By NEIL ZOLOT
NORTH READING — The School Committee and Superintendent Dr. Patrick Daly started the process of reviewing and amending their goals for the upcoming school year at their July 24 meeting.
“It will set a tone for plans for that year,” Daly said
The School Committee’s goals are divided into four sections: Leadership and Governance, Financial and Asset Management, the Education Program, and Family and Community Relations. Refinement will create new goals or follow up goals from past years.
Goals under Leadership and Governance include: “review the School Committee policies related to the school safety plan and the role of the School Resource Officer,” which was assigned to members Dyana Boutwell and Jeff Friedman. “There’s room for more advocacy,” Boutwell reported in reference to working with town officials and the Police Department to refine the program.
Financial and Asset Management goals include: “Support the development of the plan to reduce the kindergarten fees leading toward the eventual goal of providing free full day kindergarten and will explore the next steps to increase access to universal free day Pre-K.” This was an issue discussed at the February 13 meeting.
“We want to continue to lower the cost of full day kindergarten,” stated School Committee Chair Scott Buckley, who has been assigned the subject along with Friedman. “It will continue to be a priority for the district. While we’re not there yet, we’ve lowered the cost.”
Another goal is to “explore new opportunities to reduce expenses associated with energy costs, e.g. solar power,” assigned to Friedman. He admitted there has been “no substantial change” on the matter but feels “it’s not bad to keep on our radar.”
Another financial goal is to “develop strategies to preserve positions and supports that were implemented in part with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding while also continuing to move the district forward in alignment with NRPS 2025.”
Daly commented, “The goal was to keep this in mind in formulating the budget. I think we did. We anticipated positions we wanted to keep from ESSER funds in budget discussions.”
Another financial goal is “review the impact on NRPS families of the current structure and schedule for extra-curricular and athletic activities,” also discussed February 13. Buckley said discussion could be expanded to include bus fees, as discussed March 13.
Education Program goals include “participate in a working group to implement the steps of the NRPS 2025 goals related to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging,” which was part of a discussion of NRPS 2025: A Strategy for the Future back on January 23.
Another Education Program goal is to: “encourage the district-wide exploration of Universal Design for Learning and the expansion of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports. The Committee will request presentations from those engaged in this work throughout the district over the course of the school year. Tasked with this assignment are Boutwell and Noelle Rudloff.
“Each school presentation touched on this,” Rudloff said. “I’d like to see that continue. It’ll be interesting to see how it works in the schools.”
A more generic Education Program goal is: “Support the administration in its efforts to maximize the performance of each student in all academic areas in order to meet the expectations set forth in the mission and vision of the North Reading Public Schools.”
Among the Family and Community Relations goals is the intention to “work with the North Reading Special Education Parents Advisory Council.” The SEPAC gave a presentation to the committee on June 12.
Another Family and Community Relations goal is: “review the policies and the processes to continue to provide opportunities for hybrid public meetings and to explore ways to continue to provide avenues for public input in order to enhance public participation in School Committee meetings.” This was a reference to having meetings available as video-conferences, as was the format for the July 24 meeting. In fact, July 24 was not a hybrid meeting, but held exclusively by video-conference.
“Laws allow us to meet in hybrid fashion, but don’t require it,’ Buckley explained. “The question is do we want to continue? A lot of people like it. We’ve sort of been saying we want to continue that.”
Superintendent’s goals
Daly’s goals also refer to the Multi-Tiered System of Supports with the intention to “create the conditions necessary to implement MTSS using a phase-in approach based on building readiness and schedule infrastructure. By the end of the 2022-23 school year intervention blocks are occurring at four out of five schools. At the end of 2023-24, they will be occurring at all five.”
A timeline referred to professional development in the spring and fall of 2022, assessing budgetary needs for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025, discussions over the summer of 2022, and work with principals and reviews in the fall of 2022 and last spring. “We spent a lot of time talking about best practices at each school,” Daly reported.
Another one of Daly’s district goals is to “implement ‘NRPS 2025: A Strategy for the Future’ that includes a shared vision and strategy for the schools. The strategic plan includes identified objectives of Teaching and Learning, Support Services and DEIB, and continues to serve as a blueprint for evaluating student achievement and providing overall advancement of the school district through 2025.”
A timeline referred to the School Committee’s summer retreat held last August 2022 as well as this summer and professional development across the system with educators and leadership teams in the fall of 2022 and those planned for this fall.
A Professional Practice goal for Daly is to “lead the Administrative Team through new Administrator Evaluation Rubrics and continue to improve our evaluation practices by utilizing the ‘What to Look For Guide’ as well as the ‘Culturally Responsive Teaching Guide.’”
According to Daly’s cited goals, these the new evaluations will “provide effective and timely supervision and evaluation of all staff in alignment with state regulations and contract provisions as evidenced by support to all administrators to develop and attain goals aligned to school and district priorities and sharing best practices and success with the district community and guidance, support and monitoring for all administrators to ensure they observe and provide useful feedback to faculty and staff.”
A timeline referred to the introduction and training on this system in the fall of 2022, plans for this summer and continuing implementation in the coming year. “We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the tools for evaluation in staff meetings and came up with a plan as to how we’re going to use them,” Daly reported.
“As administrators, are we seeing what we want to see?” he asked, such as making improvements for “students who are struggling.”
He further explained the goal involves “establishing a culture making it comfortable for administrators to come into a classroom and training our teachers as to what they may do differently.”
Using data to identify student learning needs is included under Student Learning Goals, which states: “The Superintendent and administrative team will explore the data we are using to identify student learning needs and areas of improvement in each school and the district. Each School Improvement Plan will reflect goals and measurable outcomes based upon this data, and this data will also be used to measure the success of NRPS 2025.”
“Continuous learning develops, nurtures and models a culture in which all staff members are reflective about their practices and theory to continuously adapt instruction and achieve improved results as evidenced by empowering all administrators to collaborate and share knowledge and skills of best practices that improve student learning within their own building and regularly reflecting on and improving their own leadership in order to develop new approaches to improve overall district effectiveness,” Superintendent Daly wrote.