, so I'm thinking about the STEM fair specifically, do we track how many of our students actually do get enrolled in some of those programs?

So I'll double check that with Beth, but I'm pretty sure that we do track who attends the fair and then where they go, be it to continue on to the next year's science fair. We know how many of them continue to present at the STEM fair year after year. But then additionally, I think your question is more, does that lead them to further involvement in STEM activities? I'll ask her that question specifically if they go that granularly to it. What I know is that every year it's bigger.

And what I appreciate about it is the depth of when you walk around you're actually looking at the presentations of the students, you can see the change of quality in the youngest students going all the way to the oldest students. And many of the older students articulate tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade, involvement with Harvard Med or BU. So they're able to articulate who helped with their project or where they could take those ideas. I think for us with science, we're trying to push back into the curriculum as early as possible that exposure. And I've noticed a quality difference in the youngest students as well.

Thank you, superintendent. It's great to see all of the work around facilities across the city, both in terms of the new buildings as well as the testimony from Catherine. We did hear from parents at the last school committee meeting during public comment about some concerns they were having around the Dorchester Fieldhouse and some of the environmental work that was happening there. Was just wondering if there were any updates on that project.

Yes. I'll ask Doctor. DePina to come up.

Thank you.

Good evening. Members of the committee and public joining us this evening. Regarding the field house work, we were able to send out communication to the both the school leaders, the staff, family, students, just reassuring them that the testing that was going on was appropriate, was safe, was contained, and there really wasn't any concerns or negative impact on the school whatsoever. So, we're going to continue to monitor it, work closely with the construction company and the school leadership on the ground to make sure that we're overly communicating the progress day to day, but the levels that we're seeing around the testing have not proven to be any issue whatsoever. Thank you.

Anyone else? One,

congratulations on last night, but also these updates, particularly on facilities. It's exciting. I am going to just circle back to questions I've been having for a few weeks. Any update on how you guys are processing graduation from last year and how we can start to wrap our head around it even as we wait for the sort of final vetting from the state? And then also any enrollment updates that you want to give us on our current numbers?

Well, I'll start with the enrollment. Think what we're seeing currently with the enrollment and with us, October is a very fluid month, I think, as we've indicated. But we're definitely seeing decline in enrollment. And we're seeing it very specifically around our newcomer population, which is roughly about half of what it was last year. We will report out in the November one when we run the number at the end of the month.

But we're definitely seeing that. We have been really making just a tremendous effort with phone calls, reassuring families of our multilingual learners. We're a safe and welcoming district. Really working school by school to identify extra supports that families may need or students may need. And then on the newcomer, we're again not dismantling any of the programming we're doing for newcomings, but we're trying to shift in the event that we start to see those numbers come back up again.

But that is probably the highlight of it. We also know that this cohort and actually the next several are smaller. That's a consequence of both COVID. It's also a consequence of people not having more than one or two children. So as a result, we anticipate those cohorts. We did in our enrollment projections account for that when we were thinking long term facilities plan. We may at some point going forward need to adjust that further if enrollment trend were to continue in that direction. But right now, think it's a little too early to say that. But in November, we'll give a better rundown on it. But that's the highlight The or low light,

reality.

Yes, the real light.

The reality. And on graduation?

Graduation, I can ask Monica. I know that we were working with the schools. As we explained on graduation, we know that we graduated more students based on the June numbers percentage wise. And then the summer cohort was actually very robust, but it was smaller because we graduated so many in June. The challenge for us is that the statistic that the state gives us, it's a four year cohort average. And it takes into account students that had been there since the previous ninth grade. But Monica, I don't know if there's anything additional that you have for Member Cadet Hernandez.

I don't have the numbers directly in front of me. We're doing a little technical troubleshooting at the moment. But I think what the superintendent mentioned yeah, just put that back up. Yeah. Sorry. I think some broadcasting issues. So what the superintendent mentioned, we have seen just sort of a higher number of graduates this year. And I can follow-up and get you what those numbers are that we are seeing. But we do wait until the state publishes the official sort of cohort graduation rate that we've mentioned, which usually comes in the spring. So we're in the process right now of reviewing that data and finalizing our fall report to DESE.

That is what they use to then aggregate the rates across the state. Great.

And one more question, too, not about graduation. As we are seeing the sort of first tranche of MAP data come in and sort of as we're pushing as a body to be more data focused, are there any trends that we're seeing in early student outcomes as we're starting the year? Or at least the gains or losses from summer?

I don't have anything readily accessible that I can share at the moment. But I think we really use the fall numbers as sort of a baseline as students are transitioning into their school and then look at both the winter and the spring for that growth. But I think we can follow-up and look at sort of the growth between June and the fall, as well as year over year for students who have been with us. But I think the focus of the quality school plans is looking at who has come back to their building for the fall and looking at the students who are in front of them at the moment and sort of planning for them.

Great. Yeah, it would be helpful to discuss it. But also as we're thinking, particularly going into budget season, on the summer investment, like how much are we sort of holding off on increased sort of summer brain drain that happens by the programming that we offer? And can we see any of those trends in the MAP data?

And the MAP fall data does have a growth score as compared to I don't know if it was from the previous fall or from the spring administration. But if students took it at all last year, there is a growth rate that could be helpful.

Yeah, we can for the students who are returning, we can definitely give that. Let's see if we can commit to that for the next meeting, just to be able to share at least in memo form for the committee.

One

question. I'm happy to hear the great news about what's going on with food service. But my question is more as we are becoming more and more aware of what may be facing our families in November, does the district have any plans or working across the city with regard to food issues for our kids?

Sure. So I think what Chair is referring to is that SNAP will be discontinued for what we believe to be about twenty percent of our city population, which is a statistically very high number. We have been very active in this. We actually have sent a memo out to the school leaders today with a list of the state agencies and resources to support. The city is also in dialogue right now talking about being able to connect families to different kinds of food banks and other supports.

It's a very active conversation. And I would anticipate over the next few days that more of those resources will come out. For us, we want to emphasize students should and can eat a healthy breakfast and lunch and should definitely take advantage of that. We're also looking at our Saturday and Sunday programming where we get quite a few families. And they come as families to that programming. Being able to do some distribution there as well. So we're trying to work with our partners to see their capacity to be able to do that.

Very quickly, just an addendum to what member Brandon Hernandez and member Rachel Skarit mentioned regarding the type of issues that they raise. I'd like to see the breakdown on the classification of students, particularly in relation to disability the visible students and students, multilegal students. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all. I'll now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the superintendent's report is approved. We'll now move on to general public comment.

Thank you, The public comment period is an opportunity for individuals to address the school committee on school related issues. Questions on specific school matters are referred to the superintendent. Questions on policy matters may be discussed by the committee later. The meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to one hour. After one hour, anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of meeting.

We have 33 speakers this evening. Each person will have two minutes to speak, and I would remind you, when you have thirty seconds remaining, please feel free to e mail your comments for distribution to the committee. Speakers may not reassign their time to others. The time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time. Please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or district staff.

Please note the comments of any public speaker do not represent the Boston Public Schools or the Boston School Committee. Please state your name, affiliation and where you live before you begin. If you're on Zoom, please sign in using the name you registered with for public comment and be ready to unmute and turn on your camera when it's your turn to speak. Please raise your virtual hand when I call your name. To support interpretation, please speak slowly and clearly. We will start with our in person speakers. The first speakers are Krista Magnuson, Rosanne Tang, John Mudd, Didre Manning, Alexis Rickmers and Gilli Santos. Krista Magnuson?

My name is Krista Magnuson, and I live in Jamaica Plain. I'm a BPS parent of two students who attend the O'Brien and I am also an organizer with the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. There are many aspects of the proposed changes to our exam school admissions process that raise deep concerns in me, but tonight I'm going to stick to the shallow and insufficient family engagement process and let other people discuss the gross inequity, the backsliding into segregation and our continued overemphasis on exam schools to the detriment of all else. So to state it plainly, the BPS engagement numbers are embarrassing. BPS held two webinars with no mechanism for discussion of any kind, submitted questions may or may not have been addressed and the chat was closed.

The feedback form, the main mechanism for families to reply to the proposals in the webinar, garnered a mere three twenty six responses, 81% of which or two sixty four were actually from BPS families. This is from a district with nearly 48,000 students. We are proceeding with a change when BPS has managed to solicit feedback from less than 1% of its community. The Coalition for Equity in Exam Schools has created a petition asking to extend the current decision timeline and create a meaningful community engagement process. We have collected three sixteen signatures, which is just 10 fewer responses than BPS, and we don't have access to a full contact list of BPS families.

The School Committee and BPS families are being asked to move forward knowing that the community engagement plan is insufficient and performative. The coalition also held a community discussion to talk about these proposed changes. And the overwhelming response

from was, our

what's the rush? They want in person meetings held across Boston meeting people where they are and engaging them in actual conversation and they want real outreach. Why didn't BPS use school site or parent councils to spread the word? Why was there not even a robocall about webinars? At the State of the Schools event yesterday, we were told that BPS is a collective effort. Chair Robinson said, We need all of you. Superintendent Skipper referenced her button that says it takes a village. Mayor Wu asked Boston's institutions to get involved in our schools. But our families and students are the heart of our BPS community and have been denied the opportunity to be a genuine part of this and to have real conversations about the effects of these changes. They deserve that chance. Thank you.

I'm Roseanne Tung, and I served on the Exam School Admissions Task Force. As DEI initiatives are eliminated nationwide, Boston seeks to open exam school gates wider to the already privileged, amplifying their advantage under the guises of compromise and merit. The Coalition for Equity in Exam Schools answered the question, for each group, what is the percent change from the current policy to each simulation? The report refutes BPS' conclusion that there is no appreciable difference between the two simulations. Invitations to multilingual learners, economically disadvantaged, black, Latine and BPS sending school students would drop.

These negative effects would be greater for the 50% test weight than for 30. For economically disadvantaged, they would drop 108%, respectively. Grove Hall and Roxbury invitations would be 10% or more lower. West Roxbury invitations would be more than 10% higher. Both recommendations would result in a significant gain of seats for groups already overrepresented and a significant loss of seats for underrepresented groups.

The coalition's analysis concludes that if Boston's leaders push through either recommendation, exam school enrollment will regress towards pre-twenty twenty one. Are eager to know how city leaders respond having received the coalition's report. Meritocracy is a myth that allows people to absolve themselves of responsibility for injustice. The proposals before the school committee will move us away from equity. It's baffling why the city won't take a strong and inclusive stand for low income communities as it has for immigrant communities.

Thank you.

John Mudd? My name is John Mudd. I'm a resident of Cambridge, a long time education advocate in Boston and the grandfather of a student at the John F Kennedy Elementary School. In her state of the school's address, Mayor Wu pointed to many achievements we take can take pride in, but her cursory, almost casual endorsement of inclusion for multilingual learners was deeply disappointing. The evidence is clear on the failure of BPS to educate multilingual learners to meet state MCAS grade level content standards under its strategy of assigning multilingual learners to Gen Ed classes with ESL, which has been codified in the inclusion education plan.

For a district that says it is data driven, evidence based, and student outcome focused, this is especially ironic, even tragic for students. I have presented research evidence that every program for multilingual learners that uses home language and instruction leads to better outcomes. Where is the evidence that inclusive education works for multilingual learners? Please ask for it. Anyone can easily Google the Collier and Thomas graph, which shows clearly on the basis of the most extensive long term research in this area that every program using home language instruction produces better outcomes than English immersion with ESL.

Anyone can also search for the more recent twenty fifteen research paper by Rachel Valentino and Sean Reardon that validates these conclusions. I also analyzed DESE data on the success of equitable literacy. The results are far from encouraging. What student outcome data can BPS show to the school committee that its approach to equitable literacy is increasing literacy and equity for BPS students? I urge you to ask, as some have said, how long do we continue to implement failed strategies you very before much. We Thank you.

Next speaker is Deirdre Manning. Good evening. My name is Deirdre Manning. I'm a Dorchester resident and single parent of two public school students. I want to start at the outset to say that this decision is being made in a vacuum in a sense that there has been no data on student academic outcomes as a result of the policy changes five years ago.

These proposed changes eliminates the double penalty for non Title I students who live in Tiers III and IV, but it will continue to suppress enrollment for families who live in Tiers III and IV. Putting together a construct that makes it more difficult for students in Tiers III and IV to access a publicly funded educational opportunity seems to be something that the school committee should be against. Seats should be based on a proportion of the applicants in each tier. If any changes in applicant numbers in any given year, the policy would then adjust to provide the same percent acceptance for each tier. Tiers are crudely drawn, as evidenced by a $10,200,000 home that is in a Tier one neighborhood.

