Last Monday, Superintendent of Schools John Doherty gave the annual State of the Schools Address at the opening session of Town Meeting.  A transcript of the speech is below.  The power point presentation that accompanied the speech is located here. 

Town Meeting State of the Schools Speech-November 9, 2015

Mr. Moderator, Town Meeting Members, Board of Selectmen, Finance Committee Members, School Committee, Fellow Town Leaders and Department Heads, Building Principals, District Administrators, Members of the School Community, and Invited Guests.  It is with great honor and privilege that I present to you the 2015 State of the Schools Address.  One of the traditions that I look forward to each year as Superintendent is to recognize and introduce to you the Reading Memorial High School Seniors who are receiving the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Award for Academic and Community Excellence.  This year, I will be recognizing two outstanding students, each who have a strong three year cumulative academic average, participate in extracurricular and community service activities, and are currently in the top 5% of their graduating class.   Each year, it is always difficult to only select two students given how many deserving candidates we have shining here at Reading Memorial High School.  It is with great pride that I present this award to the following individuals:

Our first recipient attended Killam Elementary School and Parker Middle School and serves in leadership positions as the Vice President of the National Honor Society and Captain of the Indoor and Outdoor Track Teams.  He aspires to continue to run track when he is in college.  He is a youth leader at the Korean Church of the Nazarene, volunteering as a mentor to younger members. Over his four years, this student has taken 8 AP Courses, the maximum number possible at RMHS. He is currently taking Honors and Advanced Placement classes in Calculus, French, English, Computer Science and Statistics.   This recipient has applied to several colleges and universities including Tufts University, where he plans on majoring in biochemistry and pre-medicine.   It is with great pleasure tonight that I recognize Paul Chong.  Paul, please come forward to receive the 2015 Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent’s Award.

Tonight’s second recipient attended Killam Elementary School and Coolidge Middle School and has excelled as a member of the RMHS Drama Club and in the past has been a member of the RMHS Volleyball Team.  This student also volunteers at the Mission of Deeds every Monday.  Last year, this individual received the esteemed Brown University Book Award for her high level of academic achievement and this year, she was invited by the College Boards to participate in the National Hispanic Recognition Program for being in the top 2.5% among Hispanic and Latino students in the country for her score on the PSAT/NMSQT Exam and for achieving at least at 3.5 G.P.A. in her coursework.  A member of the National Honor Society, this recipient is currently taking Advanced Placement and Honors courses in English, Engineering, Calculus, French, and Biology.  Next year, she also plans on majoring in Biochemistry and has applied to WPI and Marist.

It’s a great honor to introduce to you, Isabel Azevedo!  Isabel, please come forward and accept the MASS 2015 Superintendent’s Award for Academic Excellence.

Congratulations Paul and Isabel.  Tonight’s sharing of accomplishments does not stop with recognizing these two students who personify the educational journeys which our schools strive to inspire, teach, and support.  The main objective of this annual Address is to report on the state of the schools—and without question, our school system could have no finer examples of its mission than these two outstanding young adults and many more like them.  Schools across the country are experiencing educational, financial, and political challenges.  Our district strives to meet these challenges with cutting edge curriculum, creative best practices and funding, cross staff collaboration and learning, and the tenacity which engages families, staff and community in preparing our students for their world and the challenges that they will face.  Tonight, I will highlight some of our accomplishments from this past year, and share with you some areas that we are focusing on as we strive to become the best PreK-12 school district in our region.

To highlight our successes, we have distributed two documents this evening which capture the 2014-15 school year.  The first document focuses on the accomplishments of our entire PreK-12 district and the other, the RMHS School Profile, is specific to our high school and is distributed to colleges and universities across the country.  These accomplishments would not be possible without a dedicated and caring staff, strong leadership from our administrators and directors, and the financial and volunteer support that we receive from our parents and our community.  An example of this support is that during the 2014-15 school year, our parent groups, community organizations and private citizens donated over $160,000 to our schools and programs in a variety of ways.  It is this spirit of collaboration, commitment and teamwork that helps contribute to the success of our school district.

We have a lot to be proud of as a community and we need to take the time to celebrate those successes.  Whether it is our RISE integrated pre-school which does an amazing job with our three and four year old students or our elementary schools which are committed to building strong communities of learners in literacy and mathematics, or our middle schools which have provided many powerful learning opportunities for students during a very challenging developmental stage in their lives, or our high school, which challenges our students to explore their passions so that they can be prepared for college or career opportunities,  our district is a solid example of how we are working together to instill a joy of learning and inspire the innovative leaders of tomorrow.

