2023-11-27-Estabrook-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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2. Parking on Demar Rd, and taking the 0.2 mile conservation land trail that leads from Demar to the back of Estabrook. The trail entrance is located on Demar,more or less across from Jeffrey Terrace. Both options can be seen on the map included as an appendix to these minutes. The yellow lines connecting the red triangle at the back of Estabrook to the red triangles at, respectively, Demar Rd and the Landlocked Forest parking lot indicate each path. Both paths are quite picturesque -but they are not paved and are not plowed in the winter. Dr. Martinez indicated that there may be a future role for the parent members of the Site Council, in coordination with the Estabrook PTO,to lobby and otherwise impress upon the district the urgency of this issue. In addition to the obvious hardships the lack of parking causes faculty and staff, it may also be discouraging parent volunteers. MCAS Presentation Dr. Martinez gave a slide presentation on English and Math MCAS performance,both in the aggregate and in more refined"slices." fie pointed out how school and district numbers tend to mirror each other and how,when these numbers do not mirror each other,the task becomes to try to understand why, in order to see what, if any,pedagogical adjustments might be necessary. One area where additional efforts seem warranted,both at Estabrook and throughout the district, is with respect to writing. Mr. Joniec explained how MCAS data was being used to identify and address weaknesses in writing instruction, although it was acknowledged generally that the subjectivity innate to evaluating writing samples made it difficult to locate these weaknesses with any rigor(these weaknesses could say more about the MCAS than they do about Estabrook). With respect to mathematics, it was noted that the MCAS's evaluation of mathematical competence hinged, at times, on elements that were not, strictly speaking,mathematical -eg. students' familiarity with analog clocks that are, increasingly, an anachronism. This point underscored the importance of taking the time to understand deviations in MCAS scores: are they indicative of a failure to provide adequate instruction in a particular area, or an artifact of the test's emphasis on elements that happen not to be particularly underscored at Estabrook? There was broad agreement that one could perhaps avoid such deviations by teaching to the test,but that this was anathema to the pedagogical ideals of everyone in the room. The overall effect of Dr. Martinez's presentation was to provide a detailed example of how the school, as well as individual teachers, use the data generated by MCAS to identify potential problems, and how they then zoom in on these areas to try to determine whether, and how,to focus their efforts. Meeting adjourned at 4:45p Next meeting: Monday,January 22nd at 3:45 pm.