May 14, 2021

Honey-Do List

5/15    Artifact Reflections due

5/21     Last day for adding ideas to the ESSA Jamboard

Buzz in My Brain

Appreciation:

• Thank you, Amelia, Chris, Sam, and Jen for wrapping your metaphorical arms around a mother and her children to be sure that mom's voice is heard and the family gets what they need.
• Thank you David for the amazing way you interact with students and meet their emotional as well as academic needs. It was great to watch you in action!

Retention

The district is taking a more nuanced approach to making retention decisions this year. I know this is something that many of you were concerned about. 

As we make decisions about Promotion and Retention, we will adhere to the following guidance:

• There shall be no retention of any student in Kindergarten
• Teachers should offer mastery tasks to students who are on the verge of being retained; if a student can demonstrate mastery, s/he should not be retained
• Teachers should continue to have pass/fail decision-making and partner with the student’s family

To consider retention if such discussion is warranted:

• Retention should be based on a lack of evidence of “meeting or exceeding the essential
• standards;” decisions must be grounded in evidence
• To be considered for retention, there must be evidence of other interventions:
• the student must be reviewed by the school-based Student Success Team using benchmark requirements and the student’s current academic performance
• evidence of a clear, teacher-developed intervention plan to include checkpoints with family to ensure timely and consistent communication
• small group instruction and intervention based on the student’s instructional needs with progress monitoring 
• Evidence of frequent communication with the student’s family
• Promotion can be contingent upon successful participation and completion of summer programming
• The School Leader will have final sign-off (after conversations with all stakeholders)

The National Association of School Psychologists says that holding a child back is “unlikely to
address the problems a child is facing” and promoting a student “without additional support is not
likely to be an effective solution either.” On the whole, studies have shown that children who are
retained do not do better over time. If the decision is made to retain a student, it is critical that we establish what will be done differently during the grade that is repeated.

Pre-K Phonological Awareness Program

• The BPS Department of Early Childhood will be adopting The Heggerty Pre-kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Curriculum in all Pre-K classrooms this upcoming school year, SY21-22.  
• Heggerty is a phonological awareness curriculum that provides students with opportunities to listen to and play with sounds in words. The goal is to build our youngest students’ capacity to hear and manipulate sounds in words to set them up for reading success in the upcoming grades. 
• Research shows that having strong phonological skills and letter-sound correspondence leads to better literacy outcomes in the future. 
• The District is creating a support structure for both educators and school leaders, providing resources for smooth implementation, and working with Heggerty staff developers to provide meaningful professional development opportunities that will build the capacity of all stakeholders.  
• The district has also begun working with Heggerty to ensure that professional development opportunities meet our needs in BPS. 
• Please be on the lookout for professional development dates that will be scheduled in August and September. You can also feel free to connect with Dwayne Nunez (dnunez@bostonpublicschools.org) if you have any questions about this transition or would like to know more about the curriculum. 

ESSA Jamboard

• As you may have heard the District will be receiving a significant influx of money from ESSA over the next three years
• The superintendent has said that at least 50% of the funding will be allocated to schools based on: the school improvement plan and other data sources
• We are in the very preliminary stages of gathering ideas through brainstorming about what this could look like at Lee Academy
• I would love to hear what your thoughts are about possible avenues worth pursuing
• Here are some guardrails to help guide your thinking:
•  Ideas should be about improving outcomes for students. Think of ways that we could measure success
• Think about investments in professional learning and growth, non-consumable materials etc.
• Ideas cannot be about adding new staff members as the funds are finite.

• Put your ideas on this Jamboard (You must be signed in with your BPS address to access. 
• Please add your thoughts by 5/21

MCAS

Opting Out

• MA law does not contain an opt-out form or opt-out provision for MCAS. If parents decline to participate, parents should place their request in writing and understand that these data points will not be available. 

MCAS Grades 3-8 

• All students in Grades 3-8 are expected to participate in-person or remote. 
• Students who are not taking the test will be marked absent in Pearson. 
• In-person testing through TestNav App (district-owned computers only).
• Remote testing through the browser-based version of TestNav (personal devices are ok).
• “Remote MCAS” icon has been added to Clever for remote students 
• Schools can test simultaneously groups from the same class - separate sessions in Pearson for each (could be challenging to manage with one proctor).
• Student Test Login: (1) usernames are student-specific (2) passwords are PAN session-specific
• All students will test one session/per subject.
• CBT test session assigned (randomly) by Pearson to each student 
• PBT test session assigned by the Testing Coordinator: aim for 50/50 split
• paper-clip the Session 1 pages together (leaving Session 2 available to be taken) 
• paper-clip the Session 2 pages together (leaving Session 1 available to be taken).
• Schools may offer in-person testing for remote students if they can manage additional students on site.  

Support and Resources

The MCAS 2021 training module and other linked resources for schools’ training can be found here.

MCAS District Office Hours daily from 05/04-05/22: Morning (7:00-7:45 AM) and Afternoon (12:30-1:15 PM)