Next year, preschool students from The Children’s Way will be housed at Happy Hollow Elementary School, it was unveiled at the April 8 School Committee meeting.
The district will now have one high school building, one middle school building, and three elementary school buildings, with a pre-school in Happy Hollow. This will eliminate the current use of TCW space at Town Building, 41 Cochituate Road.
This change is based on lower enrollment numbers.
While the possibility of housing the pre-school in one of the elementary schools was a prominent discussion point in the Facilities Planning Meetings, it was expected that the change would be done further in the future when school renovations or new building construction took place. Now, this change will be effective for the upcoming academic year.
Superintendent David Fleishman pointed out several advantages to the move that include combined professional development opportunities, a math coach and special ed team on site, art and gym educators, improved alignment of the curriculum, and the ability to retain full time educators.
“One of the pluses is that we have a principal at Happy Hollow who is very excited about embracing the change,” Fleishman said.
Families will have a chance to meet Happy Hollow Principal Nicolette Foundas during a meet and greet in May. Plans are in place to work out the logistics of drop off and pick up arrangements and fencing in the playground. Preschool students will be dismissed at 2 p.m., before the buses arrive. TCW teachers have responded positively to the change.
“At this time, the one detail I can confidently share is that all preschool classrooms will be located together, adjoining our kindergarten classrooms,” Foundas said. “This will create a wonderful early childhood area within our building and open up meaningful opportunities for collaboration.
“We are still in the planning stages to ensure a thoughtful and supportive transition, and that process includes ongoing consultation with our current preschool staff members.”
During the meeting, the team also discussed the budget, which included a 4.4% increase while health insurance remained close to target at about 12%. Superintendent Fleishman reminded the committee that this year’s budget goal had been to maintain level services. He explained that this goal could be achieved for the upcoming school year but changes would occur the following year as the tax levy is close to being reached.
“It was not easy,” Fleishman admitted when referring to settling the budget, “But given where some of our peer districts are, we are fortunate because it is tough out there.”
When asked the question about the overall number of personnel changes, he confirmed that there was only one drop in personnel attributed to retirement. He also said that maintenance continues to be a pressure point as the school buildings are older.
Technology accomplishments Director of Technology Jenn Judkins also provided an update regarding this year’s technology accomplishments and plans for moving forward. One current project focused on the use of AI in the classroom. Judkins explained that this rolled out in different ways depending upon grade levels. At the high school, students participated in lessons that asked the question, “What does responsible AI look like?” At the middle school level, students participated in mini-lessons with basic information about AI. The focus of the elementary team was to update the curriculum with high quality resources. Next steps will consist of developing an articulated framework for students for the fall.
Judkins emphasized the need to proceed slowly and methodically rather than rushing in with AI tools.
“My hope is that if we can get to have real conversations with students, we can have real conversations about their own agency and their own learning,” she said. “And, they are pretty protective of that … so my hope is that our focus can be around training them how to use it (AI) as a tool for learning as opposed to a way to avoid hard things.”
Judkins also spoke of the success of ParentSquare and about a program funded by a cyber security grant that is teaching staff to recognize and identify phishing emails. A discussion arose over how student athlete coaches and student captains could contact each other regarding school events as some events and times were being communicated via SnapChat.
Judkins insisted that all school sponsored events must be communicated via school supported channels that could be monitored by an adult. She said that students can use google chat at the high school and that there is a function on ParentSquare called StudentSquare that allows student-to-student communication. She said that she would look into other communication methods and asked for more information regarding specific communication between students.
Finally, she referenced new equipment for the fall with a rollout of Chromebook Plus models at the high school that will provide more memory and the ability to complete more professional tasks. Additionally, 200 teachers will have their macbooks replaced with the new Mac Neos. In the classroom, 40 front of classroom displays will be replaced, primarily at Loker.
Assistant Superintendent Betsy Gavorn provided an update on the district’s Portrait of a Learner timeline. Gavorn ran through a brief history of the Steering committee meetings, the focus groups and the educational forum. Each group had specific tasks and came up with goals and expectations for the Portrait of a Learner vision. She explained that next steps would be to focus on positivity in the process and redefine the themes and goals even further with an email sent out to parents and students in June.
Committee member Erin Mueller posed a question about the reality of the expectations acquired throughout the process.
“The aspirations of our learners are fantastic, and the categories are fantastic,” she said. “I think they got to the heart of how one is going to navigate the world, how they’re going to interact with the world, how they’re going to communicate in the world, but I didn’t see that connection of how they are going to survive in the world? How are they going to thrive in the world? You know, beyond communication. There are so many more skills…is that how you’re operationalizing it? Is that the next phase or the phase after that?”
Gavron explained that there are many phases and stages of learning and that the Portrait of a Learner initiative will allow all students to be learners and will allow them to focus on finding things that are interesting and pertinent to them via multiple modes of communication. The final part of the year-long process will be to survey the community.
Another important topic was the discussion centered around the Wayland Public Schools taking tuition from other districts for out-of-district students to participate in special ed programs. Wayland has created some specific programs that can benefit students from other districts. This initiative is only for Special Ed programs and does not involve school choice in which Wayland does not participate.
Pros and cons were discussed with the majority of the group approving to pass the vote. The committee decided that they would set a future date for a policy creation related to the revolving fund. Ronnie Kessler, director of Special Education, assured the team that she would be accountable and transparent regarding any potential new students related to this program.
The School Committee also voted to finalize the Super Wednesday calendar dates for the coming school year.
