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testing one two testing two let's get started here I hereby call this meeting to order a roll call please I'll give you the heads up next time Brown is here is Galbraith here Dr Hall here Mr sawales here Mrs Walters vice president Rue here president Albury here please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign would you please read our mission statement sure our mission is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future thank you Cheryl is there any uh public no public comment tonight good okay uh next up then is board updates um it's open for all board members but we have one specific 2022 iasb resolutions that bill is going to cover so last year uh president albrecha asked me to be the iasb delegate so I went to the meeting last year the conference and it was a pretty interesting process but there are resolutions that different districts will submit and then we'll go in front of this in this room and it took about last year I think there were and it took us about three and a half hours to get through this year I'm going to do that as well do the same thing as VR represented as a delegate but this year there's only eight so they had eight others that they decided not to that was just informational they brought out but there was only going to be eight resolutions this year there was only a couple of them that I thought were pretty interesting the first one of the ones that I was they were talking about is alternative fuel for school buses um it was a good it's it's a good idea for the future but I ASB doesn't isn't going to adopt it because there's too many unanswered questions meaning we're getting reimbursed I think it's 80 for our transportation but there's going to be infrastructure changes you're gonna have charging stations electric buses stuff like that so too many costs that will outweigh the benefit at this point one of the other ones the other two I thought kind of went hand in hand a little bit um a capital Grant fund and school safety so a district Glen Ellen 41 and Mercer wants a capital Grant fund for for infrastructure projects for the districts to go back to the general assembly and izb to allow us school districts to get more money when we're doing capital projects the other one was another fund that uh Grays Lake Community Heist uh Community High School 127 in Lake Forest they want to do it for school safety so they're trying to Advocate the general assembly in Springfield to give us money but allocate a fund so that if we need to upgrade metal detectors or anything in school safety that can can go into that fund it's not there yet per se specifically but that's kind of the idea so those are three of the out of the eight that I think are pretty important so iesb Illinois Association of school boards acts as a lobbying Organization for all the school districts so these resolutions if they pass then it kind of directs our lobbying efforts to go to the legislature to lobby for these yes and it'll take time so every time they pass one it doesn't happen immediately so then they'll go down to Springfield and they'll start lobbying to see if they can get it passed for sure so it could take a year it could take a year and a half two years okay but it's a starting point okay well thank you for representing us any questions from other board members any other board updates excuse me it's not so much of an update it's just something I would like to share once I truly dissect this document that I've been looking at I say it a little bit but vice president Rupp and Dr cochliness and and Ken about a document I came across it's a report it's called the James Coleman report and he pretty much coined the phrase of what we know as the achievement Gap this is a report he came out play back in the 60s middle 60s and it's a 750 page report and I'm on page like seven a lot of data driven a lot of statistics and things of that nature but it has a lot to do with you know this is what he found so much money was not really the driving force to bring and closely achievement Gap but it was more and a couple other things but it was really family driven what the family could do in and of themselves to help close that achievement Gap so more to follow I'd like to share my findings that they're doing a you know quick Instagram so I had a 30 hour Train drive and I just came across it you know I did a lot of reflection during those 30 hours and I came across that document but I I had a little I'm a little further than that but yeah okay I've just been a little humorous on that but I like to share it okay in the near future okay sounds good all right any other board updates okay if not then I will turn it over to Dr Dr Kara for superintendent updates yes well I just wanted to take this opportunity to recognize four of our board members last week we attended the Three Rivers ISB recognition dinner and that's held annually through ISB and during this time we were really proud of our four board members that did receive some recognition we had president Nelson Albrecht receive established board leader certificate vice president Cheryl Roop also received established board leader certificate uh Mr Maurice Brown board secretary also received a established board leader and Miss uh Janine Galbraith received a distinguished board leader she got the larger certificate so anyway just wanted to thank you board members for all your work and we'll be handing those out later at the end of today that's all I have um oh now what it means in order to get that how what do you do together well you can certainly add into this but it's receiving and participating in workshops and various other kinds of professional development and attending dinners such as the one we went to and supporting your colleagues and just being really um attuned to what is going on in the community about what it means to be a board member with legislation and so forth so it's uh certainly something to be proud of and it's based on ours how many hours of educational um classes Etc that you take so it's not like just going to dinner also of course you staying we take a lot of classes on Zoom or the person and at the iasb if you sign up for early conference ones they they give you points for those because they're actually a concentrated class versus so you can go into anything so um to all of my fellow board members congratulations because those Don't Come Easy those hours you have to figure out how to get them into your life so congratulations to everybody who got one of those it is a lot of work yeah and we have our triple I conference coming up in the next week and we'll be going down to the city uh to have at least three or four days of non-stop workshops and I know all of our board members attend all of the sessions because we're all talking about them afterwards so I'll be curious to see how that works we will be presenting our district will be showcased for the equity immersion piece I'll be doing a 30 minute piece Dr Nakia Hall will be there she's sponsoring that so I'll be participating with her as a panelist so please make sure that you stop by so we can stop by and ask a lot of questions you can to see how we're doing sounds good let me just a real quick a question now none of us attended the National Conference college right so not this year no because we do not get credit for that right oh you did oh it was was yeah ah okay you felt very sorry but we do not get credit for it right at the end of this year they didn't yeah I don't think it's an iasb does not recommend that we go is that no oh really wow is that is that in our package to attend something like that or no well they should be sending something out if they haven't about that National one but I think it's in Illinois I think I know the Casbah is it called one was in Atlanta that was similar to cube which is um and so I know I believe that they're planning a national one for Illinois and then they'll start going other places but if I'm not mistaking there's more than half the states maybe 30 plus states have joined the new others have left Nationals and they're trying to decide what they're going to do but that sucks I don't know all the details of it that's usually held in the spring yeah yeah that's usually held in the spring and that's something I mean I could you can call yeah if you or or Dr coglinis can bring back to the board if there's further educational steps we can take that have the few leaps in bounds in the triple I would be definitely interested and I'm sure they'll talk a lot more about it at triple I they'll probably immerse us with what's going on and I've been getting emails already I've been giving you so you have yeah check your school emails I've already been seen that that in Cube and nsba is beginning in April in Orlando I know that I remember it because there like sending you eight million of them so yeah and SBA they opened it up to it used to be if you were a member your state was a member but now they're trying to they've opened it up to even if your state is not a member you can still come to their National because they lost so many states yeah but definitely you get different perspectives from schools you know it's good this is the triple I is it's a very good conference but you're dealing with here locally with State schools within Illinois obviously you have more of a broader scope at a national I I just enjoy those national conferences with people from different states presenting and sharing things like that so definitely have some values National okay not knocking triple I not not at all so all right that's all I had thank you okay um next up under personnel and culture I'll let turn it over loud okay thank you I just have a couple of items um both are fairly brief the first one is a discussion on criminal history background checks prior to the pandemic I was in the process of putting together a proposal to kind of change how we did some of that particularly when it came to volunteers and visitors obviously that's been a couple years needs to be updated I was asked earlier this week to take a second look at that and so it will be forthcoming I just wanted to kind of let you guys know that that was on the radar it will uh we'll have a couple recommendations regarding board policy with regard to that and also some more detail about what we'll do in lieu of what we're doing now currently we require all volunteers to be fully fingerprinted and go through a full figure different criminal history check before they can go on a field trip or do anything with our students and I think there's been some desire to find another approach that might be a little less time intensive so we're going to work on that so I just want to pass that along today um any questions on that one I should ask about you I didn't give you much okay so the other again no surprises there have been three different moas that I have forwarded in the FYI over the past few weeks and I just wanted to run them back because there's uh I believe hopefully two of them will be bringing here next week and then one will probably come in December the first one has to do with streaming courses for MEC this is to help us with the fact that we can't always find the teachers that we want at MEC so we have some high school teachers who are willing to stream their current classroom environment into MEC and this would just be the terms under which we would do that and it's fairly straightforward and mirrors a lot of what we've already done for streaming in the past so it has been in the FYI and if anybody has any questions about that I'd be happy to answer them but that one should be coming forward next Tuesday hey real quick in the FYI you that wasn't in there the payment for packing and the internal stuff it was it was a prior week okay this one was this one was earlier so uh the you mentioned the payment for packing we haven't really talked as much about this one but um in the past when we have had a large-scale uh project above enclosure whatever reason we have a lot of people having to pack up classrooms and I mean absolutely everything to move out we have set out some terms with uh cmea about how that will happen and so again uh that MOA we did present it to cmea but they haven't had a chance to respond yet so we we won't bring that until they've had a chance to respond it's very similar to what we've done in the past but it just spells out the terms under which we're going to require staff members to pack and you know a small amount of compensation for some of that effort so this will be only in the buildings affected by the projects taking place and that's because just so everybody knows that's because we're removing the flooring so they got to move everything out which makes sense so yes yeah just so everybody knows everything has to come out including here at central office so although we're not getting paid back I have a question though um what about the Acme employees that have to pack Acme employees typically are hourly workers so if they have to do additional work then they'll be compensated for that if Acme still has other terms they'd like to discuss we certainly are open to that we have a meeting coming up with them on Thursday with Acme leadership but in the past they haven't uh they haven't asked for any special terms or anything for that okay I'm just curious what if they go over the allotted hours I don't know if it's 40 hours a week or whatever and they work 30 then does that mean they have to they they'd have to stop at 40 hours so that we're wearing overtime because they're an hourly employee now if we had him work over 40 hours they would get paid overtime okay so that would just happen it would just happen if they went they worked more than 40 hours they would even get away okay and we're gonna make that known I guess yes okay thank you if I may go back to B1 their discussion on criminal history background checks sure and I know you not our security person so what type of oversight do we have in place to your best of your knowledge for ensuring that those who come in public that have some contact with our kids they don't have to be physical but you know come in for example reading reading to our kids do those people need to and mentoring and things of that nature that those people need to have a background check or as long as they are in the presence of a staff member that's okay so what's the protocol for that well you hit on one of the things where we draw the line which is whether they're being overseen or supervised by a staff member okay um typically if they're overseen by a staff member we consider that a visitor and a visitor would present an ID that would be put through an ID scanner which goes to the raptorwear system and will at least check the offender databases and make sure there's nothing uh you know nothing to be found there and then of course they would remain escorted as they go through their day if someone is alone with students that's where we draw the line and say that they would have to have the criminal history background checked for the fingerprints got it okay so visitors can include board members right it's uh you know you know what does it include board members I would take a visitor do we not take a visitor sold a protocol if we were to come I just came across our email just today I believe about looking for men to come in and read I believe our president did that that you have to go through when I read I just presented my ID okay and then I was escorted as a visitor as a visitor okay okay I just want to know you know a standard so everybody's is on one Accord with this yeah I I uh every single detail s and it'll be it'll be very uniform throughout the day yeah very consistent some standard bus you want to make it or not but let it be some type of standard right right thank you and you still had one more I had one more in my way MOA which I moved to the bottom of my file so forgive me uh that has to do with internal substitution and the way that we're that works is when we are unable to secure a substitute teacher for a classroom particularly at secondary level we ask teachers to cover a class during their plan period and we pay the teachers to do that we pay them at the extended day rate for a classroom period they are required by contract to do that 10 times per year at our request once that 10 times is reached they can then decline if they choose and uh we have a large number of Staff members who do go well beyond what's required we have we have some that say no and some just say no once in a while because they need the time you know once in a while um and there are those who refuse after 10.
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America 's stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty Welcome to our Monday November 7th board meeting the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on Corporation matters if you wish to address the board this evening there will be two opportunities one will be in a few minutes where we will vote on action items and we ask that you keep your comments to those action items then there will be an opportunity for you to address the board at the end of our meeting during the public comments section only those that have signed up with all the requested information will be called up so with that we will turn it over to Dr Morocco for agenda sure you have an agenda before you this evening board without any amendments second by Dr Malco any discussion hearing none all in favor aye motion passes is there any correspondence this evening Mrs Kelly nothing to report on thank you we'll move right into our liaison committee updates Mr Marshall nothing to report this evening thank you thank you Mrs Kelly yes I have some updates from our parks department and our Redevelopment Commission in Schererville so in Schererville Lots going on with the parks department we're finalizing Improvement plans for the Autumn Creek Park um reader Park improvements are done and work is continuing on the bike trail along rorman and we are continuing our discussions amongst ourselves and with the Town Council about the development for the Ileana property and then the Redevelopment commission at the October meeting which was um I forget which date it was but October meeting the Town Council did approve a new Tiff District in Schererville and the Route 30 and Burr area so that will impact tax dollars coming in and that's all I have thank you Dr Medlin nothing to report thank you Dr Malco hi good evening I wanted to thank everyone that attended the 5K on Saturday uh to raise money for the Lake Central Education Foundation the purpose of the Education Foundation is to support our teachers in the classroom it was a great event it was crummy weather but I tell you what they endured and they got through it and I'm very proud of them especially one of our board members she did not give up either and um so it was good and we thank you for that support now today the Lake Central education had the opportunity to be at the soft opening for Portillo's which I didn't know what a soft opening was all about but now I do um so what we did is we basically stood in the front of the building collected donations for the Lake Central Education Foundation and then the guests that came were also guests that we had invited through our leadership with the Lake Central Education Foundation and throughout the community it was a great event once again we had that group of volunteers from the lcef that come out over and over and over again to support our teachers and Dr veracco thanks for mentioning that on Saturday he mentioned to the crowd on Saturday that they're all volunteers they don't get a penny so they run around and they put signs up for the Lake Central Education Foundation 5K there's no reimbursement for gas it's just a phenomenal group of people there was even one of our board members that took off work today so he could be a volunteer for Portillos when we talk about Lake Central I think we need to talk about some of those cool cool things that we do and I'll talk more about that later in the meeting but we have a great group of volunteers and it goes beyond lcef I see it in all of our activities at Lake Central so thank you for that sorry I'm so long-winded but it was just such a great day and Dyer Parks it's it's moving forward they are still working on Central Park which is on Calumet as you come down the hill there's going to be a strong focus in that Park on Veterans and no surprise knowing how this entire Community is very focused on Veterans and what they have done for us so we look forward to seeing that come to fruition and that's all I have to say now thank you thank you and for the St John Redevelopment commission I have nothing but for Dollars for Scholars I believe these seniors are not the seniors excuse me the students have until the 15th to pay their dues to Mrs Resnick so get that in and with that we'll move on to our official School Board business topics consent agenda Dr Barraco thank you again so for our consent agenda we seek board approval of the minutes from our regular meeting on Monday October 17th our executive session of the same evening and the special board meeting we had on Thursday October 27th to put out the tentative agreement that you'll approve later and then additionally Item B seek approval for the claims payroll and extracurricular expenditures you've received in your packets last week move to approved we have a motion by Mr Marshall second second by Dr Medlin any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye motion passes we have one person for public comments and that's Mike Kovac I'm sorry I know I pronounced your name wrong that's at the end of the meeting yeah yeah okay we'll call you back up at the end of the meeting all right we'll move to our official School Board business topics regular agenda Dr Barako thank you for our first set of recognitions I'd like to invite Mr Elliott Smith the director of bands to talk about some 2022 Indiana band Masters All Region honor band recipients thank you I would like to take a moment to congratulate the following Lake Central High School students who were selected for the 2022 Indiana band Masters Association All Region prescription foreign all right these students were selected from hundreds of applications from over 30 schools in the area their dedication to the Performing Arts is nothing short of extraordinary for the All Region band their concert will take place on Sunday November 13th at 3 pm at Portage High School the students we would like to congratulate are Cameron Berry Charlotte Montague [Applause] Catherine sirkin Liam Philbin Maisie redhead and Samuel camp foreign we would also like to congratulate the following Lake Central High School students who were selected for the all district honor band these students were selected from hundreds of applications of over 20 high schools in the area along with their people to the right their oh they're subnaut okay their excellence in the Performing Arts again is nothing short of extraordinary we have a long list of students in this group as well including Jayla parks Nadine Batista Chloe Musgrave Jacob youngsma Landon LaRue Dominic punty Avery Diedrich Matthew Borowski Gracie Cockrell and Alex magaha all district people move to your left it's over here and then Sam you guys can stay over here they want two different pictures [Applause] cheers [Applause] congratulations while they are working on their paperwork I have to say the bands if you've not been to a high school or Junior High band concert or a choral concert you're missing something and the Jasmine is outstanding to the percussion Ensemble try to make some of those at the high school it's great entertainment they're very talented now I'd like to introduce Mrs Novak High School principal to talk about National Merit accommodations thank you everybody president sues the school board members Dr varaco and our district administrators these next eight students that we're going to recognize they received a letter of commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for outstanding performance on the 2021 PSAT nmsqt exam to put that in perspective there's about 2 million test takers all the juniors in the United States taking this exam and these students were in the top 50 000 the top two-thirds of them so we are extremely proud of their accomplishments so I'd like to call them down Kai Blankenship Gunner doll [Applause] information Nicholas DeVries [Applause] Benjamin de Filippo [Applause] congratulations Kyle Helton [Applause] nachiket mageh [Applause] congratulations because Sandra smolen [Applause] congratulations and last but certainly not least Trevor Pulaski thank you so much [Applause] okay so for our honorees we are going to continue with the business meeting of the board if you need to get home for other activities this is a good time to sneak out you're certainly welcome to stay for the remainder of our meeting could I interrupt for a minute while we're waiting I see Mr Rhody standing up back there and I think you are the coach of the boys cross country that did so well and went to state congratulations from all of us right okay my second item is to seek board approval to go to Indianapolis November 30th through December 2nd for the annual superintendent's conference moved in Indianapolis thank you we have a motion by Dr Medlin second second by Miss Kelly any discussion all in favor aye motion passes thank you my third item is to mention to the board that we have made a slight uh minor change in our practice for public comments tonight after our last meeting we had several minor students comment at the meeting I did hear from a couple of parents who didn't know their their children were going to speak and they were concerned about their identity being out there and with not knowing what they were going to say so we added a third sheet this evening for minor students it's an option they can still sign up on the regular public comment sheet and participate with all of the other folks who are 18 and above who decide to make comments but the reason we'll do them separately after the adults the 18 year old and over over people is so that while their comments and their image and likeness can appear on the live stream we will not have them be part of the archived piece so we'll the recorded piece that gets saved onto the web will not include the minor student comments I spoke with Luke Britt the public access counselor about this and he indicated that the portion of our board meeting that we have to Archive is the business meeting of the board that technically we don't have to Archive any comments that come at the end of the meeting we always have and unless the board at some future date wants to discuss it I I don't see us changing that part of the practice but I just want to clarify that the the the thing is that the students if they come to the microphone their comments will be heard on the live version but they will not be saved for eternity on the archived version those same students have the choice though if they want their message to live on can sign up for the regular sheet that may not satisfy all of the people who say I didn't know my child was going to comment and that you know it's just that we are a public meeting so I don't think we can tell a minor child they cannot sign up with all of the other adults so I just wanted to share that piece with the board are there any questions at this time no I think it's a good practice okay and then my final item is to seek board approval for all of the raises that you received in your packet last week all of the minor changes to our collective bargaining agreement it is virtually unchanged from last year because we had to work through with the Indiana employee relations board to get the language that would pass muster with those folks and so you'll see some number changes there and some dates but by and large the language has stayed the same in that collective bargaining agreement and so seek board approval for those raises for staff at this time motion to approve I have motion by Mrs Kelly second by Mr Marshall any discussion all in favor I yeah I do my only comment and I will say it probably every time we vote is and I don't know the answer as to how you do this but more attention to para prose I know you're starting training I've heard that through the grapevine and I think that's really good but you know the in and out that we have with the pair Pros have somehow we can and I don't know the answer but again that's my concern is what we can do to solidify that group so there's consistency and they're well trained and all that that may be very difficult to do that I appreciate your attempts at it thank you any other comments all in favor motion passes thank you so move on to our director of Human Resources Personnel Mrs smoocha thank you I'm recommending the following Personnel be approved I just want to bring your attention to Roman numeral two be number one that resignation should be for softball not football I would like to move that we accept Mrs mutual's recommendation with that change from football to JV softball we have a motion by Dr Malco second by Dr Medlin any discussion all in favor aye motion passes thank you thank you move right on to our director of primary education Dr barisi good evening I am seeking approval for the professional leap request you have in your packets we have a motion by Mr Marshall and I will second that any discussion I do have some I'm so sorry but I'm so proud of Emily Mark I see she's doing three presentations Emily is a teacher at bibbage and the fact that she is willing to go out and use her skills and her talents and train other Educators in music is phenomenal so I just want to give a shout out to that thank you thank you all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you thank you our director of secondary education Mrs Castaneda thank you for my first item I'm seeking your approval for the professional leave requests motion to approve motion by Miss Kelly I'd like to second that a second by Dr Michael any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you and for my second item I am seeking your approval for the field trip requests and that were in your board packet I make a motion that we accept Mrs custom native's field trip requests we have a motion by Dr Malco second second by Mr Marshall any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you move right along to our director of student services Mrs gramala thank you I am seeking approval for the professional leave request that was included in your packet so moved motion by Mr Marshall second by Dr Medlin any discussion hearing that all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you uh right on to our director of Business Services Mr James thank you my first item is to seek your approval for the two-year lease agreement for our property at 101st and Blaine an award that leads to cats Family Farms as included in your board packet do we have a motion I'd like to make a motion that we accept and Mr James's recommendation by Dr Melco in a second by Miss Kelly any discussion and I believe I believe you said that there were three three bids that came in that's correct okay that's good thank you all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you and then my last items to seek your approval for the donations that were listed in your board packet move by Mr Marshall and I will second that any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you thank you so with that we will move on to our public comments we just like to remind everyone that public comments are for the board to consider the time is not set aside for a back and forth debate if you ask a question and we're able to answer you that will be part of your allotted time all statements should be directed to the board president and no person may address or question board members individually each person signed up with the information requested on the sign up sheet will have three minutes to address the board you will be alerted when you have 15 seconds left and we will ask that you wrap up your comments public kind of portion of the meeting is limited to 30 minutes unless extended by the board we also ask that you refrain from personal attacks or derogatory statements about any student School employee or anyone else whether in attendance or not with that we will call up our first speaker and Mike called aesthetic foreign good evening my name is Mike Mila kovachovich 9885 Meadow Rose Lane St John Indiana I just would like to address from the last school board meeting part of the statements of each School Board member during the last school board meeting the school board acknowledged their position is anti-christian per their statements they all support the signs and messaging on the signs if the messaging is anti-christian and the school board agrees with the science messaging The Logical conclusion is that the Lake Central school board members are anti-christian in a town named after St John consenting for these anti-christian ideologies is blasphemous the sign read science is real you must be talking about the Jabs where Americans were told take one and you're done maybe two now three four five CDC director is now sick with covid the second time also military and businesses were denied religious exemptions and they were firing employees black lives matter uh all three founders acknowledge that their Marxist I uh ideologies um Marxism is anti-christian Love Is Love per the FBI's child sex abuse task force Love Is Love is labeled and associated with arrested pedophiles feminism is for everyone feminism pushed abortion during Roe versus Wade sacrifices to Mellow and demons Margaret Sanger pushed abortions in Planned Parenthood which are in every black neighborhood humans are legal meaning School Board doesn't believe in borders then why doesn't the Lake Central School Board open up their school district borders to Gary Indiana kindness is everything it's a blanket generic statement which is a cover for the above radical ideologies anti-christian so that no one can attack the above radical anti-christian slogans the signs were removed another feminine feminism is for everyone signed was just recently spotted last week in their High School my fellow Christian constituents silence is consent biblical and historical context for Christians to participate in our local government and in politics in general has been established the first Speaker of the House was a pastor and his name was Frederick mullenberg he signed the Bill of Rights which starts with the freedom of speech per Black's Law Dictionary rule of tacit admission and admission reasonably inferable from A party's failure to act or speak Leviticus 1917 confront people directly so you will not be guilty of their sins World War II Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer anti-nazi are reverend in Germany said that silence in the face of evil is evil itself God will not hold us Guiltless last lastly Proverbs 24 11-12 rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death don't stand back and let them die don't try to disclaim responsibility by saying you didn't know about it there's one party that can define a woman what a woman is the other party wants to destroy the definition of a woman vote Nikki Kelly out vote for god let's save our children from radical anti-christians thank you [Music] Maldonado before we have another speaker Let's uh please respect the the rules that we've set down I mean this is not a free-for-all you're supposed to be talking about issues that are germane to this board's jurisdiction thank you board members my son has been attending the GSA meeting since September of 2021.
