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Date: 12/22/2021
LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow School Committee met on Dec. 14 to discuss a variety of agenda items including district improvement plans, COVID-19 data and the expansion of the Test and Stay Program.
Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea said that the district has been working on plans and goals to improve the Longmeadow Public Schools overall.
The first district improvement goal discussed was alignment with multi-tiered systems of support. There are different objectives at each school level.
Elementary objectives for this goal will be to provide behavioral coaching by board certified behavior analysis. Middle school objectives will be to provide tiered support by English Language Arts and Math specialists. At the high school level, the district will work to provide a student support center.
The second district improvement plan goal pertained to the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). At the elementary level, the district hopes to offer collaborative opportunities for UDL capacity building. For middle school, there will be UDL based professional development and at the high school, they hope to link UDL implementation to educator evaluation.
The last improvement plan goal discussed was looking at a broader vision of student success. For the elementary level, this means working toward a standards-based report card. At the middle school, they hope to implement a schedule review and implement student led conferences. At the high school, they will conduct a report on career education.
O’Shea also spoke on the recent meeting of the School Safety Team. He said that the meeting focused on annual staff training and recommitting to their active shooting response.
According to O’Shea, the School Resource Officer teamed with building principals to talk to staff about the avoid, deny and defend strategy in the event of an active shooter.
“Sadly, our attention turns to the Michigan school shooting. A true tragedy and a reminder to us all of the importance of maintaining our safety plans, updating them regularly and talking to the staff about these unfortunate incidents,” he said.
The meeting then shifted to focus on COVID-19. Since the beginning of the district’s rapid COVID-19 testing program, they have administered 800 tests. There have only been four positive test results total, and zero this month.
“It’s encouraging that what we have in place is working. It’s encouraging that students who are exposed to a positive case in school aren’t becoming positive themselves and the testing program has been a true boon to us in Longmeadow. All of these students would otherwise have to quarantine, so it’s really encouraging,” said O’Shea.
He said that the district is now hoping to expand the Test and Stay Program and has drafted a letter to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
In the letter, O’Shea encouraged DESE to allow expanded access to the program by allowing tests to be used for students who come into contact with a COVID-19 positive individual outside of school.
Currently, the program only allows testing for in-school exposure. O’Shea said that this expansion would help keep more kids in school and out of quarantine. He said that they have staff to help with an expansion but would need access to more tests.
“We have the personnel in place to handle additional testing. The availability of the kits would maybe be a concern. We’re going through about 40 per day now. When we first started this it was probably less than 40 per month,” said O’Shea.
In the end, the School Committee voted to send this letter to DESE.
Those interested in viewing the School Committee meeting in its entirety are encouraged to visit the LongmeadowTV YouTube page.