HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-05-20-LHS-min (2) LEXINGTON
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Andrew Baker (781) 861-2320, ext. 69102
Interim Principal abakeralexiniztortma.oriz
Lexington High School Site Council Minutes
Monday, May 20th - 6:00— 7:30
Room 505 D: Lexington High School
1. In attendance: Andrew Baker, Karen Fu, Walter Richardson, Liz Curtin, Allison Mantha,
Bryce Spaulding, Karen Griffiths, Suzanne Lau
2. Minutes of 3/29/24 approved
3. Building Project visits and updates
a. In response to requests for more options, SMMA upped their options of massing
diagrams to 18. They created an evaluation matrix for the 18 options to be evaluated
on a standard set of criteria, rated them on various elements, and added up the scores
to give a broad overview of the desirability of each option.
b. Code upgrade would cost approx $300 million, but does nothing other than update
systems, basically. No walls moving, no new space. Fixes nothing functional. Some
people are asking for an option that would cost between $300mil and 600 mil, but
that's not realistic.
c. There are several reno and addition (B) options, many new construction (C) options.
d. A new D option was suggested at the last SBC meeting: idea of total phased
reconstruction in place. Knock down a part of the school, have a place for some kids
to go, once you build the new space it can be occupied, then knock down next space.
1. major difference between that and just new construction: benefit of D1 is if
we update all the major common spaces in the school first, then students can
see the benefit, move into that space and occupy when it's done.
ii. drawback is that it's pretty disruptive to the life of the school (noise, fumes,
lots of safety planning around traffic patterns around the school), and could
slow down the completion of the project.
e. B1, C I d, C2b, C5b, D2 were the ones that the building committee voted to move
forward. D2 is almost exactly like the B1 project but is phased new construction.
f Architect makes point that new construction isn't necessarily cheaper(the most
expensive one is renovation with new construction).
g. Andrew says there has been no discussion yet as to how it will be decided whether or
not to do the below the line things (such as a new field house, swimming pool, CO).
h. Nov-Dec will be the SBC vote to choose their preferred option.
Lexington High School 1251 Waltham Street I Lexington,MA 102421
4. SY 25-26 Recommendations from attendance group
a. Review of slides from Mike Horesh; he color coded who the recommendations were
coming from(teachers, students, admin, etc), which was useful.
b. Some recs:
i. prioritize face to face communication where possible
ii. improve communication with families about what the absencepolicy is
iii. share roles and responsibilities
iv. build catalog of strategies/best practices for helping encourage students get to
class on time; spend faculty meetings asking what teachers do at beginning of
class to encourage them to get there
V. Deans: standardize dean approach to students and families
c. Question of what are the policies (hw,participation, classwork)that might influence
classroom attendance? Andrew wonders what if we put more emphasis on classwork?
How much influence would that have?
d. Cultural considerations
i. possibly remove the connection between absences and credit loss
ii. pilot a student coach program for at-risk students
iii. Deans could keep list of top 5 at risk students to communicate regularly with
iv. classroom educators to be more purposeful and timely about recognizing
when student absences correlate to performance.
e. unresolved questions:
i. how can we improve on the inequity associated with being able to "flip'
unexcused to excused absences
ii. has our digitization of lessons made it too inconsequential to be absent?
iii. where is the balance between autonomy and heteronomy?
f. Andrew thinks the highest leverage things are parents being able to clear absences
quickly; students having to have f2f conversation; deans calibrating their approaches;
and teachers talking about what gets kids involved and engaged in beginning of class.
g. Question: what are the next steps?Have to figure out what are the levers for power at
the school? Should attendance be attached to credits?Need to try some of the Tier 1
strategies to try to affect attendance so people can see that there are other options. But
if we can be successful at those things, does it open up a convo that the policy is tied
to what we want it to be tied to? We're still in a place of experimenting and talking
about it. This policy has been in place for the 20 years Andrew has been here, so
what's another year or two to make sure they get it right.
h. Point made that teenagers are more immediate creatures, so techniques to address
absences should be more immediate.
5. Items not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting.
a. Bryce: all the juniors are going to see a presentation by Roger Harris, Vietnam
veteran and former BPS principal, led by SS dept.
b. The second event for the junior class is the Credit For Life fair on June 7th.
6. Meeting adjourned 7:20