WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — While the numbers continue to show students in the Mount Greylock Regional School District beat the state average in most metrics, the administration is focused on making sure that all of the district's students are thriving.

 

"Part of expanding opportunities is not as much about creating more opportunities but getting more people to see all of the opportunities that we offer are potentially for them and then supporting them as they step into attempting those opportunities and making it safe to do so," Superintendent Jason McCandless told the School Committee last week.

 

McCandless provided the committee with a wide-ranging update on the district improvement plan he implemented last year.

 

The discussion looked at areas such as reducing the number of absences, including principles of restorative justice in school discipline and focusing on student wellness.

 

Continuing a theme that has characterized his tenure in the district's corner office, McCandless emphasized the importance of equity and making sure all students are included in the district's success stories.

 

An example was the numbers around the middle-high school's Advanced Placement classes.

 

AP classes are designed to prepare high school students to do college-level work and, at the end of the course, take a nationally standardized test that, depending on how one scores, can make you eligible either for college credit or placement into non-introductory courses, depending on the post-secondary school you attend.

 

McCandless said he was a "fan" of AP classes as both an educator and a parent and he highlighted the fact that in the latest round of tests, 70 percent of Mount Greylock students sitting for the test achieved what is known as a "qualifying score," either a 3, 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale.

 

But the third-year superintendent said he wants to make sure more of the district's students are availing themselves of the opportunity to take AP classes and AP exams.

 

"I think the piece that I am maybe most interested in or really interested in is I like to see an expansion in the number of test takers," McCandless said. "That means AP is becoming less of a self-selected club and more of an opportunity that is more available to all students. I think Mount Greylock Regional School has been making strides on that for some time. That's a real credit to the staff and administration now and the staff and administration going back in time.

 

"How do we make AP more accessible from a bureaucratic perspective and organizational perspective? How do we get more students to be willing to risk take, to step out of a world they may be more accustomed to and give an AP course a try? How do we support all of our students, including and maybe especially supporting those students for whom this is not necessarily a given inside their own heads and hearts or maybe inside their own home, that this will be a stretch and a risk. How do we support them to make sure the risk is worth taking? That remains work we continue to do."

 

He made a similar case in regard to the Scholastic Aptitude Test, reporting that last year's test-takers at Mount Greylock achieved the highest average reading score at the school in 10 years and the second-highest average math score in the same period.

 

"When we look at high needs, we want to see the number of students putting themselves out there to take that test going up and us supporting them to take that risk if they see it as a risk," he said. "And we also see their scores going up and more closely approaching the average of all students.

 

"We want to focus on our perception that every student, regardless of their label, is labeled in our heads and our hearts as an achiever and as a potential achiever, and that belief on the part of the grown-ups who are here to serve starts to translate into the hearts and heads of the students themselves, that they see themselves as a person capable of high achievement."

 

That focus does not start at the middle-high school.

 

Thursday's monthly meeting of the School Committee included a presentation from Lanesborough Elementary School Principal Nolan Pratt about the fiscal 2024 budget priorities generated by the School Council.

 

Those priorities included the addition of 1.5 paraprofessional positions to make up for four spots cut from the FY23 budget, installing short-throw projectors in the classroom and acquiring a new math curriculum targeted at Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction for pupils who need more academic support.

 

"Tier 1 is whole classroom instruction," Pratt said. "That's what all students get when they're in the class with their homeroom teacher. Tier 2 is an interventionist for students who need some support. They go to an interventionist to get that support. Tier 3 is special education, [individualized education plan] students.

 

"We're looking to get a curriculum that helps close those gaps, a Tier 2/Tier 3 math curriculum for special education interventionists to help fill those gaps."

 

McCandless said the focus on pupils who need a little more help dovetails with the district's priority on growing opportunities.

 

"I'm really grateful to Nolan and his School Council and his staff for bringing forward this need for a Tier 2 and Tier 3 mathematics curriculum, which we knew was a need," McCandless said. "I'm grateful for them saying it out loud and pushing for it. We need to do that in several areas. We have things that work really well. Our data suggests it works really well for the large group of 'our students,' quote unquote. But when we get down deeper into individual students' needs and the nuances of those individual students, not all of our programming that's offered right now works quite as well. Our data says that. In some cases our data screams that. So we're working on a school by school inventory of all available resources, including human resources and structural resources."

 

McCandless pointed to the areas where the district has made progress on the multiyear improvement plan but also said there are areas that remain a work in progress. But he said the plan itself was purposefully ambitious.

 

"None of it is fast. None of it is easy," he said. "If it were just about ticking the boxes … that would be the approach that I think would make the superintendent look better and more in command of what her or his work is, and it would maybe make the district look better on the surface.

 

"But I think our efforts to attack real stuff that actually matters to families and it matters now and it matters five years from now and will matter 10 years from now — that requires some patience and understanding on the governing body of the school district, and I thank you for that patience, for that understanding and for that vision that this is a great school district, and we do some great work, but we still have lots of room to be even greater for greater numbers."

 

In other business on Thursday, the School Committee authorized Chair Christina Conry to enter in negotiations with McCandless for a six-year extension to the contract that expires on June 30.

 

The committee also heard a report on the athletic field and track project on which the district hopes to break ground this summer.

 

Carrie Greene of the Field and Track Project Committee told her colleagues that the ad hoc committee plans to appear before the Williamstown Zoning Board of Appeals on Dec. 15 to seek its approval for the campus alterations and that the School Committee should have construction documents to approve at its Jan. 12 meeting. If all goes according to plan, the project could go to bid the week of Jan. 23 with a due date on Feb. 22, at which time the School Committee would be able to review bids and potentially award a contract.

 

Greene said district officials are setting up a meeting to talk with officials at Williams College to get the most up-to-date estimate of the value of Mount Greylock's capital gift before deciding whether to award the contract. The School Committee has long operated under the assumption the project would be paid for from the gift, which resides in the college's endowment and is, therefore, subject to fluctuations in the value of the investments in the college's portfolio.

 

Greene also said the district is pursuing grant opportunities to help fund the project, including submitting an application for Community Preservation Act funds to the Williamstown Community Preservation Committee. The CPC meets in the winter and decides what, if any, applications to pass along to the annual town meeting for approval in May.