This is evident with our latest graduating class of 2015, where 93% of the students are continuing on to post-secondary education, including 88% going on to a four year college or university.  Last year’s Senior Class achieved national academic success on the Advanced Placement and SAT Tests with 16 national merit commended scholars and one student, Peter Satterthwaite, who received recognition as a national merit finalist and, was one of only fourteen students in Massachusetts who qualified for the prestigious United States Presidential Scholars Program.      In addition, our current Junior Class received some of the highest overall High School MCAS scores in Reading since the test began in 1998 with 92% of our students receiving a score of advanced or proficient in math and 98% of our students receiving a score of advanced or proficient in English Language Arts.  In addition, 86% of our current sophomore class received Advanced or Proficient on the Grade 9 Science MCAS test.

Another area that we are proud of as a school district is our students’ access to  technology and through a variety of funding sources, including the Reading Education Foundation, Reading Cooperative Bank, and our PTO’s, we have strived to keep updated technology in the hands of our students.   This past year, we were able to upgrade our wireless infrastructure at our two middle schools and the high school so that we can support the growing number of mobile devices in the classroom.    We have also strengthened our Science, Technology, and Engineering offerings by increasing the number of engineering courses and robotics programs offered throughout the school district, piloting a new science program in selected grade K-5 classrooms, and offering computer coding opportunities for all of our students.  Beginning this winter, students in our elementary schools will be able to take more after school programs that focus on science and engineering.  In addition, thanks to parent and volunteer support, all of our schools have robotics teams, including Reading Memorial High School which has a very competitive team and has received numerous team awards, including the prestigious entrepreneurship award. This past March, for the first time, Reading was the host of a two day New England FIRST Robotics Tournament that was attended by dozens of teams and thousands of people from all over New England.  The event was so successful that we will again be hosting a Tournament in March.

Our co-curricular and extra-curricular programs continue to provide outstanding enriching experiences with high participation rates at all levels.   Our elementary after school programs now have well over 450 participants and  Reading Memorial High School features 87 different clubs and athletic teams where over 85% of the students participate in 1 or more extra-curricular activities.  This past year, 5 RMHS Varsity Athletic Teams won Middlesex League Championships and our Girls Hockey Team won the Division 1 State Championship.  It is the fourth year in a row that a Reading Memorial High School sports team has won a state championship.

Our Fine and Performing Arts programs continue to excel with an outstanding elementary choral program, award winning middle school and high school choral and band programs, a gold medal winning marching band and color guard and a jazz band who won a gold medal at the state level.  Several middle and high school students received Boston Globe Scholastic Art Awards and one of our Seniors last year, Lauren Walsh, earned recognition for her outstanding work in photography, including two impressive gold key awards in the Boston Globe Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and a National Gold Medal which she received last June at Carnegie Hall in New York City.  Each of our middle schools perform a musical annually and, last year, the RMHS drama club filled this Fine and Performing Arts Center with six different types of shows including two musicals, two plays, a student written play festival, and two improv events.  One example of this outstanding quality is this year’s fall musical, Mary Poppins, which played to sold out audiences this past weekend and continues next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  You can see some of the scenery behind me for this show.  We can truly be proud of this commitment to the arts, and I encourage all of you to attend any of our student fine arts performances.

At the state, level, the Reading Public Schools is looked upon as a leader in best practices for several initiatives that focus on teaching and learning.   This past year, our teachers, administrators, and students have presented at national, state, and regional conferences.  Reading staff have been appointed by the Governor to serve on the Safe and Supportive Schools Commission to help lead the direction for social and emotional learning in our state.  In addition, several school districts have visited our classrooms to see best practices in action.

Our teachers and students have embraced the higher expectations and rigor of the Massachusetts literacy and mathematics frameworks, which focus on the problem solving and critical thinking skills necessary so that more students will be taking advanced math courses, as well as strengthening our student’s ability to write, communicate, and process non-fiction material.  These challenging standards, along with more demanding instructional practices will be raising the bar for all students and help better prepare them for college and their future careers.

We are beginning to see the results of our hard work in literacy and mathematics on our state assessments.  The students who took the Grade 10 MCAS assessments that I mentioned to you earlier were in middle school when we began implementing the revised frameworks.  In addition, later this week, the first results of our next generation state assessment in Grades 3-8, the PARCC, will be released.  Preliminary results show that our students overall did very well, with achievement and student growth scores well above the state average. These strong results are an indication that we are heading in the right direction and is a tribute to the dedication and commitment of our teachers, principals, and central office administrators.

