Memorial's Kindness, Caring & Compassion

Amy Griswald of the United Parish Food Pantry and Nipmuc teacher David Antonelli address the Memorial Student body during Friday's assembly

The Memorial Elementary School community is teaching its students in a very real way that charity begins at home.

It is with this spirit that the school kicked off its latest fundraiser, one that hopefully will raise some much-needed resources for the United Parish Food Pantry in Upton.

The concept is simple:  During Wednesday through Friday of this week, all Memorial students are asked to bring in spare change to donate to their class donation can.  On Friday afternoon, Memorial students can wind the day down by relaxing anywhere in the building (gymnasium, hallways, etc.) with their favorite book.  Meanwhile, Principal Deb Swain will tabulate the final tally and will announce which classroom raised the most money for the pantry.

Significantly, all shopping for the food pantry will be done by students in Nipmuc's STAR (Success Through Alternative Resources) Program.  Program teacher David Antonelli will supervise this effort. As a key component of the program is teaching students key life skills, this partnership is a win-win for all involved.

This initiative is part of Memorial's Rachel's Challenge Program, as evidenced by the flourishing Kindness, Caring & Compassion Club.  The school has done some fine work in this area, as all specialists in the school teach carefully-crafted lessons on making good choices and pro-social behaviors to all students.  Memorial's 4th grade teachers and students are spearheading this partnership with United Parish and the Nipmuc students.

Credit is also due to the Memorial PTO, who not only wants to promote a love of reading but clearly sees the importance of connecting with the community.  As Principal Swain remarked, "The community has been so good to us, as evidenced by helping us with projects such as Box Tops for Education.  We want to continue to give back to the community and for our kids to see it in a first-hand way."

Keep up the fine work!

Memorial students intently listen to Principal Swain about the Food Pantry fundraiser

MURSD's 2012 MCAS Results & Accountability Status

Last Monday night I gave to the Regional School Committee a presentation on how our students did on the latest round of MCAS (Massachusetts Common Assessment Program) tests in English language arts, mathematics, and science.  As you probably know, these high-stakes tests are administered each spring to all students in grades 3-8 and 10.

Below is the slideshow that I presented in approximately a half hour.  To be clear... I realize that an 86-slide PowerPoint is less than ideal!  However, there is a great deal of data and so much that is new with regard to how the state is now classifying schools and districts, it merits some degree of explanation.




A few thoughts on the actual results. They were mixed, as at some grade levels and tests there was growth and at others there were declines from the 2011 results.  You will note that I only presented the last four years of results, even though we have been administering the MCAS well over 10 years and over that time span the MURSD has made some tremendous gains.  I presented only the last four years because under the state's new accountability system, only the results of the past four years are used to determine a school and district's classification.  If you look at our district's aggregate performance (all 1,443 students that were tested in 2012) over that four-year span, it is static in ELA (78% proficient or higher) and has increased by 3% in mathematics (from 64% to 67% proficient or higher).  Additionally, we showed significant growth in science testing, as the results of the tested grades of 5, 8, and 10 showed respective gains of 11%, 7%, and 5% in that four-year span.

An enormous change this year is the new accountability system where new targets have been presented for all schools due to the state's recent waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  Instead of incremental targets toward the goal of 100% proficiency in 2013-14, the state now is using a system known as PPI or the Progress and Performance Index.  This complex metric gives each school and district a rating of 1-100 using multiple measures, including our aggregate scores on the MCAS, our aggregate student growth percentiles (SGP) (a measure of how much a student has grown from the previous year), the district's dropout rate, and the district graduation rate.  To be considered on target, each school and district must have a PPI value of 75 or higher.  For 2012, the MURSD has a PPI of 77.  However, under this new system, all of the significant subgroups (e.g., students with disabilities, disadvantaged students, English language learners, etc.) must also have a PPI value of 75. For the MURSD, our high needs subgroup has a PPI value of 73.

Based upon this new system, the district (and each school) must work to close the "proficiency gap," i.e., the difference in performance between all students and those in the high needs subgroups, by at least half by the year 2017.  Thus, for each school, the performance targets for each school and the district on a whole have been very clearly laid out for all MCAS testing from this coming spring to 2017.

Based upon the four-year performance, the new system classifies each school from Level 1 (the best in Meeting all Targets) to Level 5 (needing the most assistance).  Clough has been labeled as a Level 1 school while Memorial, Miscoe, and Nipmuc have been classified as Level 2 (Working to Meet all Targets).  The system deems that the district must be classified as the same as its lowest school, hence the MURSD is a Level 2 district.  As the slides also indicate, the MURSD outperformed all of the districts in the Blackstone Valley using the new PPI metric and is in the middle of the pack when comparing it to similar demographic and sized districts.  While there is variability for the reasons of Memorial, Miscoe, and Nipmuc having their classifications of Level 2, the fact remains that we must do more in the MURSD to meet address the learning of our students with the greatest needs.

We have much complex work ahead within our four schools, and in all four schools in may look different.  It starts with disaggregating this wealth of data to better inform how well our curriculum and instruction are actually working.  At the elementary levels we must ensure instructional fidelity to the well-established reading and mathematics curriculum.  At both the elementary and secondary levels we must carefully examine how we are delivering special education services, and possibly change the model to ensure that all students are getting the appropriate grade level content they need.