The least resourced applicants in any tier could receive modest number of points to reflect the likely disadvantage of their previous educational experience. This is something that has been advocated for by member Cardette Hernandez. Suppressing enrollment in tiers three and four will eliminate educational opportunities for lower and middle resourced in these neighborhoods. Citywide seats will likely go to high resourced families. Please do not suppress the enrollment of families who live in Tiers three and four, including Medco, students of color, parochial and charter school families. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Alexis

Good evening. My name is Alexis Rickmers. Rickmers. I'm a resident of Jamaica Plain, and I'm an attorney speaking on behalf of the Center for Law and Education, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to ensure high quality education for all students. We oppose the superintendent's recommendations for a new exam school admissions policy and urge the committee to vote against it.

The original goals of the existing policy are to, quote, increase racial and economic diversity. While the new plan not only omits this language, it also fails to state a cohesive goal promoting equity for all. Not only is this a departure from the existing policy, but this move is at odds with the State's commitment to equity. It is worth being explicit here. Admissions committed to equity and increasing access for marginalized groups has been legal and remains legal.

In the wake of the Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court case in 2023, schools across the country rushed to rid their admissions policies of, quote, DEI, which effectively removed policies aimed at increasing all types of diversity. That case did not require a rollback of DEI at the higher education or the K-twelve level. Additionally, our Attorney General's Office put out a guidance directing schools in Massachusetts to stand strong against federal intimidation and keep promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in our schools. Supreme Court precedent also tells us that factoring in systemic barriers, such as ZIP code and income status, is legal.

Thirty seconds.

Thank

you. For nearly five decades, the Court has rejected the notion that a policy is unconstitutional merely because it yields a racially disparate outcome. The seminal case Parents Involved confirms that schools may pursue diversity through facially neutral means, specifically that schools may adopt strategies such as site selection or attendance zones to reduce racial isolation. The proposal shifts from clear goals to a plan with no cohesive mission, therefore reflects an unnecessary effort to comply and advance. You.

Next speaker is Julie Santos.

Good evening. I'm Gillie Santos testifying on behalf of

CFJJ and as a part of the Coalition for Equity in Exam schools. By now, I hope you've read the front page Globe article that reads, quote, amid Trump's d I DEI crackdown, BPSI's policy that could roll back diversity in exam school admissions. This article properly contextualizes what's happening in light of ongoing attempts from the federal government to undermine public education and equity, and we cannot let this happen here in Boston. We commended mayor Wu for her courage when she sat before congress defending Boston's right to be a home for everyone. Now we urge both the mayor and the school committee whom she appoints to have the same commitment to inclusivity when it comes to Boston students.

Boston needs to combat attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion by recognizing that some students face more barriers to opportunities than others and enacting policies with explicit goals to create pathways like for black and brown students.

Chilean, can

you just slow down

the interpreter? Sure.

Low income students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. These recommendations would do the opposite and reverse the racial, economic, and geographic diversity achieved by the current policy. Boston needs to make policy based on evidence instead of the intuition of leadership. If the superintendent's recommendations with 50% test weight is implemented, invitations to black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, multilingual students and students from BPS schools would drop even more than they would for the 30% test weight. Yet at the last meeting, the superintendent claimed that the difference in testing weight would have, quote, no significant change.

This is unacceptable. There's no reason to make changes that would only further resegregate the exam schools and we expect an honest assessment from the district about what the data clearly tells us. Important decisions that impact access to educational opportunities must be made collectively through discussions like our coalition held centering the voices of those who hold identities that are underrepresented in the exam schools. I ask that you not vote through a policy that has been developed without the meaningful input of the community. Boston has a history of standing up to injustice and I implore you to not let Boston be another chapter in this national story of backsliding on educational equity. Thank you. We urge you to pause the vote and keep the policy as it is.

Thank you. Our next speakers are Harnene Cherno, Sharon Kuntz, Jen Rose Wood, Natasha Telsford Williams, James Noonan and Stephanie Shapiro Bergson. Harnene Chernow?

Good evening. Thank you. My name is Harnene Chernow. I'm a parent of two BPS alums, and I was also the Vice Chair for the State Board of Ed, and I'm currently the Vice Chair of the State Board of Higher Ed. I'm here today to ask recommendations for changing the exam school admission process.

My son, Simon Cherno, was the student rep on the exam schools task force that came together in 'twenty one to implement the current reforms. That process engaged parents, advocates, teachers and students from across the district. Even with COVID, the district managed to create opportunities for the public to authentically weigh into the larger process. We saw each other, we saw district reps, we raised difficult questions and requested and received multiple simulations. The school committee has a major conundrum.

On the one hand, you are committed to the goal of equity and opportunity, and on the other hand, spend a disproportionate amount of time on three schools, one of which has a $71,000,000 endowment providing its students with a level of athletics, drama, music and debate unimaginable in any other BPS high school. So when the public hears that you're voting for reforms, the data show further close the door to BPS students across all neighborhoods accessing these seats and replacing it with a system that ends up privileging students outside of BPS and quote unquote the top 20%. It is deeply troubling. In 2012, when adopting a controversial school assignment model that impacts all Boston families, the district committed to a public review every three years. In thirteen years, only one review has been completed.

But when it comes to exam schools, four years into a five year plan, the district is once again spending resources and time redoing that system. What was passed in 'twenty one led to some initial gains. What is being proposed now will result in backsliding or zero growth for our most marginalized communities. Why the rush? I join others in urging you to retain the five year plan and the time to engage in a robust community process.

Our next speaker is Sharon

Hi. Good evening. My name is Sharon Koons. I live in Roslindale and my two kids are at the Sarah Roberts. The oldest is in sixth grade. I have justified before school committee once before in 2020 when my son was in first, and I argued then, as I do now, for the need for greater equity in access to the exam schools. So, for that reason, I do oppose the proposed latest round of changes. But more than that, I'm so frustrated that we are still arguing about this insanely complicated point system. And I'm starting to wonder, is this by design? Pitting parents against each other, fighting over seats in exam schools distracts us from the bigger picture, which is not complicated at all.

Every child in Boston deserves to go to a high school that is respected, that is diverse, that offers a wide range of programming. That offers a wide range of programming across all levels of ability and a full complement of extracurricular activities. For too long, we've accepted this notion that a high quality high school education is a scarce resource and that's just So, are there good options in BPS besides the exam schools? We don't hear about them from the district. I asked a representative of the district about this, and he said, Well, we don't want to over publicize the early college programs in the other high schools because we don't want to over promise and under deliver.

But right now, BPS is under promising and under delivering and it's driving families from the district. So, to my fellow parents out there, I ask you.

Thirty seconds.

Let's not allow ourselves to be divided fighting over these complicated formulas. Let's come together and focus on a very simple truth, is that all of our kids deserve better. And to Superintendent Skipper and the members of the committee, please use your leadership to redirect our attention away from these three schools. Let's focus instead on making sure that every family knows their kid can get a great education in BPS in high school no matter what they scored on their report card when they were 10. And if that's not the case, then let's focus all of our energy on and making that happen. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jen Rosewood.

Good evening. My name is Jen Rosewood and I'm a former BPS educator and current BPS parent. My kids went to the Nathan Hale and the O'Brien and my younger son just started at BLA. In the spring of his sixth grade year, when my older son and his classmates were finding out about their school assignments, I remember his confusion and sorrow when two of his friends, one of who is black and one of whom is Dominican, did not get into the OB or any other exam school. All three boys had worked hard in sixth grade and had expected to all get into their first choice schools together.

At graduation, despite their joy and pride in finishing elementary school, I remember the boys visibly distraught and crying at the prospect of losing the friendships, connections and diverse inclusive community that they had grown up together with at the Hale. I strongly oppose the proposed changes to the exam school policy. And if you value diversity and inclusion, I recommend you oppose it, too. It makes no sense to me for BPS to continue to engineer segregation by design. And let's be clear, that's exactly what these changes would accomplish.

The argument that the current point system isn't equal is based on a simplistic definition of what equality truly means. True equality or equity is equality of opportunity, not discrimination and resource hoarding for a small and exclusive group of schools. All BPS schools should be fully resourced

Thirty seconds.

And should fully accept all students regardless of challenges due to their family circumstances and not based solely on grades and the MAP test, which is known to be biased and skewed. Poverty homelessness and DCF involvement are not a reflection of a child's intelligence and say nothing about their academic potential. Penalizing children for these adverse experiences which are entirely out of their control instead of supporting them to gain access to better opportunities is mind boggling and bizarre. Keep the policy the same so instead of focusing only on three schools, you can instead fight for full and fair funding for Boston's 30 plus other high schools. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Natasha Williams.

Good evening. My name is Natasha Williams. I'm a lifelong resident of Dorchester, and I am a parent who supports the proposed changes to the exam school's admission policy. My brother and I are both children of immigrants and first generation college graduates who both attended BPS exam school. The education we received through BPS helped shape our success and instilled in us a lifelong commitment to this city.

My brother and I continue to live in the Grove Hall neighborhood where we were raised. However, we've both been unable to choose BPS for our children because many of the schools in our zone continue to underperform. As a result, my son attends an independent school outside of the district and my niece attends an out of district school through the Medco program. We remain hopeful that our children will one day have the opportunity to attend a BPS exam school, yet the current policy sends a troubling message that families who make educational choices that they believe are in their children's best interest are not welcome to return to BPS. The current approach could result in further declines in district enrollment and limit deserving residents access to a high quality education.

I urge the committee to adopt the superintendent's recommendation recommended policy changes and ensure that all families who remain deeply connected to our city are always welcome and valued in Boston Public Schools.

Thank you. Our next speaker is James

Good evening. My name is James Newman. I live in Roxbury. I'm an associate professor of education and a parent of two students at the Nathan Hale School. I'd like to speak to you tonight about the values that you bring to your work on this committee. I trust that each of you, in agreeing to serve, has a deep commitment to educational equity. I'm grateful for that commitment and I share it. It takes courage to work for equity and justice because these values, while they are right, are not always popular. But five years ago, amid a national reckoning with entrenched racism, this committee marshaled tremendous courage in charging a task force to recommend more equitable admissions policies for Boston's exam schools. I teach about the fight for school integration and the benefits of racially and economically diverse schools.

The research on this is unambiguous. The benefits of diverse schools are large, broad and long lasting, and not just academically but socially, on post secondary attainment, lifetime wages, poverty reduction and more. Importantly, the benefits extend to all students. For policy makers who care about equity, there is no better policy to enact your values than one that maximizes student diversity. And yet, despite these findings, resistance to diverse schools is fierce and unyielding, which is why it takes courage to stand behind them.

Diversity in exam schools peaked in the mid nineties thanks to a set aside from the federal court. Faced with a lawsuit from aggrieved white families in the nineties, the then school committee quickly abandoned that set aside moving to a race blind admissions policy. Diversity in the schools plummeted. That is until 2021. The revised policy championed by this committee combining academic achievement with an effort, to account for the systemic and historical injustices had an immediate and positive effect.

Diversity on multiple dimensions has increased. In sociopolitical climate that is brazenly hostile to equity efforts, it will require courage to resist the forces that will pull us backwards. But I trust and hope that together your values are up Thank to the you.

You. Stephanie Shapiro Berksen.

Thank you for this opportunity. I'm Stephanie Shapiro of Bergson from right up the street. I'm the mom of two BLS students, a 2025 grad and a current junior, the class of 2027, a significant class in this conversation since it was the first class to enter under the initial exam school entrance policy change. Back during the twenty one-twenty two school year, when his first class and when this first class entered, the banter from adults outside of the building was loaded with hateful and false claims. But inside the building, the class of twenty twenty seven is regarded as one of the greatest classes to pass through the doors of BLS.

The students themselves have a very special bond between them and everyone around them knows it. Their bond elevates the experience for all inside the building. The statistical data points have shown that the shift in the exam school entrance policy has indeed taken a step toward equity with the exam schools being more representative of the district. But here we are again. This time though in a climate of ICE raids and other assaults on the freedom of our own student body where nearly one out of two BPS students speaks a language other than English at home and where unhoused students make up about 10% of our BPS scallops.

Now is when you want to make a change, a change that could reverse some of the strides made. There's not yet been meaningful community engagement that includes the voices of families who stand to be further disadvantaged by the proposed policy change. Process has been difficult to access limited outreach and English only materials and little time for communities to understand implications of these changes. If PPS is a community that is actually dedicated to equity, then it's so essential now in our current climate more than ever that you postpone this vote until you've done your due diligence for meaningful community engagement. Thanks again for the opportunity.

Thank you, Stephanie. Our next speakers are Kwong Tran, Min Nguyen, Ziyua Gong, Jingxuan Shin, and Peiwen Yu. Kwong Tran.