We continue to work diligently to assure that the funding that we receive from the community and other sources is spent on what will most benefit our students.    In 2014, the Center for American Progress updated a report that they first released in 2011 on a district by district analysis of educational productivity.  This project develops a set of relatively simple productivity metrics in order to measure the academic achievement that a school district produces relative to its spending. I am pleased to announce that Reading has the fourth highest educational productivity rating in our Commonwealth.  This strong measure is due to prioritizing our resources on the classroom and practicing strong fiscal management practices.  In addition to the above, we have been working closely with Town Officials to analyze our largest revolving accounts in Full Day Kindergarten, Extended Day, Special Education Tuition, and RISE.  Through this analysis, which has been reviewed by both the Board of Selectmen and the Reading School Committee, a set of guidelines has been established as to what the minimum amount of funding should be charged to each revolving account annually to cover the expenses for that program.  We will continue to work closely with Town Officials to implement these best practices.

We are also proud of the maintenance and care of our facilities and are very appreciative of the support that we received from Town Meeting last year to fund six modular classrooms.  I am pleased to report that this project was completed in early October, has reached substantial completion, received permanent certificates of occupancy and we received a credit of $15,000 for construction delays.  These additional classrooms have provided great learning spaces for our kindergarten students and has given us the space necessary to maintain our educational programs at the elementary level.

Over the last few months, we have been working with Town Officials to restructure our facilities department and during this Town Meeting session, you will be voting on some budgetary shifts that will finalize a structure that will create a shared facilities model between town and schools.  This revised model will continue to place an emphasis on the preventative maintenance and care of all of buildings, continue to control costs, and provide greater oversight and collaboration on our operations between town and schools.  I would like to commend the collaboration between the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee, as well as Town Manager Robert Lelacheur and Director of Facilities Joe Huggins on this restructuring process.  We have also seen similar collaboration between town and schools during this past year in technology and network management and Human Resources services.  These examples of collaboration allow us to share best practices between departments, create efficiencies where possible, make available redundancies in an emergency and provide the best services possible with available funding.

Everything that you have heard thus far in my remarks would not be possible without strong and dedicated leadership.  I want to take a moment and recognize the efforts of our building principals, building administrators, directors and central office administrators, many of who are here this evening.  This hard-working group of individuals consistently goes well beyond their job description in leading our schools and departments through some very challenging times.  Without their direction, we would not be able to have made the necessary changes to continually improve our schools and learning for our students, past, present, and into the future.  Thank you for what you do for the children of Reading.

Updates and Moving Forward

Over the last several months, I have had the opportunity to meet with over 300 staff, parents, and community members in community forums to assess where we are as a school district.  We discussed the strengths of the Reading Public Schools, the areas to strengthen, the new programs or initiatives that we need to begin, as well as, the current programs or initiatives that need to be changed or stopped.   I collected hundreds of comments through these community forums, looked for themes and patterns and supported the findings with additional data from a variety of credible sources including state assessment data, the Walker Institute Report, which is a review that we did on our special education services last year, staff exit data, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and student and staff survey data.  For the remainder of my remarks, I would like to share with you some of the key points.

Overall, the community and staff gave positive remarks about the Reading Public Schools.  In the focus group sessions, the consistent strengths that emerged include the quality and dedication of our teaching staff and administrators, our students who come to school every day ready to learn, and the commitment that our parents make to our schools.  Our data also showed that we have strong special education programs, significant opportunities for our students to participate in extra-curricular activities, athletic programs, and extended field trips, and the access that students have to technology in our district.

We are also beginning to see some positive downward trends in some of our key Youth Risk Behavior Data.  As many of you know, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey is administered to all Grade 6-12 students every two years.  Since 2005, we have seen significant decreases in the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana.  This is a testament to the collaboration and partnership with the Town of Reading, Reading Public Schools, the RCASA, and the Reading Police Department.  I want to show you a clear example of this collaboration.

In 2005, the use of alcohol by our high school students was at a much higher rate than today.  Due to the work of the Board of Selectmen who passed a revised Town Liquor Policy in 2009, our School Committee who passed a revised chemical health policy for students who participate in extra-curricular activities and athletics in 2011, and our Police Department, who began implementing compliance checks and a zero tolerance policy for our youth, we have seen a significant decrease in the use of alcohol by our high school students.  This is a concrete example how a collaborative effort of policy changes and implementation can result in a positive benefit for our youth.  Although we would like these percentages to be at 0%, the results are showing that our efforts are having an impact.

Although the data and the forums show we have a lot to be proud of in our schools, the information gathered also shows that there are areas we need to address so that we can maintain the level of excellence that we have taken pride in over the last several years.  Addressing these areas will be critical to the long term success of our school district.

One area that continues to surface is the overall behavioral health of our students.  Although we have seen some very positive results in the latest administration of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, we are seeing some troubling trends as well.  In the slide behind me, we have seen slight increases since 2005 in the use of some of the more dangerous drugs, such as prescription medication, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants.  Synthetic marijuana is emerging as a potent and risky alternative for students.  In addition, 24% of our community’s 14-18 year olds stated that they have used electronic cigarettes with nicotine products, also called vaping, which is a dangerous upward trend.

