Greetings,

The big news is that after years of research, debate, discussion, hearings, surveys, and meetings gathering feedback from families, teachers, staff, and other members of the community, on March 15^th the School Committee voted to implement the Innovation Agenda beginning September, 2012.

Although we will never agree on the perfect (or even close to perfect) plan, it is time for us to move on from the "should we?"� phase to the "let's get to work"� phase. I encourage you to get involved in this very important work. We must do whatever we can to make sure the Innovation Agenda is a success for all our children.

Improvements and changes are happening at the high school, too. At this point, the renovations for Cambridge Rindge and Latin School are on time and on budget. Although there is a lot more to do, CRLS will be ready for all our 9th-12^th graders in September. Also, Principal Chris Saheed will be retiring at the end of this school year, and Damon Smith, currently a dean at CRLS, will take over as the interim principal for the 2011-12 school year. Fortunately, he is leaving CRLS in good hands and good shape for the future.  Although Chris will no longer be the CRLS Principal, he will continue working for the district.  He will be working  community building and 6th thru 12th grade alignment for the Innovation Agenda.

Great things are going on Cambridge and in other communities as well.  In April, I went to the National School Board Conference, which was attended by hundreds of school board members and administrators from all over the country. Talking to people and attending workshops reinforced what I already knew about Cambridge we are a community rich in resources that truly values and supports education. However, we do have a lot to learn from others. There are school systems that are really embracing technology and striving to make sure graduates are creative problem solvers, engaged citizens, motivated learners, effective communicators, and balanced individuals.  There are many inspirational success stories, and I am hopeful that Cambridge can provide a model to other communities as we implement systemic change with the highest possible commitment to accountability. Soon we will be telling the story of a community coming together to make the Innovation Agenda not only a reality but a fabulous success story.

Please stay in touch and let me know if you have any questions, thoughts or concerns.  Also, feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who you think might be interested in what is going on in the Cambridge Public Schools.

Enjoy spring!

Nancy
nancytauber@comcast.net
617-576-7977

In this issue:

• Innovation Agenda
• Planning
• Impact on Substantially Separate Classrooms and Sheltered English Immersion Classrooms

• Building Renovation Plans
• Short Term
• Long Term

• Unofficial Renovation Schedule by School
• Special Education Evaluation
• National School Board Conferences

INNOVATION AGENDA CPS IA website

The planning process has begun and the changes called for by the Innovation Agenda will start September, 2012. Under the new structure, the Cambridge Public Schools will consist of eleven JK-5 schools, with four upper school campuses that feed into Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. We will also continue to offer JK-8 language immersion programs; the Ola Program will remain at the King Open School on Cambridge Street, and the Amigos School will move to the Upton Street building.

• Students from the Cambridgeport, Fletcher-Maynard Academy and King Open schools will go to the Cambridge Street Upper Campus for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade.

• Students from the Kennedy-Longfellow, Martin Luther King Jr., and Morse schools will go to the Putnam Avenue Upper Campus for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade.

• Students from the Graham and Parks, Haggerty, and Tobin schools will go to the Vassal Lane Upper Campus for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade.

• Students from the Baldwin and Peabody schools will go to the Rindge Avenue Upper Campus for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade.

Planning

The Superintendent and his team have already begun the planning process. He is meeting with his leadership team and principals on a regular basis. A group of teachers will be meeting 3-5 times before the end of the school year to identify areas of interest and concern from the teacher's perspective and make recommendation to provide guidance for the design work that will take place next year. Fortunately, the teachers will receive a stipend for the time and expertise. The Superintendent is also meeting with the All-City Advisory Group to provide perspectives from within each of the school while building a sense of larger community as an entire district.

The administration is working on providing periodic updates, so I encourage you to check out the CPSD website regularly www.cpsd.us.