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[Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign I'd like to call the school committee meeting for Monday November 7th 2022 to order would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you if you have any cell phones Pages beepers electronic devices if you could kindly silence them or shut them off I would greatly appreciate it excuse me would like to let you know that this meeting is uh being uh taped for future uh uh displayed by DCTV and our own Dartmouth uh High School TV media it's shown on Channel 9 and 18 throughout the week different times it's also being live stream on youtube.com backslash DHT STV meteor so okay at this point uh [Music] we'll call Dr Gifford please John Nunes yep Chris Oliver yeah Dr Jenkins here Kathleen Amaral here Mary wait here thank you all right illustrious wonderful secretaries a little under the weather I'm probably sure speedy recovery uh at this point in time uh We've allotted 10 minutes on the agenda for public comment uh I will ask that you uh come to the microphone and state your name or anyone who has any comments to make that uh are the results and on tonight's agenda thank you hi good evening my name is Lauren delavo I am the DEA vice president of teaching assistants I'm joined today by Rose Roseanne Amaral she's a teaching assistant in the pals three to five program at Quinn Elementary I'm going to talk about what a living wage is the fact that Dartmouth teaching assistants do not earn a living wage in our town and then Rose is going to take it over and talk about the day in the life of a special education teaching assistant a living wage the definition of a living wage is the minimum income necessary for an employee to meet their basic needs their basic needs a living wage in Bristol County according to the MIT calculator is twenty nine thousand eight hundred twenty seven dollars per year Dartmouth teaching assistants we will soon be known as education support professionals or esps their salary range is between nineteen thousand and twenty six thousand dollars roughly meaning the starting salary for a Dartmouth ta is ten thousand dollars a year below a living wage the top step after we've been working all these years you reach TOP Step we're still three thousand dollars below a living wage honestly the salary range is absurd we are Educators we are not babysitters we support our students and what could be more important to our district than the support and the success and the growth of our students now we're all in public education and we watch and we read the news there is a wave moving across the state districts are realizing how valuable the role we play in the education of our students they're opening their eyes and they're coming through with significant increases in salaries a few examples Somerville they just signed an agreement their Tas are starting at 35 000 a year Dartmouth as I mentioned is 19 000.
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to recall the meaning of order would you please join me in a pledge of the flag to remained standing for a moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for you all please keep in your thoughts this evening um Greg larua Bethune resident who was uh co-chairman of the last building committee I spent a lot and spent a couple of years here he was very instrumental on the building that we have now he passed away I believe about two weeks ago we hadn't met since so uh please keep him in your thoughts along with the men and women protecting us around the world okay thank you very much so would you call the role for attendance please Mr Cirillo it's mama Fitzgerald here Miss tisler Mr Hayden and Mr LaMontagne president um do you appreciate a motion for the October 11th and October 18th minutes so move any discussion on either one all those in favor then you want to pose Mrs Martel could we have a cash balance report please so we had an opening balance on October 3rd 2022 of 2 million oh Thirty one two two three point eighty seven plus deposits on October 4th through the 28th in the amount of 3 million 0.55 891.60 less payroll on October 13th of 980 711 cents payroll on October 20th of 953.09 and payroll on October 27th of 972 000.
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welcome to tonight's meeting this is our November 7th meeting it's a Monday because tomorrow's election day so we meet this week we meet Monday this week and on Wednesday we also meet uh to go over no good that is it Monday no no today's Monday yeah okay Wednesday Monday and Wednesday okay we're just wondering so Peggy's online and um Felicia will be online thank you at least you had sick kids and Peggy's legs was uh bothering her Kim is next door at a soccer meeting and Ryan I suspect will be here he didn't tell me otherwise oh senior um okay so anyways uh so welcome to tonight's meeting we will uh end tonight's meeting with an executive session to talk about the Personnel matter um at the end so I'll be asking you to add that to the agenda afterwards um am I missing anything so far okay so then um I'm thrilled to have Khalil here and uh as I mentioned I was at uh I was in senior night to see the football team uh at an outstanding game against Morgan and Morgan used to be a perennial power and I used to coach so that was a that was a great game for you guys yeah we had a uh an interceptions callback I saw you ran a couple yeah I saw some nice tackles too so uh good job all right so if you wouldn't mind uh leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight anyways and then we'll get started yes remember the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay um so our our format is uh we'll try to get some of the reports out of the way which will be the student report superintendent report and a chair report and we'll kick off with uh the little who will be giving the uh the student report tonight yes uh good I want to say good afternoon yes so actually I'm sorry I don't for everyone tonight the student reports that we've been gone too just because we didn't know that Bella or someone wouldn't be here but um I didn't know that but so for the past events the last 2023 had a black band fundraiser a couple weeks ago went very well I'm glad to say obviously I know um sorry uh to be High School um music Club had their uh mattress wonders they also passed which was that went fantastic as well this is going to be a little shorter just for that yes you're fine you're good um glad you're here of course yeah and then so that's kind of just different passing that's an upcoming the uh boys soccer actually had a game tonight for their first United States they actually won like 10-0 I want to sell oh wow uh field hockey has their first states around the states names to uh tomorrow tomorrow at four or tomorrow yeah tomorrow for uh the acapella Club had their first meetings day uh at the high school that is a new project um boys and girls and girls had their first names today and boys had their first meeting tomorrow a couple more fundraisers from the senior class there's going to be one in Simsbury coming up in within a month um after Thanksgiving and then um so that's kind of it for upcoming and ongoing uh oh also play afternoon tomorrow students are outside and then ongoing students are sort of all getting kind of hyped up for these kind of router States inventory on and we're in a really good Mission uh students are really um kind of getting enamored back into the uh clubs going out of school there's been a huge turnout for a lot of budget safe Club it's not a huge turnout which is great uh cata personal finance a lot of big questions going on um as well as student council has been recently meeting thinking ways to kind of uh get around and have another pep rally knowing again for the uh entire school just to get a lot of sort of cheer going on around the uh holiday season Jessica so boys uh boys soccer is in the tournament yes girls soccer yeah girl stock is going to turn back I believe they have their first game on the right I know they're playing summaries first round it's sometime this week oh a lot of questions yeah so um boys was first round I actually just landed I want to say 30 minutes okay and then uh field hockey's tomorrow we're waiting to see how the football team does you have to win out yeah okay thank you a lot explaining I want to say New Fairfield tomorrow okay yes so Mrs days do you think that um you know we keep talking about working on this uh mascot situation you think maybe in the next couple weeks you might be able to meet new student reps and see if they can begin starting to get some feedback on how we might be able to get a mascot replacement in 2023-24 uh season so that'd be my hope hey thank you very much good evening everybody great to see all of you tonight a few things to let you know that have happened since uh we met two weeks ago um Mr Bishop and I had the pleasure of attending a Hartford area superintendent's meeting last week where the um the head of Connecticut's Department of Homeland Security uh presented information on security plans for schools and it was great for both of us to get an update uh making sure that our schools district and school security plans are as up-to-date as possible and everything we heard we have included in our school security plan so it was a great affirmation um there was also a lot of discussion about school resource officers and the value of school resource officers so I'll be talking more about that at a future meeting uh as to what we learned but it was a great opportunity for both Mr Bishop and myself last week um Canton High School had their annual College chapter National Honor Society induction and I put in each of your packets tonight of the program so you could see uh the students who are newly inducted um I sent a note to what each of the students congratulating them uh this is quite an honor we have 20 students that were inducted into this year's Honor Society and I thank Mrs Cecile Mancini who's our high school advisor to the National Honor of society so when you have a minute please take a look at the program was really a well done ceremony more good news to report that the Connecticut High School coaches association has named coach Timothy O'Donnell the boys outdoor track and field um coach as Connecticut High School coaches association coach of the year for 20 and 22.
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who are not Thanksgiving people there's another holiday you must substitute for that turkey hello only because I can't stand it the next day and I don't like the leftovers with everything else okay maybe one day maybe maybe even that like uh no nothing no no turkey soup no turkey I just can't stand turkey so it's both The Taste but it's especially bad day after well actually pushing it if you're even feeding it to me on Thanksgiving okay anyone else say churches thank you Lord all right what else I don't like yams talk to us about your hatred of DMs I don't like the sweet S I like sweet and savior and other things but I didn't like the question because my husband loves it but I I don't I'll make a little batch for him he's the only one who eats it yes or like the Mexican way where they put the milk in the end that's my mom I'm like ew that's not cereal yeah it's regular milk wow okay they make a soup out of it interesting not not your not your beauty Alex yeah wow wow got it anyone else going off of that for anything or I was thinking the sweet tamales like you said I I'm not a fan I am spicy you need to have meat in my opinion I was having a hard time coming up with the food but thank you like typically like pineapple chunks and raisins oh all right I don't like eggs I want to be the type of person who likes eggnog like you know people have holiday parties I know that's the best [Music] or no it's different I don't think so yeah that's what makes it taste better any other ones least favorite holiday food I think it depends everybody makes a different Thanksgiving dinner I noticed because like my mother-in-law makes a difference she makes like um salad um I think it's a some Peppa beans and then like the turkey and then uh potato salad egg salad and then we don't we have all the you know like the mashed potatoes green beans corn um we have put in the capital of disgusting but I don't add it myself I'll go over and be like okay guys you know but I won't that's what I'm gonna think I'm like no that's not Thanksgiving but everybody does something different I think everywhere I've seen them like okay so yeah that's the only thing Christmas I've never seen Thanksgiving company um some people actually make it and I was surprised too because I don't like it at all anyway so there's people that make it all year round yeah I think it's gross soggy for it I don't think so it's like a bread it's like a Mexican bread puddy okay except they put um like crazy a bunch of stuff peanuts and oh yeah okay this shouldn't be in there yeah after a while how about you ladies me personally I'll eat anything that's in front of me except pumpkin pie [Music] eggs we I I just can't live by especially cake no cake is so it's with the frosting cake is like okay but I really like the dessert person except when it comes to like cookies or brownies okay any others yeah I feel like for me I agree I can't really eat pie like okay you live with me in apple pie is that it gets soggy and like I hate that because there's not a proportionate ratio between the you know the bread and then like you know the Apple slice of everything and then secondly pumpkin pie it's dry and like it's like it doesn't even have a good taste like for me I just don't think I could like even whipped cream can't say that like to me especially don't eat the question you just need to feel me that's a question I would rather eat the crust than like the actual pie okay because there's two sweets yeah I would also excited to Cheesecake yeah so the same time is it picture yeah I think so I just don't like it well I can't eat a feeling for cheesecake but like you know I just have my cheesecake challenge accepted [Music] um I don't like ham period what anytime especially on Thanksgiving just because of how it looks I think it just stresses me out like yeah what is it about how they handle it goes um it just looks like it's not like it's just like really Pinky and like I can't no I don't like it to be like I'm not with a pineapple on it yeah no yeah I guess I don't like I'm not a big meat eater yeah but especially how because I don't like the stuff they put inside the turkey yeah you don't like stuffing what is it about the stuffing that you're you're not into it's just like they are like awesome all right I'm okay with stuff I love stuffing as long as it doesn't have meat in it but don't like stuff it with sausage you know okay oysters awesome um all right so uh we want to start with updates um and hear about again if you're willing to share how the board meeting went um that'd be awesome and then we'll talk about plans it was really nice um that um really sorry and Jesse were there I I wasn't sure who was gonna go um [Music] Carolina was there yes Carolina was sitting here sitting front and center on the dice [Music] yeah and and you both um really nice to go up and announce the mascot yeah together that we did that together and I had written something really quickly and sassy read it over Nathan read it over um also um Jack Luke Jackie who isn't here today she read it so a few people I felt confident after that you know so um it was helpful I felt like it was a nice team effort and yeah it felt really nice I felt proud and and to represent us all you know because I really tried to put together what we've been talking about and experiencing here and I tried to mention everybody you know as a part of that um so yeah I hope I hope I did okay with that I appreciate it everyone no yeah thank you [Music] and I really appreciate both of you I really do um for allowing us a lot of freedom within the limits you know but um and I appreciate everybody I really do so yeah I but like I should be the one up there during this it should be all of us but it worked out yeah I was happy to do it yeah everyone online stinky it's uh Nathan hi everybody I can hear you can you hear me yeah okay great this is so awkward I can see you all but yeah yeah I know just wanted to say uh Danny you did a great job and um it's not easy to go up and speak and it's not easy just to speak on this issue in general right so you know I really commend you for taking that on yourself and going up there to speak again this represent the whole committee and I think you did a great job and I I uh I know that you know everyone feels the same way so thank you so much thank you Nathan my heart was pounding so hard I was using my meditation techniques in there and I'm glad it worked out yeah we went ahead and took what uh Diana said that night and on our Azusa High School mascot committee page on our website we went ahead and put that like a decision update and put what what she wrote so just FYI [Music] and if there's something on there I missed or I did incorrectly please let me know I really like I I wish I would have said more about you ladies and the high school Representatives because you've been such an inspiration like for me personally and I'm just like yes this is the future and yeah I wish I would have said more about that but So the plan for tonight is we will discuss what we do not want to see what you do not want to see the design firm's mock-up to the mascot um and then I said that we're going to talk about what we wanted to see but in fact it sounds like there's going to be a survey sent out to the whole community and so that everyone can participate in this as a group to kind of help create injury map what the mascot might look like um Archer do you want to speak to yeah the same night that uh we presented to the Board of Education the decision of this committee uh we also had a contract I go to the Board of Education this is a group called bot exchange it's a web-based uh company and what they do is they take uh open-ended qualitative surveys and mash it with social media um and so it's a great way to get uh qualitative data um into this system and let's say Ms Fernandez goes on there and I'm just making up the question this is not exactly but you know um what qualities would you like to see in the design of the jaguar versus high school just as an example and then miss France can put you know um our students are Fierce the future is bright and so we would I would love to have the Jaguar kind of be fierce and bright this is an example um and then two days later um the sport goes on there and she puts whatever she's gonna put but then the social media will start to kick in and then she will be asked can you please rate these comments not all of them she'll just get a random batch of comments and she'll be able to rate them um and so it kind of starts lifting up the prominent voices of those that are filling out the survey um and what I really love about it is that the survey when you get the survey you can put it in whatever language you want to put it in and then you take the survey in that language you type it in in that language when you are rating other people's comments they come in your language to rates but when it spits it out to to use end users then it spits it out in English so we don't have you know 13 different surveys one in Spanish one in English one in Mandarin you know there's just one complete survey but those people that want to experience a survey in a language other than English can and they can participate without feeling kind of left out and the the the the um the survey will again generate in that in that language and so uh this will be our launch with this program uh we are hoping to use it in a multitude of ways but this will be our launch and then we can put some demographic data so uh please tell us if you're a student alumni Community member parents staff or whatever so that we can also start seeing it in that and kind of that way as a whole this is what we think of a Jaguar but maybe the Board of Education wants to see but what do the students think and so we can pull that out as well to see if it matches or if it or if it's different um so even though we just got it I did have a conversation with them today um and right now it looks like we would launch that the Monday we get back from Thanksgiving break and it would be open for Monday to Monday so eight days um and then we would just do a massive blast social media blast emails um um Peach star like oh everything that we have in our power uh to put it out there too so there's a feedback awesome and then you'll take that data and then send that on to yes then we'll take that data send it on to the designer um which is yet to be named we don't know yet but whatever desire to have that in front of them to say okay and when they design it they can try to capture those sentiments in the design so all of the information gathered will be presented to the board and then they'll take it from there or they don't have any further decision with them um maybe at the end the designer will narrow it down to maybe three options okay so they will present their options to the board and then the board can say your name yeah or we will present that okay and maybe the board has a different decision maybe the board has a different idea but for right now that's kind of the way that I can Envision that so just kind of taking everybody's ideas and putting them together yeah so I'll give you one example in here somebody just mentioned oh it'd be nice to have like a hint of red and then some people say oh that'd be nice that'd be nice that that's the concept okay right so if somebody put it puts says you know hey it'd be nice to have a hints around to honor Platt so as is an example again those comments can start to be liked or rated high or whatever so that they can start raising over the broad spectrum of people correct right correct yeah and so there's certain comments then we'll that will rise to the top and those yeah probably the ones yeah so taking people's words and turning into divisions yes got it yeah I've heard really powerful stuff about this and again we're looking to use it for lots of different ways but this is this is how we'll kick it on any questions about that just something all right um all right so that means that for tonight what we're just talking about what we the committee does not want to see and design firms mock-ups like what what do we not want to see in the genre and this is specifically for the sake of maintaining an image that is culturally appropriate right um so yeah let's just shall we just open up the floor any thoughts I have a question will the Jaguar replace all current logos that are being used now like the spear and the A and all that will replace everything on all uniforms signs no head so I'm assuming that when we go out for the for the design of the logo and the mascot of course high schools uh you typically don't have a designer create a logo or a mascot you get a set right because sometimes you need it for the table dressing sometimes you need it for a hat something sometimes you need it for your stationery and so you get a set of logos so I I can't imagine um like the a being updated you know polished up so I do see some of those updates um I don't see um like like a unless something has the current mascot there's that would be like an automatic like the football field as an example right but if a uniform right now says like AHS I I don't see that like oh that has to be changed right away don't they have a couple murals in like in the gym and on the wall yes those will be replaced what about the ones donated by like specific classes probably yeah we'll deal with those as we go along but yeah and some people have made some suggestions like maybe like um if it's that big maybe replicating it as smaller and have like a little Museum or like a story of the past or something like that yeah like right there in the gym where they have all those trophies and things like that would they be so would that be considered that could be like the little four years or in the library or something you know I'm not saying that's gonna happen for sure and they just said something that we have discussed and talked about good questions so any other questions or just something the ideas all right so ideas there's a specific the things that uh the community does not want to see um in order to maintain that maintain the image is um cultural appropriate mess well I actually have something yeah um I think that the Jaguar I don't know the right word maybe it's iconography but I don't think you should have Aztec iconography so I don't think it should look like an Aztec carving of the Jaguar because we talked about not appropriating cultural images so that's my I was thinking the same thing like a headdress or a spear or something of drama or something like that like the pyramids or something representing the Aztecs did you know what you're talking about I'm just saying yeah that it shouldn't be there and even the Jaguar itself should not um I think we saw a picture of one of the proposals that was full of jewels and Beads and right not like that yeah like the Aesthetics of a Jaguar itself and you're also saying like like things that might accompany the Jaguar that we you don't want to see like things that are um associated with the assets okay what would this out would this capture it this way so the Jaguar you shouldn't be able to see the jaguar and say oh that's an Aztec Jaguar correct correct anything else I agree and I've had a couple people mention um at Azusa High School using the Jaguar as a headdress like the Jaguar itself as a headdress and I thought that was a little it's a good idea you know to have a mascot where a student or an adult could put the Jaguar head on in the Jaguar mouth is open and the face is in there I just think we we would have to be careful that it doesn't look as Tech because there are Aztec headdresses and Aztec Dancers use them now and there there are images of them in the past the Aztecs actually used so to be careful not that it doesn't look as Tech and it just looks like a jaguar yeah or like a more traditional mascot that you see run out in the field or exactly during rallies or whatever um but if you look at it you wouldn't think that there's a relationship to the Aztecs any other thoughts there's also space if we want to voice counter opinions