We are also concerned about the emotional health of our adolescents.  Over the last 10 years, we have seen increases in the percent of teens who have felt sad or hopeless for more than 2 weeks in a row, are involved in non-suicidal self-injury, or have engaged in suicidality.  In addition, during the 2014-15 school year, 55 RMHS students were hospitalized for anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and/or depression.  We have seen increases at our elementary and middle schools as well. Our high school students indicated on the YRBS that the major stressors in their life are increased workload, expectations about school and lack of sleep.  Although these increases are not isolated just to Reading, we are concerned that the numbers of incidents in Reading is higher than the state average.  As a community, we have taken significant steps to address these increased concerns through our partnerships with the Reading Coalition Against Substance Abuse and your support in previous budgets with programs and staffing that supports behavioral health.  As I reported last year, the Town and the School Department received three Federal grants, totaling 1.95 million dollars, to continue to help address the overall behavioral health of our youth.  The first grant continues the great work that RCASA has done over the last several years.  The second grant will allow the Reading Public Schools to train a minimum of 584 school educators, school support staff, first responders, youth workers, and faith leaders in Youth Mental Health First Aid to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders in our youth.  So far, over 250 people have been trained in this area.  The third grant will implement a highly sustainable, multi-tiered system of supports to improve school climate and behavioral outcomes for all students.  We have made tremendous progress in this area in just one year.  These three grants ensure that we will be able to move forward in creating structures, systems, and processes throughout our community to reach and engage all of our youth, particularly those youth who may be vulnerable to risky behaviors such as substance abuse or creating harm to themselves or others.  These initiatives, combined with the work that we have done over the last several years in school safety with the Reading Police and Fire Departments, places our community as a leader in proactively addressing the overall safety of our children.  As we all know, if students do not feel physically and psychologically safe in school, they will not learn, no matter what curriculum, technology, or teacher you put in front of them.  I would like to thank the Reading Police and Fire Departments and the Reading Coalition Against Substance Abuse, under the leadership of Chief James Cormier, Chief Greg Burns, and RCASA Executive Director Erica McNamara, for the partnership that they have forged with the Reading Public Schools over the last several years and their leadership and efforts in creating safe and supportive environments for our children.   In addition, I would be remiss, if I did not thank Chief Cormier for all of his efforts and collaboration over the last several years in providing a safe environment for our students.  Jim, I have enjoyed working with you over the last six years in my role as Superintendent and I wish you success and good health in your retirement.

Finally, I would like to spend a few minutes focusing on school funding, past, present, and future.  I would like to preface my comments by stating that we are appreciative and value the financial support that our community has given to public education.  Unfortunately, our latest state financial data shows that Reading ranks 305^th out of 326 Massachusetts communities in per pupil spending, 118^th out of the 125 communities in the Boston Metro Area and this ranking has been in steady decline since 2006.   It is well documented that our community has a revenue challenge as we become more and more reliant on cash reserves each year to fund our budgets.  It is to our town’s credit that through mutual respect and collaboration, town boards have stretched our dollars to provide the quality education and services, of which Reading is so proud.

Our continuing decline in per pupil expenditure is beginning to have an impact on our school system, especially during the times of transition that we are currently facing.  Over the last five years, the average budget increase has been 2.64%, however, expenses in health care costs, utilities, supplies, special education costs and compensation have come in at much higher increases.  This leads to less overall services and programs that can be funded for our schools.  We are in the midst of tremendous educational change in our state and in our country with more rigorous curriculum frameworks, a next generation assessment system, and the expectation to make sure all students are college and career ready.  We also need to address the areas that I mentioned earlier in behavioral health.  During these times of transition, it is more important than ever to sustain our previous levels of support and to add resources to address additional needs.  In the upcoming school year we will need to update our science and engineering curriculum,  provide time and resources for teachers to implement these new curricula, continue to improve our special education services and programs, add more tutorial and social emotional support for struggling students, offer dedicated health education classes at our elementary and middle schools, increase our Advanced Placement course offerings at the high school and elective offerings at all levels, and update the High School Graduation requirements to help prepare our students for college and future opportunities.

Equally important, we need to continue to attract and retain the best educators. This past school year alone five educators left our district for higher compensation, better benefits and improved working conditions related to caseload and paperwork.  In addition, four candidates who were offered positions in our school district declined to accept our offer and accepted a position in another school district for higher compensation and benefits.