The most recent update can be found here.
The Implementation Plan can be found here

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Impact of IA on Substantially Separate and Sheltered English Immersion Classrooms

One of the goals of the Innovation Agenda is "�to provide all students in special populations, such as special needs students and English language learners, with the same quality school experience provided to other students."� Within our current structure, students in substantially separate special education classrooms are not fully included as members of one school community during their educational experience, and instead must change schools multiple times while they are in our K-8 schools. Transitioning with members of their class from one building to another, separates them from teachers and friends they may have made in the wider school community and undermines efforts to provide opportunities for developing healthy social connections. As you can see, under the new plan these students will now have the same number of transitions as their friends and peers.

Delay Program

Autism Program

Fragile Program

Learning Disabilities Program

English Immersion Program

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BUILDING RENOVATION PLANS

CPSD Renovation Plans

Short Term

Over the last few weeks, walkthroughs of the Peabody, King/Amigos, King Open, Tobin, and Upton St. buildings have been completed. An inventory and budget for short term improvements is being developed, and the Superintendent will be presenting this information to the School Committee before the end of this school year.

Long Term

At the May 3^rd School Committee meeting, the Superintendent recommended that the School Committee approve the Martin Luther King Jr. building on Putnam Avenue as the first building to be renovated/reconstructed, and the vote was 7-0 in favor of the recommendation.

Fortunately, the City Manger and many others in the city recognize that funding for the renovations needs to be allocated. The City Manger is ready to financially support the renovations of our elementary schools, and he has requested that the City Council include funding in the FY 2012 capital budget for the design phase of the Putnam Avenue building. With approval from the City Council, the funding of $3M would be in the form of a bond issue. An architectural firm will be hired, and their first task will be to do a feasibility study of the Putnam Avenue building to see if it can be renovated or if it should be demolished and replaced with a new building on that site. Once that key decision is made the architects will enter into the design phase. At this point the actual construction that would be involved is estimated at $30M.

For more information...click here.

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UNOFFICIAL RENOVATION SCHEDULE BY SCHOOL

Please note that these charts are not an official document, and they are based on a very ambitious timeline. They were created by me so that folks will have an idea of which building their children will be going to for the next 14 years IF the current renovation schedule does NOT change. Also, these charts include the location of general education classes. The location of Substantially Separate and Sheltered English Immersion classrooms are above.

• Putnam Avenue
• Cambridge Street
• Vassal Lane
• Rindge Avenue
• Upton Street

Putnam Avenue Upper Campus assuming renovations in 2013-14

Current Kennedy Longfellow School Students (KL)

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Current Martin Luther King Jr. School Students (King)

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Current Morse School Students

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Cambridge Street Upper Campus assuming renovations in 2015-16

Current Cambridgeport School Students (C-port)

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Current Fletcher Maynard Academy School Students (FMA)

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Current King Open School Students (KO)

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Current Ola School Students

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Vassal Lane Upper Campus assuming renovations in 2017-18

Current Graham and Parks School Students (G&P)

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Current Haggerty School Students

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Current Tobin School Students (G&P)

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Rindge Avenue Upper Campus

Current Baldwin School Students

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CurrentPeabody School Students

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Upton Street

Current Amigos School

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SPECIAL EDUCATION EVALUATION

West Ed (a not-for-profit educational research agency) conducted a review of our special education programs and services. The purpose of the review was to provide us with recommendations for:

• strengthening our substantially separate and inclusion programs;

• improving communication with the public;

• suggestions for cost savings which do not compromise the quality of services provided;

• the development of additional programs to serve students who currently receive services outside of the district.

Some of the strengths that were identified were:

• a well qualified and dedicated staff;

• strong and committed district and building leadership;

• a range of high quality programs, adequate resources;

• a diverse and involved community of parents.

The areas which we need to focus on are:

• the high numbers of children in special education;

• high costs overall;

• high numbers of out-of-district placements;

  • Our higher than average placement of students out of district was found to reflect a lack of capacity to meet the needs of children with disabilities in two specific categories: language-based-learning disabilities and behavioral disabilities. Developing greater capacity to serve children with these disabilities would result in cost savings that would free up resources for other education initiatives. It would also provide a more inclusive educational environment for all of our students.