here we can discuss those too much oh look at Jacksonville Jaguars mascot oh I have one more but it doesn't look like a cartoon okay because I've seen some cartoony Jaguars because they just don't look strong you know it's such a strong animal that it should be given it's Justice you know to represent it in its strength and so a cartoon I've seen a few cartoon images online and they just don't look it just doesn't look right now that the Cheetos yeah is that more of a she would like it being culturally inappropriate or is that more of like an aesthetic kind of preference in your mind it's both okay I think it's both can you talk to us a little bit more about like the cultural appropriate because the Jaguar truly is a power animal it is a it's a it's a very important animal and and it is culturally um respected highly the jaguar and so I feel like we should um represent it in a way that respects that but also where we see it and we feel it's strength I don't know how to say that you know like we can feel the pride of the Jaguar when you look at it and so a cartoon figure I wouldn't hear that I don't think high school students do it I don't know yeah I also agree because I think of Jaguar I mean a cartoon version I think of more of an elementary school level you see that more of that you see that more of a child's level maybe so you want kind of a more mature looking one I think we went to the CIF football games game on Friday night and it happened their mascot was a jaguars so it was interesting because I was looking at all the things they had and there's it was nice the way they had it on the football field and on their scoreboard and stuff that's all I could see but um their helmets too I think had something um but yeah it was more um like you would see like on a professional football team more apps maybe even on the field is a little bit more abstract with the Jaguar it wasn't I mean with their school colors and I thought that looked that looked nice that looked that was good I agree about the cartoonish I'm related more to like an elementary like childish more so and I like the Lee lion exactly podcast I mean that's cute [Laughter] uh any any other thoughts I saw some other nodding around here unlike the cultural appropriateness of the want to think of like a cartoon Jaguar well I just don't feel like that's and I'm speaking for you so feel free to jump in but all of our high school Representatives talked about having a mascot they could be proud of and I don't want to be a caricature I don't want to be something that's making fun of the Jaguar because it represents the student box it should be something that they could go proud about and I as I'm really glad there'll be a survey that includes everybody because then you'll have their voices you need to look tough like the way she did the dog that dog like tough [Laughter] I guess like for me I am deviating a bit away from a cartoonish display from like she echoed and also because like what she echoed as well with the um no matter what our mascot has always been associated with the aspect because aspect is in our name so automatically when people look at it there's domestic Jaguars okay so the Jaguar is going to be Aztec right but then they see a cartoon they don't add up that contrast already seems like it's cultural appropriation we're misrepresenting it based on cartoon modernize right it might be yeah so that's why I'm against not just for that sake and also because you know I mentioned this before the accident Jaguar is not something that students you know wanted initially but this is something that we have to like learn to like grow affiliated with it like learn to resonate with it because ultimately it's going to become a part of our school identity it's just one of many things the masculinity comprised of all of our identity it's just one of many and our students have the ability and so do administrating staff to choose how to value that so that's why I strongly believe in what you said with fortitude and strengths and having that Holiness especially when we see it in games and pride and all of the other events because having a cartoon I don't believe would you know exemplify that as much as having a more realistic and more honorable approach if that makes sense um yes yeah great anything else other ideas or other things we want to say about that I want to cut it off we're still being discussed that so I think when you think of a Jaguar it's going to be basically one simple color and that's it it's what's going to be around it that'll probably make it pop you know a Jaguar is a Jaguar what can you really do with a jaguar and stripes or Cheeto print or whatever you know I mean there's not much you can do um it's just I think it's going to be more what you want around it so like they said as long as we don't put anything that's going to be offensive I think you know it's fine I think the Jaguar color I think the color of the Jaguar should remain black not a white not a stripe not a you know because I know there's several species of jaguars I think the Jaguars should remain black just to keep it in general and then of course the design around it like she's like loses the same could be a little bit different but to keep the main part of the Jaguar block what if the background's locked [Music] I mean most of the Jaguar logos they have they do have like a Cheeto print on it they most of them do but there are those that are black so I mean you could and if it like she said it does have a black then maybe kind of changes that maybe do the cheetah print on it but still just maybe like black and I don't know whatever colors instead like the blue or the background's black I think these are great ideas I'm wondering we're kind of creeping into like the aesthetic like what we want to see as opposed to like what we don't want to see right right because what we want to see it's going to be a larger Community discussion right um is there anything that we don't want to see just for the very same like cultural several colors for the sake of like culturally appropriate spots and stripes and all that I think it should just be plain a solid a solid color whatever the color ends up being not patterned so it's not a pattern not a pattern on it I guess so it's looking at Jaguars I didn't realize they had so many spots on them I know right I was thinking more of a panther I guess me too so cool ones are like that too and it may turn out that the designer just emit the spots just because they won't show up well on different surfaces sure um I'm open to seeing what a designer offers I'm not gonna say no it has to be a sleek black panther because now I mean no we're Jaguars and now we've handcuffed the design here right that's true and um and I appreciate this but people actually have they know where the Jaguars now so people have been submitting I know that um we had a good uh representation uh shown to us uh and now people have been just like oh what about this what about this um and again it'll go to save their ideas submit it with the survey you know it'll go to to a to to a designer a design firm um but just interesting you guys are saying like some have submitted a jaguar and it has like a swath of blue um and then they heard our like red and then like I was like and I I got I don't know that we want to close ourselves off to two ideas that a designer might have that like oh that pops like oh like I never would have thought about that but that's like that's something you know so what the designers might come up with but also what you know the students and the rest of the community absolutely yeah like yeah staying open to that I was just more concerned with the cultural yeah right yeah and I like the way now the kind of took um Diana's like cartoonish because like if someone were to say well wait a minute you have to ask the Jaguars and now you're making fun of it because your characterizing there as a cartoon like I didn't think about it that in that respect yeah I think just on the other end of like not wanting it to be cartoonish we also are for me personally I don't think we would want it to look um like too gruesome like we wanted to look strong you know and and represent the you know the school and the community in a strong um vibrant way but we also don't want it to be on the other end of the spectrum where it's gruesome you know like how blood yeah that also could be like a negative um appropriation of the of the Jaguar as well awesome that Dr red smell anything else that's a good question yeah so um I'm just wondering because I feel like I misunderstood or maybe I just like flanked out but um what's the reason for like wanting just no patterns on the Jaguar like what's the main reason for that like in regards to cultural appropriation because I know I came up but I'm not sure like why we wouldn't want that on there yeah to me it sounded like that was leaning toward the more aesthetic kind of preference um that we just started that conversation and it wasn't necessarily linked with whole appropriation um am I am I right about that um yeah so I don't think you landed on the code for appropriation or the cultural inappropriates although I if we do take Its Spots away it's not a Jaguar I just worry about that a little bit and if we keep the spots something about the color of it like I mean it's beautiful I I it's gorgeous I love it but I just don't it doesn't feel right like to have the color so I agree with the black but what if we have it black and white with black and white colors and stuff like a shading of white or something yeah instead of using the actual color the brownish orange color I just thought about that like I wouldn't want to lose the spots but maybe just no color just black and white so they see that it's a jaguar looks like a Jaguar because you can miss it misappropriate I mean uh misinterpreted as a panther yeah [Music] they get sent out right to contribute like those and then they laughing at me realistic [Music] um but yeah and then we can you know then the community can vote on it right and and those ideas can charge so anything else just really focused on things that are culturally inappropriate that we don't want to see in the design there might not be much more to say so I don't wanna I think we've just maybe the way like say it's gonna have like an outfit like like a teacher or like a skirt or something I don't know it shouldn't um like representing like an aspect how they dress I feel like if there were to be like a uniform design you should be like like maybe just like like a jersey or something associated with that so it's not like appropriating like an aspect of how they dress yeah it's great all right friends anything else we need to talk about yeah all right thank you all for being here for continuing to show up for the time and energy you produce this um it's it's been I mean I understand like all this is volunteer time none of you are getting paid to do this so thank you for for being willing to be a part of this process it's it's been it's been really great to work with all of you yeah and I urge you to jump on that uh not exchange um the more again we can give the designer I think the better and um um I'm sure that will land on something uh that represents uh the will of the stakeholders um and we move from there so again just Echo Jessica thank you so much for your time um and for Allah where we landed so thank you
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so this year wanted to look at how we're doing in relation to other DuPage High School Districts so for example districts that have high schools like glenbard or Hinsdale the the DuPage County High School Districts and looked this time at the percentage of students who meet or exceed standards and that's roughly the top third of students so the expectation about a third of your students would be meeting or exceeding and the state has set a pretty high bar and they did that they're required to do that by the way in the Essa plan so the bar to meet in Illinois for both evidence-based reading and writing and for math is 540. interestingly though the College Board Benchmark to where the college board says a student should be is 480 providence-based reading and writing and 5 30 for math so I just want to share that as you consider the previous slides but we took a look here to see how we are doing in comparison not just to the state but in comparison to the other the other DuPage High School Districts and we were down in evidence-based reading and writing terms of the percentage of students that matter exceeded 5.6 percent the average for the high school districts was 5.8 if you just look at 2022.
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however because at this point and I did send out some data on substitute teachers in our district and that data is pretty consistent across school districts right now regarding how many we need versus how many we have and so we have a lot of times we have classes that are uncovered and what does happen with a lot of that it varies from building to building but um I was speaking to one administrator one building who might have a few classes in a large group instruction area by themselves and be supervising those groups of students well we haven't had a lot of major issues come out of that but obviously not a lot of educational value is going on when that takes place so what we were proposing for this year because of the Intensive shortage was to alter the structure that we would use to pay the cmea members who agreed to substitute during their plan periods so for the first 15 occurrences we would pay the rate that is in the contract once we got to 16 times we would double that rate and once we got to 51 times we would triple that using last year's numbers we put it through there weren't a large number but there's a twofold reason for doing that one is obviously to incentivize it the other is interestingly enough it might reduce the sum of the absences if I have a chance of making a little extra money being there today so there's a couple of reasons that we wanted to put forward with that now the union has been given this we have not yet we've asked for response sometime this week and I know they are looking at this so once they finally respond I did just want to talk about this with the board so you know what we're pushing putting forward so basically that's the gist of it it would still not require any more times for people to substitute it would just incentivize them to go beyond what is required and I did talk to the business manager about this and the business manager was not afraid of of the numbers that I showed him so will all three of you I'm sorry all three of these mlus be on the agenda next week I'm hopeful that the internal substitution one will be I the streaming one will be I am not yet sure about the payment for packing uh we'll see if we get that one back as well if they all three are back we'll put all three of them on okay Lyle I do have a question um a Facebook post that I saw regarding the pay for guest teachers being raised and there were many guest teachers who commented asking if they were going to get that right then and I don't know if anybody addressed that or not but there were quite a few who said does that mean those of us who are already guest teachers not new wasn't only not okay stop was it only for new guest teachers or were all of our guest teachers getting that I would assume that it would be but they were asking the question and I don't know if anybody addressed an answer to them or not we we did there was an incorrect number that was put in there that was corrected and I did ask that our substitute uh our set finder coordinator reach out to our guest teachers to explain what that what that number was the number that was published was for retired teachers and so a new a new sub or a substitute teacher who is not a retired teacher would not get that rate but it was pretty clear it was for retired teachers it just had an erroneous rate with it and people questioned that rate because it was significantly higher than what they had seen I'm going to I'm going to double check but I am almost positive that everybody was by the SubFinder coordinator it may not hit everybody but I know she was reaching out okay any other questions comments on personal and culture okay Lionel thank you next up is business and I'll turn it over to Mr surma for the next two hours yeah well I've only been here 25 minutes I hear you want to be here for a little longer at least so you know um you can do that Don hopefully we'll go through these other ones really quick um good evening board Dr Cara and the public and also our guests that are here um let me share just a couple of things Don is pulling up a presentation which is the last agenda item that I have but let me just share a couple of things um number one under business is the establishment of December 13 2022 is a day for the truth and Taxation hearing for the 22 tax levy so that will be on the agenda next week we'll be I'll be giving the tax levy presentation through through some taxation so that's an annual thing we have to do the levy is due to the county clerk's office by the last Tuesday of the month so then it'll be approved the following week hopefully which is December 20th and then I can get it to the county number two is a resolution authorizing the submission of an application for the property tax relief pool fund again this is something that we've done annually that is part of the property tax relief Grant this is this is just a resolution that will be on the agenda next week that authorizes me to submit that application I believe and I'll have it as part of my Levy presentation also that I'll talk about this in detail I believe that we'll be eligible for it this year so that we will be able to a big testation but what this resolution does it just tells me to uh put in the application um number three four and five are accepting and approving the base bid for the 2023 renovation work that's going to take place at CSK Balmoral and Crete as I shared with the board we did those bids early this year we did get them out I did come back and so uh the low bid was RL sohole on this the reason we did it early enough is so that we can start ordering supplies and equipment things like chillers our rooftop units all of that that need to be done so that will be on the agenda for next week also to approve those just so you know item number three has different amounts it's off by by a thousand bucks but just oh I see that yep I see that so I'll we'll take care next week yep hey Ken yeah it's Ariel's Soul general contractor good or bad probably good but they seem to consistently be the lowest bidder which is good because we haven't had any problems with them doing work right right no I've been very happy with that Mr Brown um I will I will share that in this last round we really only had two contractors Bid And the reason for that is because part of the requirement to turn in that bid is that if you were the low bid you had to have shop drawings done within five days the reason for that is because we wanted to make sure with the shop drawings and Bill Bill knows what this means is that to have the shop drawing so that we could order the equipment right away we didn't want any delay in that so there were a lot of contractors that said to us okay no we don't want to because they can't turn around that fast time frame solo can go ahead Bill I'm sorry time frame is too short time frame is very short but we wanted that and so we had two that uh I know on the first bid there was about a I think it's about about a 600 000 difference uh the second one was a little closer and it was only about three or four hundred thousand now if you now the addition is done by CCC Holdings right yeah so they are also holding at the high school edition right okay so that's a different company so you said a couple of days it was only two bidders yes and what type of contingency do you have in place this is hypothetical but yet it's real that if you have wine Soul bitter your intentions is to at least get three bits so we can have something to compare it to right right do you would you go out and rebid do you allow yourself to have time to rebid it because a lot of these beds are time sensitive right so from a board perspective if we noted typically you go out based on x amount of dollars to go out and get three bids and you come back to us with one bidder right so do we expect to can you you know at least give us something say you know what that sounds reasonable or do some research and say you know what I I don't know well one of the things I'll compare the bid result the little bit that we get with the budget that has been put together okay okay and for the most part I will tell you on the very on the first two the ones at CSK in Balmoral um came in pretty good close to the estimate uh that we had uh okay so that was good and I'm talking construction costs I'm not talking with contingencies or architectural fees or other you know straight construction cost is what this one is the second one the third one I should say with the one at Crete actually came in about a million dollars higher or so however a lot of that is flooring and asbestos abatement that we're going to do there it was supposed to be in year three so that money is there and allocated we're just moving it from year three over to year two and it's true so I'm pretty comfortable with the no yeah you know RL Soho they don't know how many people are Bid that's correct this is all still bit Yeah so so I'm pretty good with them so I wouldn't recommend going back out at all I think this is time sensitive I think the numbers are good and I think too that our our house RL Soho has performed well for us too so when you open when you have your bid opening are is that live is that Zoom it has to be a public opening are they here on site when you're on site it happens you know in our in the Board conference room up in front there and you're you're allowed to anyone can come for that including the contractor so they are there also now in comparison I will tell you we had two bits for that if you go down under number six which is the base bid for the asbestos abatement so is that a mandatory walkthrough it was a mandatory walkthrough okay and we wanted that so that there were again because of the scope of this we wanted to make sure the contractors were aware of that so we didn't get any goofy pricing and all that stuff so they knew the square footage so again we had nine I think overall we had we had 11 contractors walk through and I think Keith we had how many submit seven six that's good sample good sample so that was good so so again I you know again it just has to do a lot with your skull that's all okay less yeah yeah yes there was right just last question are you looking to are you asking for a performance bond in any of these bids there are performance Bonds on these uh I believe it's ten percent is what the performance behind is really yes okay on all of them great okay thank you um let me turn number six and also on the back on the back of your agenda number seven which is the flooring for uh will be on also the agenda for next week for the board meeting next week six is the Asheville of asbestos uh abatement now again keep in mind that at balmoran Creek we're only doing a couple rooms but here at ELC we're doing the administrative offices and then the other side is the flooring again that price has come in pretty well I'll share this in my presentation it came in at about uh half maybe about 50 40 or 50 percent of what I had estimated so I'm a little again just for clarification's sake I thought we were looking to expand about two million dollars for a bit asbestos mitigation it was about 2.9 as you'll see in my presentation it's down to I I'm actually about 2 million now but overall okay so what is this point 13 113 000 that's of course it doesn't include look like all of our schools but no a great deal of them right so at service around at belmoral and actually includes two rooms just two rooms okay which is the multi which is a cafeteria I believe and like the serving room the same thing at Crete just two rooms there that's it so that's all we need at Balmoral no no no no no no oh there's a lot more okay there's a lot more I'll just say we wanted to do those rooms because when we do the other rooms at over the summer we need to move the furniture into these other rooms in peace and then the the ELC and the administrative officers that's just the administrative offices get it that are being done so okay I would look at it in a number and say man you got a good deal here yeah well not that good yeah not that good um and then at number seven is the flooring so that's the flooring that will go on on this uh we had three bidders on that and Superior floorings who actually was the one that did the flooring um in our current administrative offices they won the bid on that one all one also um Cheryl when you do the agenda I items three through seven those should be out as separate items to vote on not part of the consent agenda my last item that I want to share with the board and talk to the board about and also share with the public is about capital projects and kind of looking forward as we start looking ahead at capital projects so um our executive team kind of put some things together and want to share where kind of a recommendation where we think we should go next you know you know part of um being successful is just like planning forward having a vision of how we're going to go forward and if we want to do things two or three years from now we need to start planning those now and that and so that's the purpose of this we're kind of in the middle right now or kind of over the hump on our short-term facility plan so this is kind of an extension of this so I'm going to share with you some things again I'll share with the public that this is on our website on the in board books so they'll be able to pull this up I'm going to talk about a few items everything in red here I'm going to talk about again about asbestos abatement I'm going to talk about additional classrooms at the middle school talk about outdoor athletic facilities at our high school district office relocation Early Learning Center expansion and also Outdoor Learning Centers in that I want to share with everybody this is really a high level view I'm not going to get into a lot of detail but it's just a high level view of a vision where we want to go and then