Board of Ed for October: opening comments, coming to you from Williamsburg

 The Board of Ed is here today: 

The Anne T. Dunphy School in Williamsburg (which is northwest of Northampton; it's next on Route 9, heading west).

As always, with a board that largely lives inside of 128, the meeting is posted to start later (9:30) and is going to start later than that. Many comments about the location as people come in.

The agenda is here. 

I will update as we go here.

Words of welcome from Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa

Michael Moriarty speaking on third grade MCAS ELA scores (here, as so often, being spoken of as "reading" scores; we do not know if children are reading on grade level from their ELA MCAS scores)

Patricia Kinsella, superintendent of Pioneer Valley Regional
rural schools summit next Tuesday
limiting screentime for students; all student digital devises gone through grade 2
asking for a 3 year pilot of paper and pencil MCAS
community engagement; damaging impacts of overexposure to screens and social media
concern from early childhood about 3 grade MCAS if students haven't been exposed to screens
statewide assessment should promote pedagogy that we 
non-screen based screening for early literacy requested
analogy materials prioritized requested

Kahris McLaughlin on SOA
concerns about poverty and race and how that effects outcomes
federal government putting blockages in the way

hey, we appear to be attempting to keep to time on public comment today!

Gerry Mroz asking for public process of state student advisory council
(this is not a good idea)
plan: by the time you get into it, the job doesn't get done
need state to change practices, schools to change practices
interim adaptive assessments; competency based progression

Christopher Floury (?) lives in Williamsburg
transitional service and special need children
more students graduating with a diploma rather than a certificate of completion, which ends their services
grandson on an IEP had four more years of services after high school, as he received a certificate of completion
given transitional services; the age of 18 isn't the same
Craven thanks him for his catch on this

Craven: thanks the school and district for hosting today
Moriarty as chair of "Literacy Taskforce" as appointed by Craven
it is not clear what this group is, what its purview is, under what authority it is operating, if it is a public body (probably should be?), how people are appointed, etc
"we know what works; we should do what works"
goodness that is a misstatement

Secretary Zrike: toured school and garden before the meeting
appreciate culture brought here
taking care of the whole child; encourage schools to reach 60% breakfast after the bell
STEM week last week
community college enrollment has grown by 27,000 additional students 2022
more students in higher education

Craven: budget Sara Khan and Ericka Fisher, chaired by Mohamed

Commissioner Martinez: beautiful drive out Route 2
visible in field to build relationships and trust
changing practices, hitting ground running
road show for "new grad standards"
we DO NOT HAVE NEW GRAD STANDARDS
there's really far too much about cell phone policies in this tour of the state of he's done since the last week and especially those policies mean "students being social." That "social" piece is such a revealing assumption of what student interaction "should" look like that leaves so much out.

Principal Stacey Jenkins of school was asked to speak about the lower of chronic absenteeism
there was no program or nothing specific to point to
focus on "how are the children"
"it's not flashy; it's not something out of the box"
speaks of rural aid in keeping staffing