• consistency and equity across schools in how resources and staff are distributed;

• relationships with the parent community.

This report is just the beginning. We have a great deal of work to do in order to improve the delivery of our special education services, and there is a strong commitment to make it happen.

Special Education Program Review

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NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARD CONFERENCE

There were so many interesting workshops to attend and people to learn from at this conference. Some of the workshops that I attended focused on technology, 21^st century skills, visioning, motivation, superintendent evaluations, customer service and standards-based education.

Here are some of the highlights :

Motivation

One of the best speakers was Daniel Pink who spoke about motivation, and I highly recommend his new book, Drive.

http://www.danpink.com/

Excellence

Another great workshop was given by Jerry Weast (Superintendent of the Montgomery County Public Schools) called Deliberate Excellence: Five Stages to School System Maturity Leading to College Ready Grads.

http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=13650

He stressed the importance of staying focused on your goals rather than being too reactive. The Montgomery County Public Schools are focusing on making sure their students are college-ready when they graduate from high school. They use data from the National Student Clearinghouse

http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/

to figure which of their students finished 4 year colleges, and then figure out what those students did while they were in the Montgomery County schools and developed "�7 Steps to College Readiness"�:

1. Advanced reading in grades K-2

2. Advanced reading in grades 3-8 on state tests

3. Advanced math in grade 5 on state tests

4. C or higher in 8^th grade Algebra 1

5. C or higher in Algebra 2 by 11^th grade

6. 3 or higher on AP

7. 1650 or higher on SAT or 24 or higher on ACT

Technology

School systems are bringing technology into the classrooms by providing students laptops/tablets, student response clickers, mobi slates and so much more. Teachers, students and their families are also using technology to keep track of student progress and identify best practices.

Districts are also taking advantage of open source and free resources to improve achievement and enhance and enrich what is going on in the classroom. Here are just some of the resources available to classroom teachers:

• edutopia.com http://www.edutopia.org/

• Google Lit Trips http://www.googlelittrips.org/

  • This resource is an excellent way to use Google Earth, podcasts, and other resources on line to enrich the study of literature. For example, while reading The Grapes of Wrath, you can see the flatness of the land, watch a video of a dust storm, see photos or art of the time period, and read chapter notes and questions from the teacher.
    

• The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development opportunity for primary and secondary educators from around the world to learn about the most from innovative technologies. These are 1 day programs where teachers get hands-on experience with Google products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, and receive resources.

• HippoCampus http://www.hippocampus.org/ is a free-of-charge resource that provides students with content and homework help to assist them with their school work.

• Quia http://www.quia.com/web offers teachers a collection of tools and/or the ability to create educational games and activities, quizzes, tests, surveys, web pages, schedules and track student progress. (Subscription is $50/year)

• Share student work through blogging and on-line portfolios.

• Create a classroom community using wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com/

• bugsscope.org http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/overview.html

Shared Vision

The last workshop I went to was one of the best. I was attracted to the title, Creating A Shared Vision for Meaningful Systematic Change, because we are embarking on a systematic change with the Innovation Agenda and one which will hopefully be meaningful and successful. The speaker was from the New Tech Network http://newtechnetwork.org/

New Tech Network supports 62 public high schools in 14 states. New Tech schools work to create a rigorous and engaging high school experience that features project-based learning, a seamless use of technology, and a positive and empowering school culture.

Project-based learning is at the heart of their program. All classrooms have a one-to-one computing ratio, access to web-enabled computers and the latest in collaborative learning technology. Students become self-directed learners who no longer need to rely primarily on teachers or textbooks for knowledge and direction. Students are accountable to their peers and acquire a level of responsibility similar to what they would experience in a professional work environment because they work on projects and in teams. This level of creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking fosters a culture that promotes trust, respect and responsibility.

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