we could take it from there so let me talk about asbestos abatement I've shared this with the board in the public and our last meeting that we had we are going to be doing asbestos abatement at Balmoral Creek CSK the Illinois Center administrative offices I had estimated the cost before at about 2.9 billion million not billion million no look it had some of our looking at some of our estimates uh I know really uh I think it's going to come in more at about two million dollars we're looking at completing that project by August of 23 it'll be done a little bit sooner that but again August of 23 all of that will be done at that point all of our asbestos will be have taken out of all of our facilities in that most of the asbestos that we're talking about or almost all of it is in the flooring nowhere else other other asbestos abatement has happened while we've taken out pipes or redone HVAC all of that has been taken out this is all really flooring and can that 2 million has already funded with the prior bond issue it is funded with the prior bond issue dish have an opportunity I can take some of that money out of sr2 that I've allocated to okay so there's a couple of things yes and that there is again some of this abatement money contract is already in the contracts that you're going to be approving and the base bids and all of that stuff we don't have to do any of that stuff anymore that's all we'll be in there so it's just for me and you know this is going to sound bad but you know it's just juggling some fun around and using it what's best for the district okay additional classrooms at Cleveland Middle School we've had a lot of discussion about this and so one of the things I decided to do is I decided to go back to 2015 when the original contract took place of the addition at the middle school when that was approved that was November 12 to 15 I actually went back I actually pulled the minutes and there were two alternate bids on that contract two out of the like eight or nine but alternative in number six was to ward two an alternate 56 of two additional classrooms on the northwest corner for 264 thousand that was to be defeated uh one to four with two members absent and then there was an alternate bid seven for two more additional classrooms on the Southeast corner of of the middle school for 300 000 that was defeated two to three with two members absent okay now please tell I'm not here to discuss it I just wanted to give some historical background of this and then to say well maybe I'll take a look at this because we know that our estimate if we were to put on a net eight classroom which is about 10 million dollars and so this is a drawing that you see this is directly from dla Architects that did the addition over at our Middle School this was the condition that took place so they were going to put two classrooms here this was the alternate bid number I think this was and this is alternate bid number seven putting two more classrooms one on top of the other over there get to school for more classrooms so I asked our architect to price that out and what they said was it'll cost us about 3.6 million dollars now to put those classrooms on okay from 575 to 3.6 again I'm not here to dispute these numbers I'm just saying this may be a viable option okay now I'm going to turn this over and again I think we can complete this by 2024 in August I'm going to turn this over to Dr Kara if you want to talk about this and I know Ms krikos is here also to talk a little bit about this so Dr Karen I'm going to turn it over here yeah I think you know the question that Mr sawales as well as many of you also asked is is that enough is that going to be adequate um so we want to make sure miss creasa was here to address any questions as well but in looking at this we wanted to go back to look at the four whether we have more that might be needed later on because we know we have a lot of teachers that are still on carts we recognize that we wanted to give us ourselves some time maybe a year to review curriculum offerings structures Staffing as you know we do have Staffing shortages that are coming in we're not even sure that we'll be able to staff all those classrooms in the near future so those are some things I think we want to take a look at but we do recognize that four would be certainly helpful in kind of offsetting some of the Middle School needs now miss criso is here if anyone wanted to ask some questions um for her I don't know if anyone has any questions or not but yes and I was curious after the last meeting how many teachers still are on carts and not in a classroom hi everyone um on cart we have five language acquisition teachers on cart that's Spanish they teach foreign language it's a requirement as part of IB it's a year-long requirement it's not a semester type class it's full-on part of the core one reading intervention teacher on a cart deals with our lowest readers in sixth grade our honors math teacher in eighth grade one of our honors Math teachers has to take up the library one period today because we don't have a classroom to offer him to have his geometry class in I have three teachers who work in connections that's a trimester based class and it kind of picks up a lot of the different state mandates that we get financial literacy units that type of thing research units they cover a lot of the pieces that don't fit into a particular area that's another three on cart in our special education department I have five instructional spaces that are dedicated to instructional level classes not multi-needs multi-needs has their own two spaces if I have five instructional spaces only to service our special ed population four of those teachers are fully on cart they don't have a classroom to their name they don't even have an office space to their name the other teachers who are on cart have office spots dedicated to like have a phone and all that to work on so in essence when you're asking me how many are on cart at any given point in time you're talking about you know eight to eight to ten teachers who could be on car at any point in time now I mean you know the rooms we'll take what we can get to start with I mean honestly you know when you look at it and I think of a cost comparison it really just boggles my mind but you know we can't go back in history and clearly we do need additional spaces um you know we have a lot of program needs that fall into the IB category with you know eight core classes that are required by the nyp for us to have in place so that we can at least make sure that we're providing a full middle years program to our students we're back up for reevaluation in the next year or two here so we're starting our self-study year next year and we'll be back on reevaluation track with IB the following year so in the past when it's come down to requirements for the program those eight core classes must be taught and they must be taught at all three grade levels in the nyp so when we look at spaces that does require some dedicated locations for things like foreign language or things like reading intervention or things like honors geometry and it runs the gamut it's not just my high needs High needs kids or my kids who are struggling readers but everybody is affected by it all the kids and um and your staff your middle school staff is fantastic they have made do with what we have been given and they have done it very commendably and if that's the one thing I can share with you right now is I'm super proud of my staff for doing what they have we've come up with some creative scheduling we've come up with some ways to work around the the the space issues that we encounter but it is it's a daily struggle sometimes to just even find a space to work with a group of kids who might need intervention or might need some enrichment so sometimes that becomes more of a detriment to the children than you would imagine because the teacher has nowhere to work with them in a private location sometimes because every room is being used every period what else can I share so I do have a question yes I didn't I didn't know I didn't go back to the 15 notes like Mr summer did but my understanding was for the longest time you guys needed eight classrooms so if you got eight classrooms today would that satisfy 100 your needs percent but it would be more like in the 80 range it wouldn't be 100 of my needs what would four classrooms do would be halfway there maybe it depends on how how I structure I'd have to move people so the minute you say that there's four additional classrooms like we pod the kids you know so all the kids are close by by their team so it would just mean some moving up people around some seeing if we can you know how we can double up because we always double up on all the spaces anyway so we would end up doubling up on the spaces we'd have a little less movement with some kids having to cross the building we'd have less movement with teachers having to cross the building for periods um so you know we'd be you know close to halfway there if you will so back in 15 this wouldn't have satisfied your issue anyways no we asked them to build a rectangle I mean we talked about the fact that the building itself while it's beautiful it's a lovely Edition it doesn't service the needs of the building it I mean we have a lovely Amphitheater that is just that a lovely Amphitheater it doesn't service our needs I have an aging I mean even if we're talking about facility itself we have an aging you know gym area our bleachers could probably stand to be replaced somewhere down the line and if we're talking about expanding the Athletics program to be able to feed into the high school I don't have gym space to be able to add additional programming in the after hours because our games and our matches actually take up the gym space four days a week typically and so I mean I just left there we were still finishing up basketball matches at home we have two to a time two at a time so yeah we've out we we've outgrown the space in essence and when you look at what the high school has compared to us we're three-fourths the size of the high school and they have so much more space and square footage per kid than than we're dealing with and and so that's really ultimately I think you know we've been pretty reasonable in waiting I want to say that the staff have been pretty patient but these are also you know it affects how you program it affects how you're able to execute um activities for kids I mean there's I can't never have the entire student body together anymore because three grade levels don't fit in the gym in a way that works in a safe way for the kids so so moving forward I think you'd mentioned before Dr Cara the teacher shortage is real yeah yeah and to get back to where we were feasible in a realistic thought process could never happen may never happen again right to get back to where we were so if you look at the programming what could you find I mean are four or eight classrooms gonna satisfy then I guess I wonder why would it not like help me out why why okay it'll help I'm just trying to see what's the difference with less students now than before we're only about I mean my enrollment right now is at 9.50 I want to say I'm only about a little bit under less than 100 Kids less than that from what you had in 2015.
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I'm looking for clarifications and actions taken by administrators since you have silenced his GSA teacher on Thursday October 20th per my son the GSA after school group had a surprise inspection by two administrators who came to sit in the meeting Miss Novak and Miss Regan it was disguised as we come to participate very deceptive on your part I have questions that should be answered on the next board meeting why would this happen now has this ever happened before is the GSA being targeted and disguised as the Indiana's AG vague and ambiguous parent Bill of Rights then in fact say nothing about lgbtq do all after school groups have monitoring disguise as participation the Bible group doesn't seem to be having issues with their freedom of speech despite being a religious group on Tuesday October 25th the GSA students created a sign that was placed above the locker in the hallway next to a teacher's classroom not in a classroom the banner was then taken down after being up only seven hours not in a classroom I want an explanation why this was done since it was not in a classroom it is such a shame that this is what's consuming the school district all due to bigots dogmatizers and their decomposing maggot jack-o'-lantern cult yet The Bullying that's not handled and swept under the rug isn't on the agenda the drug use and distribution that happens daily and abundantly isn't on the agenda the sex that occurs as if the school was a motel isn't on the agenda but of course rainbow flags are much much more detrimental to the well-being of bigots and dogmatizers we are coming to your voting polls all the way from the Far West where Pride flags are not political I leave you with a quote bigotry is where arrogance and ignorance meet equality is where diversity and empathy meet something Indiana is going to learn at some point in the meantime I will continue to shout it from the rooftops thank you [Applause] Kathy kameki uh we are at a pivotal moment in our community oh I'm sorry Kathy kaneki11448 Valley Court St John sorry about that uh we are at a pivotal moment in our community where the election tomorrow could take our school district forward or backwards depending on the person that wins we have a person that is trying to take over that would uh that is addicted to the mask issue mentally cannot move on or think clearly enough to put a well-rounded education above their own personal agenda a person who gets input into my children's education when her own do not attend the schools I am hopeful our school board and administration will continue to progress forward with policies that will attract and retain teachers and allow students to feel included and welcomed in the district as the school board saw radical individuals speak at these meetings for several years about their belief in faith over fear in terms of the pandemic I want to unpack what these people have faith in and why our school board should not entertain the fears they present faith and Facebook health care but fear of doctors trying to stop people from dying faith in Fox News and politicians that were telling people what they wanted to hear fear of doctors health care workers and public servants that were trying to save people while learning how the virus worked and spread faith and natural immunity and fear of a piece of cloth on their face faith that the American flag could be used to justify hate and ignorance against those they don't agree with fear of a rainbow flag or a black lives matter poster because they do not in fact believe that lgbtq people should have pride or that black lives in fact matter faith that people can attack public servants over and over again in order to be the loudest and most ignorant in the room faith that their behavior would be rewarded with the school board seat fear of parents that disagree with them I did not put up these signs but it doesn't mean I don't have faith faith in public education and faith in our teachers administrators in the school board to represent the diverse student community that makes the tri-town area so great faith at our school administration and school board will continue to support our teachers by allowing them to teach the curriculum they were trained as professionals to do faith that our community of parents Administration and board continue to support our students in their Learning Journey and allow students to feel seen and heard as well as safe I have faith that the schools will continue to speak up for our underrepresented students that may feel school is the one safe space they have I hear often about parental choice I have witnessed parents scream about their choice with no regard for my children or my choices I have seen utter lack of coherent thinking and reasonable thought in the name of choice these choices affect my children as well are my children less worthy because I have not been so loud out I indeed have a choice my choice is to support my community as we are all responsible for creating an educated populace that must interact with the world around them Sheltering students from the world is not having faith that is in fact living in fear thank you thank you Alan haraf foreign good evening my name is Alan haroff of 2609 Howard Castle Drive and I wanted to comment on some things that were presented last month's meeting first I wanted to commend those students who bravely spoke out if what they said is true that they've been that their their voice is concerned about bullying and harassment to the board members and staff are not being heard or they are not getting results then you the board and the staff are failing them if they feel that the only way they can fit in or the only way that they know how to who to turn to for support and inclusion is through this play of a symbolic flag the you and the board members and teachers the staff are failing them I'd like to think that some sort of ongoing training and education amongst the staff and students is taking place to address these concerns I'm a retired Coast Guard Master Chief and we're required to participate in annual training in things like leadership human relations sexual harassment and suicide prevention when I worked in education at a private school in Illinois we had a peer mediation program where underclassmen helped mediate conflicts between their peers we also had an off-campus Kairos Retreat program where students with the guidance and supervision of adult retreatants spend three days and nights building friendships relationships and trust or reflecting on one's own faith and purpose well I wouldn't expect the public school to offer something similar my point is I would hope that you the board are looking for ways other than a symbolic flag to bring students together and Bridge differences if not you're failing your students and the parents I also wanted to commend those who spoke up against the staff member who knowingly or unknowingly engage in promoting his or her political views in the classroom through a poster the individuals have brought this to light need to be heard respected and included just like anyone else they are not bigoted as someone inferred I commend the board for removing the poster because it was indeed political and multiple fronts but if it's true that this person who brought this concern to your attention felt they needed to do so at a board meeting because their emails were being ignored then you have failed that individual or individuals as well at last week's meeting I was left wondering if the board knew about that poster before it was brought to light how long they may have known about it and if it took this issue to be brought to light to ensure that your rooms are being inspected and to be in compliance with the school policy and finally one of the board members at last last meeting made a comment that caught my attention at one point he remarked that the reason the board needed to remove the the symbols was so that the school would be in compliance with the state law but then you interjected something that I thought sounded a little personal by saying something to the fact that he continues to find himself in conflict with the views of the Indiana attorney general I just thought that that uh 15 seconds I thought the dead Comet was a little inappropriate and made me feel or questioned if this board was capable of making balanced and fair decisions moving forward thank you [Music] and that is our public comments so with that we will move on to board comments and consideration of future agenda items Mr Marshall I have nothing this evening thank you Mrs Kelly Mike's not on as everybody knows tomorrow is election day please research your candidates carefully and get out there and vote that's all I have to say thank you Dr Malco okay sorry but sometime Malco Medlin kind of sounds alike I should go to that multilingual training you're offering maybe that would help me no um I wanted to say congratulations to the students tonight that were recognized for their academic honors and it goes deeper than that and that's the one thing that I has really come to me this week I was speaking to one of our high school teachers very well respected and and just a quality individual she said you know Janice I have worked at Valparaiso and I have worked another school up here in the region I can't think of what she said and now I'm at Lake Central and she said I wonder if people really understand the resources that our students have available to them and I thought wow what a neat statement and that's coming from somebody that works internally inside and sees all the good with the bad so I thought that was quite a celebration and I know that our cross-country boy and girl teams did very well our cheerleaders were first in the state um gosh what else I mean it's been going oh our volleyball my goodness and I drove down to see that game that was quite a game Hamilton Southeastern had a six foot three Spiker and you talk about spiking the bombs she was amazing but the volleyball girls did a good job with that too and of course I want to shout out about Michelle snow now Michelle snow is a fourth grade teacher at bibbage elementary she was named the Indiana academic coach of the year for the state of Indiana and I just wanted to shout that out Michelle is one of the best teachers that you're going to find 1999 when I came to Lake Central and she was one of my teachers at bibbage and I said Michelle I need somebody to help me with spellbowl we didn't have spillball up in the region at that time and Michelle was the risk taker she's the one that took the responsibility and stood with it and look where it is now almost this is the strongest area in the state of Indiana for spellbo so that's just the type of leadership we have at Lake Central and I just wanted to share that with everyone because I think so many times we get hung up on the little interpretations of things what does this mean what does that mean should I support this should I not support that but when you look at the bigger picture there's a lot of great things going on so thanks to everyone for making that happen sorry I'm long thank you Dr Medlin um I just want parents to know that the board and administration continues to Grapple with the complexities of making all the students and teachers and Staff feel welcome and feel like they are part of a greater community and it's unfortunately become a complex issue it's something that we don't take lightly and the communication amongst the board and administration is taking place and hopefully will grow stronger from this we are LLC [Applause] thank you and with that I will pass it over to Dr Morocco for Board calendar or future activities yes so we're getting into uh some more activities at the school the end of fall Sports runs into the beginning of winter sports hopefully some people made it to the fall play and some other activities come up please check the calendar for those school activities and our next meeting is two weeks on November 21st thank you thank you do we have a motion for adjournment and motioned by Dr Malco second by miscal