Hi, good evening. My name is Kung Chien. I live in Quincy. I am a first grade bilingual teacher at the Vietnamese dual language program at Mader Elementary School. The first few people coming from three school community are all about access to program like mine.

Right now, Maderhunt, Mader and Quincy bilingual programs are all zoned for home based assignment. We are asking for citywide assignment, allowing more students to learn in both their home language and in English. As a bilingual teacher, I witnessed firsthand how our student thrive when they see their home language and culture reflected in the classroom. Our Vietnamese families always tell us how affirming it is for their children to learn in an environment where their heritage language is valued and celebrated. Currently, enrollment in our program is restricted by school zone boundary.

The current system exclude many Vietnamese family who live outside of our school catchment area. Many family are eager for their children to participate in this unique educational opportunity. As a teacher, I regularly receive messages from families across Boston asking if there is any way for their child to enroll. Sadly, I often have to tell them no. Expanding the program to citywide enrollment would remove this barrier and ensure equitable access to all Vietnamese student in Boston, no matter where they live. Citywide enrollment would also strengthen our school by creating fuller classroom, stronger community of family and broader culture exchange amongst students.

Thirty

seconds. I urge the school committee to adopt Citywide enrollment for all bilingual program. Doing so would ensure that all families in Boston who desire this opportunity for their children can access it. Thank you very much for your consideration and for your ongoing commitment to the success of all Boston students.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Min Wen.

Hi, good evening. My name is Min Nguyen and I work as a paraprofessional in Boston Public School Vietnamese dual language program at the Matter Elementary, which is the first and still the only Vietnamese dual language program in the city. Boston's Vietnamese community was once concentrated in Dorchester, but because of housing affordability and ongoing development, many families now live in different parts of the city. Research shows that the dual language immersion is one of the most effective model for English learners, and it also benefits English dominant students, Still fewer than one in 12 English learners nationwide can access this opportunity. In Boston, the need is especially urgent.

Our program has only 22 seats each year. Family come to us eager to enroll, but because of limited capacity, we're forced to turn them away. For me and my students, this program is deeply meaningful. I see children light up when they realize their home language is valued and celebrated. And for many, this is the first time school truly feels like it's for them.

That sense of belonging builds confidence, and that confidence fuels learning. That is why I'm here today to share my experience and emphasize the importance of expanding access. A citywide model would open doors for more families, strengthen outcomes for students and reflect Boston's commitment to equity and multilingual education. Thank you for your time and for your support for our students.

Thank you. Our two next speakers, Ziyao Gong and Jingxiang Xin, will need support in Mandarin. Our Mandarin interpreters are on Zoom. Are you there? On Zoom? We have two interpreters.

Yes, I'm ready.

Yes, so can you please speak slowly in sentences, so the interpreter can interpret. Okay?

My name is Han First grade at GQES. I live in Boston. My home language is Chinese. At home, we speak both memory and Anhui dialect. I'm at the Chinese ESL class.

I'm here at this meeting because the dual language program is really important to my family. My dual language capacity will help me to achieve a better outcome at the school. And it's also very important to my community. Because I would like to have the dual language so I can help out to interpret for my family, for the community in the future. I used to attend school in New York.

But I think the dual program in Boston is much better than New York. Because it's so much easier for me to learn English here. I hope more student like me, even they don't live closely here, I hope they can all attend the dual language program where the teachers or the staff members speak our language.

Thank you. Our next speaker will also need support in Mandarin, Jingxiang Xin.

My name is Jin Xiao. First grader at JQ. Yes. I live in East Boston.

My

home language is Chinese. At home, we speak Mandarin. ESL. I'm at a Chinese ESL class. Today, I'm here.

Because I think the dual language program serves better for my family. I would like to keep the dual language capacity.

So

one day I can speak Mandarin in China, where I can still speak English here in The US. Okay. So I can help friends with the dual languages. And also the the neighbors, the the relatives. And I do think the dual language program will eventually help me to locate a better job.

And I hope more student like me will have the chance to study both the English and their home language. So this program serves very well to me and also our community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our last in person speaker is Pei

Hi, good evening, everybody. My name is Pei Wen Yu. I am a fourth and fifth grade ESL teacher at Josiah Quincy School. So I speak Mandarin, English and Japanese. Most of my students are newcomers from China who speak Mandarin.

I believe students' ability are best recognized when their native language is valued. All my students come from come with strong skills in their home language, and a bilingual classroom helps them use these skills to learn English. I have seen students making fast progress, stay motivated and continue learning even as they enter middle school. I believe bilingual teachers can better support translanguaging education. Bilingual education is not just about language, it is about equity and inclusion.

Learning in two languages helps the brain strengthen academic growth and build confidence. Students are proud of their language and culture, and they carry the pride into all areas of life. The two students who just spoke today are a great example. I have also seen how bilingual programs build community. Older students help younger ones transition to new grades and families feel supported when school provides educational and community resources in their native language.

This creates a sense of belonging that goes beyond the classroom. That's why I'm asking for the assignment policy to be changed to citywide for bilingual program schools like Josiah Quincy that can offer bilingual Chinese instructions. This will allow more students to build a strong academic foundation in two languages, improve outcomes and strengthen Boston Public School as a whole. So please support making JQ YES a citywide school so more students can benefit from learning in two languages. It is best for our students, their families and for BPS. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will now transition into our Zoom testimonies. Please raise your hand when I call your name. Our first group of speakers our first speakers are Truong Thook Tucker, Ting Yan Chan and Jessica Tang. Frog Fong Tucker, please accept the prompt.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you.

Hi. My name is Chuk Phu Tucker. I am an active member of the Vietnamese dual language committee. For many years, I have worked closely with the Vietnamese families living in Boston. Through numerous conversation and home visit, I have learned that many families want their children to attend the Vietnamese dual language program at the mother school.

However, they could not enroll their children because they live outside of the limited enrollment zone. Since 2021, the Vietnamese dual language program had grown significantly. It now has more than 15 bilingual teachers and paraprofessionals who can support bilingual students, especially students with special needs or with disabilities. The program now has bilingual learning specialists and a bilingual speech pathologist who can provide services in both Vietnamese and English. For Vietnamese speaking families, bilingual education is vital.

It preserves our language, culture and family connections. For families with children who require special education services, the dual language program offers the most inclusive and supportive learning environments. You have heard that

Thirty seconds.

Dual language program at the Matha Elementary with 26 per grade level. The number of Vietnamese student in Boston are far exceed this capacity. So I'm here today to represent my community and urge the school committee to revise the district enrollment policy so that families across all Boston neighborhoods may enroll their children in the Vietnamese dual language program. This policy change

Thank you very much. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you

for your consideration.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tien Yan Chan. Please accept the prompt. Tien Tsien Shen, please accept the prompt. We will continue with Jessica Tang, and we will come back to see Jessica Tang.

Hi. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jessica Tang, and I am here, not, with my union hat on or with my teacher hat on, but I'm here tonight as a parent. And so as an educator, I I have been a longtime advocate for bilingual education, and I'm, proud to have supported the many different efforts, whether it was for, the dual language Haitian Creole or the Vietnamese Haitian Creole, and longtime supporter of the Spanish dual lingual programs as well. But tonight, I'm here as a parent, because I have a four year old.

He just turned four and missed the, cutoff, unfortunately. So we have another year of day care before kindergarten. But he's enrolled in a bilingual Chinese daycare right now. And it hasn't been incredible to see him become bilingual and learn Chinese. When my parents came to visit and my great aunt came to visit recently, he was able to communicate with them in Mandarin.

And as someone who grew up bilingual, I know so much of the benefits of being bilingual. And, here he is. And and I I'm so thrilled to see how much Chinese that he's been able to learn and would really love for him to be able to continue that bilingualism in Boston public schools when he is eligible after next year in 02/2027. But right now, the Quincy School is, based on and not available citywide. And, we do believe that there are a lot of families, not just myself, but other families in the daycare actually too, who would love to be able to access, the Chinese bilingual program in Boston Public Schools.

And so making it citywide and making the other dual language programs citywide is is a solution that I think would really benefit more students in Boston Public Schools and families like myself and the ones that also go to

this day care.

Thank you very much. Our next group our next speakers are Wanhua Chen, Lena Ong, Ian Chan, Bernie Wilson, Leslie Parker Sproul and Mike Heisman. Our next speaker, Wan Hwa Chen, would need support in Cantonese.

Yes.

I'm trying to

find a problem.

Chen?

Hold on.

Excuse me. Can you please speak louder?

Hello, everyone.

You can start.

Hi, I'm Meng Hwa Chen. I'm a mom. I have a son who go to JQES. Once he switched to the school, he's able to enroll in a bilingual program. I have seen his improvement significantly.

And then we have a great communication with the teachers. And the communication between the parents and the teacher, it's so much easier. I would like to urge JQUS to expand its policy to accept other students citywide because JQUS is the only school in the area that offer dual language program. This is a very important policy change that will benefit families like me and that will enhance our children's education in the future. And this change policy will enhance students' performance and also will elevate the whole education for the entire BPS.

To family, to students and to the entire BPS community, this is a very beneficial way of doing it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you, Anna. Our next speaker is Lena Ong. You can start.

First, can anyone hear me?

Yes. Speak a little bit louder, please.

Hello, everyone. My name is Leanne. I'm a second grader at the. I live at Rochester, Boston. My first language is English, but I speak English and Vietnamese at home. I am in a dual language program. Why is this important to me? This is important to me because it will help me connect with other families and communities. We can talk to our beloved relatives more easy and learn about the culture and traditions. Learning two languages makes my brain stronger.

Studies show that kids in dual language programs do better at solving problems and remembering things. I want to be able to travel easy when I visit my parents' home country. Being but linked can help me in the future because when I grow up, I have more job opportunities to pick. In short, dual language programs help us become smarter, more open minded, and more connected to the world we are on right now. Please make more bilingual schools for everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ian Chan. And then after Ian Chan, we're going to try Ting Yan Chan again. Ian Chan.

My name is Ian Chan. I am a sixth grader at the at the Aquinci School, and I live in Brighton. My first language is Chinese. We speak Chinese and English at home. I am in a regular education program.

I'm here today because I am losing my first language. This is important to me as I want to feel connected with my family in my own language. Understood care because without my first language, I feel disconnected with my family. This is important to me as I want to be able to keep talking with my relatives in my native language. This is important to the community too as even though I can't go to a bilingual program, I want other kids, younger kids, to be able to speak their native language and communicate with loved ones.

I wish I got I have gotten that program when I was in kindergarten. So I just want to say I want to be bilingual because it's better for me and for my community. So make sure other kids go to the bilingual school even though it's far away. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will try again with Tianyan Chen. Hi.

Sorry. I'm not sure what happened earlier, but hello. My name is Tinyan Chan. I live in West Roxbury. I was a bilingual student at the Quincy Elementary before No Child Left Behind ended bilingual education in Boston.

I have taught for thirteen years in the SCI bilingual program at the Quincy, and I am also a parent of a k one student in the Chinese bilingual program. We speak Cantonese, Spanish, and English at home, and I have the unique experience of having been a student, a teacher, and a parent at the School. My child would not have had the access to the only school in BPS that provides instruction in Chinese had I not been a teacher at the Quincy. BPS allows children of teachers to attend a school only if there is no waiting list. Therefore, I waited until July after school assignments were finalized to get official word that she was able to attend the Quincy.

It is not fair that students who live outside of the Quincy school zone do not get to maintain their native and first language in an academic setting. As a child, because I needed the bilingual services, I was able to go to the Quincy even though I lived in West Roxbury. This helped me further develop my native language skills and feel connected with my culture in the community, which enables me to now teach in a bilingual classroom using Cantonese and Mandarin to help my students learn English while maintaining their heritage. I am here to ask that assignment policy change to citywide for bilingual program schools like the JQES, which is the only school in the district offering instruction in Chinese. This change is important so families like mine can send our kids to this school and have a stronger academic foundation to be biodegradable.

Changing the policy will mean that our students' outcomes will be better and BPS will be better.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Bernice Wilkinson.

Good evening. Vernee Wilkinson with Schoolfax Boston. The proposed exam school admission policy shows that the Trump cloud of inequity and lack of regard for historically marginalized communities now hovers over Boston leaders and is leading to foggy and harmful decision making. Do not backslide and resegregate Boston schools. Before congress in March 2025, the mayor reminded the nation that Boston is the first in public education and a haven for people of all cultures and backgrounds.

This day, today, we need the words of city and district leaders to align with actions that will allow for equitable representation of Boston students in exam schools. To the school committee members, as an equity minded and data focused body, do not vote in favor of the proposed policy. Delay the vote and launch an authentic launch an authentic community engagement process that includes BPS resources like the racial equity planning tool and the abandoned school based equity roundtables that need to be reinstated. We are asking city and BPS leaders to live words that they share with the nation, live by the words that

they share with the

and use equity tools that they have put into place, but need to activate with consistency and transparency. We need an equitable policy for exam school admissions. And let this be a moment to reset for BPS thoughtful community engagement so it can be a foundation for overdue actions that need to be discussed by the community throughout the district. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Leslie Parker Sproul. Leslie Parker Sproul, please accept the prompt. You can start.

Oh, hi. My name is Leslie Spraw. I'm a parent of two BPS elementary school students and a third child who left BPS system this year after not getting into an exam school. I support the proposed exam school admission changes. They aren't perfect, but they're moving in the right direction. I agree pre COVID, the admission was not equitable and changes were needed. However, the tiers and points have created new inequities and are punitive based on where students live and where they go to school. Worst of all, some of our brightest and highest scoring students are shut out from the exam schools. And then like my son, they are leaving the district and potentially taking younger siblings with them. In school year 2425, tier one students needed a composite score of 65 to get into BLA and tier eight students needed a score of 97.

That's a 32 percentage point difference. How is that maintaining rigor or creating a fair path for all students in this city? The proposed changes are moving us in the right direction. These changes ensure a path for our highest performing kids. That top 20% citywide will have a path to a school and will maintain the spirit and the rigor of those schools.

And still the majority of those spots, 80% of the spots will be allocated based on the tier system. And this will ensure that students from socio all socioeconomic tiers and neighborhoods will have a path as well. The fear mongering from other public presenters tonight about the backsliding of the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the schools does not seem to be true based on the simulations that BPS provided. With the top 20% citywide, it is a very clear goal for our kids to understand and work toward and it's very clear for families to understand. Exam schools are not for all kids and we need to accept that.

And lastly, I just wanna say that whatever policy is made this year, I hope that BPS keeps it for many years to come so families can plan and know. And also, so you can just stop this whole smoke and mirrors thing. As someone said earlier tonight, you keep changing the exam school process every year and and we're fighting over three schools. We need to start focusing on all the other high schools in the district.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mike Heisman.

Dodgester. The BPS is a racist institution. Under the leadership of Superintendent Kausilius and our Chief Equity Officer, Doctor. Granson, the BPS made important advances in promoting equity. The most courageous move, with strong support from the school committee, was to make the elite exam schools more diverse.

Many privileged families have worked tirelessly ever since to reverse this policy, even though white and Asian students remain overrepresented in the best schools. Under the misleadership of Superintendent Skipper, with the support of the school committee, the BPS has moved aggressively in a racist direction. Any decision to change the exam school's admission process, which would be at the expense of our black and brown children, would be racist. I doubt that the superintendent would make any proposal without the consent of the mayor. November 4 will be election day in Boston.

Our citizens will elect the mayor and the city council, not the school committee. In defiance of the will of the people and the city council who voted in support of democracy, Boss Wu, by herself, has unilaterally denied the citizens of Boston our democratic rights. In a few months, we may have three new appointed members on the committee.

Thirty seconds.

Is the sole decider. I want to thank Mr. O'Neill for his many years of service. On a personal note, I want to thank him for his kindness. I endorse the reappointments of Mr. Cadet Hernandez. I am impressed by his critical independence and his courage to vote no. Assuming that mister Cadet Hernandez wants to be reappointed, it will be interesting to see what boss Wu will do. I hope that my personal endorsement will not be held against

him. Thank

you, Mr. Heisman.

There you go.

Our next speakers are on Zoom, Cheryl Buckman, Drew Brock, Magda Hernandez and Sunny Pai. Cheryl Buckman.

Good

evening. My name is Cheryl Buckman. I'm a parent to a seventh grader at the Ruth Batson Academy and a parent lead for the Dever. Each of Boston's neighborhoods tells a story. In Columbia Point, the Palais Dever has been a beacon of courage, care, and innovation for generations.

As we prepared to close the Dever in June 2026, it's more than just shutting a building. It's a pivotal moment for our city's commitment to equity and education. Long before the terms like equity and multilingual learning became common in Boston public schools, the Deborah centered immigrant families, English learners, and students with disabilities. The school faced real challenges. State receivership, leadership turnover, chronic underfunding, yet it also pioneered an inclusive education, classrooms with co teacher models that made students and families feel seen, valued, and supported.

I urge the district to honor the Dever's legacy by taking these steps. Listen to families, educators, and community members through shared decision making. Tell the full story of the school's impact, not just test scores, but real progress in the culture of the pride and resilience. Document and replicate what work

Thirty seconds.

So other schools could benefit. Preserve schools' history through a public archive or memorial. Reinvest in inclusive education and support communities that Deborah served. That Deborah dreamed of a Boston where students could bring their whole selves to school and succeed. Closing the school doesn't have to end that dream. It should inspire us to build on it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. It seems that Drew Brock is not in the meeting, so we will continue with Magda Hernandez. Magda Hernandez?

Can you see me?

Yes. Hi, Magda. You can start. Yes.

Oh, great. Good evening. My name is Magda Hernandez, and I'm a long Boston resident who now lives in West Roxbury. I'm a Boston Latin School alumna, and my two sons graduated from BLS in 2022 and 2025. Although my sons were accepted to BLS before the modifications to the exam school admission policy, I followed the policy changes with interest.

I'm grateful that superintendent Skipper and the school committee have continued in their efforts to improve upon a policy that, on the one hand, has brought more equity and geographic representation to our exam schools, but on the other hand, has introduced unpredictability and confusion for Boston's families. I was heartened to learn that

the

revisions under consideration are similar to the general policy outline discussed during the '21. Modeling shows these changes would yield classes that preserve the gains made toward equity and access while achieving a more straightforward and easily understood policy. A citywide round of competition for seats ensures that our highest achieving students are not shut out of exam schools from the outset. As the current policy stands, school based bonus points are too broadly based and arbitrary. Upper income students attending high poverty schools should not receive bonus points.

What was more troubling were the instances of low income students who attend a low poverty school and missed what might be a life changing opportunity to access an exam school simply because they didn't receive bonus points based on the school that BPS assigned them to. I strongly urge the school committee to vote for a family friendly policy that preserves equity and addresses many of the inequities that have been created by a well meaning but flawed policy. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker, Sunny Pai. He can send the written. That concludes public comment for the first hour.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Parveks, and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives. Your testimony is very important to us. Our first action item this evening is the grants for approval totaling $51,275,187 Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments.

Great. Thank you, Chair. So tonight, there are seven grants for your consideration totaling more than $51,000,000 The largest is a group of continuing entitlement grants, Title I for nearly $41,000,000 that will support more than 42,000 economically challenged students at almost all of our schools with a variety of services, improve instructional quality, provide supplies and enrichment, addressing persistent equity gaps through family engagement and providing support to families. Title II for $2,500,000 to support excellent teaching and learning in the development of a diverse principal pipeline. Title III for $2,000,000 these are approximate, to support multilingual learners, English language acquisition by supporting teacher professional development, expanded out of school time, learning opportunities and parent literacy training.

And Title IV for $3,000,000 to provide access to enrichment and wellness programs and technology, especially for high school students who may be at risk of dropping out of school or increased absenteeism. The remaining three grants total more than $2,000,000 and will do the following. They'll support our goal of a fully electric bus fleet by 2030 through an electric school bus rebate. They will serve 12,000 students in 22 schools and the Boston Student Advisory Council by supporting cultural experiences. And they'll support the salaries of two hub coordinators. So Chair Robinson, we'd ask you to introduce for a vote in support all of this. Ms. Sala Macheda is here for any questions, for the committee to have any questions.

Thank you. Doctor. Alkins?

Thank you for this. I think I have the same question that I generally have, which is when do we review these for the particular program evaluation? So, I could look at specifically Title IV Part A grant where it has very specific outcomes, increasing student participation from 55 to 68%. How are we measuring that? Where do we see that just to know that whether or not this investment is actually making good on it.

And then similar to some of the other outcomes proposed by some of the other grants saying improved English language acquisition as measured by what? Like, how are we actually coming forth and saying, like, we know that this is actually working?

Yeah. So, Marcella, do you want to just give Doctor. Augans a sense of how the grants office collects the data points that are attached to each of the grants?

Good evening, everyone. Yes, so for Title IV

Just right into the microphone, Marcella. There you go.

Can you hear me now?

Yep. Okay.

So for the actual Title IV application, we have to submit smart goals. Mhmm. So we can provide at the time of the evaluation, the the entitlement programs have an evaluation compliance requirement built in so we could provide that at the time we submit it so you can see that.

We can share with committee. The federal grants are very strict. So they have very specific metrics that we need to submit and then meet. So we can provide that. Doctor. Hawkins always asks good questions about making sure that on the grants that we are clear on what we're using for performance metrics to meet them. So if we can provide that for the title grants, that would be wonderful.

That's actually in the spring. So, that actually happens in the spring when we are required to submit that.

Okay. Yeah, I think, you know, I think just for the body, the concern is generally around where do, yeah, like where do we get to see it? Is it, and is it, does it get posted either for us directly or does it get posted for families to say like, hey, we invested in this particular program and it shows this. So that people can see what the ROI essentially is.

I think what would be helpful, Marcella, is if you could provide to the committee last year's and what we submitted for documentation and proof in the spring that we met those benchmarks.

Great.

Thank you. It's a great question.

By

the way, these were the title dollars that were somewhat delayed. We kind of really want to get them through. We would see those dollars.

Are those dollars in hand?

I believe that, yes, they are in hand.

Yes, they are appropriated. So, they are ours. They were appropriated last

That's why we wanted

to get them submitted in the coffers.

Okay. All right. So, there's no further discussion, I will now entertain a motion to approve the grants as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Any discussion or objection to the motion? Is there any objection to approving the grants by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the grants are approved. Thank you. Our second action this evening is Superintendent Mary Skipper's employment contract approval. Before we begin the contract discussion, I'd like to invite the superintendent to offer some of her thoughts. I realize this process might feel a bit new as it's been quite a while since the committee last did this.

Sure. So thank you, Chair. So I think as I shared last night, serving as the superintendent of the BPS is just a career and a life dream. And certainly something I will always reflect back on as the height of my career, especially somebody that's come up through the system as I have starting as a teacher. Just I get to the work I get to do is so important to me, working with our students and our families and our staff and the work that we do as a body, particularly around our achievement and opportunity gap work.

The dialogue we've had at this dais to talk about student outcome and pressing on student outcomes. For me, it's how I've always lived my career, regardless of the role, teacher, principal, regional soup. And so I find it both an honor and certainly will put my every fiber of being to doing that work. I had a bunch of notes prepared, but I will just say thank you for that consideration. Most importantly, just thank you for giving me the honor of sitting on the dais with you to do this work.

Thank you, superintendent. So, I'm going to go through the timeline.

Sharon, can

you All speak

right. Closer

to the So, during the July 9 meeting, as a committee, we unanimously approved the superintendent's school year twenty four-twenty five performance evaluation. With our full faith in the superintendent, we determined to renew her contract and the committee approved me as designee to represent the body during contract negotiations. The negotiation team was composed of members of the mayor's team, legal counsel as well as myself. The contract, slide two. Okay, thank you.

The contract of employment is structurally similar structured similarly to the contract we approved '22. As I highlight the details of the superintendent's new contract tonight, I will refer to the superintendent's current contract as the 2022 contract and the contract we are voting on tonight as a 2025 or new contract. I'll now begin the updates. The term of the contract is five years commencing retroactively on 07/01/2025, and concluding on July excuse me, on 06/30/2030. The retroactive July 1 date means the fourth year of the superintendent's current 2022 contract will be included as part of the new five year term.

Prior to Superintendent Skipper, the Boston Public School experienced nearly ten years of churn in our leadership. The instability made it extremely difficult to move forward a consistent strategy and make large scale change. Our five year term put Superintendent Skipper in line to lead the district through 2030. This provides stability with an experienced leader and continuity in our strategies, something we've not had in a long time. Under the new 2025 contract, the superintendent will receive an annual salary of $324,643 for the twenty twenty five-twenty six school year.

This represents a 3% increase from the 2024 school year salary of $315,188 For clarity, under Superintendent's 2022 contract, she earns a 2.5% salary increase upon receiving a proficient or exemplary rating on her annual performance evaluation. After the July 9 performance evaluation approval, Superintendent Skipper received a 2.5% increase, moving her annual salary from $315,188 to $323,068 Under the new contract, the 3% salary increase is calculated from the twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five school year salary of $315,188 The 3% yearly increase in salary will continue throughout the term of the contract, provided the superintendent receives an overall rating of proficient or exemplary on her performance evaluation. Under the 2025 contract, the superintendent receives an annual annuity in the amount of $60,000 This is deferred compensation, which may be used at the superintendent's discretion to find to fund any qualifying or nonqualifying annuity. Under the 2025 contract, superintendent received $1,500 annually for supplemental dental insurance, twenty six days per contract year, 30 paid vacation days per year and a monthly travel allowance of $650 As a Board, we collectively believe Mary Skipper is the superintendent to continue moving forward the transformational work we are taking on in Boston Public Schools.

This contract leads the way for sustained leadership. But continuous leadership is only impactful when the leader is effective and positioned to make change. Superintendent Skipper has demonstrated her unwavering commitment to the education Boston's youth. With over sixteen years in BPS and many more years in education, serving as teacher, school leader and administrator, she brings invaluable experience and expertise at all levels of the system. During her three years leading the district, Superintendent Skipper and her team have righted the ship.

We are no longer under a state improvement plan or Department of Justice supervision. We have laid a strong foundation with the on time performance of our buses now consistently over 95% and a long term facility plan in place to provide our students with the physical spaces to support a full education. We have high quality instructional materials in every classroom with the professional development, observations and metric in place to make sure our students are doing the heavy lifting. With the foundation laid, we are poised to move academic performance and student outcomes forward. We still have a lot of difficult work ahead of us.

Superintendent Skipper understands we have large expectations. She has large expectations too. Together, we are squarely focused on student outcomes and Superintendent Skipper is the person we want leading this work. Thank you and I open it to the committee for final comments. Thank

you, Chair. And as you stated, consistency of steady and highly capable leadership is so important. It affects the stability of our school leader workforce, which then affects teacher retention, all of which impacts student outcomes and student achievement. I know inputs can take some time for student achievement to follow. I'm excited for the strategic planning process for us to set some very measurable and attainable but ambitious targets for 2030. And I was excited by the message at State of the Schools last night about the urgency of this work. So I look forward to supporting you, Superintendent Skipper, in any way that we can to accelerate outcomes for all students in every school in BPS.

Thank you.

I guess we're going in order. Thank you so much for your service. And I echo Member Skerritt. We want to see you here till 2030 and beyond. And at the same time, it's a generous contract and we're making a big investment in you.

We have heard a lot about the inputs that are going to move the system forward. And I am ready for conversations about outputs and to have realistic conversations about actual goals that we want to see and meet year over year. And so I'm excited about that process, setting some real goals over the next few years and to support you in realizing them for our kids.

Thank you.

I mean, think we talked about it last night, the importance of consistency and sort of seeing that slide of the differences that we've seen in seven years, and how much change that the system has endured, and how much our families have endured as a result of it. So, I can say that being able to watch you, but also be alongside you, and visiting schools, and hearing presentations, and just hearing your perspectives, even on the things that are, you know, none of this is easy. So, I commend you for showing up every day for this. And, I hope to be around to walk alongside you in that process. I am excited to roll up my sleeves with the opportunity and achievement gap work.

So, yeah, we look forward to having you here.

Me? Continue to stay, will you? Okay.

Sher, can

I just say one more thing, too? I think there is also an opportunity in this moment for us as a body to support you in a different way as well. I'm thinking about our evaluation process and the sort of I think two things. The real evidence of our inability to fully be calibrated around what we think is good performance. I think you know this.

If you had a school with a set of assistant principals who had such a range of feedback and ratings for an individual teacher, there would be some real work around norming around that. I think we need to do that. Going from highly effective to developing in areas on one team means we've got to get tighter around what we want to see. And so I'm excited for doing that because I think that's the best way to support you, to be like these are our real expectations and you can only do that with those goals. And so both of them, very real, particularly as every year we have an opportunity to have a conversation around where the outcomes are.

Okay.

If there's nothing further, I'll now entertain a motion to approve the extension of Superintendent Mary Skipper's employment contract until 06/30/2030, as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Ms. Parvick, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, Chair. Doctor. Alkins? Yes. Mr. Cadet Hernandez?

Yes.

Ms. Polanco Garcia? Ms. Rachel Skerr?

Yes.

Mr. Tran?

Yes.

Mr. O'Neil? Ms. Robinson? Yes. The motion is approved.

Thank you. Superintendent, Skipper, your continued leadership is an investment in Boston's children. We understand how complex it is to shift the tide. It's not one factor, but a combination of many. You're not in this alone.

As you say, it takes a village. Superintendent Skipper, we look forward to our continued work together. We will continue to push you, your team and ourselves to deliver bright futures for all of our students. Once signed by all parties, the 2025 contract will be posted publicly. And now we will transition to our report. Do you want to take a few minutes break, did you say?

Yes, that would be good to take a stretch.

We take a few minutes break and we will be back in two minutes. Only report tonight is a transformation accountability update for school year twenty five-twenty six. Let's aim to keep the presentation within fifteen minutes and I'd like to remind our presenters please at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. Superintendent, I invite you to give introductory remarks.

Wonderful. Thank you, Chair. So shortly, you'll hear our Transformation Schools update for school year twenty five-twenty six. As a reminder, transformation schools are BPS schools identified by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary Secondary Education or DESE as requiring assistance or intervention. At the October 8 meeting, our team shared the district's accountability results for school and districts across the state and school year 'twenty four-'twenty five MCAS.

This evening, we'll share the transformation schools, several parts of it. MCAS and accountability analysis from 'twenty four-'twenty five, strategy review for school year 2526 and presentations from our amazing school leaders of Tech Boston Academy and the Dearborn STEM Academy. Yes, you can clap for them. They're great. Overall, we're seeing signs that our improvement strategy is showing positive results.

At the same time, there's a clear need to focus our resources and energies on specific schools and learning areas like low student achievement and high chronic absenteeism. Transformation Schools data shows a three year trend of slow improvement in accountability percentiles. In fact, it's the third year in a row where we have seen more schools making steady improvements than schools losing any ground. Of the district's 41 transformation schools given accountability percentiles, 18 schools improved their accountability percentile and eight remained level. 12 transformation schools have now improved their accountability percentile to 11 or higher.

Five transformation schools rose to above the 10 percentile and only one BPS school fell under the 10 percentile and into the transformation category. This year, six schools will be leaving transformation status. This is the first time we have formally exited any transformation schools in recent years. And those are the Chittic, Curly K-eight, GRU, Holmes, Filbrick, which you know has now been merged with the Sumner into the Sarah Roberts and the Perkins. I'll now turn the meeting over to Mike Sabin, who's our Executive Director of School and District Transformation, who'll give the presentation. Along with Mike are our outstanding school leaders, Pat McClary from TBA and Darlene McCurnell from Dearborn STEM. So Mike?

Thank you, Superintendent Skipper, Chair Robinson, members of the school committee. Thank you for the opportunity to again present an update on our transformation schools. The guiding approach in our work with transformation schools we call continuous improvement. From year to year and throughout each year, we use observations and data to identify where our strategy is working, and we strengthen our efforts in those areas. We identify areas that are not yet improving, and we make adjustments.

Please consider today's presentation through this lens. We will present successes and link them to our strategy. We will identify challenges and share thoughts about needed changes. We see here the current list of transformation schools. As superintendent Skipper mentioned, only one new school, Conley Elementary, will enter transformation status this year due to their DESE accountability percentile slipping below 10.

This is the lowest number of new schools added since the system was created in 2018. We can also see 12 schools listed in bold font, indicating they have earned accountability percentiles over 10. As the superintendent mentioned, six of these schools, Chittick, Curly, GRU, Holmes, Philbrick, and Perkins, have had percentile ratings over 10 for multiple years and will be exiting transformation. The progress of these schools shows how the BPS strategy can work. We should mention as well that the Frederick Pilot Middle School is now closed, and the Clapp Lyon High School and Xcel High School will either close or merge at the end of this year.

The number of transformation schools is starting to go down. Before moving ahead, let's review school demographics. Transformation schools serve a higher percentage of low income students, students with disabilities and English learners than non transformation schools. Our schools have higher percentages of black and Latinx students. It is a critical issue of equity that we provide these students with the best possible learning experience.

I will use the language of tiers to describe our approach to school improve to school support and improvement. Over the past three years, all BPS schools have been guided and supported through common structures, the regional teams, the BPS approved curriculum, the QSP, the universal expectations, our professional development offerings. Schools in need, including all transformation schools, receive tier two targeted support in the form of regional attention, funding for instructional coaches, hiring support, strategic planning support, and more. And finally, schools that are not yet showing improvement in student learning and or school climate. These schools may need more intensive or tier three support for their leadership teams, their teachers, or at times, their students.

They may need prioritized operational attention from BPS central offices. Strengthening these intensive supports are tier three supports is the current focus of the transformation office and the division of schools. On slide seven, we begin our summary of transformation school performance with an eye to identifying areas of progress and areas of need. A reminder that accountability percentile involves multiple indicators such as MCAS growth, MCAS achievement, English learner progress on access, chronic absenteeism and some high school specific indicators. Accountability data from the past year, as the superintendent mentioned, is again promising.

18 transformation schools improved their accountability, eight remained level and 15 declined. This is the third year in a row that more schools have increased their accountability than have gone down. This trend of the majority of schools moving toward higher percentiles each year suggests that our core improvement strategy for transformation schools is bringing some positive results. However, the data also shows the need to intensify tier three supports for schools that are not yet moving. Student achievement measured through MCAS is the most heavily weighted indicator, as it should be.

Slides eleven and twelve share MCAS growth in literacy. Math growth for transformation schools is in the appendix, and additional data on achievement, growth and more is in the linked stoplight report. We can see here that fewer than half of our transformation schools showed literacy growth over 50. While we continue to have literacy bright spots, this growth is simply too low. We are working with the Office of Teaching and Learning and with individual schools to better address this challenge through intensive coaching and adjustments to our curriculum implementation.

We do have achievement bright spots. For example, slide 31 in the appendix, we can see that 75% of transformation high schools had growth over 50 in math. On slide 32, we can see the access scores for our English learners showed significant improvement at all ELD levels. Reducing chronic absenteeism is another area of important work and progress. Overall, chronic absenteeism again went down last year for transformation schools at all levels.

Individual school data is available in the stoplight link. However, slides fourteen and fifteen make clear that there is still an attendance gap between our transformation schools and our non transformation schools. This attendance difference alone is one contributor to low growth and achievement. So, to summarize, we see evidence that our improvement strategy is having a positive impact. For three consecutive years, more schools have increased their accountability than have gone down.

Absenteeism continues to improve. English learners are making increased progress and high school math is an area of strong growth. At the same time, we must develop more intensive support for schools that are not moving, continue or accelerate attendance improvement, and accelerate growth in literacy. This is the hard, urgent and important work ahead. I'm now proud to turn the presentation over to our two school leaders so they can illustrate the improvement within their schools.

I'm proud to introduce our first speaker, Pat Cleary from Tech Boston Academy. Thank

you, Mike. And thank you, team and everyone. I want to thank you all for inviting us here tonight. It means a lot not just to me but to our school community to have an opportunity to just talk about some of our greatness. Starting off with slide one, which is what's great about Tech Boston.

When Commissioner Martinez visited Tech Boston at the start of the school year, I greeted him with the question or the comment, I know what you are thinking. What makes Tech Boston, Tech Boston? And the answer I gave him was love. Tech Boston was founded on a strong student support model and that has remained at the core of everything we do. The number one thing people highlight when they visit our school is the strong sense of community.

The Tech Boston mission has always had two equally important pieces there: to provide an environment that is both nurturing and challenging. As you enter the classrooms, you will find a world of AP, early college, grade level texts and tasks, students doing the heavy lift, you know, Merwoo's new favorite thing to see, but it's real. As you step outside at the end of the day, you see a field, Keith Love Field, loaded with student athletes, coaches, supporters, football, soccer, track, baseball, softball, cheer, even some lacrosse sticks. At Tech Boston, we provide both nurture and challenge And our students rise to that challenge together. My next slide is about the strategy, right, transformation.

Three years back, we were at accountability rating of five. So, what's happened to get that five to eight, that eight to in our life an 11? They might think nine. And now this time around 14, how do we keep moving forward? We continue to embrace the daily expectation in all TBA classrooms.

Students are reading, writing, discussing, using high quality grade level text. Students are doing that lift. We add additional academic culture moves. Partnerships with UMass, 75 students currently enrolled in college courses right there at TBA, early college. We increased the number of AP offerings and every freshman in our school is going to receive their first UMass credit by the end of this year.

