We want to extend our thanks for all that you are doing to engage our students, implement new curriculum, and navigate the changes that are coming as we roll out our district strategic plan to meet the needs of our students. Please find some important information and updates below. Additionally, we would like to celebrate the first week of task-based math learning occurring in classrooms, and we thank the elementary math coaches and middle school math department heads for their efforts in task-creation and classroom support. Finally, we wish to thank our middle and high school science and math department heads for their efforts in co-creating the secondary science and math visions found below.

HQIM Update: For Special Education Inclusion teachers, ESL teachers, and coaches, we were able to acquire funding through our GLEAM grant to provide physical teacher manuals and teacher pals for you. We are processing the order and should be receiving those in the upcoming weeks. We thank you for your patience while we worked towards honoring this request.

Additionally, we are working to purchase the structured literacy manuals for grades K-2 classes as well. We hope this support the implementation of our HQIM.

Key Highlights:

• I-Ready Winter Diagnostic Window: January 22 - February 16th, serves as Early Literacy Screener
  
• Elementary Report cards will be distributed Friday, February 9th through the Aspen Portal
• Kindergarten - Early Literacy Assessments (see assessment calendars)
• Elementary TNTP Site visits - Week of February 5th (see section below)
• MTSS Window 3: February 5 - April 5
• MCAS Biology Re-test at FHS: February 6-7, 2024
• SAGE Universal Screening: February 26 - March 6
• MCAS Infrastructure Trials and Testing begins in March
  

Our implementation of the HQIM adoption of HMH - Into Reading, Arriba La Lectura, and Marcha Crianca is gaining momentum. We are currently in the second window of TNTP Site Visits which provide feedback on implementation of our literacy curriculum and instruction. During observations, the focus is on implementation around Reading Foundational Skills for which utilizes the Structured Literacy components of HMH along with Heggerty. Additionally, the area of Reading and Listening Comprehension which looks deeply at the content, skills and strategies taught within the program. Additionally, student work is analyzed to gain insight into the student experience, rigor, relevance, and

During the Fall visits, it was identified that our district wide instructional focus across all schools would narrow to the act of High Quality Questions and Tasks. While we will continue to look at all essential instructional components of literacy, our aim at focusing our CVR walkthroughs and feedback to High Quality Questions and Tasks is to strategically align the work Literacy Coaches and Instructional Leadership teams are focusing school based professional development sessions on. We anticipate that with a narrow focus on this area, we shall see gains in student performance, ownership, and engagement.

Here are links to the TNTP ELA Observation Tools for Reading Foundational Skills (RFS) and Reading Listening Comprehension (RLC). In addition, here is an updated version of the tool that combines both RFS and RLC indicators.

Literacy - Instructional Focus Area

High-Quality Questions and Tasks: Does this lesson employ questions and tasks, both oral and written, which integrate the standards and build students’ comprehension of the text(s) and its meaning?

Questions and tasks:

• Integrate grade-level reading, writing, speaking and listening, and/or language standards in service of deep understanding of the text(s) and/or topics under consideration.
• Address the specific text(s) at hand by attending to its particular qualitative features: its meaning/purpose and/or language structure(s), or knowledge demands to build understanding.
• Require students to use details from the text to demonstrate understanding and/or support their ideas about the text.
• Attend to words, phrases, and sentences within the text that matter most to build students’ vocabulary and deepen understanding of the text.
• Are sequenced to deepen students’ understanding of the text, the author’s craft, and/or the topic under consideration.

In your professional learning sessions, these questions can help determining a text dependent question

Evaluating whether a question is text-dependent

☐ Does answering the question(s) require students to read the text?

☐ Can students answer the question(s) without prior or outside knowledge?

☐ Are the question(s) tied to a specific text and not generic?

☐ Do the questions require students to cite or use evidence from the text to determine the correct answer?

☐ Do the questions require students to follow the details of, make inferences from, and/or evaluate what is read?

☐ Do the questions help students understand the main idea or the theme of the text?

This lives within our current Classroom Visit Rubric for FPS this school year in these 3 indicators:

• Indicator 1: Students are working at higher levels of Depths of Knowledge through listening, speaking, reading and/or writing

• Indicator 5: Students are engaged in productive struggle using all of their linguistic resources or they are provided appropriate scaffolds to engage in productive struggle in the language of instruction

• Indicator 8: Through academic discourse, students demonstrate abilities to think critically, ask questions, and analyze multiple sources, perspectives, and biases in order to deepen learning and make connections between content, self, and current events.