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Malden starting at thirty two thousand dollars a year Dartmouth nineteen thousand Martha's Vineyard Thirty one thousand dollars a year Northampton that's a small western Mass town they have a lower living wage than us they are making twenty three thousand dollars a year to start now you may say well that's Boston or that's not the same kind of demographics that we have so I crunch some numbers and I'll go through these towns again Somerville they pay 87 percent of their living wage in their County they pay 87 percent of the living wage to their teaching assistance Malden pays 82 percent of their living wage Martha's Vineyard 91 of their living wage and Northampton that small little western town 82 percent of the living wage I am embarrassed to say that Dartmouth is at 65 percent of our living wage now close to home New Bedford there's the esps or Tas or whatever you'd like to call them paraprofessionals are fighting for a starting salary of twenty six thousand dollars that would be 87 percent of the living wage in New Bedford Brockton fighting for a starting wage of 31 800 per year or 84 percent of a living wage higher salaries are necessary to attract and retain quality esps it has been so difficult in our schools to hire esps because no one wants to work for peanuts it was particularly evident during the summer where the district was forced to fill ESP positions with Outsiders through agencies or postings on indeed and actually some in some cases paying more than to our own Tas because our own Tas wouldn't work in our district because they weren't being paid enough they went out and got other jobs over the summer that made more money just in the last few months we've lost four Tas three of which were highly experienced one left to be a food server at a local restaurant one left to be a nanny one left to go to Fair Haven where she's making four dollars more an hour and one looked at the job stayed three weeks and went forget this this isn't enough money and she quit can I ask you to wrap up please yep thank you all done so what I'm saying is the time is now please please support a living wage for Dartmouth teaching assistance hi Roseanne Amaral here I'm here representing my special ed teacher assistant co-workers we do this job because we love the children we work with the rewards of watching the student grow and make progress is very heartwarming I've been working in this position for almost 10 years while it is rewarding at times it is equally emotionally and physically exhausting in order to work in special ed you have to be CPI certified so this certification requires a yearly refresher training with this comes significant responsibility we are required to settle many different crises that may arise with our students on a daily basis we could be getting hit bit kicked or verbally abused by students the training we received gives us the know-how to block physical aggression and to de-escalate situations but it doesn't always work in addition to the CPI certification many of us have to implement Behavior Support plans and take data which is very time consuming taking data is also one of the responsibilities of an ABA which is a an applied behavior analyst so we might be doing some of those responsibilities if a typical student in a regular regular Ed classroom would hit or verbally abuse a teacher he or she would be sent to the office and get a consequence in our position this happens to one of more of us daily we do understand this is delicate population we are working with but this responsibility should come with Fair compensation as it stands now we're not even close to a living wage as Lauren had stated um recently a staff member was sent to the hospital for a tetanus shot after getting bit many of us have gone home with bruises have had our hair pulled and disrespected Time After Time there should absolutely be a distinction between regular red and special ed um I mean no disrespect to the regular Tas and honestly feel most of them would agree with this I say this because whenever a regular red teacher resist assistant position becomes available usually a special ed ta will apply for that position um it's because as I said earlier it does take an emotional and physical toll on us so without us it would be nearly impossible for this population to be successful in a public school setting we are supporting these students emotionally academically and socially with this being said on behalf of all of us in special education please give us the respect that we deserve the respect that we give our students regardless of what happens on a daily basis please grant us the monetary increase that we need to live thank you hi I'm Lynn Turner I'm here to speak on a different topic on the agenda and it's about our superintendent search first of all I just want to thank Bonnie Gifford for her time serving our community in our schools I feel like you've done a wonderful job standing up for our children in so many instances that you've had to face in your time here I want to thank you for being as Fair as you possibly can with all of our community for being transparent as to what and why you're doing things and I feel like you've valued parent voices whenever I have written letters to you you've given such a respectful response and I very much appreciate your transparency and communication with the public I I uh so I also appreciate that you supported the will of the people so graciously with um the logo as well and the many requests to remove those masks off the kids I feel like as soon as you were able to jump on that you did and I really appreciate that um I know that the committee is looking at the new superintendent search so just some thoughts that I have on the Community Committee to search for a new superintendent I would love for you to try to have a good picture of Dartmouth and all of the kids that you we serve in that search I hope that it doesn't look like just like and like a a certain side of politics looking for a certain person to lay out curriculum that is promoting only one Doctrine and I would love for you to consider having a very balanced approach in the way that you replace our superintendent so I would ask that you consider that I appreciate your time and if there is politics in schools I actually don't like politics that much in our schools I think we need to let our kids be kids but when there is I hope that it is fair and balanced and All Views are looked at and that all sides are represented without bias thank you hi I'm Jeff Reed I'm the Lead Teacher of the high school social studies department and I was lucky enough to student teacher over 20 years ago and I was excited as a Westport kid Dartmouth was the place to be best sports the band all the electives um and after that I said I definitely want to teach here and for the past 20 years I've Loved teaching here the kids are great the people I work with fantastic the biggest drawback though is the compensation for the past 10 years as a Lead Teacher my stipend has not increased as an athletic coach for about 10 years my stipend has not increased but the biggest thing is the health insurance right now I'm currently paying 130 a week for the individual basic HMO plan I was shocked to find out that some family plans 324 dollars a week despite this I'm not going anywhere I love this place I'm going to finish off my career here I'm not going anywhere but it's outrageous to see how out of whack our health insurance is compared to other local schools I looked up new bedford's better fall River's better Fair Haven Berkeley Swansea Somerset and if you look at the schools in our Dart every single one is better than Dartmouth the only local place I found ironically that was worse than us was Westport just this past September as teachers are bringing in their stuff I'm seeing a colleague taking all their stuff out I said why I got a better job at New Bedford Volk this was a Dartmouth graduate somebody who loved teaching here but they said I have a family and they're paying nearly 15 000 more to go down the street what's even more alarming is that when we had our search for a high school principal the pool was so small we couldn't find enough qualified candidates thank God Mr Shea applied for the job and we have a quality High School principal because the pools just aren't coming in and in my 20 years I've served on many committees to look for new people and be part of the interviewing committee we've said this would be a great person for social studies let's hire them when they come to sign the paperwork and they hear about the health insurance they say I'm sorry I need to go elsewhere as much as we have a lot of great things to offer for some people they need to have enough money to take care of their family and oftentimes they can't provide it when they make thousands and thousands of dollars more in another Community just based off of health insurance from what I've been told this problem has gone on for decades and I scratched my head because I really do think we have great leaders in this community I just can't figure out how every other local community can figure out a way to better compensate their teachers and we can't we're not asking to be on the same exact equal split that they are but at least just inching in that direction is all we ask so we hope that you can really really work on that for us thank you thank you to be the last one because we'll have exhausted our 10 minutes of public comment is that I'm standing with Rachel one of my Dartmouth Public School nurses at Demello I've had the pleasure of working with the most dedicated compassionate hard-working nurses I have ever worked with in my career School nursing has a unique role of Bridging the Gap between home and school so we can assure that our students are healthy to be educated we have enjoyed the most challenging two years of our careers navigating through a pandemic as the district's Frontline Heroes we continue to show up not only for our students but our staff as well with integrity and perseverance we care deeply about our students and would continue not only through the academic school year but also through the summer if we were compensated at our our hourly rate our worth time and commitment shouldn't be valued less just because it's the summer consistency of care is a big part of school nursing and it isn't achieved when an agency nurse comes in or someone from the outside the district comes in to care for our students not to mention that they're compensated at a much higher rate if it was the one of districts where I own nurses were to be at summer school this is a disservice to our students and their families and it is disheartening that we your District nurses are replaceable thank you [Applause] thank you everyone hey next on the agenda is the approval of the regular session minutes and executive session of October 17th we'll take the regular session minutes for us so moved moved by Mr Oliver second second Dr Jenkins on the motion to any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye hoes motion carries unanimously on the executive session minutes of the same date I'll move with the usual stipulation that they be held until the matters for which they are intended are complete hey very good yeah you know I'm impressed second by dot moved by Miss wait second by Dr Jenkins on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously foreign okay so I guess we have our two directors that are going to introduce uh the school Improvement plans for this evening so as we as you know we have our elementary folks that are here um and Ross and Katie are going to start us off by talking about the overview of the district good evening and I just want to thank Dr Gifford and members of the committee for the opportunity to present the district's strategic plan for the 2022-2023 school year as well as some of our school Improvement plans maybe maybe not there we go so our journey actually uh dates back to 2016 when through a comprehensive process involving DPS staff parents and community members a three-year plan was developed using uh three pillars to Anchor our work strategic objectives and initiatives were developed in the areas of teaching and learning access and equity and Community engagement the district leadership team reviewed and revised this plan during the summer retreat in 2018 and continued our strategic work during years two and three of the plan foreign and so we had started um work together um back in 2020 in terms of thinking about the next iteration of our district strategic plan in fact we met it was March 11th 2020 and we remember it well because we met at Quinn community school and then two days later the pandemic kicked in and schools were shuttered and we have never been the same since so um we're really we we were meeting this summer and thinking about where do we go from here and we really thought it important to take this year to think deeply do some deep reflective work to engage stakeholders uh in the community as partners in developing a strategic vision and a strategic plan that will carry Dartmouth public schools for the next three to five years and so toward that end we asked that our schools follow kind of the same structure that we had used last year in terms of following three building a plan around three big pillars being sense of belonging great appropriate instruction with just-in-time scaffolds and monitoring for understanding uh you may remember these tenants as they were first introduced to us in the acceleration roadmap that was developed by the department of Ed coming out of the pandemic last year so we'll first talk a little bit about the sense of belonging our work this year has led us to form a district strategic planning team and that team will be looking at all three pillars of our district plan specific to the sense of belonging one of the things that we have done is join forces with learn launch I know it's a name that you've heard before they have created a sense of belonging Network and we are doing some work facilitated by them looking at our schools looking at how we can foster that sense of belonging we did have Tori Todd from learn launch who came down and did a walk through with us in all three in three of our six buildings and our team works with her Ross and I meet with her monthly to plan some strategic initiatives around fostering a sense of belonging for all kids in all staff of Dartmouth Public Schools Additionally the district strategic plan planning team rather that we've put together has representation from every school both teachers and administrators serving on the district strategic plan so that we can work collaboratively and one of the focuses is really around building district-wide understanding in district-wide Vision so that we have clear communication and we're all moving towards one common goal and one common Mission and again being informed by stakeholders in the community one area of focus under the sense of belonging is really taking the time this year to get back to making sure our schools are safe and healthy um you know and so we put in place some common measures that each each building has been asked to kind of update throughout the year with respect to what safety steps they're taking in their buildings what that looks like developmentally uh pre-k up through grade 12.
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9 35 and 51 cents we had a warrant on October 4th 85 590.92 a warrant on October 11th of 396.034.70 a warrant on October 18th of 19 640 and a warrant on October 27th of 445 366 dollars giving us a book balance on October 28th of 2 million 185 895.14 and a corresponding bank balance on October 28th 3 million 174 599.52 and the mmdt account we had an account balance on October 3rd of 8 million 846 359.12 with year-to-date interest 29 454.43 giving us a total on the mmdt of 8 million eight seventy five eight one three point fifty five and a total operating cash balance of 11 million 061 708.69 Joe would appreciate emotion for the cash balance report it's a move discussion all those in favor anyone opposed okay revolving Consolidated cash Reconciliation Report is a handout uh revolving fund report it's a handout budget reports to hand out any questions or comments on any of those Mrs Fitzgerald not on those but on the warrant if I could take a moment or two okay okay so many many months ago I brought up the fact that we seem to be charging an awful lot or ordering an awful lot through Amazon and my question at the time was whether it is saving us money or costing us money I totally understand the convenience of going through Amazon however I feel that we two things one aren't necessarily getting the best price on things they were in this warrant they were pencils ordered not through a I use that as one example I have probably a hundred examples in here um stainless steel tables being ordered for the concession stand two different prices hopefully they were two different sizes but we have restaurant supply places we have other uh vendors that we have an established relationship with I'm not saying that everything goodness knows we don't need to get three quotes on a dozen pencils or um the the many many things that were ordered that just seem to be taken there were legal pads audited um for the phys Ed Department um I sound like I'm picking on it but I they were the first ones up and for instance um they ordered a Bluetooth speaker for uh 300 and something dollars and I know why they're using it and um but and I'm not looking for our teachers to have to go searching for every best price but I feel as if it's out of control this amount this time was only fifteen thousand dollars it's been up as much as twenty five thousand dollars per warrant and when you look it's almost across the board the no number of shops that are not I shouldn't say shops the number of departments because most of our vocational areas use particular vendors and most of them are local but I think of all using office supplies as an example there were chairs audited in here and we know that we could do better so I get you all hear me all of the time I get so excited when I see how much interest we earn on our MMD account and how long it took us to get there and I don't want to see that interest earned then lost because we didn't get best prices so I know I am like the one that keeps beating on this but it's probably seven or eight months ago when I first brought this up the same thing with our Bank of America card um I just want our either our department heads or even more importantly the administrators that are in charge of that to make sure they're not just rubber stamping something when we could get better prices and I actually did some pricing out I did some of the stationary items meaning office supply things and went online and looked at the Amazon price and then looked at things from Staples or WB Mason or Office Max and I we're just not doing a good job of it so I'm asking and I if I have the support of the committee that's wonderful if not I'll Stand Alone on this I'm asking that we make it a priority to do a better job and not just take the I'm not looking to create more work for anybody but we certainly are taking the easy way out on this so that's all so I think well I know on one of the items you mentioned there the uh for the concession stand though I know that they got other prices on those um I think part of that too was the uh how quickly they could get it is one of the reasons they went with some of the items are very difficult to get these days they seem to be able to come quicker on Amazon doesn't mean we should just go with them but in any case I think um one of the ways to try to curb this would be for us to require uh lowering our quotes so in other words before you use Amazon we want to see two other prices that you've got so require everyone before they're using Amazon or any anybody for that that you at least submit to other quotes to us so we know that they're doing due diligence to the best pricing well right now it's like 10 and they only need in order to get they have to give us a quote for over was it a thousand ten thousand yeah we're talking about most of these items on here being from a dollar up to five or six hundred dollars but put all together Department by environment we are spending a lot of money and again I understand it's convenient but I look at something as basic as concession stand is a and I'm picking on that one only because I saw the stainless steel tables and how do we know when we order from a restaurant supply place or one of the vendors that we deal with through um culinary we know the quality of what we're getting when we order on Amazon unless it's the exact description of what you wanted you do not know what you're getting so I I'm just asking for us to take not necessarily to keep taking the easy way out and if I sure the faculty would like to hang me right now because I don't want to put more work on the teachers in particular and the higher up level is where we need to do it the teachers say I want um 50 yellow legal pads then they get the 50 and I know all of this is budgeted every single penny is accounted for on the budget I'm not questioning that at all I'm just saying here on one hand we're saving money and on the other hand we're just not doing our due diligence but I'm not looking for quotes on five dollar items or something but um it's I just get frustrated when I go through the warrant every time and it seems to be getting more complex instead of less thank you Mr Cirillo do you have a question yeah well you see American you know could you tell me what page you're on you know what I don't even have that it's something it's separate okay so uh what's the resolution then gun well I can have the administrators be a little bit more diligent to looking at those kind of items that are being purchased if they're simple things that we could use other vendors for or typically like pencils and all those things those are usually yearly supplies that's unusual somebody's going to go out and buy 50 pencils and not all you have to do is go and see Sue and so we I guess what we need is number one we'll I will have a discussion with the administrative team that oversees each of their departments budgets to be more diligent about due diligence to looking at what's being purchased and where it's being purchased and number two if it if we need to get quotes for stuff that is you know at a certain price range so we say anything over 100 or 500 that we at least at least for a while want to know that they're getting in the habit of looking for the best price and so that might be a way to handle it at the get-go sounds good Mr Sewell thank you Leo and through you um so teachers are placing items buying items without getting a prior approval you might understand that correctly no they every item has to go through the process and go through the budget process so the administrators signing off on everything that gets in anything in that Warren has been signed off by an administrator before it's purchased because we spending almost fifteen thousand knot in Amazon and a lot of these items are up there it doesn't look like to me like with and not for anything but I've shopped Amazon and other stuff that comes from there it's not the best quality um so I mean we should they should be going through the proper channels and making sure we're going to sign off and making sure we're getting into certain things and pens papers and notepads that's should be automatically in Stockton it's cool so why would teachers or anybody be having to go buy that if we don't have that in stock we have that in stock that's absolutely true and um so that's where I think we need to just make sure we have we'll have a conversation with administrators to be careful about approving things that they should at least so if administrator sees that someone's looking for paper or pads or anything first thing they should is question the teacher did you go to the front office to see uh the uh super nut supervisor but the clerical person that's in charge of overseeing all our supplies and see if she has what you're looking for before we go out and order anything like that so it's us at each level making sure that we're doing a better job at ensuring that we're not purchasing things that we already have number one which is critical and number two that we're getting the best price when the volume starts to go up there and um and uh so we'll we'll I'll follow up with a discu a meeting when we have our uh administrative meaning to talk about you know procedures and protocols in terms of purchasing moving forward yes everybody Mrs Fitzgerald yes I just wanted to make it clear that I was not questioning whether um these should be approved in that they're already in the budget and that's not what I was questioning I was just questioning the fact that we are not yet necessarily getting the best price for each item thank you okay is uh everybody's satisfied with the superintendent's explanation and okay moving on uh donations stratum Manufacturing Incorporated in Andover Massachusetts has donated an a Haas tm1 CNC mill machine it's quite a donation uh miss Karen uh sones uh mother of uh Ethan uh Cabello a student from Lawrence donated a two uh wheeler bicycle for use of building an electric bike to promote student interest in robotics and automation engineering and Public Health articles well I'm sorry I just wanted to make a comment on the strawman uh donation that we have lots of Milling machines but we don't have a milling machine that's as precision as this particular machine so we're very thrilled to get this machine as we look at some other uh pathway some other um parts of the curriculum that we're trying to address this machine will help us get there for particularly in our 12th grade program so we're grateful to them for that we're good uh excuse me articles uh great launch technical school students are creating hardware for the International Space Station and a shining example uh public participation see any of this evening okay reports from the superintendent uh John please Sue's going to do the MCAS report and the October uh since I've been away for two weeks the uh I have not reviewed the MCAS all the MCAS data with Susan uh the last couple of weeks so Susan's going to give the report that she's been working on with our data person thank you superintendent you should have the report in your packets I just want to walk you through it so we have our final report in terms of our MCAS results from last year school year 2122 and as a reminder we are now comparing the Next Generation the the newer MCAS tests before we had a long trajectory of comparisons but we want to make sure that we're comparing Apples to Apples so I'll have those results later so for our English learn ELA test our achievement levels this year we have you know a smaller percentage not meeting and a little bit almost the same on the bottom so we're pretty happy considering we're still recovering from the pandemic and trying to do a lot of recovery and catching up um overall we're pretty happy with the results of course we want to see um more you can see where we were moving from 35 to 47 we moved from 47 to 50 percent we want to see it move up but overall for ELA it resulted in only five students needing to take the re-test and that is this week um in terms of our math we also have a lower percentage of math not meeting but you can see the results are almost kind of the same within the middle of partially and exceeding expectations for Math and Ela I also want to share the student growth percentages the percentiles this shows growth from grade 8 to grade 10 and as a vocational school that's Regional we always look at this data because we have students from a variety of middle schools that all come together so we really kind of look at what we do in order to grow and prepare our students from when they get here to ninth grade to when they take the test and this is how our students perform compared to other similar students across the state here's our proficiency rates compared to the state as well as some our sending districts and a comparative Vocational School and you can see us up top in the red the numbers on the side are the numbers of students that are in that percentage so again in terms of results we are always looking to improve but moving forward and looking from last year we've moved up in ela we have some work to do in terms of all of our students on the bottom left is our proficiency rate for English for for the ELA test for our English learner and former English learner students you can see that there's 88 students included in that and 39 percent that's a 39 percent proficiency rate for those students and you can see that's compared with the state and our communities and on the right hand side that's the same with students with disabilities we have 46 students in there and the percentage compared to are sending communities as well as a vocational school you see it here with all students and I'll move on to math again we have that same comparison we have our 29 proficiency rate in the in the SGP compared to the state you can see our number for math in this compared to the state is a little bit lower than we'd like we also have been doing and I'll talk about this the ad on the work what we're doing in terms to support students and also unpack what we're going to do in the future here is math with all of the students here in the set and this is our our science our biology rate biology the retest is not until the spring so we have some more planning time which we are