Dennis spoke about a proposed maintenance plan for the HVAC and suggested that it was a crucial service for the school.

Also proposed a change in cleaning companies with quotes. 

The board appreciated these important items being brought up. These were however determined to not be a board issue and it was referred back to Marc and finance team.

Question in terms of what we can improve upon

Jeff Landry: A lot of things we can do better but need more people (members) and resources

Ginger: How can we recruit outside of the school? Perhaps Haverhill Chamber event. 

Jeff Hood: Would like to challenge each current board member to recruit a new member

Goal: to develop strategic plan over the course of this school year. 

Jeannette: Better onboarding for new board members. New member orientation would be helpful.

Veronica: Repository of policies that board is responsible for accessible to board members

Jeff H: Add accountability calendar. Will review in next board meeting

Niamh advised that DESE accountability team will be visiting the school in the Spring (Date TBD)

Jeff and Veronica: We need to amend bylaws for DESE

Hannah: Should she and Niamh still attend board meetings and participate? Jeff Hood: Like their presence based on our focus to improving academics.

Jeff H: Asks for board-level summary of reasonable performance goals and expectations for this year at the next board meeting (Hannah and school leadership team). Feel free to bring plan as well

Question: How close our we to the current published goals? Some measures are close now, will look at everything ahead of report

Ginger: We are in agreement that scores need to improve, but it is not easy and there isn't a simple solution, How much is in our control? Some factors: Hiring credentialed staff, data literate staff,  etc. The addition of mental health staff should help as well.

Ginger question: Where its hard to predict things like MCAS scores, if we list 20 or so things that we will do (The things in our control) that we believe will lead to better outcomes, is that a reasonable goal? Paul: Leading vs Lagging indicators, would prefer test score goals with controllable things as action items.

Niamh: Prefer goals around STAR and Dibels scores vs MCAS. These feel more in our control and achievable. Jeff L: Will increased Star and Dibels scores lead to better MCAS? Niamh: Yes, it should, we also need to teach how to take the tests successfully. Hannah: Practicing how to take MCAS test should be one of our Montessori Practical Life activities. Other Montessori schools have had success with this.

Hannah: Looking at raw MCAS data, ELA scores from Spring are up about 7 percentage points. Haven't seen math yet.

Jeff H feels that this is an important initiative. Would like the plan in place by June 2026

Jeff L did some work on this last year and should be a good starting point for this project.

Board will create a subcommittee dedicated to this.

Most recent review showed that school "met" in many areas. What would it take to exceed?

Jeff H: We need a formal review document for Marc and Ginger. Veronica will assist with this. 

2 virtual listening sessions proposed for families and greater familiarity with board. At least one of these virtual

Ganesh: Would it be useful to have a staff listening session as well? Let's wait and see how things go with liaison role first. Jeannette: Big jump in staff survey regarding effective board leadership last year

Ginger: 3 staff interested in staff liaison position, can we have a rotation? Yes

Paul: Would be ideal to have new board member with marketing forte to help with all of the above initiatives and fundraising as well. 

Jeff H: Lets send out an email to our alumni parent list to help recruit. 

Jeff H: State goal that 100% of teachers have MTEL 1 year after starting at school We need to improve this. Paul: Does this apply only to lead teachers? School leadership will verify

Jeff: Create a transparent performance evaluation system for teachers and data literate school culture as a goal. Let's have consistent, data-driven relationship between teachers and parents

Jeff H: When consuming data of test results, create framework for board to have proper summary (Hannah) . Veronica what tests can we separate data by classroom? Not MCAS