That's motivation. We also know that raising or rising to an academic challenge sometimes requires support. We implemented a daily intervention block for students where all students get that individualized support for what they need. We expanded our student advisory model and meet with students daily with their advisors. We leaned into professional development for educators and this past year our main focus for educator development was supporting multilingual learners and our access test scores have never been stronger.

Every grade level improved on access testing and every grade level exceeded DESE expectations. That relates directly back to our PD plan. And for this slide, the last thing I really want to talk to and they're behind me, coaching. Our coaches. And, that's a big plus from the transformation team.

I strongly believe that the support of our transformation coaches has been the number one driver for our continued improvement. Our school has strong, hardworking, committed educators, but we all have a lot to learn. Our coaches make it possible for our instruction to match the quality of our materials. They lead the work of our ILT, our professional development planning and our community is grateful. And we're grateful that the Darebone coaches.

And this slide, I'll go quick, right? This is just that graph just talking about or letting people see where some of those improvements have happened year over year. You've got year over year gains in MAP Reading and MAP math. But that's growth gains. We're seeing growth and often not at that number Mary Skipper wants me at 60 when we're accelerating.

So, our achievement is not where we need to be. We see a growing and stronger year after year student sense of belonging. Our family survey results keep rising with support for our school. And, once again, the school wide improvements access testing and what I didn't put up there, year over year over year, we continued to decrease our chronic absenteeism. And finally, and this one I'll be quick, right? How do we keep moving forward? How do we keep improving? And improvement is what we do. It's why we have this team. So, it's time for us to accelerate.

It's time for us to hit the gas. So, for every area that we've been working on, we have a new move to make. So, those are the next steps aligned completely with the learning that brought us here. And we will just be invested in continuous learning, continuous growth, and we will do this with love.

Thank you, Pat. Thank you, TechBoston team. Next up is Darlene Marcano from Dearborn STEM Academy. She is joined by the Dearborn Literacy Coach and a key member of her literacy of her leadership team, Isabelle Perez. And on behalf of Dearborn, we apologize for having gone over our time, but we respectfully request a few extra minutes to hear about another great success story.

Well, it does oh, okay. Good evening. My name is Darlene Marcano and I'm the head of school at the Dearborn STEM Academy. Before I start, I want to say that twenty seven years ago, I started teaching English and history at the Woodrow Wilson Middle School where I met Mr. Pat Cleary.

Since then, Pat has been a kind mentor, a thought partner, a consistent collaborator and a trusted friend. Thank you, Pat. The Dearborn STEM Academy is a proud open enrollment Boston Public School right here in the heart of Roxbury, serving approximately five seventy two amazing students in grades seven through 12. Our mission is simple but powerful. We want every student to graduate with the skills and the confidence they need to thrive in college, succeed in their career and make a difference in their communities.

At DSA, we've seen firsthand how a strong, vibrant school culture and climate paired with high quality teaching and engaging learning experiences can truly make a difference in student attendance. And the results speak for themselves. Our daily attendance climbed from 87.1% in school year 'twenty three-'twenty four to an impressive 90.1% in school year 'twenty four-'twenty five. Even more exciting, our chronic absenteeism rate dropped from forty five

What? The people on the

screen or on Zoom can actually see it. And you have people from your school that are asking to see it. So, we're just going to stop to make

sure your community can see you. Hi, Dearborn.

Hi. Hi.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. Didn't care about it. There it is.

No. It's shared that.

Looks like it's shared.

Yeah. That worked.

It's so quiet.

I know. I still had a couple more pages.

I love that your staff is watching, darling.

Yeah. It's great. Hi, mom.

Can you drop the deck in the chat?

That's a great idea. Can you drop it in the chat? No. That is a terrible idea.

That's it.

That's what I'm getting. I need to

send the link to, like Okay.

Brin is like this. Maybe

a terrible idea.

Well, it's a story.

Passed my bedtime two nights in a row.

I know. I know. Seriously, I'm I'm feeling I'm feeling you. We probably have to make a call on this soon. We're good?

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Go ahead,

darling. Okay. Let's see. With the thing about Our daily Yeah, let's turn back to talking about PEP. Let's see.

Our daily attendance climbed from 87.1% in school year 'twenty three-'twenty four to an impressive 90.1% in school year 'twenty four-'twenty five. Even more exciting, our chronic absenteeism rate dropped from forty five point four percent to thirty three point two percent. The last graph is a comparison of the daily attendance by grade level. And as you can see, there have been some gains. This progress is a testament to the dedication of our students, our families and staff working together to make DSA a place where everyone wants to be there every day.

Our next slide is going to be presented by our transformation coach, and we've just learned that this is the first time that a coach is presenting, and I'm happy to introduce Isabel Perez.

You, I found them.

One of the areas that we noted that needed improvement that has also been talked about tonight is our multi language learners. Knowing that we have a large population of multi language learners, 24% of those language learners in our school being of Cape Verdean descent, we knew that it was important to look at what or how they were performing in this metric. One of the biggest moves that we did was to send out a message to staff that multi language learners were all of our responsibilities. And so, as a community, we really started to put in the work around investigating what strategies best support those students. And we've been very happy and excited with the gains that we see on the screen right now.

Our middle school on access testing, they had a rise in 10.3% points, our high school at 5.5. And what we have seen that those numbers have helped our accountability overall. In the last four years, we started at a two and we are currently at a 16, which marks a 14 rise in our accountability score. Some of these improvement strategies have been, again, looking at the curriculum using HQIM, really including everyone in understanding the data and how it works. A climate and culture team that has really made a lot of strides in creating events that pull the community together.

Home visits, phone conferences, back to school cookouts, attendance letters, a whole staff working at 100% together with the same vision. And we've seen what that collaboration can bring about in the results.

And lastly, what's next? Our next steps focus on deepening the use of high quality instructional materials across all content areas, ensuring that every student, whether they need additional access or additional acceleration, is supported. We will continue to strengthen concrete supports for English language learners and expand our attendance initiatives to sustain the gains that we've made this year. In addition, we'll enhance writing instruction across all subject areas and further develop our pathways to graduation, college and career readiness. Finally, we'll reaffirm the use of data with students to build their understanding and investment in their own growth, all while maintaining consistency in our practices and expectations school wide.

At DSA, we let our community know that you matter. We believe that we have something really special going on and I want to make sure to spread the love. So, the last thing I want to say to you is please join us on Wednesday, November 26 at approximately eight a. M. For our pep rally in our community potluck. Thank you so much. Thank

you so much, Darlene, Isabelle and Pat. Your work and the work of so many of our other schools is a model and an inspiration. Before moving to questions, I want to briefly touch on one final area of progress. In collaboration with the Office of Human Resources, we have prioritized recruitment and early hiring. We can see in the table on the left that thanks to hard work by school hiring teams, the vitally important early postings for transformation schools, and concentrated hiring support from the district, we have dramatically accelerated the pace of early hiring at transformation schools.

We are committed to hiring and retaining the best possible educators for every transformation school classroom. To close, we have shared the specific budget allocations provided to the transformation schools for your review. With that, we thank you and we look forward to your comments and to your questions.

Members. Hello.

Thank you so much for the presentation, and it's good to hear your both of your stories of success. I think some of the questions I ask will be the same that I always ask, as you know. Tonight's update on transformation schools, I think it's both really encouraging and at the same time really sobering. We see movement, six schools exiting, small gains on accountability percentiles, strong examples in places like Tech Boston and Dearborn and The Holmes, a school I have been tracking really closely. But we also see a system that's been transforming for years without truly transforming outcomes for a lot of our kids.

So roughly a third of our schools serving the highest concentration of black, Latino, low income, English language learners, disabled students remain in transformation. And, I've been thinking a lot about how that's not a sub strategy anymore. Respectfully, that's the district's core operating reality. And many schools have been in some form of intervention or turnaround for five to ten years, spanning multiple superintendents, state designations and new models. Even as growth improves slightly, achievement remains stagnant or declining.

High school absenteeism exceeds 50%. And so, the first question I have is about elementary schools specifically. The schools exiting are all elementary schools, smaller elementary schools as well, which raises questions to me around underenrollment, our stretched footprint and how they might be structurally tied to low performance. And so I'm sort of throwing this to you, like how much is that connected? And how does the transformation strategy align with rightsizing the district?

So I think there's definitely embedding in there. I think that we see and I think we've pointed this out with the exam school structure, we see a concentration down selected schools into open enrollment schools. And with that, higher concentrations of special education students, multilingual learners, and high need students. And so I think in general, when you even look across the state, you see that high schools are the last ones to exit, whether it was turnaround or underperforming. It's just a harder benchmark.

It's also the one grade that they're judged upon, which is the tenth. So there is some structural things there for sure. I do think the complication this year with the high schools in general, and we saw this statewide, was that in the change of statute for MCAS, the scores all went down, both literacy and math. And we believe that that's far less about performance of students in ability rather than just not seeing the relevancy of taking the exam the same way. So I think that plays into why there's fewer high schools making those two year gains above the 10 percentile in movement.

That said, our high schools actually performed higher than state average across the board. And so we actually saw some glimpses of good things in the data. But we are still going to have this tension point going forward with that one marker of tenth grade of connecting it to the relevance. In terms of the rightsizing, I think it is, again, one of the complications of rightsizing the district is that we have allowed over decades this funneling down of students to where when you close a school, such as we took on with Excel and with Lions, there's high, high concentrations of special education and multilingual that we then have to, in some cases, build programming for. So we can't actually closing isn't just the answer.

It's also you have to create programs, which was why we did Body East, why we did Next, why we're reinventing the Alt Ed system. And it adds to the complexity of right sizing the system for sure of how fast we can go because we have to get kids into high quality seats.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I will say, separate advocacy moment, I think this is also one of the conversations as we're talking about competency determinations. Like I, as a body a member of this body, won't feel comfortable with us saying the kids aren't taking the test seriously and that's the result. So we do have an opportunity, though not recommended, to make NCAS a part of the competency determination.

And so something for us to consider if we believe we are not going to be able to see high schools moving out unless the test is higher stakes. The data transparency question I have is just around something that you said in the presentation. MAP growth is listed as an expected measurable impact. But at the same time, no MAP data appears in the presentation. I am obsessed with this data point. I think we are leaving a lot on the table in our conversation. So, I guess I'm asking, why is it not included? What do MAP trends tell us about day to day learning gains? And can the committee receive regular updates that include MAP alongside MCAS data to assess real time progress.

Thank you. I'll try not to give the same answer. So the reason for it not being included in this presentation is that the most reliable data, the most statistically reliable data, is the state data from the previous year. And the accountability percentiles and the accountability data is what determines transformation. So our start of year presentation, in the given window of time we have, focuses on that.

And the issue of MAP and whether we share it or not is a complicated question, because it is not intended to be used as a public facing data point that would be used to judge schools. It's meant to be used internally as a school improvement tool, and we do value it and use it that way. We look at schools at their progress. We look at their start of year starting points, And we're increasingly going to use them for this more intensive intervention that we need to do in schools that are not moving forward. So one question is about its presentation publicly at the school committee.

I'll defer to others on that decision. But the other is about how we use it and value it. And maybe it's empty reassurance, but it's a very valuable source of information for us that we use in our planning.

And by no means it's empty. I know system uses that data I've watched, even in my son's school. Like, I know how important it is. It's one of those two it's a yes and two things can be true moment. While we don't want it to be high stakes, we're at the same time acknowledging that we think data is dipping because the test isn't high stakes anymore. And so both can happen where we and as also people who make the budget decision, we need to understand where things are moving, particularly as we're making tough choices about where we allocate resources. Resources.

I mean, maybe another way to kind of approach that, Mike, is to just talk about the correlation of MAP to MCAS.

Yes. And I think to move away from the tenth grade data for a moment where there was a very large change in state policy, there was no change in grades three to eight. Yep. We don't, in any way, discredit or even feel confusion about the data in grades three to eight. It's the same as it's been for many years, we value it and we can compare it. And so I think an important thing to recognize is that MCAS is our summative assessment. It's public and we value it. We see correlations. For example, the highest growth that we see in any school, and it's an outlier on the charts, is from the GRU School this year. It was extremely high in math and in English.

I say that publicly because last year, it was the lowest. And we talked about it. This year, it was the highest. It was among a handful of the highest schools in the district. And we could spot that happening on their MAP test. We were talking about it through the year. We saw the work they were doing in classrooms, and we saw the evidence in the assessments, and we weren't, therefore, surprised. So there's a through line for the data that we're using but not sharing publicly, and the summative data at the end. It's statistically correlated, but we also just see practical correlations month to month.

That makes sense.