Unfortunately, I see a similar trend occurring as we begin to prepare the FY17 budget.  It is this ongoing pattern that, I believe, has placed our community at a cross roads.  We have a decision to make in terms of what type of school district and town services we want and the resources necessary to sustain those programs and services.  Because, without more resources, we will not be able to do over the long term what we are currently doing.

To conclude, I believe that this is an exciting, but uncertain time in public education and we have an opportunity to make positive substantive changes that have not been made since Education Reform was introduced in 1993.  It is difficult work, but we are up to the challenge of providing the best learning experiences for our students.  Those substantive changes that I mentioned earlier will take time and sustainable resources.    I am proud of the work that our teachers and administrators do every day to improve teaching and learning in our district and I am excited by the enthusiasm and respectfulness of our students who arrive to school every day eager to learn.  This is a testament to our parents and our community who value the importance of education and the role that it needs to play in a community.   There is no question that a major indicator of the quality of life for everyone in a community can be measured by the quality of its schools and by a community’s commitment to its children.  In this way, the quality of a school district affects every single person in a community, and the Town of Reading is no exception.  But I also believe this is one of our greatest strengths.

Thank you for your time this evening.  In my 32nd year as an educator, my 28th year now in the Reading Public Schools, and as proud parent of children who attend the Reading Public Schools, one who graduated two years ago and one who is graduating this year, I must say that I am so very proud to be a part of this community.  I thank you for the privilege . . . and  I look forward to working with you, as together, we continue to make Reading a place where all students can learn and succeed, a place where we develop the innovative leaders of tomorrow, and a place where our schools continue to provide the strong foundation for the future of this great community.

Thank you very much.

State Release of PARCC Assessment Data

An Update from the Assistant Superintendent for Learning & Teaching, November 2015

PARCC results released

As you may know, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released statewide PARCC data a couple of weeks ago.  Today, the DESE has released individual school and district results for English Language Arts and Mathematics for grades 3-8, as well as the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) and Composite Performance Index (CPI) data.  (MCAS scores for all levels of Science, as well as ELA and Mathematics for high school were released previously.)  The DESE has reported that student achievement “may appear lower in some grades on PARCC than on MCAS, because PARCC is designed to be a more rigorous test.”  However, as our staff in all grades have been working to align both curriculum and instructional strategies to the higher expectations of the state’s revised standards, we have been eager to receive this data to support and inform that continuing effort.

Achievement Levels, Student Growth, Group Progress

Unlike MCAS, there is no PARCC achievement level called “proficient,” but Level 4 represents the point at which students have “met expectations.” Level 5 indicates that students have “exceeded expectations.”  PARCC is scored on five achievement levels:

• Level 1: Did not yet meet expectations
• Level 2: Partially met expectations
• Level 3: Approached expectations
• Level 4: Met Expectations
• Level 5: Exceeded Expectations

The Student Growth Percentile (SGP) measures how much a student’s performance has improved from one year to the next relative to his or her academic peers (other students statewide with similar scores in prior years).  The Composite Performance Index (CPI) measures the extent to which groups (districts, schools, and subgroups) are progressing toward full proficiency. When examining the data for student groups, the transitional CPI can be used for comparing results across years, and the median SGP can be used for measuring growth from one year to the next.  The DESE defines moderate growth to be between the 40-60 percentile, with low growth as below the 40^th percentile and high growth as above the 60^th percentile.  (See the attached tables for further explanation of both SGP and CPI.)

Some initial findings

• The percentage of Reading students in grades 3-8 who met or exceeded expectations is 12 points higher than the state average for English Language Arts, and 13 points higher for Mathematics.
• All 20 of the median Student Growth Percentiles (SGP) in both ELA and Math for the five elementary schools are in the moderate or high growth range (with 11 of those in the high growth range).
• Twenty (20) of the 30 Composite Performance Indexes (CPI) in ELA and Math for the five elementary schools represent an improvement over the previous year. (As we continue to monitor and address the accountability status for the Joshua Eaton Elementary School, we are pleased that two of those are rather significant increases in Math at both the 4^th and 5^th grade levels.)
• The CPI for the 8^th grade Algebra I test is 100, meaning that all students in 8^th grade Algebra I either met or exceeded expectations (which was 20% higher than the state average).
• The district’s K-3 curriculum progress will be reviewed, as we examine a few low indicators in the 3^rd grade results.
• While we are generally pleased with the aggregate CPIs for “all students,” we must continue to disaggregate the data to specifically address the high needs subgroup—especially students with disabilities.