As you may have already experienced or will experience, we have several partners that support our work as a district to monitor and support our Instructional Framework and District Strategic Plan.

One of those team is TNTP - The New Teacher Network at the Elementary Level.

Purpose of TNTP:

TNTP will conduct three site visits to build GLEAM leaders’ capacity to diagnose instruction using the TNTP Instructional Practice Guide (IPG) and student work using the TNTP Assignment Review Protocol (ARP) and monitor progress towards goals for excellent ELA instruction and HQIM implementation integrity. TNTP will also use these classroom visits as an opportunity to build GLEAM leaders’ capacity to give high-leverage feedback to educators that will drive improvements in practice.

In addition to the progress monitoring visits, TNTP will survey leaders and teachers at the beginning and end of the school year to monitor perceptions of the materials and investment in the literacy improvement work.

Brophy: Monday, February 2, 2024

Barbieri: Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Dunning: Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Harmony Grove: Thursday, February 8, 2024

Hemenway: Monday, February 2, 2024

King: Tuesday, February 6, 2024

McCarthy: Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Potter Road: Monday, February 2, 2024

Stapleton: Thursday, February 8, 2024

Additionally, another round of School Site Visits will take place with our partners SchoolWorks and/or DESE assigned visits through the American Research Institute (AIR).

Purpose of SchoolWorks

SchoolWorks spends one-day on-site conducting classroom observations, focus groups, and interviews, as well as an additional half-day on-site supporting the school through a prioritization process.

Purpose of AIR Visits - component of DESE Targeted Site Visits (TSVs)

Targeted Site Visits (TSVs) are an abridged version of the MSV, approved by DESE to use their own rubric and process to provide districts and schools with qualitative information on their implementation of the turnaround practices: American Institutes for Research (AIR) and SchoolWorks. AIR’s TSV is a one day, on-site visit for classroom observations (using the CLASS tool by Teachstone), and an instructional staff survey and phone interview with the school leader.

Visit Schedule

Brophy: AIR Visit - February 28th, 2024

Barbieri: April 29-May 3, 2024

Dunning: March 19-20, 2024

Harmony Grove: AIR Visit - March 11, 2024

Hemenway: March 26-27, 2024

King: April 8-9, 2024

McCarthy: April 10-11, 2024

Potter Road: March 12-13, 2024

Stapleton: May 15-16, 2024

Cameron: April 30-May 1, 2024

Fuller: AIR Visit - April 10, 2024

Walsh: SchoolWorks Visit - March 18-19, 2024

Framingham High School: May 29-31, 2024

The elementary math coaches have, in the past, provided pacing and curricular guidance to elementary mathematics teachers through the use of calendars. The calendars have included daily topics and references to Eureka's lessons.

As we transition to the use of task-based learning, where lesson plans will be provided for task days, math coaches will increase support by providing weekly calendars with additional resources. This will allow teachers the opportunity to plan their week of instruction to incorporate tasks, exit tickets, reteaching opportunities, performance assessments, and high-quality lessons. Eureka lessons will continue to be included as well as the addition of Open Up resources lessons which provide comprehensive lessons that are more aligned to the instructional practice of task-based learning. This provides teachers the flexibility and autonomy to plan their week with high-quality resources that best meet the needs of their students and recognize the unique schedules at individual schools. These weekly calendars will be provided through the end of this year and will include 2 task-based days starting the week of March 18.

The Department of Educational Technology created a website in April 2021 to support teachers in identifying district-approved online resources and requesting approval of new resources. You can find the documents identifying the list of approved and non-approved online resources here.

When vendors refuse to sign the Student Privacy agreement, then students’ personally identifiable information cannot be protected when individual student accounts are created. If individual student accounts are created by vendors who refuse to sign the privacy agreement, then the district violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law allowing caretakers to have control over disclosing students’ personally identifiable information. Also, the district is required to maintain compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which is a U.S. federal law enacted in 1998 that regulates the online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13.

The vendors of the four online math programs listed below refuse to sign the District Privacy Agreement. Therefore, individual student accounts should not be created.

If your students are using individual accounts for these programs, then please terminate their use. The Department of Educational Technology will block student access to these websites effective March 1st.

If you wish to request an online program not already on the list of approved programs, then you can make a request here.

Thank you for your support in protecting our students’ data privacy.