It's just hard. And again, I'll say it's a third of our system that is trending in good ways because of the hard work that you guys are doing, but overall in a way that is really concerning. Like, as a parent, there are sometimes schools many of us wouldn't send our kids to because we're worried about the existing outcomes. And so to know that we're not tracking that data publicly closely feels to me like, why?

Yeah. I do think that's a good, to me, a jump off point to talk a bit about the there's a group of schools that we know based on some stagnation of various data points. And I think it's similar to a group that you're talking about. That we need to increase to a tier three service. We did some piloting of this last year with a couple of schools. We were able to actually unstick them for the first time in five years. And so Mike, it just might be worth talking about how we're thinking through that.

And we're talking about those schools in five to ten years of some sort of status.

Correct. That we just see, regardless of the supports put in there, we don't see the needles moving. Or we see such chronically low, low performance that it has to be met with a sense of urgency.

That moves us a little bit away from the MAP testing. But just before moving, I would say, you're not hearing us say that we see the MAP literacy scores going up and the MCAS is not. Of course. We see a through line, and that's why we're realizing we need to make adjustments in certain places. So it's not that it isn't showing us what's going on.

And I imagine Pat and Darlene and Isabelle would also see the through line there in their own work. In terms of the tier three supports to schools, this is hard work. Schools that have been having trouble making measurable improvements, it's not just flipping a switch. But an example that we're encouraged by, and the school teams get 99% of the credit, but is Madison Park, which was a school that was in the first percentile since 2016. Yes. That's concerning.

It's in the first percentile since 2016.

Accountability percentile one. And that school moved up to three this year. That's a small step. There's no satisfaction from anyone. But there is evidence that a school that had been at percentile one for the longest time is moving.

And we actually have moved, other than Mel King, which newly has an accountability percentile, we no longer have any schools in percentile one. A few years ago, there were I don't remember the exact number, but three, four, five in that percentile. So we're seeing slow movement, but it I appreciate Chair Robinson reminding us several weeks ago, last night, this is urgent. We're not claiming this is a destination that we've arrived at. But we also have to recognize we're starting to see ways to move schools forward and realize exactly where schools need more help. And those are the adjustments we're trying to make now.

So I say this because it is There's literally like three points. There's the point that you stop the skid. There is the point that you redirect. And there is the point you accelerate. And I think that that is, for the first year, we're seeing that some of the intense strategies we put in place for those schools that were either skidding or stuck are actually moving them to that next level.

And the challenge now is that instead of one or two focusing in that way, we have more like six or seven that we have to do that with. And so that may mean some realignment relative to resource, But it was an intentionality that when somebody asks about that school and supports that school needs, everybody, all the liaisons, the regional soups, the ops leaders, Sam, Anna, everybody says that school takes priority. And I think it was with that intentionality that we were able to unstick Madison. We were able to that in addition that Paul is a really great leader. And he's the first one to commit with an instructional vision that's really holding to it in a long time.

So we definitely share. And this was something Mike and I spoke about at length last year, which is what led to us doing this wraparound with Madison, with Mel King. But we need to, as the leaders know, focus strategy and? Acceleration. Acceleration. So they know that that's where we're at. You saw it in Darlene and Pat's presentation, that those were the echo points. And so I think that will be something to come back to school committee with in our next presentation or update to just kind of update on what are those specific supports that we're able to accelerate with.

It makes sense. And at the same time, while there's certain schools who are ticking up, you have schools that are trending down, that had higher scores in 2022 than they have in 2025 and significantly lower percentiles. What is the what happens in terms of accountability internally for the system, the supports we're offering, the $13,000,000 we're spending on transformation supports as well as everything else we've put into the system. Like, where is the accountability from your end for the improvement?

Yes. So I mean, this is the regional network, right? This is where the regional soups are looking at that data with the leaders, trying to unpack it, understand what happened, what direction the school's going, why it's that way, and then making adjustments. Sometimes that may be in how they're using the central supports of the network. Sometimes that may be in the budget of the school, allocating to reading instruction or reading intervention or high dosage tutoring.

But those adjustments, all that data has been being looked at since ALI in a really, really intentional way. And then when the regional model is in action doing the PLCs, they're looking in those classrooms for what the leaders in that ILT have sort of said, these are the strategies we're trying to implement. And Mike, feel free to chime in.

Nothing more there. Yeah.

No, I'm and I'll hold this. Maybe this will be the thing I keep asking next time, right, just about the shared accountability system wide, more than just your office. Like, there is it is our system wide strategy and I'm really holding that. It's not just Mike Saban's work. It's really our entire system. The majority of our schools are in transformation. We talk about three schools ad nauseam, but this is actually the majority of our work. And so I'm holding that and running out of time. But I feel the crisis of it and the excitement of what has been happening.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for the presentation and I share all of the thoughts and the complexities of each side of this too. And I think I was really curious, sort of, you all started to speak to it a bit about like what is going on sort of like the day to day of the tier three intensive support because I'm concerned about the 15 schools that over a year have gone progressively worse, and I'm trying to understand it's not even strictly correlated to chronic absenteeism. Are you finding that it's a, I don't know, inefficiency in how the professional learning is being done? Are there any particular trends that you're seeing from classroom observation tools, either the lack of use of that?

Just how are we, what are you all finding particularly in these schools as they're declining?

That's a hard question because each school is a very unique community. And I'd actually, after I try to answer, we might want to hear from Pat, Isabelle and Darlene about what they altered in their schools to make progress and be schools that moved forward. But I don't want to oversimplify things. But if there's a great teacher working overtime in every classroom in a school, we're going to make progress. So the question is what teaming structures, what leadership structures, what professional learning structures and coaching, what community culture and climate is needed to attract, support and retain great teachers over time.

And when we create that stability over time, schools will make the steady incremental progress that we're seeing in those schools. Not to say there's not great teachers in classrooms in every school, but that alignment of a strong team of individuals and teaming structures over time, working to continuously strengthen strong points and address challenges. Getting that in place in every school is what we need to do. But each situation is different. So I can't give you a simplistic answer about what we don't see.

But the consistency of high quality learning and high quality culture building is shared by the schools that are progressing steadily. So trying to get that forward momentum on the culture of schools and the classroom instruction, that's what we're trying to help make happen.

And thank you for that. Because I think from a system wide perspective, what I wrestle with is how do we, as a body, create realistic benchmarks for then when we have to decide we need to take a different course, right? And that's not something that will be answered this evening, but it's just something that I think wrestling with because I hear you and I understand even like a policy change, you're not going to see the data on that for at least five years. I think it's the same thing. You need consistency within this.

So it's just naming what I'm holding like as we're talking about Because our accountability to families is to be able to provide, as we've heard in public testimony, just being able to say that every school provides quality options. And, it's like, at the same time, you acknowledge that there's quality work that's going on in every school, despite whatever the outcomes are. But, I still can't confidently go to families and say, yes, this is an outcome that you should be proud of as a family. So it really is complex, I think it's for us as a body to discern a little bit more.

Yeah. I mean, the other part that I would sort of add is the most important thing when we look at data of a school that swings is to be able to understand why. So for instance, in a single strand school, you may have a teacher or two out on leave who are dynamic teachers and got incredible results. And you get somebody in that is certified and capable but they're not able to do what that other teacher did. And all of a sudden, that single strand school, two of your grades, the test, just went down.

And so that's just important for us to know when we look at it. At least when I look at it, that's what I look for. What you'll also see is sometimes in schools that are pre K to eight, when the exam school rush has left, you go from three strands of balanced testing to one strand of students who may not be your strongest test takers. And all of a sudden, those grades sync on MCAS. So sometimes there are just remember, Clarinenis said structural.

Sometimes there are structural issues that almost predict the data. And then other times, there are things that are happening that to me are the ones we really have to peel the onion back because they're the more troubling. Like where there's instability in leadership. Where there is an adult centered culture, where there is a student problematic culture, like students don't have a sense of belonging, there's a very strong correlation of chronic absenteeism and what kids can and can't do on MCAS. It's just so clear.

And I think you see that in the transformation schools, which is why we've worked so hard on the chronic absenteeism to get at that. Because no matter what we're doing, if kids are not there and buying into it, they're not going to show it up on the task. So this is really like when you talk about the 108 schools, we have to literally go through those schools. And what I will also say is that in most of the I think you saw this with state underperforming schools. And Dearborn is a great example. You've been listed with the state for how many years?

Almost ten.

Yeah. And it has been in the last really three years of the intensity of the transformation network that you are showing progress. That's how complex the issue can be. But that is why we do believe that the way we're approaching transformation is the right way to do it but we need to do it faster, I think more consistently. Unlocking that we're looking for.

And fix some of the structural issues that go well beyond a leader's control. This is a great conversation as a body for us to have. And I think it's an opportunity to understand the structural barriers that exist in our schools.

So, within those 15 schools that we saw, are we seeing any particular correlation of their climate and how it's actually being rated or surveyed?

So, I don't want to get too technical on the numbers, but one thing to just remember about accountability is every time one school in the state goes up, another one goes down. It's set that way. And so, it's not that alarming if a school goes down one accountability percentile. It could just mean something changed somewhere else in the state. It's the schools that are steadily declining or are very low and not improving that we're thinking about.

So that number 15, not a good number. We do not like it and we absolutely expect that won't happen again. But, I don't want to say that those are schools that the district should be most concerned about. Your highest school could go down one or two points. It's the schools that are, say, below five and unable to rise or the schools that are having multiple years of decline. Those are the ones we should be concerned about. And that multi year data is, it's public. It's at the DESE website and it's in the stoplight report that's linked as well. I hope that answered your question.

Those are our target questions this year.

Thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate how much data was in this report and how driven you are by outcomes as a whole team. I particularly appreciated slide six that just has the expected measurable impact across multiple indicators. I actually think to member Cardette Hernandez's point that so many of our schools are in turnaround. There are some things that could be applied district wide.

And, I think that this type of list with specific multi year targets could serve as a model for how we're looking at all of our schools' progress over time. So, thank you for this thoughtful list. I also appreciate the celebration of some real bright spots. And I was actually at the homes today for Boston Reads Day, one of the schools that's making very consistent progress, and watched two incredible paraprofessionals lead expertly internalized illustrative math lessons. It was really, really impressive.

I just wanted to say something about student growth percentile too because my understanding is that student growth percentile is calculated by looking at students with similar performance the previous test administration and seeing how much that student improved compared to similarly situated students. And I think it's important number for us to keep our eye on because we know that schools exit a lot of kids at grade seven and there may be students who had very low scaled scores for MCAS, etc. But every student has the opportunity to grow at a high rate regardless of their starting point. So, while proficiency may be a lagging indicator, I really appreciated seeing the student growth tracking because every student has opportunity to participate in that and to grow above 50%. My question to our school leaders, the transformation coach, so great to hear from you.

And you're both an example of something we talked about earlier which is what consistent, highly skilled leadership looks like and what it can achieve. Really appreciated some of the specifics about what's happening instructionally and programmatically for students related to teaching and learning at your two schools, particularly intentionally rigorous coursework with required dual enrollment for all freshmen and the AP Bio class that we heard about from the mayor last night for ninth graders think is so important. The rigor of courses that students take in high school is one of the biggest indicators of post secondary success. I'd love to hear more about the writing tasks at the Dearborn. I saw that was listed as something that was important.

And wondering, is that coming from like an extension of the HQIM or something that you all have added on? I wonder if additional writing is something we can all continue to think about in terms of moving these scores. So, I would love to hear a little about that.

So, it's very interesting because we had our progress review today and so we discussed a lot of this information. One of the slides we presented was our MCAS data from last year and it included very specifically each grade level and the area on the MCAS and how our students performed. And they performed they could have done much better. And so, it was one of the things that we decided that we wanted to make sure that we discussed with our staff. So, it's very interesting, Mr.

Fernandez. When you talk about transparency and what can actually move a school, making sure that every member of our community knows what our scores are. They know what the targets are. We are very transparent with every member of our community so that everyone knows this is how we're performing and as a staff we can work together to rise above and to see better student outcomes. And so, in presenting that information to our staff and making sure that our students understand where they are, we've decided that ensuring that we focus on writing is something that we do and it's very important to us and that we track our progress.

And so, what we've decided, so it's not an extension so much of the, of our curriculum in that our staff are using their curriculum to pull formative writing assessments. But, what we've done is we're tracking their progress. So, we give three formative assessments each year and we track it with our own internal tracking system so that we're seeing how students are performing in creating a clear paragraph, in creating, looking at evidence and analyzing that evidence and reasoning and in conventions. And so, in order to, in doing that, we're seeing students make progress over time and we're identifying areas where we can do better and where we can do more succinct teaching. I don't know if that makes sense.

