Enrollment:

• 3 students have withdrawn since May. There are no real trends in reasons for leaving school.
• Bill reviewed the reasons for student withdrawals.
• K.Molina raised the concern of how newly enrolled students in 3rd grade would affect academic data.

Attendance:

• Meghan reported that attendance has improved slightly but the school is still working very hard to work with families, and DCF in when necessary.
• S. Balogun inquired about the process for addressing chronic attendance issues and Bill explained the school's morning attendance meeting (a kind of "rapid response" team.  
• S. Balogun inquired about how the school handles student’s missed learning due to frequent absences.
• Wendy stated that these cases are addressed individually in the classroom. Next year, all classes are going to use the Class DoJo app which may help parents to see more of what is happening in the school.
• K. Molina suggested the school hold more Orientations and Open Houses where parents could connect with each other about the importance of attendance, possibly one involving Parent Action Committee (PAC).
• Bill suggested creating a parent volunteer to provide rides for students to help norm the importance of regular school attendance.

Discipline:

• Bill reported that one student this month had a suspension.
• Sherriff noted the lower suspension data this year and asked why there was a difference between this year and last year.  
• Bill explained that there was not a huge difference because the numbers are so small, but this year we had a small number of students who had very significant needs.  He noted that next year, the school is piloting a social emotional program in kindergarten.

Academics:
Wendy discussed challenges and positives of this year’s testing data.

• Important Notes on STEP testing:
  • The majority of students have made at least one year of growth
  • Getting over the EOY target for 1st grade was really difficult this year
  • Of the students that are below target in all grades, the vast majority are only one level below
  • When looking at internal assessments, the students in 1st have made a lot more growth in MAP than reading
  • The STEP assessment has intense language demands.
  • A few 1st graders who continue to struggle were retained.
• Important Notes on ANet
  • Results were really impressive overall
  • SPCS has really experienced teachers in 2nd grade, some of whom have a lot of math instruction experience - this has helped. 
• Important Notes on MAP
  • Kindergarten students have learned more motor skills by the end of the year to answer the questions on the test more effectively
  • The school didn’t meet its goal for MAP tests (per the Accountability Plan).  It is going to review if this goal is a reasonable goal
  • A wider group of students takes MAP (as compared to ANet)
  • When comparing to other BES schools, we have a lot of similar and some stronger results

S. Balogun asked how students that are new to the school are growing.
Wendy noted that all 2nd grade students who made 5+ levels of growth were new to us this year

The committee tabled this item.