From the Schoolhouse

As you may know, Jon Sills and I try to build into each week several visits to our schools.  We join meetings between teachers and administrators, participate in special events or professional development, and visit classrooms as frequently as possible. Not only does this participation build relationships with students, families, and staff, it also helps us to ground our leadership decisions and priorities in the everyday reality of our students and their teachers.

Last Monday, for example, I attended an 8th grade open house for social issue art projects created by Candace Banks' 8th grade students. Students worked with a partner or in small groups, researched a social issue that concerned them, and then created a three-dimensional art project that conveyed what they learned about the issue and their position on it.  As we toured the open house, students presented and explained their projects. Here are projects on anxiety and depression, and on homelessness.

Later that day, I attended the elections at Davis and Lane schools. Davis students voted on whether to have a "wild hair" day or a "choose your own table at lunch" day. Students went through a process for campaigning and voting that mirrored our election process.

 Fifth grade students at Lane ran the voting process there, complete with signing in, completing a secret ballot, dropping it in the slot, and earning a voting sticker.

On Tuesday, the professional development day, I spent most of my time at Davis where teachers spent the morning discussing the writing process, how it is taught and assessed, including what one year's growth looks like at each grade level.  During the afternoon, I participated with a mixed-grade group of educators who were grading together writing samples from each grade level using a rubric, and then discussing the next instructional steps in each case.  These were rich discussions that helped everyone understand the K-2 process as a whole.

Later in the week, I joined technology instructional coaches in their staff meeting.  I had a chance to get their feedback on a progress monitoring system we are considering and heard in more detail about their work at JGMS and BHS, including their plans for professional development embedded into high school faculty meetings.

The culminating event of the week was a brief orchestra concert scheduled in the high school library during break time, conducted by Phil Moffa. The audience was standing-room-only and the string players were in fine form, especially considering the busy venue and potential interruptions over the loudspeaker.  They played with aplomb.

These school visits, as always, give me a profound sense of gratitude to work in the Bedford Public Schools with such dedicated educators and engaged students.  MLS

ELECTION DAY IS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY FOR BEDFORD PUBLIC SCHOOLS FACULTY

There will be no school for kids on Tuesday, but our faculty will be fully engaged in learning.

 

• ·         At Davis School, Andrea Salipante, our newly appointed K-5 ELA Coordinator/K-12 Reading Program Administrator, will work with teachers on writing assessment; and in the afternoon, grade level teams will work together on calibrating writing scoring by focusing on exemplars and then learning to look for patterns to identify whole class strengths and needs.

• ·         At Lane School, guest speaker and behavior specialist Kevin Russo will present to the faculty about particularly challenging student behaviors and effective strategies for managing and improving them; and in the afternoon, grade level teams will all work together on integrating coding into the curriculum at each grade level.

• ·         At JGMS, team-based parent conferences will occupy the morning hours; and in the afternoon, Principal Tracey will lead his faculty through an examination of the faculty-read book, Whistling Vivaldi, which addresses the issue of ‘stereotype threat’, a phenomenon that studies have shown to have a significant impact on certain types of achievement particularly for women and students of color.

• ·         At BHS, the faculty will reflect on faculty-student relationships by reviewing every BHS student in order to determine which students do, and which students do not, have a strong connection with at least one faculty or staff member, so that appropriate steps may be taken to ensure that each student does.  In the afternoon, the faculty will be offsite engaging in a community building set of experiences using high and low rope type challenges.

SCHOOL COMMITTEE PRESENTATIONS

This week, we made two important presentations to the School Committee: the Class Size Report and the FY18 Capital Expenditures Proposal. 

The Class Size Report apprises the committee of the current enrollment at each school and in each grade based upon October 1 numbers.  As well, it compares our class size numbers with our class size guidelines and identifies those classes that are either smaller than normal or that exceed our maximum standards. 

Typically at the high school level, the handful of classes under ten students (not counting support classes that are designed to be small) are a product of scheduling.  For example, we might have 57 students enrolled in Algebra.  To offer only two sections would result in classes well over the maximum of 25, so in offering three sections, the schedule might distribute them as 25, 23 and 9.  The schedule can also create classes that exceed guideline maximums even if the total number of students in all of the sections would yield an acceptable average.  Alternatively, the excessively high numbers may indicate a need for additional staffing, and this would be subsequently addressed in the budget proposal.

2016-2017 Class Size Presentation

The FY18 Capital Expenditures Proposal presentation lists the combination of school facilities’ requests such as acoustic/PA systems for the Lane and Davis gymnasiums where all-school assemblies are held, and school requests such as our annual technology replacement cycle needs that includes networking switches, large scale equipment like interactive boards, and desktop and laptop computers.

Please note that a few items are included as placeholders in that they depend upon other decisions that our presently in the hands of other agencies.  For example, we have submitted a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for the Davis School addition/renovation project, and we will hear from the MSBA in December whether or not it will be supported.  If not, then the feasibility study and schematic design “place hold” costs in the FY18 capital budget will become “activated” and the School Committee will request of Town Meeting that the town proceed to fund that first phase of the project.  Similarly with the press box lift, which ethics and ADA compliance require of us for the press box at Sabourin Field, is included in the FY18 list as a place holder.  This is because it will also be on the STM warrant this November, and if it is supported it will come off the FY18 list.  This timing is necessitated by the state architecture board that has given Bedford until March to install the ADA required lift.                                                               JS

FY18 Capital Projects Presentation