The MCAS is only one measure of our performance, but it is an important snapshot.  I would like to see more robust gains, but in light of the programmatic and staffing cuts that the district has sustained during a good portion of that four-year span, the results are not unexpected.  I know that our teachers- the heart of our operation- are committed to a district-wide culture of continuous improvement.

The district can and will do better.

August 11th Volunteer Day at Inman Pond

Here's a GREAT community service opportunity that can really make a difference in improving the delicate ecosystem in a corner of Mendon.

Thoughts on the FY13 MURSD Budget

Tomorrow (Monday, March 19) marks the annual Open Budget Hearing for the Mendon-Upton Regional School District Budget for the 2012-13 school year.  It is at 7:00 pm in the Nipmuc Auditorium.  If you cannot make it, it will be streamed live on the Town Hall Streams website.  On that same site you may also watch an archived video of the forum.

The Regional School Committee will be voting to certify an operational budget of $27,834,228 for fiscal year 2013.  This conservative budget represents an increase of $187,719 or 0.68% over the current year's operational budget of $27,646,509.  With this very modest increase, there will be no request for a Proposition 2 1/2 override from either community.

The creation of the FY13 budget was a collaborative process that began last August, when the Regional School Committee began meeting with the Boards of Selectmen and Finance Committees from both town. These monthly meetings, known as "Multi-Board Meetings," have been a positive development in that both school and town representatives have been engaging in regular, meaningful dialogue about each side's needs and potential revenue, for FY13 and beyond.

Our goals for the proposed FY13 MURSD Budget were the following:

1. To stabilize the district- educationally and financially- while we collaboratively build a new strategic plan to guide our programming over the next five years.
2. To create a level services budget, i.e., to keep the existing programs and staff that we have in place, ending the cycle of cuts that the district has suffered over the past four years.
3. To develop a budget that is conservative and mindful of the current revenues that are available at the state and local levels.
4. To work collaboratively with both towns in order to end the divisiveness that has existed in recent years.

I strongly believe that the proposed budget successfully meets all of these goals.

While I am very confident that we will continue to improve teaching and learning in our district, I caution that the FY13 budget is about stabilization, not growth.  I am excited to commence the strategic planning process this spring as the feedback I have received from parents and staff alike is that they want our district to be competitive and forward-thinking.  Our district must forge forward with new programs for our children, such as universal full-day kindergarten, more STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) offerings at all levels, and expanded opportunities for career exploration.  A new strategic plan will enable our district to craft a vision of how we will expand our programming, with specific goals and objectives.  These goals and objectives will guide our budgeting for FY14 and beyond.

Below is the PowerPoint presentation that I will deliver at the Open Budget Hearing.



If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section below or as always, feel free to e-mail me.

The NCLB Waiver...What Does It Mean for Us??

Last month it was announced by the US Department of Education that Massachusetts, along with nine other states, has been granted a waiver from certain provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This 2001 landmark federal law has been criticized by some for its “one size fits all” approach to school accountability. Under NCLB all public schools and districts must meet the same prescribed targets for student proficiency in annual MCAS testing in English language arts and mathematics. These targets, known as “adequate yearly progress” or AYP, have progressively become more difficult to achieve since 2002 as the goal of NCLB is 100% proficiency by all students by the year 2014.

NCLB requires schools to meet the AYP targets for not only the aggregate of the tested student population but also for each of the major subgroups, i.e., students of various racial/ethnic groups, students with disabilities, low-income students, and English language learners. The statistically significant subgroups in the MURSD are students with disabilities and low-income students. As the years have progressed, our schools have met the AYP targets for the aggregate performance; however, have fallen short on the special education subgroup recently. Keep in mind that the AYP targets are the same as the targets for each of the subgroups.

Concomitantly, the closer we have gotten to 2014, the more challenging the AYP targets have become. For example, for 2011 the state’s CPI (composite performance index) target for ELA and mathematics MCAS were 95.1 and 92.2, respectively. These figures equate to approximately 85-90% of all students and all students in each subgroup scoring proficient or better on each of the tests. This is challenging work and these targets just may be too far reaching given the amount of time since NCLB was enacted. This sentiment is verified by the fact that 82% of all schools and 91% of all districts across the Commonwealth did not meet their AYP targets in 2011. (In the MURSD, only Nipmuc achieved AYP in 2011.)

So is NCLB’s punitive system of labeling schools as “failing” based upon meeting these targets fair? Or even realistic? In my opinion, the answer is no.

Under this new waiver schools will be classified by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education individually rather than using absolute AYP targets. The classifications will look at how many students in the aggregate achieved proficiency, how many students actually improved their performance from year to year (using SGP or Student Growth Percentiles), and how much the achievement gap between the aggregate and various subgroups has been closed. The new classifications for ach school and district will be one of the following:

Level 1 On track to college and career readiness
Level 2 Not meeting gap closing goals
Level 3 Focus: Lowest performing 20% of schools (including schools with the largest gaps)
Level 4 Priority: Lowest performing schools
Level 5 Priority: Chronically underperforming schools

Over the coming months we will receive more details, as these changes will be implemented starting during the 2012-13 school year. While our goal in the MURSD will remain proficiency for ALL students, this new accountability system that judges schools based upon student growth and progress in closing gaps in performance is certainly welcome news.

School Funding Basics- Regional Transportation