In upcoming weeks, the district, school, and student level results will be used to identify our current strengths and weaknesses, review curriculum and instructional alignment, and identify appropriate interventions for students where applicable. We will also utilize recently released assessment items—including test questions, scoring rubrics, and examples of scored student responses—to inform our practice.  (See the below link to access the PARCC released assessment information.)  Accountability and assistance levels for schools are “held harmless” for this first year of a new assessment (meaning that 2014 levels may stay the same or improve, but cannot decline).  The DESE has announced, however, that it will still be releasing accountability reports for all districts in early December, and we look forward to reviewing that information. The DESE also reports that individual student reports for PARCC will be shipped to the districts by the end of the month, and so parents/guardians can expect to receive those in the beginning of December as well.

An overview presentation of this district assessment data will be given for the School Committee on November 23^rd, and each school will also be doing its own school-level presentation during December.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact your school Principal or the district administration offices.

See the attached summary tables for a complete overview of the district PARCC results.

Or click on the below link to access this information Edline:

http://www.edline.net/pages/ReadingPublicSchools

PARCC Released Items can be accessed at this link:

https://prc.parcconline.org/assessments/parcc-released-items

Further information regarding the PARCC results can be accessed at this DESE link:

http://www.doe.mass.edu/parcc/results.html

 

 

Many parents today share an interest, and often concern, about their kids’ digital lives. As a continuation of our Common Sense Connecting Families (Teen Panel) Program from last month, the Reading Public Schools is hosting an evening for parents and educators to discuss digital footprints/photo sharing, and digital drama.  The program will be held on Tuesday, November 17th at 7:00 p.m. at Parker Middle School.  This will be a world cafe style event where parents and other members of the school community will have an open and thoughtful discussion about the digital lives of teens.

If you are interested in attending, please click the following link to register for this event. Registration is appreciated but not required.

http://tinyurl.com/READINGCSM

Good Afternoon,

We hope that you are having a great weekend.  The link below is for the latest edition of the Pathways Newsletter.  This week’s edition contains stories about the RMHS Drama Club production of Mary Poppins, effective professional learning communities, the true purposes of assessments, and a special blog post by RMHS History Teacher, Dr. Jeffrey Ryan.  In addition, we have photos from Mary Poppins, the Coolidge Science Olympiad Day, a Barrows Teacher who successfully completed the New York City Marathon, and the RMHS Cheerleading Team.

Have a great rest of the weekend and week ahead!

Pathways Newsletter V2N10

The Reading Public Schools is seeking parents to be a part of the FY17 budget process in the role of budget parents.  If you are interested in serving as a budget parent or if you have additional questions, please contact Linda Engelson at 781-944-5800 or by email at linda.engelson@reading.k12.ma.us.   A description is as follows:

Reading Public Schools Budget Parent Information Sheet

WHO      Any parent who has children in the Reading Public Schools may become a budget parent.  Representation will come from the following groups:

• Individual Schools
• High School Extracurricular (Athletics, Drama, Music)
• Special Education PAC

RESPONSIBILIITIES         The budget parent responsibilities are as follows:

• Participate in meetings with the Superintendent of Schools and Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Administration from December-March to learn about the school department budget and the budget process.
• Work with the Superintendent and the Director of Finance and Operation to review, critique and give input on the budget and the budget process.
• Understand how the budget process works and be an advocate for the entire school department budget
• Act as a liaison between the school department and their child’s school by reporting back to other parents both formally (PTO and School Council meetings) and informally
• Attend School Committee meetings and other pertinent meetings during the budget deliberations in January, February, and March

WHEN     Meetings will begin in late November/early December and will occur prior to School Committee meetings.  The month of January is a busy month with one to two meetings per week.  February and March will have a total of two or three meetings.

The following School Committee meetings in January, February, and March are dedicated to the FY16 budget.  The Budget parents will meet at 6:00 p.m. prior to these meetings.

January 7, 11, 14, 20 (Financial Forum), 21, 25

March 16 (Finance Committee Meeting)

Please note that each budget parent does not have to attend every meeting. We would always like at least one representative from each school at each meeting.

Good Morning,

We hope that you are enjoying this beautiful last day of October.  Happy Halloween!  The link below is to this week’s Pathways Newsletter.  In this week’s edition, there are stories about the release of the upcoming PARCC State Assessment results, how students can learn from mistakes if we let them, and four strategies for remembering everything that we learn.  In addition, we have photos from the RMHS Volleyball Team and the Barrows Jump Rope Event.

Have a great rest of the weekend and week ahead!

