With the Mass. Comprehensive Assessment System of exams (MCAS) defeated as a graduation requirement at the ballot box on Tuesday, Nov. 5, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has updated the district “a little bit,” according to Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak at the School Committee’s Wednesday, Nov. 13 meeting, he provided as much information as is available to the committee and public.
There doesn’t seem to be much at the moment.
“They’re kind of [up in the air],” he indicated abut DESE with a gesture. “There’s no real plan. However, it’s a local requirement, now. I’ll brief you more in December.”
In the meantime, he assured the committee, “We have standards.”
He said if MCAS wasn’t there, the district’s standards would be – and people can depend on their quality.
“The core requirements are there, and our teachers are teaching to the standards that are set by the state,” he said. “I don’t know if the state’s going to move those standards, now that they don’t have the general assessment or not. I’m a little concerned about that, without a benchmark.”
But he sought to reassure parents.
“People in this community should feel, whether or not their child took the MCAS, got the old score of 220 or 280, or whatever, the diploma they receive from Whitman-Hanson is a valid high school diploma based on high standards, a grading rubric and high-quality educational instruction,” he said. “We’ve added highly qualified educational materials, K-10, we never used to have them.”
He said that, even now, students have a better, or a more consistent education than five or six years ago.
But the MCAS requirement does end as a graduation reqirement on Dec. 4.
“So this affects the class of 2025, moving forward,” Szymaniak said. “It doesn’t seem that DESE had a plan in place in July to say, ‘What if this doesn’t happen? What do we do?’”
He said his personal knock on the MCAS was that, giving it as a graduation requirement in grade 10 was a signal to some kids that the needn’t stay in school to graduate.
Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen, who teaches in another school district, said parents may also be overlooking the fact that students in grades three, five and six still have to take the MCAS.
“It’s not going away,” she said. “This is a thing that people were not accurately informed of – we are still losing those instructional days, because the retakes are [still] happening.” She said the March test will also have students missing classroom time.
“When you hear people in the community saying, ‘Oh, it’s gone!’ Please tell them that it’s not,” she said, adding she has read news reports to the effect that there is some push back planned throught state legislation.
Contract
negotiations
The W-H Regional School District has entered contract negotiations with all four units of the WHEA teacher’s union and per the regional agreement, either the town administrator from Whitman or Hanson must be appointed as a voting member for votes to approve the contract, according to Szymaniak.
The requirement is, in fact, a state regulation – 603 CMR 41.04 under DESE’s Education Laws and Regulations.
Szymaniak opened the floor to nominations, noting that Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, who had been at the meeting had to leave earlier.
“I see one back there,” he said sighting Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green. “I think we have one nomination.”
Member Rosemary Connolly said the appointment is not required by the Regional Agreement.
“This is a request from the towns to be part of a negotiating practice within the schools … so the teachers don’t have school autonomy, essentially,” she said. “The towns are involved in how we pay our teachers.”
Szymaniak said he believed it is in the Regional Agreement.
“I don’t have it in front of me,” he said. “But I believe it’s in the Regional Agreement.
The reference is included in the “Regional Agreement” Section of DESE’s laws and regulations.
“I don’t want to vote on something on the day it’s presented,” Connolly then said. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be voting on the day it’s presented.”
Chair Beth Stafford also pointed out that Green would not attend negotiation sessions, she would just come in at the time the full committee is voting to approve them. Szymaniak said she is also able to attend executive sessions to hear updates.
Green was appointed by an 8-1-1 vote – one opposing and one abstaining.
Student survey
Whitman Hanson Will provided a summary of the results of their annual student surveys to the School Committee.
Hillary DuBois-Farquharson, chief communication and prevention for High Point, who has worked with W-H since 2013 and Gabby Sullivan, High Point’s grant manager, asked for permission to survey students again this school year, and to add questions related to three indicators at the middle school and four indicators at the high school survey, Sullivan said.
DuBois- Farquharson because they were able to secure a grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The indicators are a key component of the SAMSA grant that would replace a previous iteration of the survey to build program capacity, put it in place and to later evaluate their efforts, Sullivan added.
This would be the first of a five-year series of $375,000 to cover all 11 communities aimed at reducing the onset and progression of substance misuse and its related problems as well as increasing the development and delivery of mental health promotion among youths somewhere between grades five to 12.
The committee approved the survey with the changes described by a 9-1 vote.
W-H WILL is required to tailor initiatives to the needs of different school districts with at least 50 percent of under-served populations most significantly impacted by substance use disorder. W-H WILL chose the LGBTQ+ community, students in vocational-technical schools and students deemed high-needs.
“Surveying is really helpful, because we’re asking the young people what their own personal experience is, what they see, and we bring that data back to you and are able to personalize and target our efforts to best-benefit children at this local level,” DuBois- Farquharson said.
An additional indicator for the LGBTQ+ issues at the high school level, which mimics the state’s risk behavioral survey, she said. It would not be put forward to surveys in grades five through eight.
Middle school students would see questions stemming from another indicator of mental health.
Middle schools would be seeing only two mental health indicators and one on nicotine’s effect on students concerning nicotine patches. Those three indicator questions will also be included in surveys at the high school.
Surveys will be available to all students in their first language.
“Even if you just need one survey translated, we will do that,” DuBois- Farquharson said.
There were 1,000 responses to the optional survey, or 80 percent, of students. The district didn’t do the survey in grades 9 and 10 last year.