HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-03-17-LHS-minAndrew Baker
Principal
LEXINGTON
Lexington High School Site Council
Monday, March 17th • 6:00 — 7:30 pm
Room 505 D: Lexington High School
(781) 861-2320, ext. 69102
abakeralexingtonma.org
1. Roll call/attendance: Andrew Baker, Allison Bryant Mantha, Karen Griffiths, Stephanie Wan,
Zoe Lee, Rohan Boonapalli, Aaminah Shams, Suzanne Lau, Karen Fu, Bryce Spalding,
Sophia Du, Alison Stevens.
2. Minutes of 2/24/25 approved
3. April meeting moved to 4/14; will be virtual, as planned
4. Update re Science Curriculum
a. Starting next year, CP science will be 4 blocks instead of 5.
i. The science department had been the last department not in a 4x4 schedule
(one teacher teaching 4 classes, 4 periods out of every 6 blocks); this will
bring them into equity with the other departments.
ii. Before approving this change, it was ensured that the curriculum would still
be able to be covered; some optional elements are now in other electives or
are covered in different ways.
iii. The School Committee needs to discuss whether the minimum science
requirement for graduation will be modified to reflect 4 blocks of science a
year, or whether students will have to meet the credit requirement via an
elective science class.
1. Right now, the requirement is 18 credits; to require an extra science
elective would be a scheduling and resource issue
2. There is a preference from some at LHS to allow students to have a
little more flexibility to choose the paths they're excited about; if the
graduation requirements for specific subjects are lightened a little,
students have more agency to follow their specific academic interests.
b. Discussion about the second pass AP Bio class being introduced next year, only for
seniors.
a "first pass" AP course assumes no previous class in that subject, and at least
in Bio and Chem generally requires 6 blocks to get through the material. AP
Physics C is a little different because it's in two sections/exams, Mechanics
Lexington High School 1 251 Waltham Street I Lexington, MA 102421
and Electricity and Magnetism, so a 4 block first pass AP Physics C course
could work.
ii. the second pass AP Bio class, in which everyone will have already taken Bio,
will be 4 blocks, thus fitting in with the new schedule for CP1 courses.
c. Discussions are ongoing regarding future AP science options: offering first and
second pass for all subjects? Moving to no first pass AP courses? Other possibilities?
i. to reiterate, the only thing decided for next year is that CPI science classes
are 4 credits instead of 5, and there is a 4 credit second pass senior only AP
bio course.
ii. there is a committee working on the future options; their next step is to bring
in various stakeholders, including both postsecondary science people as well
as industry people.
iii. comment that one of the difficulties in first vs second pass science classes is
that the 6 credit first pass course is impossible to reconcile with the 4x4
teacher schedule, so that needs to be considered.
5. Discussion on Honors for All ELA: if we did a survey what would it be?
a. suggestion to get feedback from students on pre and post, going back to what were
the goals, both stated and unstated, for HfA?
i. HfA came about after the English dept did a lot of research and then had
numerous discussions with the community about their desire to have
unleveled English at all grades at LHS, based in part on the benefits of
heterogeneous grouping especially in humanities.
ii. Andrew suggests to ask a lopsided number of senior homerooms, since the
seniors were the last class to have leveled ELA, in 10th grade, but also
include younger homerooms.
iii. The next survey coming up is about middle school transition; Andrew will
discuss doing a survey on HfA after that with the English teachers, to get their
buy -in. Alison will do first draft of survey.
iv. Andrew is interested in discussing elective options with the English teachers;
could foundational English be finished after 10th grade year, and then have
electives for 11-12? Worth discussing.
6. Discussion about building project
a. In terms of layout, discussions are currently about adjacencies; some things need to
be next to other things, but in general they're just clustering gen ed classrooms
together, with the exception of sciences. Department heads will be spread throughout
the building; counselors are grouped together, deans are spread out.
b. Andrew says he and Dr. Hackett are envisioning interdisciplinary classroom groups,
not subject -focused groups. This would allow for things like grouping chem and
American History, since those are usually taken in 11th grade, etc.
c. Andrew makes the point that if they do it and it's awful, since the gen ed classrooms
are gen ed classrooms, they can always move it back to the way it is.
7. Proposed revisions to the LHS Innovation Plan
a. This used to be the School Improvement plan, which was intended to cover I year.
Now they're 2-3 years, and must be aligned to district goals.
i. addressing and narrowing equity gaps
iiredefine success
iii. cultivate student agency
iv. innovate for sustainable change
b. Discussion and updates from Andrew about various sections of the SIP
c. The Site Council's job is to look at the SIP and have a discussion about what works,
what resonates, what isn't in there, what's not working. It's an iterative process
between the Site Council, teachers, admins, etc.
i. Side discussion about the difficulty of students changing courses after they've
selected them. LHS is very good at giving people their first choice, but not
good at being able to let them change it, because your desire to drop one class
has to align with someone's desire to get into that class. Counselors will work
it out if they can, but there are limitations mostly because of space
1. LHS had 70 or 80 more students this year than were expected
2. Is there any way to allow students to experience what a class is like
before they take it? If not, could teachers more effectively
communicate to students what the workload is like ahead of time?
Will continue to discuss
8. Meeting adjourned 7:40