HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-12-18-LHS-min (2) LEXINGTON
Andrew Baker (781) 861-2320, ext. 69102
Interim Principal abakeralexingtonma.org
Minutes of Lexington High School Site Council meeting
Monday, December 18 . 6:00-7:15 pm (Virtual)
1. Present: Andrew Baker, Karen Fu, Walter Richardson, Elizabeth Cook, KC Gheng, '1'asbia
Uddin, Allison Bryant Mantha, Karen Griffiths, Liz Curtin, Bryce Spalding, Jen Roney,
Alix Fox, Suzanne Lau
2. Approval of November minutes.
3. LHS Building Project Updates:
a. Many things are happening! SMMA was on site last week, starting to do the ed
programming visits, which entails meeting with dept leaders
i. 'They'll be visiting 5 full days through Dec/Jan to meet with as broad a set
of stakeholders as possible. Dec. 11 they met with tech dept, facilities,
metco,health, athletics, academic support, lex community ed. It's been a
good time/opportunity for people to tell the architects what their
concerns/questions/priorities are.
b. Focus groups are happening with 4 key groups: students, staff, town, parents.
Specific people from town committees/depts were asked for focus group
members. For students, they asked for teacher recs —Andrew thinks there are
probably about 25-30 students who are participating in this process, either on the
school building committee, during the visioning process, or in focus groups.
i. Some of the focus groups arelhave been looking at the following:
1. equity: people from town, ELL educators
2. sustainability, mechanical, electrical,plumbing: several students
and staff members involved
3. indoor and outdoor aesthetics: several members of LHS
architecture club,plus teachers from art and design dept, computer
dept
4. safety and security integration: lots of members from town groups
like firefighters,police, first responders.
ii. The focus groups will be meeting through April, and will feed into the
recommended designs. Reminder that the architects need to show the three
options: renovation,renovation addition, new construction.
c. Discussion about any plan having to show some expansion capability in case of an
enrollment increase; Andrew isn't sure if they have to indicate that any expansion
would be able to accommodate a certain number or percentage of students.
Lexington High School 1 251 Waltham Street I Lexington,MA. 1 02421
d. There have been lots of traffic studies over the past week or two, as well as a
group of civil/mechanical engineers coming to school to look at structural
integrity of the current site; for renovation, the core structural elements need to be
able to live for a certain period of time.
4. Discussion of current LHS attendance policy
a. DESE has put an emphasis on trying to improve student attendance. Our school
hasn't been quite as hard as some other schools,but some things since the
pandemic are lingering.
b. link to current attendance policy:
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various issues around the policy. Some themes:
i. The N policy is confusing; does it make sense to combine excused and
unexcused absences?
ii. Right now our policy links credit reduction to attendance,regardless of the
student's mastery of subject. Some schools don't link attendance to grades
at all, come up with consequences that are alternatives to affecting grades.
iii. Question of whether the policy is meant to be strict to encourage students
to come, or just for punishment?Andrew says it would be nice to create a
policy that somehow incentivises student attendance.
iv. 'There are some students with medical, socio emotional issues, avoidance
issues, where the attendance policy significantly impacts them and can add
a fifth year. For some students, going to a fifth absence raises their level of
anxiety, leading to more avoidance.
V. Once you hit the 5th absence, there's no distinction between 5 unexcused
and 20 unexcused for a quarter; students can then make it up the next
quarter, so reaching 5 absences can actually make it less motivating for
students to come to school after that.
vi. Discussion about whether unexcused absences are/should be treated as
discipline problems, or something else. Sometimes it's not the student's
fault that they're absent(if a parent is unreliable); on the other hand, some
students might be struggling but have a parent excuse an absence.
vii. Question about whether there are demographic concerns about whose Ns
are waived vs. not.
viii. Andrew says there's a group studying various elements of the attendance
policy, and will have further data. It's very hard to come up with a one size
fits all policy (example of a senior who skips class because they have a
test, vs a student who has chronic absenteeism and needs more support;
it's hard or maybe impossible to have a policy that addresses both of those
students). There's a balance between the value of actually being in school
and learning the material, and questions about which you prioritize and
how.
ix. Distinction between excused and unexcused absences; suggestion that
they're treated differently, and maybe there's a threshold of a certain
number of excused absences would necessitate a conversation with the
school counselor.
X. Next steps: Andrew will share some of our thoughts and ideas with the
admin team. He reminds us that one of the duties of the Site Council is
that this is one of the first places that any policy changes are presented,
revised, and discussed, before moving forward. We will probably have a
representative from the admin team working on this come talk to us
sometime in Jan/Feb with updates.
5. Question about when the School Committee will discuss the changes in the graduation
policy presented to them a while ago. Andrew will ask them, let them know it's come up
again in Site Council.
6. The next Site Council meeting will be on Jan 29 at 6pm in room 505d
7. Meeting adjourned at 7:15