working on right now um and some some districts do the physics test but we specifically focus on biology and I also wanted to include our previous years many of you will be familiar with this chart because you've seen it and we just didn't want to have the data all together because it's not comparing the same tests the test is now electronic this is kind of the what they call the Legacy test and you can see kind of our direct trajectory and how we've moved along from when we started to collect this data in 2007 up to to 2018 and um again in the beginning you'll notice that we are it's 2019 here we don't have any results from 2020 so that's kind of just a missing year for right now um currently just an update for this is math in our Legacy followed by biology and that's all for your reference just to see how we have progressed throughout the years currently just to update the committee as well this week is the ELA retest as I said we have five students that are participating and since we've received these results those five students have been working with teachers during the win block to kind of get some additional support and prepare for the test we also in two weeks we'll have I believe in two weeks we will have 29 students taking the math test and they have also been working with their teachers or working with grade 10 teachers to get additional support all of the teachers received reports score reports for each student so they know exactly the areas to Target for students we are in the process right now of preparing for the biology retest all of the students that need support in that are currently being put in Wind blocks they have a little bit more time we're also looking to see if we could create a time during the day in a in the seminar blocks we're working with the science department on that um so we feel like we have a good plan moving forward the students that are participating in the retest will stay in those supports until we get the results um but not for the whole year so we only want to keep them there for the supports that they need and they're also not there every day they're able to also access the work so say for example if they're in English they have the three other days to work with other teachers during the win block um some of the other things that we've been doing which we've had success on is we've had success in any student that was eligible for a um to appeal to the state so that they don't have to take their retests so we're in the process of doing those appeals and we are we're getting some results back with that and so with that I will open it up for questions regarding our MCAS questions and the appeal process what are the criterias for the for the mate to be able to appeal um so some of the um and we have an internal process which is an educational proficiency plan which anyone that needs to that doesn't pass um that's how we work on it and in terms of a student appeal they look at their average in the content area so say for example they have not yet successfully passed the math MCAS they will look the state will look at what their average is in math class and what their grades are and also they look at attendance and any opportunities afford to the student for assistance like attendance in after school MCAS or any other like right now if we had the Wind Block we would um put that so those are I may be missing one but those are the areas of the Appeals and what would be the result of the um the appeal is it they attended school and they get a certificate or they're being waived the MCAS and they're allowed to um attain a diploma it's waived it's waved indicated diploma what we don't have many at all okay um and I'm seeing that we struggling most of our students are struggling with within math and biology is there what are besides the Wind Block while the strategies are we put in together for them yeah that's and and I it's going to be a two-part course sir okay um you know and so you know in it is also language comprehension that they they're struggling with or teaching styles that they have to adjust to uh because a lot of students are finding that they're not connecting well with the material um and because I'm looking at the end because now we have actual data that we could start looking at have formulate that plan yeah so um just recently we have the whole admit we've had the um we have this data we have it by student we have it all of the teachers have also received their data in terms of their individual students so what we're doing there is um kind of looking for pattern and trends like what are specific areas that we see that some of our students um have struggled with and then building that into instruction for for this year also when you say language sometimes even though it's a math test it becomes a reading test sometimes so we're looking at that in terms of how we can work with students in terms of understanding the question we also recognize that the test now is on the computer which our students are pretty Savvy on the computer but just even making sure that they understand how to navigate the platform so we continue to work with the math department and refined what's going on in those skills but we have looked at that data and we'll continue to look at the data by student by question and that's why sometimes if you're looking at oh well you know the student need didn't pass well they might have just missed one question as so we need to really really Dive In by student it really needs to be an individual Thing by students so we'll continue to work and biology again we are looking at that biology the retest isn't until no February so right now the biology team is looking at exactly where our students had areas of opportunity for growth and trying to determine what students need each skills and they have a little bit more time to dig into that we're doing a lot of work this year and you'll see it when Susan reports on the October report on developing better assessments so having better Assessments in math particularly in our mathematics class will help us better understand where the gaps are and where the students are struggling and looking at students performance at the end of each quarter to better understand what kind of support they need so that we can offer that particularly with our new schedule having more time to offer support with the winblock and also beyond the wind blocks offering opportunities after school that were for those students so really it's collecting better data and doing a better job assessing what they are able to do and what they know doing a better job at that as well is going to I think help us help students with the MCAS okay just to hate him sue you got us you got us compared to only one vocational school do we have any other data on any of our sister schools like Whittier or Shawsheen that we can compare and how do we fare yeah we can look at that sometimes we even spread that out in terms of this presentation I only chose one and I chose it for kind of comparison like I could compare it to I could compare other datas but it could be number of students different communities proximity so I don't have that off the top of my head but it would all depend I could get that for you we could bring all sure foreign so I think as I mentioned before we're doing professional development a little bit different this year for our staff and our uh for those days as students instead of half day days where students are dismissed we have delayed openings and we have in some months two sessions and we have professional development days and what we're calling professional collaboration days which is usually an extension of the first day so for our October professional development our Focus was on our school Improvement plan goal four which is all around implementing as Mr superintendent Lavoy talked about implementing Benchmark assessment tools as well as looking at all of our schools so we had our instructional coaches develop this session and it was entitled we're all data scientists because some people are more comfortable with data than others so this session was around and a line to this goal and and action steps for developing an assessment Candler and reviewing models that we have as well as in the future we're going to look at an actual Common Assessment platform so one of the things that we wanted to do for the staff was we wanted to set this session up like what we expect in their classroom or career area and so we did a school-wide pre-assessment we've been in a pandemic there's we have new staff members we have some different processes and one thing that the superintendent and I have talked about is we still have this area that of need in terms of data so that's why we kept goal 4 on our plan so we met at this as a staff we did an overall presentation and then each teacher or staff member depending on if they were guidance or wherever they worked went and took a self-assessment on data use names were not collected but we collected grade levels and areas and the whole idea was that is for us as an instructional leadership team was to find out exactly where our staff is on the use of data and what supports they identify they needed after that they met as departments and we did the same thing in departments so as common planning CPT teams whether it's grade level Shopper department they sat down and and they compiled a list of what data they use and what data they would like and what training they needed so at the same time on that day we talked about star data and one of the things that star is is our Benchmark assessment and like was mentioned in our MCAS we've just implemented this year we just gave our first star quarter one star test the star data has indicators that align or supposed to um align and their predictors for MCAS and so now instead of waiting for once a year to find out whether or not a student what they have scored at MCAS we can look at the star data and we can use it as a predictor of where they're trending and provide supports prior to waiting for just a one-time state test um so we walk this through the staff and we aligned it to our roadmap from the beginning of the year and really this is our plan to as a school Community use data more in our decision making in all areas and in classroom practices it's the same thing USS you analyze and then you act so this is our beginning of assessing so we're kind of in the assessing phase again you can see on October 19th we did the pre-assessment common planning time teams did discussions on the 26th which I'll get to there was more time for for teachers to actually look at data because that's the biggest time we can give a lot of data but if teachers don't have time it's it's very challenging for them tomorrow in our instructional meeting we are going to be looking at a report that shows us the results of of all the pre-assessment and we'll be sharing that up with staff December through March we're going to take a list of everything that the staff asked for when we said what data do you use and what support do you need we now have a prioritized list of the types of support staff has asked for and that's how we'll develop the professional development and or give opportunity or support by the end of this year it is our hope and we will have a school-wide assessment calendar that will include all of our state assessments as well as common assessments CTE performance assessments and kind of a calendar so we know who has Assessments in what area and by the end of this year we plan to look at a common assessment platform where teachers can actually upload their assessments and they're able to align into standards and different indicators and that may makes it easier for them to analyze the results so this is our roadmap we're still kind of in the beginning um and this is just a review of that second day we had on the 26th we train staff for our requirements of our tiered Focus monitoring for the English learner program our CTE team had an opportunity to meet as a full team for an overview of curriculum and it was all around a lens using data we explored the star data as I mentioned which is for some teams they were looking at that MCAS alignment and then we also had I know I've mentioned it here we are continuing with our program with bar which is building assets reducing risks it was a freshman program we are no longer part of that three-year we kind of had like a three-year opportunity with Barr we've chosen to continue it on our own and we're expanding it into the grade 10.
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so a big congratulations goes out to coach O'Donnell who spent many years of his life um coaching outdoor track and field he recently uh made the decision to step down from his coaching position so this is a great honor for him there is going to be a dinner to recognize him on November 22nd Tuesday night November 22nd and anyone is welcome to go um the website is listed here when you can purchase your tickets um I know I'll be attending and other administrators from our district will be attending um so if you'd like to attend uh please feel free to join us again you registered here pay for your ticket here and that's Tuesday night September 22nd also coming up this Friday as we all know is Veterans Day and Canton was one of the um first school districts to have school have students attend school on Veterans Day and one of the things I remember most when I started my position here in Canton was attending the Veterans Day ceremonies so post covet I'm thrilled to say that our ceremonies will continue and you are all welcome to attend our Veterans Day ceremonies at the high school level on Thursday November 10th our veterans will be invited into classes to speak to our students and we do that on the 10th because on the 11th most of the veterans are involved in ceremonies at the other schools in our district so let me just let you know what times those will be on Friday if you'd like to join us so beginning at eight o'clock at Canton Middle School on Friday morning will be Canton Middle School's Veterans Day commemorates commemoration at 9 30.
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so from 2021 to 2022 5.6 percent for District 99 and 5.8 percent for the high school districts and of course we're one of those right there's seven High School Districts or one of the seven no sorry do we know what the median is for those as opposed to the average I did not calculate okay I can sure I just be curious if we were in the upper or lower and I have every I have every school on there so I can I can certainly do that and report back absolutely thanks each each one of these is a different cohort different colors but there's no denying the trend down the downward Trend you know state or County um the district and I I don't know this is probably not a wild wild guess but I'm going to guess nationally we probably see a similar thing so any idea what's that attributed to because you'd expect with different cohorts that there'd there'd be a lot of up and down fluctuations but not a not a trend well I think with covet don't you think yeah but this is 17.
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yeah okay yeah well 2015 remember this the kids hadn't come over yet we hadn't even merged both buildings so we were only seventh and eighth grade at the time that's true and so we bought 300 we bought 350 I think it was almost 380 kids that first year I can't remember specifically and we built 11 classrooms in essence 11 rooms that those kids could be in so already the number was not we were already too high we were at like a 36 kids per room average for core classrooms yeah that's not including you built three design tech labs which we use because it's part of IB we built an art room which we use because it's a requirement of IB there's an Arts requirement um so those rooms were part of some of those rooms were part of the new extension however they're dedicated to those programs they teach six periods a day in that particular content so Design Tech is six periods a day of design you went from having the um students at CSK who was six to eight which was a small amount but you went you brought them over bought the Sixth Grade Center over and they made it okay so 375 380 kids that first year came in and we had technically 11 classrooms so like I said that's about 36 kids per room when you talk about just core classrooms so we were already tight coming in the window so that's why we were pushing for those four rooms back then um yeah and that would have just helped ease the pain but it wouldn't have solved your issues I think I think had that done had that been done we would have still had a little bit of growth issue but not um I think it would have eased a lot of it for everyone including the children the adults everybody yeah so I mean look we're going to be very happy with whatever you can give us I understand that there's only a finite pot of money for everyone to share and honestly you know while I can appreciate the other programming needs this has been an issue for us since we opened the doors of the six eight middle school so I mean whatever decision you make will abide by but whatever you can do to help alleviate that it would be for us the best thing for the children and for the adults who work there so I ask that you do think about that I'm happy to answer any more questions if you have any no I I again thank you so much because I do recall a couple times who came to the board for the same issue bringing your flight to us and and I thank you for giving me a walk down several months ago sharing with me you know your concerns and so I did bring it to the board and and it looks as if the board don't want to move forward somewhere sooner than later best the next opportunity we possibly could get to to revisit this absolutely really appreciate appreciate the board bringing us back up business manager and Dr Kara and her team at least given another shot at this so you try to try to get it right you know those numbers are boggling you know but again I don't want to look back I want to move forward and try to make things right thank you okay thanks thank you um let me talk also then the next the next project I want to touch on is the athletic facilities over at the high school so this would be phase one which would be a new multi-purpose stadium for a football track and soccer as you can see it would be located our current stadium is about right over here so it'll be located on the grass area which is what we call the practice area right now between the parking lot of the high school and the current area so that would be constructed as part of this right now we have a preliminary number of 14.5 million dollars for that again it would satisfy football tracking and soccer it would be a turf field it would not be grass looking at completion of that in August of 24.
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as we move forward to Great appropriate instruction one of our goals is to enhance our Collective understanding of what high quality instruction looks like and come to a common you're going to hear a common theme in what we're talking about and that's that common understanding and making sure that we're communicating and having everyone sort of on the same page when we're moving forward so that everyone is rowing in that same direction to that end one of the things that we have done with our project time folks and we are currently doing with our district administrators is a book talk around teach Like A Champion if you know that book it's in its third iteration and it has techniques around um that classroom techniques that are really just grounded in good instruction the goal with that is when we're providing feedback we want to be able to provide consistent feedback so that our kids ultimately right well all we do is about our kids and we were saying how great would it be that if the techniques that we're using are in preschool when they're three years old and replicated in the elementary level and the Middle School in the high school so when we're giving feedback about core instructive material core instruction making sure that those instructional techniques are consistent throughout we're also looking to to leverage that as a way to strengthen feedback um that administrators are providing to our Educators and so in addition to our book study we also um are using a tool called optic which is a online database that has model lessons real lessons taught in Massachusetts schools aligned to the mass curriculum Frameworks and aligned to the educator evaluation instrument so that we can calibrate as an administrative team our look for is when we go into a classroom so that with the goal again being to provide consistent feedback from building to building from administrator to administrator you know with the idea of improving practice one of the other most important pieces of work that we're going to do this year and I'm so excited about is to develop the Dartmouth Public Schools vision of a learner we're partnering with Envision learning in fact we had a meeting today a planning meeting today with Dr Gifford and Mrs paveo and Mrs jodwin to just kind of set the dates and establish that with Envision learning but really that vision of a learner again will be developmentally appropriate so what what does a learner look like at pre-k in Dartmouth Public Schools what does it look like in grade five in grade 8 as a senior about to graduate and that vision of a learner ultimately will serve as a North star for all of the work we do in the next three to five years that's really the idea and the Cornerstone behind um you know our next strategy the next iteration of our strategic plan when we say every Learner in Dartmouth public school should be able to do X how do we make sure that comes alive and so um we're really excited to be doing that work this year as well and again that will involve a great amount of input from stakeholders in the community from parents from students from teachers administrators um you know our paraprofessionals everyone who has a hand in the success of Dartmouth Public Schools will have an opportunity to contribute input into the development of that vision of a learner and it will be publicized and feedback collected before it is um hopefully finalized by the end of this school year is the goal there and finally we're talking about murdering understanding and things that Ross and I are spearheading is reestablishing data teams to help develop common district-wide protocols our goal in pulling this team back together is to establish some consistency around this is the data we look at this is why we look at it and this is the protocols that we use when we're analyzing it we also want to assure that our assessment calendar is outlining essential assessments throughout the year to guide our instruction to track student growth analyze the efficacy of our our interventions and looking at our at-risk students to make sure that they are making the gains that they need to this includes assuring that we are meeting requirements from the state including the dyslexia guidelines that require us to screen all students in k23 and then the final piece is we just want to really um make sure that the data we're collecting the data the learning data that we're looking at really has a tight alignment with ultimately the vision of a learner that has created this this year and so that's enough from us yes the real kind of stars of the show tonight are going to be for elementary is our four littlest learner communities who are going to talk to you a little bit about what they're doing in their individual buildings and we'll start with Dr Dale [Music] oh okay great good evening thank you for having me here tonight look at us oh this is Middle School let's see here I got nothing is it just foreign no it's not that's not right actually no no it's like I don't know what happened to the Christmas tree and I don't see any elementary schools okay I want to say thank you to Katie and Ross for addressing Pre-K when they talk about District initiatives saying Pre-K to grade 12.
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so this was our kickoff meeting for staff to kind of talk about Barr and include the grade 10. so it was a busy month all around data and it's timely because we are just getting our MCAS data and we are also just took our first Benchmark assessment I'm looking forward to sharing out the results of the our formative assessment and sharing with the teachers our action plan on how to respond thank you Leo through you um you know we're walking away from the bar programming we expanded into 10th grade is their reason we walked away from it oh I didn't mean we walked away from it before we had kind of a we were part of a program where um they it was almost like it was we had to apply for it was like a three-year kind of a um a grant and that was the three years was over but we chose on our own to continue with it and we're actually they're actually looking at us as one of the model schools so they really wanted us to stay so we not only are continuing it but we are trying to expand it into grade tens we're just doing it now not as part of that Grant amazing Pro Mr Potato Miss salinsky have there been any challenges or complaints from either teachers or parents regarding the changes of schedule to hold these professional developments um it depends I would say it's getting used to I hear from some students that they love it because they might work the night before they can sleep in or they can go to breakfast you also hear the other side where they might prefer it the other way change is hard I will say the same someone asked this at the last faculty check-in whether some people like some teachers like it and other teachers are saying oh they liked it the other way so I think it's it's kind of I haven't had any complaints so to speak or any access issues for the first couple times it was it was new to all of us because there's a lot of things that we don't think about in terms of supervision and what time do the buses come in but I will say and this is just kind of anecdotal on my end it has been more focused because in the afternoons before there was still a lot of students in the building in terms of sport and other events and now we are everyone's able to focus on professional developments and areas like the discipline office are actually able to work with their staff which were before they were always supervising students so it's probably 50 50.