Pathways Newsletter V2N9

Last week, Massachusetts released statewide PARCC results from spring 2015 and it was announced that school and district results will be released during the week of November 9th. Our district had the opportunity to choose between giving MCAS (our existing state assessment, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) or PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) assessments for the 2014-2015 school year in grades 3-8. We, like most Massachusetts districts, chose PARCC. We saw it as a chance to see where students stood on an assessment specifically designed to test the curriculum standards we use and to become acclimated to a more rigorous assessment. We also saw it as a chance to see how students interact with technology, and to hear feedback from our teachers and administrators on a next-generation assessment. Results from PARCC are likely to be different than prior years’ MCAS results. That is not unexpected. PARCC is a different measuring stick, and the assessment includes challenging questions designed to measure critical-thinking, writing and multi-step problem solving. These questions are designed to be aligned with the instructional and assessment practices that are emphasized in the Massachusetts Literacy and Mathematics frameworks. Most Massachusetts students who took PARCC did so on a computer. Students who took the test on a computer and responded to a PARCC survey reported that they had enough to time to finish, that the test was easier than or the same level of difficulty as their school work, and that they preferred taking a computer-based test. Our own experience was similar to the state.  Although the first round of testing last year provided some logistical issues for us (similar to the first round of any new implementation), we learned from our challenges and made several changes which resulted in a smoother second round implementation. We will update you again when we receive our school and district results in two weeks, followed by parent reports in late November.  Parents will receive a copy of their child’s detailed score report in late November (An example of what parent score reports will look like is available online at http://understandthescore.org/ .), while educators will receive summary data of students’ scores.  We will make a presentation of our district scores at the November 23rd Reading School Committee meeting and during December, each building principal will be making school based presentations at their PTO and School Council meetings. In the coming weeks, Massachusetts will be evaluating PARCC, and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will decide on November 17th whether to replace MCAS with PARCC or look for other ways to upgrade our assessment system. (MCAS was never designed to be an indicator of college or career readiness and is entirely paper-and-pencil-based.) Regardless of the Board’s vote, we will use the spring 2015 data to reflect on our students’ strengths and on areas where they may need additional support. For more information on PARCC, please see http://www.doe.mass.edu/parcc/ or www.parcconline.org. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s building principal or the Reading Public Schools Administration Offices.

Good Morning,

The link below is for this week’s Pathways Newsletter.  This week’s edition contains articles on how to create a tidal wave of kindness in school and how schools can accommodate their introverted students.  We also have photos from Camp Bournedale and the Smiles for Sally Walkathon.

Have a great day and week ahead!

Pathways Newsletter V2N8

Below are some excerpts from the Eulogy that was given today at John McCarthy’s Funeral.  It has been formatted for a blog post.

This past week, the Reading Community lost a great teacher, mentor, and friend with the passing of recently retired Coolidge Middle School Science Teacher John McCarthy.  John passed away on Monday after a courageous 2 year battle with cancer. This post is a reflection piece that represents the thoughts of his family and friends, the hundreds of staff and thousands of students who have known, worked with, or were taught by John Francis McCarthy during his 42 years in education.  John was a very special person, a one of a kind, who cared so much for others, would give the shirt off of his back to help a person in need, and was so excited to work each and every day with students.

Let’s first start with John’s unique phrases…otherwise known as “McCarthyisms”.  Over the years, John has had some quotes that will always remind us of him.  Whether it his usually greeting to students of “How ah ya!” or the quote at the bottom of his email signature, “Don’t take success for granted”, or “Have a gneiss day!” after the metamorphic rock or his famous remark, “This is too touchy feely for me”, John always found a way to make us laugh when we needed it the most.  Even when he was suffering in pain the last two years, John would always stay positive by telling everyone, “I am hangin in there”. His sayings, “Don’t be a vestigial organ” or use your CS (Common Sense) or I must have CRS (Can’t Remember Stuff) always put a smile to everyone’s face.   Students really connected to those sayings.

John also had a wonderful way about him to connect with both kids and adults.  It was these small, but significant symbols that made John so special.  For example, when he went on Science Olympiad Trips, he always brought that ugly yellow suitcase that he bought at a yard sale and he always sat at the school’s home base in that worn, but usable lawn chair.  He collected the tops of cans to donate to Shriner’s so that children can get transported to the Shriner’s Burns Center.  Soon many people began bringing their can tabs to John McCarthy.  John’s signature emails of various sayings, jokes and pictures about animals and education jokes always made people laugh.

John loved nature and science.  He could tell you the names of every tree, the classification of every bug, and the beak of every bird. His lawn was always meticulous and he had the best tomato plants on King Street (Where he lived).  He loved his pets, Stu the parrot, his numerous tanks of fish, and his Doberman pinchers.  One year, John was even able to get a small group of baby ducklings to waddle from one Coolidge Courtyard to another.  Science was his passion and he loved to work with students, whether it be science class, the Coolidge School Science Olympiad Day , or just an informal one on one session, John would give any student as much of his attention as possible.  His classroom was a laboratory of engagement with Sully the Turtle in one tank, exotic fish in another tank, and numerous stuffed animals, skeletons, coral, rocks, and minerals scattered throughout the classroom.  It was common to see his classic McCarthy handwriting on the blackboard and a SMART Board that was always on, but in John’s words, “never worked.” No matter what time of day, before school and after school, there were always students hanging around in John’s classroom, a true sign of a great teacher.

