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Home My WebLink About2024-02-26-LHS-min LEXINGTON G 4 �Ii, S C 1 10 0 L Andrew Baker (781) 861-2320, ext. 69102 Interim Principal abakeralexiniztortma.oriz Lexington High School Site Council Minutes Monday, February 26th 2024 - 6:00— 7:30 pm 1. Present: Andrew Baker, Karen Fu, Allison Bryant Mantha, Liz Curtin, Walter Richardson, Suzanne Lau, Lizzy Cook, Karen Griffiths, Bryce Spalding, Tina McBride (community member). 2. M.1.0 u t e s o ......2 2 2 4. approved 3. .L.. .t...I.S..........B..u.......i.l...d.......i..n. P .)J2!jLp... �2a: Overview of today's SBC meeting from Andrew. a. The architect presented spreadsheets of square foot analyses, numbers of classrooms, offices. Total square footage is something like 440,000 sq ft(current school is around 330,000). Today's report has the number of overall classrooms similar to what we have now; people should keep in mind that a typical classroom now is around 600 sqft, and the new ones are around 850 sqft. In addition to classroom spaces, MSBA has allotted 13-14 bigger"laboratory spaces" which can be for various purposes. b. The presentation included all current designs. The assumption is that the field house is being renovated as part of the project; this hasn't been voted on by SBC,but that assumption has taken on a lot of life in their presentations. c. The architects will move into preliminary designs from this point forward. Slides 5-9 is them experimenting with different adjacencies around the school. d. They are giving a lot of thought to orientation of school based on solar orientation, talking about some of the constraints like the wetlands near the field house. Siting approaches will depend on which type of construction SBC decides to move forward with e. different options: option A, upgrading the building, gets very little discussion. Option B, phased construction in place, renovation and addition got some discussion. There was also the acknowledgement that you can spend a lot of money for it to take just as long if not longer than new construction (getting modulars, etc). Option C, new construction, were the most exciting options. Some included the new school being connected to the field house, others had the challenge of there having to be some distance to field house. f On the slides, the dashed yellow and blue lines were"below the line" components: things that the community has expressed interest in that MSBA doesn't pay for. g. SC had a number of questions about how many stories a new school would be: could it be a 4 story building? The architects didn't dismiss it, but said something about once you get up to four stories there are other considerations. h. Question: when will some of the decisions be made to narrow down design? Andrew says they have to produce A, B, and C for MSBA; the decision of which path to take will be made in May or June. Lexington High School 1251 Waltham Street I Lexington,MA 102421 4. Data from I Block stakehad . . attendance u' Teacher and student groups have been policy during lblocks. h. Wide-ranging discussion about the attendance policy, what its intended purposes are, which populations imit trying to reach? c Discussion nfdifferent issues/reasons for absences d out nfthe pandemic, strong desire nnpart nfteachers tnhaveongoing discussion about issues before any onUuy changes to things that affect the cJummrnnm. They may not be in a place to have a policy change before next year, but will keep working on it. Some deans opined that ifthey're more transparent about the contracts they put students on after getting multiple Ns, they might not need tn actually change policy much. Maybe they could try to establish more immediate consequences for students when they cut c|umm; maybe there are more restorative processes they can establish for kids with chronic absences. Maybe they'll go slow tn go fast on this policy, make sure they get itright. c Discussion about the difficulty for teachers not knowing about students' absence issues until after the fact, issues with credits being|nmt affecting umtudent'm graduation status. Agreed that more transparency for teachers is better. f Agreement that it's necessary tnhave conversations about absences earlier rather than later, and the benefit of both immediate and cumulative consequences for cuts/absences. Question is what those immediate consequences are; more conversations needed. g. Two different populations: kids who are taking freebies where they can get them because they know there's usoft policy, and kids who are genuinely school avoidant due to some very rou| fear/anxiety/whatever, something keeping them from feeling safe and able tn do muhnn|. Atone point the TLP had created uschool refusal assessment to try to tease out why the students vvercm`t coming. h. Comment that it's very difficult for teachers tn know when kids are out for excused vs unezcumedreumnnm, day of 8n then they "let the deans handle it', but then ufe"/days later it's mtU| unezcumed, and it's hard tn determine when to move forward with consequences nnuteacher level vmnnudean level. Further discussion about the supportive work that teachers do with the students in the TLP program, and how it would hebeneficial ifmore nfthe teachers had more information and skills in addressing absence issues with students. Maybe this could beuPD day subject. i. Discussion about moving uv/uy from treating it as an academic issue (xddh losing creditm), and more umubehavioral intervention issue. 5. Group Revising nfSchool Innovation Plan u. We are halfway through what was u |0year innovation p|un, Andrew imhoping tn at least give people usense nfwhat has been done with ugoal before Jumpinginto what hasn't been done. For example, there has been more access tnAPclasses, work nn placement and implicit bias in placement system, HFA courses in English. Has been an overall reduction in number of exclusionary practices at school, but students with special needs/students nfcolor overall are more subject tnthe exclusionary practices. Said there's ulot that's in Andrew Stephens' plan that im laudable, we should work towards that b. Andrew imtrying tn get rid nfjargon, working on concision. The current SIP has many different ways nfsaying pedagogical approaches, for example: what are the strategies we should be using in classrooms to support all learners and lift up struggling learners, and what dn we do if the strategies we're using aren't sufficient to the student? c. Discussion of the equity goals in the current SIP; general feeling they're good,but again concision is necessary. A feeling of inclusion and equity starts with an inclusive and equitable classroom; how do we get there?What is the design of the lesson, what's being produced for a class. Andrew says the earth science PLC did a lot of work on the design of their units to make sure they're accessible to all different types of learners; wondering if that could be a model for other units? d. Andrew S had a theory of action reciprocal back and forth between policies and structures of school and building a community that overall feels inclusive, with classrooms that also feel inclusive, if you do those two things in harmony they sort of feed off one another. Classrooms are a microcosm of the entire school. e. Question about making sure that the kids who went out of CP2 were successful (last year,the measure of success was "getting rid of CP2"). Andrew thinks that departments are already in discussions about what levels and what courses serve all students best. There aren't any departments that are committed to inequity; all are focusing on making sure that every kid has access to courses in their zone of proximal development. He's not sure that blanket statement of getting rid of CP2 courses is useful; more how do we take learners who are struggling and bring them up to success? The data we want to track is how have students grown; ok, we got rid of a level... what happened? f Andrew wants to eliminate educational technical jargon. Parents and caregivers should be able to read it and understand that"ok, this is the direction we should be moving in . 6. Meeting adjourned 7:30