Very helpful. The schools.

Did you want add? Yep.

I just wanted to add that we're also looking at writing across content. So, again, it's that shared kind of lift around the work. Writing doesn't just happen in ELA or ESL or history, but it also has to happen in math and in science because we know that assessment is looking at that. And we are a STEM school, so it's important that we share that vision around writing and that lift for all of our kids. So, having that writing across the content so a kid can experience content based writing every hour of the day is what we hope and what we can start to see will move our data.

Something that you just mentioned in terms of the transparency of where students are with the data with your whole staff brings me to a question about how families are involved and informed about students' performance in these key areas. I saw home visits and conferencing related to attendance. And this extends to a question I asked during the overall accountability presentation a few weeks ago in terms of how much we are treating parents as partners and understanding the data and how they can help us accelerate outcomes. So, I was wondering if not just at your two schools, but Mr. Sabin, if there were other places where you saw that work being done.

Thank you for that question. There's

a

lot of variability across schools and there's a lot of best practices going on in certain schools, as we've heard and as you've commented on schools you've recently visited. And there's other schools that need to learn from their colleagues. And I actually think it's a bit of a dilemma that the transformation office is thinking about, both how can we best seed ideas in schools from other schools? What's the way to do that? The regional structure does that well, but we might not have yet quite the way to do that outside of the regional structure.

We don't want to weaken the regional structure, but there's schools that can learn from each other. So, that's something that we're thinking about. And then, in addition, it's interesting having gone from being a school leader and very family oriented to being a central office department leader and trying to think about where can the voice of the families and the students inform our work as well. So, while you didn't exactly ask this, it raises a dilemma that we're facing as a central office department, which is how can we help schools and how can schools help us to amplify the voice of families in this whole process of school improvement.

Yeah. I would also say, and you know this better than anyone from the high school side, right? But at the high school level, it's so important that students themselves are engaged and understand what does a particular assessment score mean, where does that put them, how is this all building toward where they want to go and what they want to do and either helping them get closer to that or they're further away from that. And I think that's an area at the high school level we continue to try to work on. You saw it in Darlene and Pat's presentations.

And then at the elementary level, one of the things the mayor spoke about last night was just the story and the observation of the Otis and the change of what is getting sent home for parents to work with. We're trying to do more curriculum nights for parents so that they actually understand what we're teaching, what the skills are. And then at home, what are the kinds of exercises they can do with children that actually reinforces that? So it's an area we definitely want and need to build muscle in. And I think it just requires different strategies at the different grade levels. But it's a great point because this is the whole village and parents are incredibly important part of that village as are students themselves.

And, these assessments are not different school to school. So, it does seem like something that could be centrally supported and take that lift from school leaders and school support teams in terms of webinars, pre made letters, exercises that could support when the MAP scores go out as just an attachment or the MCAS scores go out with just a letter from DESE. That's definitely something that could be a district wide Just one more question, I think. Talking about the use of MAP data and the ways that you all use it internally, wondering how much you all are using it to seed really high growth classrooms and whether there's an opportunity to capture instruction for learning in a larger group, whether the whole region or the district, whether it's through video or visits. Is MAP being used to identify really high performing teachers who get outcomes and growth for students?

That's me. I'm out of time, not you.

Okay.

That is a great question. Looking at bright spots within one's own system is probably the best way to learn. And it also talking about changing mindset is the best way to change mindset because it's happening with our own students in our own schools. We identify on MCAS and on MAP high growth schools, high growth grade levels in certain subjects, and then individual high growth teachers. And we're trying to develop a more systematic way of visiting those locations.

There are a lot of them, so it's hard to visit them all. And but we have undertaken starting these visits. We've already been doing them on the MCAS High Point, both schools and grade levels. And there's a lot to learn from that. So I think your question just reinforces how important that is and also how can we broaden the number of people who are part of those visits. It's important not just to be a small little group of people that then try to say what they're seeing, but that many of us get to participate that and see what the high impact learning looks like.

I have two questions. One is, can you talk a little bit about the intervention block that you're doing and how that works? And the question is, are other schools doing that as well? Yes,

that was the good news, right, that when we're rolling out all of this messaging to teachers, HQIM, grade level text and tasks, they all have in the back of their head, I'm on board but I don't know if I'm 100% there. I don't know if my students are 100% there. So, what we found a couple years back, we built what we call our RISE block. Other schools would say Win Blocks. And it does tie back to at least individually to map scores in some places.

Also just what teachers are seeing, their own assessments. And I have a, as you've been hearing, a really cool team of support, MTSS supports academic team that have looked at every individual student. They worked with the seventh grade team to create, you know, what grouping students by need, grouping students who are at the maybe they're really on grade level in math, how can we push them further in setting up those groups and then giving the teachers tools where they can whether it's like IXL, you know, online platforms that they don't, they can put in front of the students. They can track them but they don't have to go home and plan because they're also their math teacher or their English teacher. It's, know, I'm saying all this with you guys right behind me.

You're doing a good job, I have it. What am I missing here?

Advancing group. And I will say in terms of data points, we are looking at that map data, m test data, assessments in class, for clear reset, teacher conversation observations, social emotional needs. So every single student is assigned a block based

So, isn't that better than hearing from me?

Thank you.

Other thing, yeah, for me to end on a high note, what happened at the GRU? I mean that is It grew. It grew, but where are the lessons learned for all of us critically around that kind of growth in a short period of time and how are we sharing that information but also celebrating that and helping others to understand what's possible.

Clearly, the school leader and the school faculty are the ones that should be answering that question. And we each have our answer through our own lens, but I'll venture to give you an answer. So I think the school leadership and the regional staff supporting them were relentlessly focused on improving instruction every day and meeting the needs of individual students in every classroom. And that meant two things. It meant making sure the delivery of the core curriculum was clear and on grade level, not at reduced rigor, and then that individual students were known, identified, and received the extra support that they needed.

So they made sure every student was challenged and supported, and they made sure that every adult was part of a team focused on delivering the best instruction they could. And what's exciting about it is that it worked. That's not really a mystery, but it's hard to do. And we give great credit for that to that school staff under duress because that had been the school with the biggest reduction the year before. It created a lot of pressure for them and for their community.

And they rose to the occasion. Kudos to school leader Michelle, and kudos to the whole team and every teacher and student and family member there. And other schools can accomplish the same thing. And we have other schools that we anticipate will show dramatic improvement like that.

My question is how do we create that urgency within the whole district? Because if 's possible in one place, clearly with the very same demographics of students that are struggling elsewhere, again, it gets back to it's about the adults. And we and I said our mantra here is student outcomes won't improve until adult behaviors do. And the GRU is a perfect example of adult behaviors changing and look what they were able to accomplish.

Well, I'll say we appreciate your messaging and we feel the urgency and our schools do too. And we're expecting to be able to report on bigger gains in the future and I hope that we can and I anticipate that we will.

What's the size of the group?

It is a small school. I don't know if it's in the two hundreds or low three hundreds offhand, but it's a small school. Member Cardette Hernandez, to return to something you said before, we're seeing smaller schools with the BPS strategy and strong leadership are moving faster. Of course. And so there's some patterns that we're seeing.

One of them is that our literacy curriculum needs more attention and support. Another is that our larger elementary and K-eight need more attention and support. But the acceleration of these other schools is going to allow us to concentrate our support in a smaller number of areas. And that's what happens with students as well. If your core strategy is starting to work, then your extra help is concentrated on smaller numbers of people or smaller numbers of schools.

And that's when the whole tiered system starts to work. So I think we're feeling that that's starting to happen. And, hopefully, we can I'm optimistic, I'd say, that we can concentrate these supports and help schools to do what these two schools have done and many others.

Cruise 200.

Yeah. It's fast you look at all of the schools that have moved out. They're under two fifty. I think one of them is two eighty or something.

But these two schools at the table with us are two And sizable

it's different. It's harder. I mean, it's different to move those numbers. You're moving more kids.

Yeah.

Did you have a

No. I mean, I had more of a I guess this is a random question. But I was particularly interested in how your schools are approaching leveraging community partnerships within the work. Definitely been a fan of the Dearborn and all of its partnerships with academic institutions, but also the surrounding communities. So I'm kind of wondering how our transformation schools are leaning on community partners to support them in the work and if that's something that we think about system wide as well.

I can speak to the Dearborn. One of the things that we want to make sure to do is to invite everyone into the everyone from the community into our school. So, events that we have, any opportunity to both showcase our students, as well as ask for support or give resources to families, we bring our community partners in to help us do that. We do have partnerships with places like the Kathleen Stone Island, formerly Thompson Island, who's worked with our school for many years, specifically working with our middle school on some expeditionary learning experiences on the island that are tied to the curriculum that they're using, open science, in science. And so, that level of partnership you'll see in some of our partners where we're closely aligning the curriculum that's being taught to our students with the experiences that they're having outside of the classroom.

Other partners, other community partners will donate. So, there's different levels of partners. So, we have partners. And, we just had a partnership with Chick fil A, believe it or not, where they're donating gift cards for us, which, you know, that's not something and that's another topic that we can talk about another time because gift cards, food, those sort of things are really good incentives for our And, we do want to reward them. And, unfortunately, that's not something that we can do through our budget. So, Chick fil A has donated gift cards for us to use as part of our attendance initiatives. All of those little things that they can give us and support us with really do help us push and really help to support our kids.

We have some really, really strong and great long term partners, whether they're educational partners like UMass Boston. Also have Crossroads Youth Development is with us every week. What's today? Wednesday? They were here today.

They're with us every week delivering our SEL lessons in our middle school so that our teachers, while they're delivering that, they can meet up and have their MTSS meeting where they're identifying the students who need more. So, it's like a win win right We work with young man with a plan, bam. We have city here in our schools and offering high dosage tutoring throughout the day. Partnership is huge. And then another part where I talk about that or Superintendent Skipper's acceleration, that's one of our areas.

This year, our entire school is broken up. One member of every grade level, seven through 12, in our specialized program, someone from every grade level is on a team that is working six hours a month towards blank. And one of those teams is our partnership action team. And so they're spending they're getting together. They're looking at who our partners are and who our partners could be.

And they're then reaching out, inviting them in, getting them in front of the appropriate grade levels. We've got the apprentice learning programs you lead today. We had our eighth graders go out for that first time today on the job visit. I see them come back a little late today but with big smiles their first day on the job. So these are the partnerships we have get us to where we are.

The partnerships that are out there that we haven't found that connection are going to get us to where we need to be. And I think this model, this action team model that we're doing with our staff because we're doing it with multilingual learners. We have a parent action team now. I really do believe that's a way of taking something that we believe we do pretty good and getting it to that place that will get us those results. So, we're going to grow like the GRU.

There's two kind of interesting things now that I think about your schools in particular. I think Darlene and Pat are really, really good at leveraging the schedule. And the schedule is money, time, resource. And so I think that is something we're working on, particularly with the high schools in thinking about seven period day as opposed to six and what kinds of opportunities that opens up for things like customized blocks. But the second thing is both of them are examples of schools that had a structural disruption, and that was their sixth grades that were off cycle from our grade configuration.

BGA would fall into this category. So what would happen is they would partially fill their sixth grades. They would have to stretch their resources across those grades. And then they would get an influx of seventh graders that disrupt by the nature of adding kids in, the culture of the building they're trying to establish. They have now since both lost those sixth grades and become seven 12s.

And that's been an important point of stability in both of their schools. And so, again, structural challenges sometimes, we underestimate them. But they actually design for what the outcome is. And so we're trying to eliminate, whether it's schools that are seventh and eighth grades that become very small and then you get the stretch on that end or schools that are off cycle and end at a grade that does not lead to a feeder somewhere, we're trying very hard to identify them and to work to either complete their grade sequence or to remove grades so that they can fit into the system.

Tonight, we've had a lot of conversation around choices, distribution of our students, who our students are, who their needs are. And it feels like a patchwork quilt in that you make one decision over here and later on you figure out how it's impacted another decision over there. Particularly as we think about budget going forward next year and knowing that it's going to be a tough budget, where can we have a safe and honest conversation about what is our district? Who are we actually serving? How are the needs of these various groups conflicting, pushing, supporting one another?

And how are we going to be able to come up with a budget that is really equitable? Mean, I hear parents saying I want citywide opportunities for program X, Y or Z and the question is what is the cost of bussing you from Mattapan to East Boston or whatever to get there? Each of these things has a choice. Yes, we want to give people as much choice as they can, but they have to understand in a system that those choices are pushing and pulling us and we will have a finite pot of dollars. And so I feel like, you know, in every group that has a particular focus audience is doing the very best they can with the students that they've been charged to.