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Canton Intermediate School will have their ceremony and then at 1 30 in the afternoon Cherrybrook Primary School will have their ceremony Etc you're more than welcome to attend one or all of those and each school has a good number of veterans who look forward to coming back year after year I had the great opportunity two weeks ago to attend the field trip that the Canton Intermediate School students have been going on to the American mural project at Winston uh as I talked about two weeks ago um the American mural project is the largest collaborative piece of Arts in North America that happens to be in Winston it's been in the works for 22 years and so every um fourth fifth and sixth grader had the opportunity to visit the American mural project I had the opportunity to uh to attend with three fourth grade classes it was an outstanding visit students learned so much and the exciting part now is they're now going to be putting up a mural themselves at the Intermediate School um with a guest artist in Residence and the school is looking for 30 guests 30 adult guests to participate with the students and I thank Mrs Corto sent you out an email about that you could click on the link and schedule yourself to uh to be an artist yourself so I just wanted to remind you to look for that and if you didn't get that letting you know we can make sure to resend that out but it's going to be a great project and it's a it's a chance for the entire Canton Intermediate School Community to come together to develop their own mural I want to let you know that um we have three applicants for our student and family engagement director Mr Bishop and I will be interviewed holding first round interviews to screen the candidates this week and then um hopefully uh the candidates can move forward to second round interviews where we will involve other uh stakeholders from our community so the good news is is we have three outstanding candidates on paper and we look forward to talking with them the other piece of good news is that Kira Lafave has been named our Communications coordinator congratulations thank you so much um Karen will be taking on those responsibilities along with her current responsibilities as we hire a new technology specialist some of what Kira has been doing will go to the new person so we're thrilled we've been able to work that out it does make sense since Kira is at every one of our board meetings and knows um what's going on within the district you can be looking for flyers and press releases that are coming from here so congratulations here we look forward to working with you in that capacity situations I also want to let you know that um this fall we're working on um two family events for um families who are part of our choice program and uh this coming Wednesday evening um in Bloomfield we have invited our families in the choice program at the middle school and high school level to attend a welcome event um and treat a Collier dickin dickenman will also be present and we look forward to an informal gathering with our families um to talk with them answer questions and really look forward to getting to know uh the families at a deeper level so we look forward to that we'll be holding one for our elementary families um within the next several weeks as well did I hear you say it's in Bloomfield okay not here though not here okay Jen can you talk about that why uh the decision was made yeah this was a recommended yeah this was a recommendation from um from from trita and the idea of being able to have a place that is and is splitting the difference between the two uh the two destinations um but also finding a destination that adds some some unique food and Flair to be able to to add a little bit more to the to the and environment as well so where do you get carbons no no we're actually at a place called omnis omnis kitchen okay she's got some some great um from what I understand some um uh some um Caribbean cooking and and some really good food there so excited to be able to have that as a first offering this year to be able to expand out onto uh I think that's fantastic vocational wise I know a lot of the times um what made when you're younger so let's give a lot of ones and a lot of the problem is probably just getting into events today and then I think the idea of cutting that business is quite literally the next time I ordered from Hartford so that's just being able to accommodate those those fans that's going to be a big turnout I think that sets up a lot of them kind of sets the course information against these Choice parents and these Choice families kind of lays The Garden of certain their future for these family tonight I'm happy to get it on appreciate the feedback thank you what's your name so this Wednesday night November 9th I know you're on the board meeting right and then finally um I will mentioned uh this this past Saturday um students involved in the Alice in Wonderland um production uh had a great little fundraiser with some of our families this Saturday morning and Alice in Wonderland will take place this upcoming week um I don't have the exact times available but just know that'll be happening I think Thursday or Thursday Friday and Saturdays right so if you're interested and would like tickets just like Claudia know and Claudia can help arrange for that so it's really exciting Michelle winok who is our new Drama teacher at the high school has taken this on and this is the second year in a row she's done a production which is separate from the high school musical we have some Mad Hatter cookies well my wife's like oh it's a tea party so I put a suit on and I look ridiculous thank you good for you thank you she was like no you have to contract oh you don't have to get dressed up so that's my report for tonight does anybody have any questions I have a couple points does anybody have any questions entertained anybody online Felicia or Peggy any questions for the superintendent no I'm good thank you so let's open our anti-bullying um is when is that program so it's next Monday night it's November 14th because I don't think we've publicized that very well so um John is sending out another reminder we uh John and I talked about that today and we'll send it out a few times this week did you get the power into yeah so we we have it out we had it out by a school messenger it's going out again tomorrow we've got it on our Facebook and our social our social media we can get the town to be able to send that out as well it's a good point next Monday night yeah at seven o'clock in our High School auditorium we're having Justine Ginsburg from Farmington Valley the Farmington Valley Health District um give a presentation Mr Bishop what is the exact title it's it's living in its um oh my goodness navigating the hybrid reality navigating a hybrid reality living in living in Two Worlds of students so understanding that we live in a physical reality and there's a digital world how this how this um idea of feedback and um engagement or distraction really has an impact on kids and how these incidents of of immune Behavior unkind Behavior and the the mindset that will develop with kids it includes both work that happens in schools but it also happens outside of the school as well and follows kids through their out School outside of school hours as well so it's it's really to be able to help um our community to be able to understand what's out there for kids and some of the things that we can all work proactively to do to be able to support them 7 PM 7 p.m and we're having it in person in through Zoom um another question oh what is the situation with uh adopted teacher that's going on I've gotten a few flyers on anybody else see that Kim you must have seen that right we're at conference we they can adopt the teacher to purchase like treats and goodies for adding school is that a teacher appreciation yeah things kind of yeah is that there's people live you know or well it was just oh just church I think Cherry Road but I thought sometimes CIS has done similar things but I know I I Don't Want to Miss a chance for the board to appreciate our teachers I don't know if there's something they usually like have it like the whole staff take each staff member is selected by a Community member I mean most typically it's a parent of the school but it could be anybody I mean we could not have students there and pick a parent to be a teacher assistant but there's no one there's no Gathering or reception for teachers okay all right and sometimes they do PTO does lunches or staff during conference okay I'm assuming that that might look like as well but thank you nothing for the board to participate in it right I mean there's nothing there are no Gatherings okay there's no any other questions I just have a suggestion on the um anti-bullying communication that in the attachment after you click on it so if there's a way for us to clearly communicate that there is a hybrid option maybe in the subject um I think that would be beneficial in engaging more community members and that link will have to go out obviously yeah we'll have it we'll have that posted on the the front page of our uh Canton Public Schools webpage that was our thought for that rather than having it be something that we would send out and they have people swarming in on the bed but we can absolutely yeah no I understand I'm just saying in in the in the communication like it has click that you wouldn't know that you have the option to attend virtually we can do that thanks Felicia yeah thanks Felicia so apparent um has asked me is there is it just for parents is it just for parents can students go students can come that's fine Justine is a very engaging presenter students but I will say that she is she's also a a realist with some of these things um so I would say that the targeted audience for this will be students who might have actual personal devices with them as well to be able to help them be be prepared more so than some of our younger students so um maybe six then above six days a month and I understand I do understand that very soon at younger ages who have those devices as well they're just okay thank you any other questions okay chair reports um just quickly who's going next week to the cave Forum I know I am anybody else going no you're not going thank you you wouldn't be playing in your football game tonight it's an overnight thing that's a different point Felicia you're going right I will be there yes Peggy are you going no no you're not going anywhere I was but I can't it's okay okay just just checking um the second thing I want to mention everybody is the survey results are in and uh we will get a full report from Mary Broderick on uh Wednesday at seven o'clock just uh interesting uh we had 325 uh folks that participated uh she tells me that's pretty good so I I actually you know considered I think I told you last time I was considering extending a week she said it wouldn't make a difference however the interesting thing about that is 52 of parents of that 325 52 came from parents and you'll get this data uh in a little while but 16 uh came from teachers only 16 of that 325 were teachers a little a little disappointed in the staff didn't participate more 14 of that number actually came from students so um interesting now I I have to I'm going to throw the board a little bit of a jab on this only board member only four board members participating in the service which is a little bit disappointing that only four board members uh took the time to fill out the survey so that that to me was a little bit um frustrating but anyways I understand that you know time gets away and I know I must have bugged my wife about six times to fill that survey out so I understand so um you'll hear more about the survey obviously on Wednesday and then we'll break into an executive session to talk about next steps as we move forward with uh with the search um but will we get um like anecdotal information as well like you know comments section we we see that or is it just going to be percentages no you will get that there's some this uh some of the information will be really uh for the board members to help with the search so we'll that that will be kind of called out but no you will have those comments and some of the things that both said as a matter of fact I think there's some interesting um statistics that we'll need to talk about uh when we begin to lay out what what the answers were so okay some indication there um foreign to uh Mr Case is um I'm part of a board chair puts it together where board chairs can ask other board chairs questions you know what are you doing about this there were some questions about student reps how many student reps should we have so board chairs can exchange information I noticed that many of the boards of Education have uh Liaisons to to particular School schools so Kim could be a liaison to uh the middle school and then Kim would report and if Jeff had some things back and forth Kim can report on that back to the board maybe Eric is of the high school so Kevin tells me at one time we had those Liaisons I'm thinking that I might go back to that for the 2023-2024 um the school year so just think about that and see you know we'll have more discussion on that as we go uh as we go on those are the only things that I had uh from from a board chairs any questions today concerns thoughts no okay so um after we give these reports we like to go to the public so you had a chance to hear some things maybe some ideas or thoughts uh that you wanted to exchange with um whether it be the student report superintendent or the chair but we'll open up now to um the public forum anybody that has anything for public forum would just ask you if you could keep it to three minutes um and therefore we'll open it up anyone online for public forum you can go ahead and use the raised hand feature public foreign okay hearing nothing on uh public formal close public forum thank you Kira okay um we're fortunate tonight to have Mr Moore here and um we've changed the format Mr Case was nice to know if we thought it was just too much to pack in and we really wanted a rough up Jeff pretty good I just did him so just a case thank you chair Daniels it is our pleasure tonight to have Mr Jeffrey Moore here principal uh Canton Middle School to talk about uh goals for this upcoming year and uh yesterday was a special day for Mr Moore what's his birthday so oh happy uh Happy Birthday to You Mr Moore congratulations thank you for being here tonight we had a good day just wanted to thank you again and thanks for having me today I appreciate it uh and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about uh state of things at middle school and the wonderful work that we are we are doing um as we go through our presentation the first part I believe you will be consistent through many of the schools so I will just be going quickly reminding you that our work is uh is aligned with the missionary vision of our district um as well as our published Public School values and the vision of the graduates um just today as we are closing out the first quarter today is actually the first day of quarter two um we've infused uh aspects of the vision of a graduate into um citizenship codes that are embedded in the report card so this is language that we're actively using to be a part of our daily lives so this is also some Raymond towards we also just reviewed this as a faculty meeting this afternoon and how our school goals and the work um are aligned with the district areas of focus on and what I ask the staff is to say they think about how if these are the priorities for the district I hope that they have already seen how minutes time and energy are being dedicated to these areas when we were in agreement this is what we are working on and that's what when the work is given to the local level we're our work aligns with these during uh the work's also driven by some theories of action where the we have these district-wide theories of action uh shortly saying that we believe if our teaching is student-centered then students will achieve and they will become they will fulfill that vision of a graduate also that students remain at the core of the instruction at the end of any decision you're making it's about what's best for kids it's a district value it's a CMS value likewise if students are concluded if our school Community is inclusive and Equitable then all students will make progress towards achievement in an environment in which who you are is exactly who you should be and you're welcome for that again that school I did that just quickly because those are district uh slides and language that we are just reiterated probably by my colleagues I'm getting specifically to the Canton Middle School portion of this I would like to begin with this Photograph this is about recent student staff soccer game that took place last week last Thursday evenings we were absolutely blessed with Incredible weather uh 45 student players 17 staff members I'm really proud that that group of staff there on the right is a combination of classroom teachers custodians members of the IT team um and some of our broader educator Community um I I highlight that just because I think it represents something about Canton middle school and who the team is it's very inclusive it takes the whole team to make our school special and I'm so glad that that team came together to play uh and the students pulled out a five to four Victory with a buzzer beater goal five seconds to go however I would like to record to show that they cheated and I have a list of names I'd like to submit Mr Case is saying no that's Unbecoming so noted I'll uh I'll say that for another time but just a wonderful tradition that's come about in recent years and to see our community come out we have it seems to a special place and that's a special part of it so my presentation will uh quickly uh we'll recap where we've been with some historical data and then I'll bring you up to our goals and uh and show you some more specific data of the students right now about why we've chosen those targets and then talk you through the strategies by which I think we will make the growth that we need to make so first looking backwards here's historical data review of our academic performance at the top there is the smarter about s back is that smarter balanced assessment uh both seventh and eighth graders take it every every year and these are the this is the performance of seventh grade overtime and eighth grade over time Ela language arts on the top the math grid is on the bottom and so what you see is uh is for example just to walk you through the ELA the percent at goal or above in our seventh grade has traditionally been in either high 70s or right there around that 70 Mark there's that year excuse me I think that you're missing when we did not test when we were at home um and when we returned from that you see that Ela performance dropped 17 62 percent uh last year 62 at proficient or above in our seventh grade group grade eight in the mid 70s for several years before the cobit break and then we find ourselves at 68 in most recently 58 at proficient or above on the ELA so aspect assessment doing the same historical look back for math seventh grade in the mid 60s roughly until the covered break coming back in the uh 58 and then most recently 50 of students had performed at uh rebold Target or in a bond in eighth grade similarly math aspect performance in the mid mid to high 60s then we returned from covert Break um 48 last year 45 45.
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18 19. yeah there's no 20 because we didn't do the test no but 21 and 22. the first three were all pre-covered correct yeah there's a lot once again you don't know where they started and where they ended up but um I think some of what we're seeing now is the change that happened in colleges aren't valuing these tests as much as they were before so we have a lot of students where this is they don't care like it's not essential for them to get into the school that they want to go into plus 2122 there's a lot of trauma going on you know across the country and I think seeing that you know in those test scores is reflected I think that's a good point there's less incentive for students you know it's not it's not the critic it's it's not the the critical test that it used to be like if you didn't get this score you were done well you know and in 2017 it was common in the United States to be telling kids college is your only Pathway to success so these tests really matter in a lot of ways these tests in communities were measuring how much extra help they were getting in test prep outside right and over this period of time the national trend has been encourage kids to choose their own path and go to college if it makes sense to you and go to Community College if that makes sense to you and go to the Armed Forces or go into the workplace so you know if if 10 years ago seven years ago your focus was College college and these tests super matter and they did matter for College admission and now the narrative across the country becomes choose your own path and universities are saying the tests don't matter as much I think you're going to see some of that happen and to be clear the reason they're saying it doesn't matter as much is because it's actually a very poor indicator of how well terrible the student will do in college right is a far better predictor yeah which is why we've changed how we you know the goals of what we're shooting for into graduation rates ninth grade on track these things are really the telling things about how successful our district is doing not that I don't know if it's states which from act yeah yeah and I don't know what year that was but actually yeah at that particular time he people kids made a choice to choose Stacy right I think it was around 17.
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and yes that would be for boys and girls yes so those three Sports both male and female yes okay yep um the next one I want to talk about is expanding the programming for Early Learning Center including child care where we would redesign our administrative offices to be used as offices and classrooms for early learning programming and child care hey can can you go back for just a second oh sorry to eruption no that's okay so phase one yes 14 million yes does not include a concession stand does not include a concession stand it's just budgeted estimated at about five million dollars is the building now the building for the concession stand it's it's not just the concession stand it would also include bathrooms also includes some rooms that the teams could go in during halftime or pre-game things like that so it's it's bigger than just the concession stand kids are going in locker rooms or no they just go to the end zone just go ES the end zones right now there's nowhere to go so so to do that you're going to have to spend 20 19 million you can't spend 14.
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often districts forget about their Pre-K so I was really happy to hear them consistently say Pre-K to grade 12. so I wanted to start with just giving you a brief highlight about the progress it was made on last year's plans and under sense of belonging still living under the covid guidelines we wanted to have our students feel like they belonged at Cushman and have our parents feel that they belonged so we had to continue to have that communication with them and the staff we did electronic communications we still had our community meetings but those were done virtually and it was important for me to make sure that the parents saw what was happening inside the school so I did that through our weekly communication are we there okay perfect okay and then under um great appropriate instruction we started with a shared reading um interactive writing process that was done in preschool with our literacy coach Lori O'Neill we started our bridges math implementation both Pre-K and kindergarten and our math coach Jen fitton helped us with that and we had to really address the unique needs of students with disabilities that were coming in as three-year-olds have a continual enrollment throughout the year and coming in after kovid presented itself with plenty of new challenges for us under monitoring understanding we had to really work closely with our EI Partners in Expediting the process because there was a need for Expediting things because of the reduction in personnel and EI Partners had oftentimes we would get referrals and the student was getting ready to turn three right then and there instead of the normal advance notice that we had we continued to use the screening data in pre-K in kindergarten to help us guide our instruction and we had to really work closely with our students and our Outreach social worker last year worked with executive functioning skills helping children learn how to play again learn how to play with others and learn how to follow routines and structures so that's some um of what was last year's progress and this year what some of our goals are is to maximize that Outreach to support families through that transition process in preschool it's called the transition planning conference the TPC conferences and now instead of meeting families and introducing them to Dartmouth Public Schools via Zoom I'm actually going back out into the homes and sitting with the families and playing with the children in their homes we're increasing opportunities for our in-person meetings and events and volunteer opportunities we now have our volunteers coming back in helping our children walk over to the library we use the community library because we do not have a library equipment we do have a big classroom play tomorrow and expecting a lot of parents to turn out that will be one of the first times we're having parents back in for classroom events and we're continuing to increase the Visual Communications from various stakeholders I think it's important for our families to hear from other people than just me in our weekly correspondent so we try to highlight from the nurse the new staff to join us such as our new Outreach social worker Elise Alicia frix Frick so I'm trying to increase Communications from other people under great appropriate instruction we continued with that shared reading and we received a lot of resources over the summer for preschool with regards to math not only do we continue our bridges implementation but we've really got back to looking at St Math and increasing the number of minutes that our students in kindergarten are working towards targets and we're improving our timelines of the enrollment of three-year-olds who do qualify for specialized Services I made it my my goal my own personal goal evaluation goal to meet a hundred percent of the students to make sure that they are starting on the third birthday under monitoring for understanding we're developing Pre-K team goals they've developed them themselves focused on the growth of our Pre-K students going on to kindergarten looking at the pals data making sure that they are ready for kindergarten we've designed prescriptive lessons to support the students in kindergarten who who were seeing need extra help and we're doing that through our reading Specialists and our special education teacher and our special education teams are working together to assist in clearly articulated transitions whether it be coming in from EI or it's just coming into the school and and transitioning into a classroom or preparing to transition to kindergarten next year or a special program so we've got a lot of work to do and we are still just getting back to normal thank you thank you any questions questions um I just you know I just want to say that you know again it's so like evident how you are really working to try to like Bridge those gaps for these students who came in I mean there certainly was a lot of loss with socialization I think we're all aware of that and I just love the fact as we're like talking about the sense of belonging I have been a participant in the learn launch workshops that I know um and I've you know took place took part in those um just the last past couple weeks and again like getting into the homes is certainly like a really important part of that so you know seeing those families and starting there it's a great it's great start for a families to feel that you know a sense of community so I really appreciate that I agree thank you okay thank you thank you thank you no I I think I'll just comment at the end that's fine okay yeah thank you thank you the Mellow his career hi Mr Hill and I would like to thank you all for having us here at school Temple committee tonight to talk about where we've been and where we're going at demella school uh starting with our progress and highlights from last year's sip we all know what last year was about much of it um across the district was spent contact tracing and dealing with student illnesses and mitigating you know staff issues um and as a team our school admin and our Outreach social worker and nurse were able to connect with and support families experiencing various hardships that impacted student attendance and learning last year so during this time we made an effort to be present in classrooms throughout the building it was a goal every week for Mrs paveo and I to get into every classroom and try to connect with the students and the teachers be it from three or six feet away with masks on that was a priority and we also worked really hard to find ways of upholding the Traditions that we held dear at Demello School such as a student of the month assemblies albeit they used to be in person person last year we made them all virtual we also continue to provide our students across the building with opportunities to see themselves and learn about others through our diversity lending library that we are still maintaining and through Multicultural learning materials across classrooms and grade levels moving on to grade appropriate instruction throughout last year our grade level teams continue to use common planning time and after school meetings to work on reviewing student work and data to inform instructions we had Bridges full steam ahead at Demello last year all of our students jumped on board and we had a really productive year with that program we're continuing on this year but that was a big Focus moving on to monitor under understanding as an admin team assistive and I devoted as much time as possible to observing our newest teachers supporting our newest teachers who are awfully Brave to jump into The Fray during a pandemic providing them with targeted specific feedback aimed at strengthening student engagement and academic rigor and we continue to do that now on a broader spectrum that is our progress from last year moving into this year I'm going to let Mr Hill start off with sense of belonging all right and again you know first year in Dartmouth and really enjoying my time at demillo