The Reading School Committee (SC) of Reading Public Schools (RPS) is meeting on Thursday February 29, 2024. The meeting is being at the Reading Memorial High School (RMHS) library and will be broadcast by RCTV and will be accessible via zoom. This meeting starts at 7pm. Note also that prior to the SC meeting, the SC also is meeting at 5:30 PM to join the Killam School Building Committee (KSBC) Community meeting being held at that time in the same location. This Links to watch and pertinent packet info are listed below. The KSBC meeting relates to sustainability goals for the Killam School project.
The packet is 94 pages long, and as of this writing (3 pm), no presentation or other information is posted yet for the Killam sustainability meeting at 5:30. In addition, the packet as of this writing does not include information relating to some of the listed agenda items (e.g., the charter updates). The bulk of the packet comprises a presentation on the elementary ELA curriculum (p. 32-57) and the sped program review progress update (p. 58-92).
Opening Topics
VOTE TO APPROVE CAFETERIA WORKERS CONTRACT AND FOCUS ON EXCELLENCE
The meeting will open with an SC vote to approve the new three-year contract for the Reading Cafeteria employees collective bargaining unit. Per what was told to FINCOM last night, the only remaining contract to be signed with a collective-bargaining unit is the contract with the paraeducators union, and the SC chair told FINCOM last night that he expects this contract will be signed on Monday March 4, 2024.
The ”Focus on Excellence” this meeting will be Parker leaders and Parker World of Difference. As of this writing, there is no packet information on these topics.
FY25 School Calendar
(p. 28-30 of packet)
The SC will then discuss and vote on the final version of the 2024-2025 school calendar, as detailed on the above-listed packet pages and as shown below. It is possible the high-school related days (e.g., early release days) m ay change if the high school adopts a new type of schedule such as the one recently piloted. In this calendar, the first day of school would be 1/28/2024, the last day of school with no snow days would be 6/16/2024. The multiple in-service days and early release days as proposed are detailed on the calendar.
K-5 ELA
CURRICULUM (ARC CORE) IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW
P. 32-57 of the packet provide a detailed presentation on some initial results from the ARC CORE curriculum implementation. This presentation is the third in a series of presentations and details what staff are seeing in classrooms as a result of this implementation. The slides show samples of an entire day’s lessons, including “toolkit” lessons with phonological awareness and phonics, examples of knowledge and vocabulary building, grade level instruction, and writing, including research projects.
The slides do not include specific student performance data but do mention that there are some areas where they are customizing ARC Core to better meet needs, such as:
- Adding to and adjusting some ARC rubrics for writing assessments
- Creation of a grammar scope/sequence for RPS
- Changing a core text in a grade 5 unit and adapting a grade 5 post assessment passage
- Adding in additional vocabulary routines
Special Education Program
REVIEW UPDATE (slides 58-92)
These slides provide an extensive list up the updates done to all special education programs, and those done to specific programs, because of various internal and external evaluations. The 35 pages of slides provide too many updates and details to list in this article
Kindergarten Enrollment
FOR 2024-2025 (p. 93-94 of packet)
According to the packet memo at p. 93, so far there are only 220 kindergarten registrations received so far. In particular, this memo states [emphasis added]:
“As of February 22, 2024, Reading Public Schools has received 220 registrations for enrollment in the kindergarten program for the 2024-2025 school year. Of this total, 3 families requested enrollment in the half day kindergarten program. We have had 28 students not on census data register for kindergarten. Projected Kindergarten enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year totaled 268 students. The census data for rising Kindergarten age students, those born between 9/1/2018 and 8/31/2019, totaled 268 students leaving us 48 students behind in registrations compared to census and projected enrollment”
Per the table on p. 94, this results in:
- Barrows: 49 K students in 3 classes
- Birch Meadow: 37 K students in 3 classes
- Joshua Eaton: 60 K students in 3 classes
- Killam: 43 K students in 4 classes
- Wood End: 31 K students in 2 classes.
Based on the table, Joshua Eaton would have the largest K classes of 20 each, whereas most of the other K classes in other schools are much smaller.
How to Watch
The RCTV YouTube live stream link to watch is here:
You can also watch via Xfinity channel 6 (“local 3”) or Verizon channel 32.
In addition, you can join the meeting (or watch) via the Zoom link here:
Join Zoom Meeting https://readingpsma.zoom.us/j/81488911454
Meeting ID: 814 8891 1454
