FARMINGTON — Multiple Regional School Unit 9 principals, which included Joel Smith of Mt. Blue High School, James Black of Mt. Blue Middle School, Carol Kiesman of Cape Cod Hill School, and Keith Acedo of Academy Hill and Gerald D. Cushing schools, reported the continued success of BARR in their academic programs to the RSU 9 board of directors at their meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 23.

The large volume of reports is due to several being rescheduled from the previously scheduled meeting Tuesday, Jan. 9, which was canceled due to weather conditions.

In his report, Keith Acedo showed the reduction in referrals in the classrooms that are currently implementing BARR, which stand for Building Asset, Reducing Risk. Currently, AHS is implementing BARR in fourth grade classes, while GDCS is implementing it for first grade students.

The number of behavior referrals for the first grade students this year was reported at 11 referrals. In the previous year, Acedo shared the number was 75. He also added that last year’s kindergarten class, which is this years first grade class, had approximately 32 referrals.

For fourth grade, Acedo reported 22 referrals for this year, with last year’s class having 61 referrals at roughly the same time. Last year’s third graders [this year’s fourth grade class] had 129 referrals.

Acedo also highlighted AHS’s annual food drive, where students and staff collected food items to donate to the food pantry located at the Wilton United Methodist Church. Acedo reported approximately 795 food items were collected during the month of November and dropped off on Wednesday, Nov. 15. Acedo thanked all those who participated and donated items, while also giving a special thanks to Amy Eustis, who coordinated the event.

Following Acedo was James Black, who stated that MBMS has been implementing BARR only at the sixth grade level since October of last year. Black shared noticeable improvements in attendance and student discipline referrals from the first quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023, with the data showing referrals have dropped significantly from 191 to 74, a difference of more than 60%.

However, the failure rate has gone up slightly, with a 3.4% failure rate compared to last year’s 2.9%. Black shared with the board that the failure rate could be a difference of only one or two students and called the increase “minimal”.

Carol Kiesman shared in her report CCHS fifth grade classes received national recognition in the BARR National Newsletter for their U-time project titled “Rainbows”. BARR’s U-Time curriculum, which is designed for kindergarten through fifth grade students, uses 30 minute lessons that focus on building intentional relationships and promoting social and emotional skills in students.

The object of the lesson, according to Kiesman’s report, was to have the students write about a “rainbow” in their life on colored paper, which were then hung from the ceiling in the form of a rainbow. “Our BARR coach noticed this activity during her in-person visit and submitted the rainbow display to the national newsletter,” Kiesman wrote in her report.

Rounding out the administrative reports was Joel Smith, who reported notable improvements to attendance. The school saw a 4% improvement in attendance rates from September to December, with current attendance numbers sitting at 90.4%, up from 82.6%.

On top of that, the chronically absentee numbers are also down to 25.9% from 39.3%. Smith attributes those improvements to the Attendance Incentive Program, which was launched in November and engages students with perfect weekly attendance in a drawing for cafeteria rewards.

“We’ve really restructured the approach we have to attendance and made it a comprehensive team approach,” Smith said. “We use the BARR model with our freshmen, and we’ve made it more comprehensive in our attendance. We’ve taken elements of BARR, and a whole structure for intervention, and we’ve applied it to attendance.”

“When I was reading all of the administrator reports,” Director Carol Coles said, “I was struck by how the impact of BARR has been across all four reports, in terms of attendance. It just seems like it’s a really systematic approach that’s also systemic across and it’s really changing the culture.”

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