Milford School Board 10/1/07

Superintendent's Report

* Marc Maurais (Athletics Director) announced that Milford High School was one of 24 schools that received the NHIAA/ National Federation of State High School Association Award of Excellence for the previous school year, recognizing that the school did not receive a game disqualification by a player or a coach. The Milford football team also received the Division III Sportsmanship Award, which was selected by the NH Football Officials Association.

* The adult education classes were starting, with 8 to 14 enrolled in Spanish, Photoshop, Excel, and Word. We are restarting adult education this year, and this will be our trial run to see how much interest there will be in the classes.

* The evening classes for High School students in need will start later in the year, perhaps after the holidays. It takes a few months for students to recognize that they need the extra help to make good progress.

* The Freshman Transitions program was held in late September, and was well received by all. Parents and students attended a variety of classes that addressed common problems encountered by students in High School.

High School Renovations

Field work and earth moving by Leighton White has moved into high gear. The weather has been good, and they have made significant progress towards the field portion of the project.

There will be more loam available than originally estimated. This will be discussed at the next Renovations Committee meeting to be held on 10/11, but it is likely that there will be a proposal to sell off some of the excess material. We are going to store some of it on the Brox property for future use, but the amount that will be available will be more than we expect to use in the near future.

2006-2007 Test Scores Presentation

Laurie Johnson (Asst. Superintendent of Schools) gave a very informative presentation on the results from standardized testing during the previous year. The tests that were reviewed were:

NECAP - New England Comprehensive Assessment Program. This is the test used by Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont to calculate the No Child Left Behind scores. It is administered to grades 3-8 and 11 in Reading, Math, and Writing in October, and Science in the Spring. It can take months to get the scoring for this test.

NWEA - North West Evaluation Association. This is a computerized adaptive assessment program that Milford administers in grades 3-8 and in the Sage School, usually 2-3 times per year. There are two tests, one in Reading and one in Math. The results are available right after the test is taken, and this test can be effectively used by teachers to personalize educational plans for students.

SAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test. College entrance exam taken by Juniors and Seniors.

Core Performance Assessments - Local assessments created by Milford teachers to insure that uniform core competency is learned across the various classes that are offered in a subject.

Laurie provided detail explanations on all of these tests, but here are some of the highlights.

No Child Left Behind. The NCLB test results for Milford were generally good for this past year, with one exception. Milford met "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) in all areas except the Reading portion of the Heron Pond Special Education subgroup. If any Heron Pond subgroup does not meet AYP in Reading next year, then Heron Pond will be designated as a school in need of improvement. There are specific actions that will need to be taken if that occurs.

The NECAP scores that are used to calculate AYP were fairly good this past year. Milford's scores were higher than the state average in all areas except for 3rd grade reading.

NWEA - Milford scored above the national average in Reading, and well above the national average in Math. We are guessing that this indicates that the math curriculum that we instituted several years ago as the first implementation of our ongoing curriculum coordination program has been working well. The reading program is much newer and has not had a chance to work yet.

SAT - SAT scores in 2007 were either at or above the NH state average scores and the National average scores.

Core Assessments - These are new rubrics that are are being created for many classes. There are a few tests in existence today, and they expect to have a full complement by next year.

Jacques Summer School Program

Johanna Johnson (Director of Special Studies) and John Foss (Jacques Memorial School Principal) presented an overview of the summer school program that was held this year for students that were entering Readiness or First grade this fall and who were classified as in need of strategic or intensive support.

The DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) test was used to identify students in need. This is a test that enables a very quick assessment of the relative abilities of early learners. Identified students were given two levels of support. The lowest level was the District provided learning kits to parents to work with their children at home. The kits had various elements, but typically contained games that help students to learn things like letters, shapes and colors.

The more intensive program was a summer school program where the students came to the Jacques School for 1- 4 days per week for about a month.

Johanna and John gave a very detailed review of the activities and results of the summer school which I won't go through here. But netting it all out, it appears that the program was very successful at raising the literacy level of the incoming students. Learning to read is critically important to students, and we need to do all we can to get them started on the right foot. Many of the students were at very low levels of literacy after kindergarten, and after having gone through just one month of intensive summer school, they had made significant progress towards meeting the benchmark levels.

Mason Withdrawal Letter

The town of Mason is still trying to leave the Mascenic School District, and they asked for the Milford School Board to provide a letter indicating our support of the proposal. We voted 5-0 to send a letter stating that we would probably be willing to ask our voters if they would support Mason coming to Milford.

Deanna (Dee-Dee) Carter came to the meeting and expressed her strong disapproval of this idea. She discussed the history of Amherst coming to Milford, and then eventually leaving to go on their own. She warned us to be careful, as there is a lot of undeveloped land in Mason and their population could skyrocket in just a few years.

In my opinion, this is a different situation than what was encountered with Amherst. Amherst was about equal to Milford in size, and Mason is only about 5% the size of Milford. They are currently at about 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to absorb the 12-15 students per grade without too much added cost. They will pay tuition based on a formula that will be roughly $8K per year, and our real added variable costs will be much less than that, perhaps only about half as much. This would be very favorable to the Milford taxpayers.

Report of the Schools Document

This has been finalized and will be distributed. Copies are available at the SAU office if you want one. This is a nice folded document that provides summary information about various items of interest about the District.

Bales Study Committee

Rodny Richey and Lorraine Marchildon were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. They join previously appointed members Ron Carvell, Paula Durand, and Bob Willette.