John loved the school kitchen and the kitchen staff and it was not uncommon to see John sitting behind the counter at lunch time talking with students, serving food, and ringing up their sales.  Lunch time became an opportunity to connect with the students and John always looked for those types of opportunities.

For the last 20 years, Coolidge was his life and his second home.  He loved the staff and he would spend hours there during the summer and on weekends answering the phone in the main office, putting mail in the mailboxes, fixing the laminating machine (which gave him the nickname “the laminator”), and cleaning his classroom. No one really fully understood just how hard he worked for the school until he wasn’t there every day.  He was the kind of person who would take care of things before anyone else even knew they needed to be done, but he didn’t want credit or attention for any of it.

John was such a special person…a person who had a unique blend of characteristics that made him such a likeable person.  He was also very generous and would be the first to donate money to a worthy cause, the first to give his time, and the first to lend a helping hand.  Possessions never meant anything to him and he was always giving something of his away to someone or some organization who was in need.  He was in the truest sense of the word a teacher, a mentor, and a friend.  He never forgot a student’s name, never lost his patience, and always cared for the students who needed the most support.  He always seemed to have a special place in his heart for the students with the most severe special needs and developed deep connections with them.  Many of you know them by name from over the years:  Jason, Laura, Johanna, David, Bryce, Owen, Dan, Bear, Jackson, and so many others.  These students loved John because they knew he cared for them.

And then there were the kids on the Science Olympiad Teams and the relationships that he had with all of those students.  For over 20 years John coached this team and he became the heart and soul of the organization.  He never took one dime as compensation, in fact, he used to hang his uncashed stipend check on the bulletin board behind his desk.  His payment was the joy of working with the students.  So many students over the years have pursued careers in science, engineering, and mathematics, all because of the impact that John McCarthy had on their lives.

The historian Henry Adams once said, “a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” John continues to impact his students in a positive way.  When John passed away several students wrote on Facebook and Twitter their thoughts.   One former student wrote, “I was so sad to hear about Mr. McCarthy yesterday.  He was such a huge influence on me and so many others.  He taught me to become a critical thinker, love science, and enjoy learning outside of the classroom.  It is largely thanks to him that I became an educator.”

Another student wrote:

“Mr. McCarthy was a truly incredible person. Everyone who met him was truly affected by his unusual attitude, teaching style and humor. Over the course of 40 years, I can only imagine how many lives he has been able to change. His selfless dedication to teaching, and his commitment to Science Olympiad is outstandingly admirable. While he may no longer be with us, his legacy certainly will continue to live on in the lives of those who he has been able to touch. No words of mine can really describe the impact he had on all of us. What I can say is that he has truly changed my life for the better, and for that I will always be thankful.”

Today, we are all sad that John McCarthy is gone.  But, each of us who had the privilege of knowing him are better off.  He cared about the things that were important in life and didn’t worry about the things he could not control.  He had a positive impact on all of our lives, and at the end of the day, that is all that really matters.  John’s memories, his spirit, his smile and laugh will always live on in each of us.

John, you are now at peace after a rewarding life.  You no longer have to deal with the pain, the treatments and the suffering.  You are in a much better place and my guess is that you are probably sitting in your science Olympiad lawn chair having a Dunkin Donuts regular coffee with those who have left before you, sharing stories, and taking it all in.  But, along your journey, you have touched the lives of so many people in a very positive way.  Thank you, for the humor, the laughter and for teaching all of us about the real qualities and values that are important in life and make this world a better place. We are so fortunate that the Reading Public School Community had you as a teacher, a mentor, and a friend.

Rest in Peace.

Good Morning,

The David K. Johnson Foundation, a foundation dedicated to supporting a cure for Alzheimer’s and Helping Families Affected, is pleased to present a free community showing of the movie Still Alice on November 4th at 7:00 p.m at the Sunbrella IMax Theater at Jordan’s in Reading.

Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice will be available at 6:00 p.m that evening to sign copies of her book and will also be doing a Q & A following the movie. The event is free but registration is required. People can register at the foundation website at http://www.dkjfoundation.org/special-screening-of-still-alice/

Still Alice is a story about Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia University, who must come face to face with a devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzeimer’s disease.  As the once-vibrant woman struggles to hang on to her sense of self for as long as possible, Alice’s three grown children must watch helplessly as their mother disappears more and more with each passing day.  The movie trailer and a flier for the event is below:

Still Alice 8 5×11