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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-11-10-LHS-minAndrew Baker Principal LEXINGTON (781) 861-2320, ext. 69102 abakeralexingtonma.org LHS Site Council Monday, November 10th • 6:00 — 7:30 pm Location: Room 505 D, Lexington High School Meeting called to order at 6:00pm In attendance: Andrew Baker, Sarah Cravedi, Bryce Spaulding, Rohan Bhunapalli, Sophia Du, Allison Bryant Mantha, Liz Curtin, Zoe Lee, Jun Yin, Suzanne Lau, Rebecca Fagan Gorospe, Alison Stevens, Janet West, Monique Harris-Schramme, Janet West (please review & correct: I'm pretty sure this list is missing a couple students) 1. Review of 2024-2025 MCAS Data (Overall Trends, Subgroup Data, Implications for teaching and learning at LHS) See slides for detailed MCAS data, including performance and growth by student group. There are two components of MCAS data: Proficiency and Growth: • Proficiency as a standard is the overall score and a label: not meeting expectations, partially meeting, meeting, or exceeding expectations. Students receive a scaled score. When MCAS was a graduation requirement, students had to demonstrate proficiency. • Growth, or SGP (student growth percentile) is the improvement relative to their academic peer group. A school or student group SGP is the median SGP of all members in that group. To close achievement gaps, you need high levels of growth, in the 50th to 60th+ percentiles. 10th graders take math, ELA, and science MCAS. The vast majority at LHS take Biology, but students coming from other districts may choose a different content area, like physics if they took a different science course sequence. Math MCAS: • Overall data (Math): When we look at % meeting or exceeding (M+E) expectations, we saw a slight decrease in grade 10 from the prior year, but near the top of similar schools and SGP is 57, in the average growth category. It is important to note that when comparing 10th grade MCAS Lexington High School 1 251 Waltham Street I Lexington, MA 102421 scores year-to-year, you are looking at entirely different cohorts of kids. Dr. West noted that this cohort of 10th graders performed less well on the 8th grade MCAS than grade ahead of them, so we need to be careful when comparing data. • Subgroup data (Math): overall 88% M+E but there's a range from 8% meeting and exceeding for EL, 31% meeting or exceeding for Black and African American students, 45% meeting or exceeding among students receiving special education services, and 57% among Hispanic students. • Growth is consistently between 50th and 60th percentile across all student groups. 68th percentile for Hispanic students. For Black students SGP of 54 and 51 for Special Education, which is both lower growth AND lower performance. To close achievement gaps, you need higher growth. • English learners do not have to take MCAS their first year in the country, but they can choose to. There is no SGP for ELs in 10th grade because the number of students who took the MCAS 2 years prior in 8th grade and took it again in 10th grade as ELs is too small to report. • Is the MCAS available in other languages? The Math MCAS is available in Spanish. For ELA you can opt out your first year as an EL, but the ELA and Science MCAS are only in English. • What is the racial makeup of low-income? Do not have that breakdown currently. • How many years to English proficiency? Ideally 5, but often takes longer with older students than younger students. ELA MCAS • Overall data (ELA): decrease from 90% to 85% meeting and exceeding expectations. There are some students who may have felt they didn't give as much of an effort because it wasn't. • ELA by subgroups, meeting and exceeding 0% EL, • For SGP in ELA, 44th percentile for Black and 45th for Special Ed. This is especially concerning, given proficiency is lower and therefore SGP needs to be higher to close gaps. Impact of MCAS no longer serving as a graduation requirement • Mr. Melia looked those students who scored lowest spent the least amount of time on the exam. • Anecdotally, 10th graders took it less seriously. • ELA test recommended 3hrs first day then 2 hours on second day. Math test is 2hrs first day and 2 hrs on second day. Does MCAS matter? • If there are skill deficiencies for some of these students, we care about that. Especially if it is in a course that builds upon foundational knowledge, that's going to affect you for years. • Would like to be at the top of the chart for SGP for populations that struggle • This is a charge to figure out the supports and interventions we need to provide Reflections on MCAS • The district was talking about funding The Calculus Project before the pandemic; it is focused on Black students. We're willing to fund all sorts of things, but not this. • The assumption that computer based tests are preferable for students isn't accurate, certainly for students with special needs who a lot more learning on paper. It's an accommodation that can be requested. • Question around how to build academic esteem. For Black students, in particular, as well as others. • How do we provide supports for students without singling them out? • Practices that work for struggling students, work for most students. • There are opportunities for peer tutoring, when you have 14 year olds and 18 year olds inhabiting the same space. Dr. McLaughlin's sense of belonging work and culturally responsive classrooms. • A growing skillset in the classroom is differentiation; students choose the level of challenge. Teachers make themselves available before and after class. • Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only days METCO students can stay late. 2. Review of Q1 LHS Attendance Data & Comparison to previous years 13 Site Council 11-10-25 LHS Copy of ORID Focused Conversation Data Analysis Q1 Attendance Extensive Attendance, Tardy, and N data were presented for Q1 2024 (adjusted for length to be same as 2025) and Q1 2025 Daily absence = out for more than half of a day. In 2024: 2,475 absences for 1,024 unique students. Enrollment was 2,418. Median was 2, maximum was 33. Standard Dev is 2.847. 42% of students had at least one absence. In 2025, Only 38% of students had at least one absence. Have not analyzed course absence data because that is 35,000 entries vs 2,400. Lexington High School is like a small city; there is no one solution to fixing attendance because the reasons students struggle with attendance differ by student. See notes in ORID doc linked above for discussion 3. Discussions on tweaks or clarifications to current procedures and policies based on early data and feedback See ORID 4. Discussion of survey/ feedback tool [did not discuss] 5. Updates on Building project [did not discuss] 6. Any Items not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting