Opened the meeting with the question: If you could be an instant expert doing something what would it be? Trustees shared.

Opened meeting up for public comment, no public comment.

Boston Prep is now officially in Quarter 4. School team presented on Academic Performance and Strategic Planning. Using this meeting to give keys Quarter 3 data. The Barr Foundation has been very supportive with this work with portrait of a graduate and we will be able to report out on these findings in the outcomes meeting in June. 

Trustee asked to clarify what the current relationship that the school has with the Barr foundation. The relationship started with developing a portrait of a graduate vision for the school district. We are in a three year grant currently, and part of their support is an annual Spring Point visit to do observations and debrief. They support to ensure we outlive the vision of POG. Next week we will be going to the spring convening to present the work completed over the school year.

Discussed Wins, Challenges, and Evolving Plans. Reviewing results, recurring challenges, and evolving plans to ensure teacher quality and student outcomes.

For Wins: 29% of 7th grade Math Crescendo students predicted to reach MCAS proficiency vs only 2% for non-Crescendo peers. 6th and 8th grade showed higher diagnostic gain and more Math growth than non-crescendo peers. ELA and Math 7th and 8th grade crescendo students predicted to pass MCAS at higher rates than non- Crescendo students. Program demonstrated targeted structured intervention changes outcomes. 

Places we are seeing momentum includes: 7th grade steady honor roll increase, 7th grade students with disabilities jump in GPA above 3.0, 8th grade Multi lingual students big GPA jump, and general increase in GPAs above 2.5 across HS subgroups. 

Reading and writing momentum includes: 6th & 8th grade 100% improvement in Writing/Reading standards on IAs, 70% of 9th-10th graders improved in Writing and Reading, all MS grades increased % reading at or above grade level since Test 2, 18% of 6th grade GenEd moved from below to above grade level in reading. 

Math Grade-level performance momentum includes: MS grade increased % of students at math grade level, gains across grades and subgroups fall to spring, most notable in grade 6 GenEd, 10th and 12th grade students with disabilities first time subgroup was above 0% grade level, and Multilinigual students in HS increased Math grade level performance.

There are still several challenges that persist. Our persistent challenges in two buckets are the equity gaps between Multi lingual learners and students with disabilities. % of ML students passing all courses decreased since quarter 2, the SWD reading at grade level decreased, 6th grade ML passing all courses was significantly lower rate than peers. In HS, ML 11th and 12th graders there was no change in pass rates from quarter 2 to quarter 3. SWD and ML decreased reading at grade level,

Educator Evaluation: The leading indicator

55% of Middle School teacher are sustaining or excelling

70% developing, 1 staff member excelling. For next year there is going to be a focus on developing the HS teachers and retaining teachers.

Question posed: is the correlation data between teachers not excelling and students not passing?

Question: If you look at the group of teachers developing, is there a major gap of why they are developing? Is there a big bucket of how to develop them faster? This is something we continue to discuss. Something to think about: are you getting a strong scope and sequence of professional learning. You must batch a lot more and internalization to model teaching work. This way 1:1 coaching can be done more fine tuned and focused than grand scope.

Instructional Systems: What's landing & What's Next?

Barr feedback: PD is showing up in ELA and algebra classes, though active monitoring and FASE reading and vocab instruction. There was a lot of teacher talk vs inviting students into the dialogue. Last week there was a PD to give teachers lesson planning time to focus on applying things they have learned in PD. Creating something with feedback from teacher leaders. Teacher's found this very helpful.

We currently have a high number of teachers who are not fully meeting High quality teaching requirements required by DESE. Boston Prep subsidized all test prep and MTEL feeds from Academic budgets. Teachers have until Feb 2027 to pass or face non-renewal. We wanted to prioritize investment keeping and retaining teachers but requiring teachers to have higher accountability to complete these tests. Of the 30 teachers not qualified, Boston Prep worked with HR to create a process to get the the requirements. 30 of the 30 teachers did the diagnostic and have a plan to take the MTEL in the fall. These teachers offer letters received them in the second offer letter wave. But the language says they must complete and pass or they would be up for non-renewal for next year.

Additionally, we are redesigning the hiring process to make sure that interviewers are aware what it would mean to be a teacher at Boston Prep. The process will include: do a demo lesson, do student work analysis, lesson plan internationalization, scenario responses, and role play a parent communication

SY27 Academic Strategic Planning includes weekly data meetings, real--time feedback schedule is sped up and improving learning in the moment, co-teaching school-wide model is a new concept but we want to think about how we structure certain things and how we use this model to have everything happening in tandem, working on lesson internalization-- if you are not internalizing lessons everything will suffer and make sure there is more time to focus on this. And making sure co-teaching pairs can work on this together. A big theme we are getting, we have the systems, but we need to fine tune them and make sure the systems work together to reinforce them. We need to operationalize them to make sure they have the intended impact. that we need to see.

This is starting next week, and we will be building in time to make sure we get teacher feedback.

Questions for committee:

1. Given the concentration of developing teachers in HS, what questions does the Board have about our current thinking reflected in the academic planning process?

2. The ML/SWD achievement gap is our clearest equity concern. What accountability structure does the Board want to see in place for tracking with ML and SWD-specific outcomes in SY27?

3. We are deliberately narrowing to 3-4 SY27 priorities. Are there areas where the Board wants greater visibility before we finalize the plan in June?

Questions posed:

- Have teachers expressed how much of a lift of advisory and how that can take away from lesson planning? Teachers have emphasized there is a lot to do, but they don't always pinpoint what the main overwhelming thing. Our advisory was identified by a strength.

- Thinking about new teacher onboarding and intersection of developing teachers coming back, has there been thought about Summer PD and how we will focus on developing? Yes, but we have not landed on a firm decision. Typically, 5 days is for new teachers, 15 days before students arrive. For returning teachers there are 10 days of PD. We are trying to differentiate PD for what you need vs. how long you have been at Boston Prep?

- If we are going to focus on 1 thing, what is the one thing you thing we most need to prioritize and focus in on? School requested feedback from board, hearing all this, what would you focus in on? How do you mitigate taking other things off their plate?

A question to take back to the team, a wonderin

What does the board want to bring to the board meeting? Suggested what the summer plan for teacher development will be in the June meeting.