and you know excited to where we're headed to so under sense of belonging some of the things that we're working on is reestablishing our monthly PBIS Community meetings focusing on development and inclusion and unity we have implemented vertical stem teams devoting to critical thinking skills while fostering skills such as teamwork creativity adaptability and dependability come back to me yeah and our focus is truly on back to normal we've had such a great start to this school year and I I attribute much of that to the fact that people feel like even though covet's still out there we've stepped kind of out of that um covet Hayes and we don't have masks on and we're not worrying about distancing and we're all eating at tables in the cafeteria and we can have all of our in-person uh celebrations together so we are back to normal and we are doing it all um we have in-person Gatherings we had two student of the month assemblies with families in the building today we've planned our first family uh literacy night for first grade coming up in a couple of weeks we have Fall Fest being hosted by the PTO for Cushman and demel the weekend and the 19th we're looking forward to authors visits cultural events during the school year you name it we are back to it we're also working hard on improving communication with our families at Demello so starting this fall the first week of school we send out a newsletter to kind of bring everyone up to speed on what's gone on in the building for the past week we send pictures of people's kids we attach to the newsletters and then anything else that we need to let the community know about and those have been really well received okay so for great appropriate instruction we're focusing on a strengthening our tier one instruction through providing regular opportunities for extensive grade level planning horizontal and vertical team learning walks identify and observed best practices and also embedded opportunities for academic discourse and critical thinking and in addition to strengthening our tier one it's also bridging what's happening within our tier two and tier three into the classroom so we're utilizing our Ela and math coaches to support and guide special education teachers effectively and also utilizing our reading and math Specialists to connect to that tier two and tier three instruction back into the classroom okay and finally under monitoring understanding uh this year big priority for us is to provide our grade level teams and interventionists with regular opportunities to dig deep into data and plan instruction with our individual students needs in mind our teachers are focused on using regular formative assessments to gauge their students understanding every day driving daily instruction and fully grouping their students accordingly we also will be providing teachers with some additional PD centered on integrating checks for understanding throughout their lessons as well as providing students with clear specific feedback so our plate is full we're ready to go and the energy is good so that's where we're at we're at right now does anyone have any questions for danella school hello thank you you're welcome aboard thank you Mr Porter this is McHenry good evening Mrs McHenry and I were going to talk about um Potter past and Potter present um as it relates to our student Improvement plan so if I can do this correctly there we go um so I'm going to look at back at um our highlights from last year so um under sense of belonging um if you're going to have students be included it's important that students be there and I think the challenge of the pandemic was having students in school so one of the things we decided to do last year because we were we were very concerned about our attendance the year before was to develop a team of Administrators social workers on the school nurse and the school psychologist to reach out to families who are struggling with the attendance and clearly there were times when kids had to stay home but there were other times where we really needed to let families know that it's important that they also be in school either be in school physically or virtually so we each took um families that were struggling with their attendance and worked with them to make the best plan possible and we were pleased to see that we did see a difference in our attendance last year under great appropriate instruction if you're going to have great appropriate instruction then you need to have the schedules and the structures in place to make sure that happens so previously before the pandemic scheduling at the elementary level can be a bit of a nightmare when you're trying to um schedule phys Ed art and music especially when you're sharing specialist teachers throughout the district but one of the things we noticed before is that sometimes for example in an Ela block the block may stop for 10 or 15 minutes and then the kids have to stop what they're doing and then go to phys Ed so one of the things Mrs mckendry and I worked on with teams of teachers is how can we reschedule things so that Ela block can be 45 60 90 minutes long without that Interruption daily it did require some creative scheduling it required us to go for example to do a recess then lunch schedule it required us to have the lunches maybe a little different time it required us for things that we can control like Second Step at the library to see when it makes more sense to do that because we felt for grade level appropriate instruction to happen you need to have those erupted blocks of time we also worked with teachers to designate when it would be um purposeful to have the tier two in tier 3 instructions and in terms of monitoring understanding if you're going to monitor the understanding as professionals it means you have a Common Language so we tried something different last year where a few times during the year we had the classroom teachers meet and plc's with the interventionists to look at student data but also to look at the language and vocabulary we're using so for example um if one teacher for most fragile Learners are going to call what's typically sight words popcorn words when they're then going to their intervention and they're hearing the word popcorn words but the interventions calls them sight words you're confusing our most fragile Learners so one of the things we decided to do is how do we make sure we have a Common Language and also looking at our student data it was through that work that we realized that we had some concerns in our phonemic awareness awareness instruction which led us to on purchasing with the support of the district the hegarty phonemic awareness program so we were pleased to where we were and Melissa will tell you where we're going starting with a sense of belonging so we've talked about and you've heard this evening all been impacted by covid-19 in a variety of ways both our students and staff from either their physical health or their social emotional health so since this school year is our first non-coveted school year since 2019 we are going to work on enhancing our culture of positivity across all settings with students and with staff to this end we purchased the book The energy energy bus by John Gordon for all staff and then The Energy Bus for kids for each classroom both books teach and review strategies that focus on the positive providing ways to spread positivity and how to persevere through challenging tasks or challenging times the original version of the book the chapter book for staff centers around as character by the name of George who's having a tough day his car is broken down he can't get to work works also struck he's struggling with work and with life so he's trying to balance all that so because he doesn't have a car he takes a bus to work and he meets the bus driver joy and she he has conversations with her over a series of weeks on different strategies that he can use to help remain positive both at work and at home so the student version of that book also has a character by the name of George how he however he's not struggling to drive to work however he stayed up late uh the night before playing video games he got up for school late he almost missed the bus barely got his breakfast in and now he's lost his math workbook so um his bus driver also teaches him strategies to remain positive and get through a school day so what are some of these strategies well for the adults and the adult version of the of the text it states that you're the driver of your bus invite people on your bus and share your vision for your road ahead don't Focus your energy on What's called the energy vampires so those are though those people who will spread negativity but rather get your positive people on your bus that will help you reach your goals some examples for the students we ask them to create a positive Vision if you can see it you can create it and not energy vampires but rather stating no bullies should be allowed on your bus so these strategies have been reviewed with with staff during staff meetings it's how we get started or we how we end the meeting it was also taught to the students who are read aloud that Mr Porter and I did through the magic of Technology on Google classroom and we try to remind them of those strategies during the day or during morning or afternoon announcements so given the challenges we have experienced over the last few years these books will help to shine a light on Potter and what we do well encourage us to persevere in those challenging times and enhance and refine the positive supportive and collaborative environment we have moving on to grade appropriate instruction we are part of the district pilot of the foundations program so one teacher across our building from grades K to three is piloting this program our literacy coach is working closely with these grade level teachers to plan the lessons teach the lessons and then collaborate to discuss the challenges and benefits of the program and its resources they're also reflecting on the insights they gain about the requirements to teach the program through our district we're collecting data to compare the classrooms that are piloting the program with a classroom that is not using it to determine if the program is successful in increasing student achievement in the following areas so phonemic awareness phonics word study handwriting and spelling under monitoring understanding we continue with our work of refining analyzing student data to provide targeted just-in-time support and intervention through the use of progress monitoring We are continuing to create intervention groups or supports for our students that are fluid but also will increase dialogue between the regular education teacher as well as the interventionists so that our instruction both inside and outside the classroom connect to each other to increase student learning to this end we have updated some of our RTI procedures to include paperwork that will highlight the who the what and how often an intervention or Tier 1 or tier 2 support happens in the classroom and the success is that the students are having and that is our work for this year thank you thank you thank you tonight yep for tonight good evening everybody thank you for having us here tonight to present um our update for the Quinn school so I will Begin by updating the 2122 progress and as you've heard from all the other Elementary colleagues we were impacted obviously the same exact way by covid and all the things you've heard tonight are applicable to the things that we've had to do as well um going to the sense of belonging if you recall last year when we did our presentation our entire point of emphasis at staff meetings School Improvement plan was really building relationships with families not knowing how they were being impacted at home and that was our message all throughout last year and it continues to be our message this year and compliments of the Quinn staff it doesn't matter what position you have in the building people are going above and beyond to build those relationships all throughout last year as we were transitioning back into more of a regular school model again and we did that multiple ways constantly consisting and monitoring of attendance towards the end of the year we were able to get back to some type of in-person um PBIS rallies we were able to have parents but we're able to get back into at least having the kids in the auditorium and we were able to live stream that so parents could see it as well as special ed meetings were able to have some of those meetings in person towards the end of last year so it started to bring back that feel of community and more personal relationships so again the all of the work that the staff has done and continues to do even this year is has been great so I just like to put that out there to everybody involved at Quinn as far as last year for the great appropriate instruction as Mrs paveo was talking about we we talked a lot about the accelerated roadmap and really it was trying to use data to find those entry points of what is the most appropriate place for whole group instruction and then from there obviously breaking it down to specific students or groups of students of where are the kids at what data are we using to make sure we're targeting instruction to close all sorts of gaps and be aware of where students are at um and again we'll you'll hear from Mrs Thomas a little bit more about that as that continues to be a point of emphasis of really understanding student deficits and what we need to do to close those gaps and that was obviously supported in multiple ways by literacy and math coach and as far as monitoring understanding the big piece that we've been working on for years now and we continue to Monitor and continue to update is our RTI process where we currently have we meet every six to eight weeks a team of people from related service to school psychologists to Administration to teachers special ed reading and math specialists all come to really analyze the data see what practices have been implemented and what we can do to constantly put supports into place to support student learning so those are things that we were doing last year aligned with the accelerated roadmap and um this is Thomas and Mrs jeremilovich will update you with plans for this year for us Ing we have established an opportunity for our special education program teachers to have common planning time this is something different than in the past typically they've met on their own so we really thought it was important for them to have that established time to meet together and in addition to our PBIS rallies we have we have a new mascot our lion and at Quinn school we wore so it's very exciting it's something new this year that we're all very excited about and with that thanks to our PTO and our PBIS committee when you go into Quinn there's no denying that we are the Lions and we have our expectations and our matrices everywhere around the building in all settings of the school even outside on the playground if you've been outside you've also probably noticed that we have the expectations out there as well for students so we're happy that and we're going to continue with that this year hi everyone in terms of grade appropriate instruction this year we worked really hard to create a PD plan that we do at the beginning of the year that is truly differentiated so we always talk about at Quinn how we have this diverse population of students well that comes with a diverse you know a diverse amount of teachers who have so much experience and knowledge so we're really using what we have in the building and listening to the teachers and trying to give them what they want and that means if it's different from what it looks like at the beginning of the year we're flexible and putting those things in place that also to that is providing different resources if things come up throughout the school year we try to figure out how to give them what they need to make sure that their instruction is exactly how they need it to be with the group of kids in front of them um just as everybody continues to say we're all monitoring for understanding we're using that PLC time we are able to do that with the schedule so that a grade level once a week can meet as a cohort and talk about their best practices the data what it looks like what they need and as Mr granfield highlighted every eight weeks we are coming back to the table and having those in-depth RTI meetings with everybody we needed at the table a special education teacher a school psychologist reading or math interventionist myself Mr granfield or Mrs Thomas so we are progress monitoring and using that data for good and that's what we're doing at Quinn does anyone have any questions quick question and just on yours do you have a name for the mascot yet I know watching the watching right I know watching the video which is excellent type of deal you know so that started this week so students and staff are able to vote okay um so by Thursday we'll have the votes in on what our name will be some really exciting names so we'll see okay I was just like Get Ready Get Ready Mr Nunes I'll let you know thank you that's fine that works thank you Mr Shia well thank you to all the uh School level administrators for putting together um your school Improvement plans and presenting them um I found them extremely detailed and you know there's certain certainly some overlapping themes here and overarching themes um I will say that I can fully understand how much work goes into these each year in the collaboration and just making sure that you're covering everything from your school what's important to your school but also looking at the overall District View with everything considered you know one of the things that I want to make sure that we don't forget as a district is that while you know I'm thrilled that we're having all these in person Gatherings and things are back to normal really fully at this point is that we can't forget that we did just go through two long years and I bring that up because one of the um one of the keynote sessions at the last week's joint convention superintendent school committee convention one of the Keynotes was the clinical clinical psychologist I think it was on um Thursday that just talked about how important it is to make sure that we continue to check on our students and check on each other check on our staff to make sure that you know we're getting through this together because it's certainly P the social emotional piece is real I know um that there are certainly those issues that still very much exist in our district um and and I hope that from the district standpoint from central office down to the schools that we're continuing to um do our do our due diligence to make sure that we're addressing our social emotional students that are clearly you know some of them reaching out and making sure that we're um because let's face it if a student doesn't come to class in a good place it doesn't come to school in a good place if that student is on the bus crying out or reaching out if that student is coming to the class to their desk with significant behavior issues we need to address those first before they're able to learn so I just hope that the district while I am thrilled at everything that's going on in all the work and effort that's put into here into these School Improvement plans I just uh I sincerely hope that the district is taking into consideration the full overarching needs of our Learners thank you and thank you to the administrators for presenting Dr Jenkins so thank you I want to also thank everyone who did a presentation today and I specifically want to focus and give you kudos for your focus on sense of belonging I teach at the University level and I know that a sense of belonging is one of the strongest predictors of academic success you need to feel like someone has your back and that you are engaged in the work that you are doing I also want to push back on the notion that this is political Dartmouth Public Schools should be a safe welcoming loving environment for every single child who comes to school there should be windows and mirrors for every child that's not political that's about loving our children and so I give you all kudos for the focus that you are having on that sense of belonging for every single child in our schools regardless of their abilities regardless of their identities they belong here and we welcome them so thank you thank you Dr Jenkins Ms Amaral yeah really put my points quite eloquently together uh I too am quite impressed with the focus on that sense of belonging a few weeks ago I participated on a panel for Department of Ed put together a family and Community engagement conference and they entitled it it was a Better Together Summit and and that really speaks to whether you're um whoever you are working within the public schools or the families that are sending their loved ones to our our schools the adults in their lives the caregivers the Guardians the parents um that sense of belonging is critical uh Rick and others spoke to this but you uh Mr Porter sorry Mr Porter to the families and I think back to that conference and some stories that were shared about student attendance and uh the implications of the pandemic and wreaking havoc within families and it was actually a topic on the overuse of filing you know filing on families or not sending their children and one particular story was uh was to help people in attendance of this Workshop kind of think differently around and you kind of like I'm gonna go and try to focus this I can go on tangent um but was to make us think about wow you don't know what's going on in someone's life and it was a particular story of a neighboring district and a wraparound specialist talked about this family a student hadn't attended school and well family was you know recovering from some significant issues themselves of the parents of this child and you know the first the first thought was we're going to file on this family and lo and behold with some engagement and visiting the school and getting to know the family and understanding what was really happening it was sort of not taking the past but looking at what they were dealing with it was a family who had gotten so used to you know the interdependence of having their child at home and letting go of that child after two and a half three and having them I keep looking at your wrist but you just spoke to this about how you're in the in the homes and getting to know those families and their stories and helping them trust and build that relationship um and it's a good story the student is back in school and all those things like you talked about and they increase it in attendance but it it really just stems from that relationship building that sense of belonging that understanding that you know bringing back the humanness and what you all do so well um it just is so heartening to hear that thread throughout everything that each of you had spoke about um and that goes to you know thinking about the social emotional well-being of our Educators as well um because we're all in this together and we're better together and um I'm just really glad to see that and to see the focus on the data to Target all of our Learners to catch up you know the learning loss that Desi knows that we all know has happened over the course of the pandemic and coming back to school but then you know just looking at each student individually based on some of those data points to see you know wherever they may lie you know um and and helping them get back to their full potential um because that will predict you know the success you know education is about preparing us for life and um which is also impacted by the relationships that we feel so we're all better together team so thank you guys are so elegant so no I I do want to you know Echo and and tag along but also say you know I am very impressed by the mechanisms we have in place to continue this work and again I know I referenced before but I did like jump into the learn launch workshops because I think it's you know that is an impressive group that's coming through and giving support to our Educators as we continue to make sure that you know they when the workshops is about fostering a sense of belonging how do we do that and how do we make sure you know again to continue to reinforce and Inspire Educators with those tools and we all you know we all need those um you know consistent reminders I thought it was a also very um you know just looking at ourselves you know and I thought back to uh you know Potter when we're talking about making sure our language is consistent just in terms of uh you know I was curious you know they were looking within you know in Mr we were looking within our school but again within the district because as we turn into Middle School you know we want to make sure so I'm I'm so glad that those consistencies remained and those languages remain consistent so I'm really grateful because I I know this group of Administrators and you know in my experiences you work so well together you have so many relationships and you have so many conversations and one that might not be like known by throughout you know everyone that's listening I think it is really important that we have such you know a strong collegiality among our administrators that they have those again they have those conversations and I think you know the the pivoting of um you know our curriculum coordinators as well just to be you know for you know to be in the elementary schools to be to have those conversations to share those conversations are so important to like sharing the best practices from all of our schools and staying on the same page that are so that our students are making that transition into the somewhat difficult years in the middle school so um so I'm you know again I'm very impressed and I feel like we are you know as the administrators in the school we very much have our eyes on on these students and making sure that you know we're going to be keeping their social emotional help and their health and their academic well-being in front of us so I'm impressed with that thank you Miss Wade I just echo my comment uh my colleagues it's obvious that the theme here from my perspective is the students and we're taking care of the students with what everything with whatever they need socially and emotionally and trying to make sure that they get back to we're getting back to a semblance of normalcy that we haven't had for the past couple of years and yes the pandemic thank God is done a few cases here and there and that's like the flu it's going to be there type of deal but we're back concentrating on students and everything that goes along with it so my thanks to all of you for a job well done I appreciate them I was just gonna say we need a motion to accept the four Elementary uh make a motion that we accept uh the school Improvement plans for our elementary schools second motion by Mr Oliver a second by Miss Amaral to accept the plans on a motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right good job thank you everybody no problem all right old business school Community policy JF school admissions second reading and vote we had this at our last meeting there were no adjustments or anything I don't know if anybody has any other time I make a motion to approve second motion by Dr Jenkins second by Miss weight on the motion any discussion I did one you minor revision um to remove gendered references and I and it just shows how easy it is to to do these sorts of things when we think about them and we keep our eyes on them so thank you for that yep no problem my my apologies like yeah no worries it wasn't it was just I wanted to make sure to thank the administration for making the committee for making those changes no that's fine all in favor aye aye opposed motion Gary's all right all right Jesse will be happy yes and keep them happy I won't go there no not at all no way you know how um next on the agenda is the superintendent's evaluation which we went through at our last meeting in unfortunately I forgot to follow this to Kate for her to fall with to the rest of the committee so we've got that done I'll make a motion to approve because I was the one who asked for the delay so that we could at least see it before we voted on it it's only on the agenda because of me so I will make it believe me thank you I'm fine it's not a you know I'll second that so we moved by Dr Jenkins and second by uh Mr Oliver on the motion any discussion and my again my thanks to uh Kathleen for uh doing all the computer work to put it together well thanks that was easy and then meeting with a meeting with Dr Gifford to put it together so that's fine okay done yeah it is I don't think we voted in favor [Laughter] wait till after you're retired yeah she said your last one too oh my goodness oh God okay anywho all right uh still catching up from the weekend lots of sleep I bet uh town meeting update Mr Kylie thank you Mr noon so on September 21st I presented to you folks um what we might expect at the October 18th town meeting we uh fortunately we're here in this building on the 18th and the town meeting approved all of our requests it was a mil one million ten thousand dollars worth of requests um security related improvements relating to doors and windows and telephones and intercom totaling 460 thousand dollars playground improvements 250 000 parking lot repaving 150 000 in furniture replacement a hundred and fifty thousand dollars so that was good news um and always happy to have the continued support of the town we appreciate that though the only bit of bad news relating to the capital Improvement plan that we got was that the mass School building authority decided to um decided to suspend their accelerated repair program so what they cited was the the recent bid results were coming in 43 percent higher than estimates um I'm not shocked by that but that's the reality and uh supply chain issues have made those projects prohibitive and and really can't get done in time when you're talking about most of these projects you're really focused on time when students aren't in in the buildings and if you can't complete them within that time I don't know how you can really really undertake them so they recognize that they don't have the money to do the program anyway so um they've suspended it but what that means for us we were sort of deferring our high school roof project until we had a better indication of of the economic environment relating to construction so now that's going to be delayed even further so we've already this week began to undertake some repair work that we hope will help string us along um there's there's significant issues with this roof and it does need to be addressed I think it would be prohibitive to have the town attempt to um address it without the msba at this point in time we probably couldn't accomplish the project anyway so um the reality of the situation is that our best course of action is to wait and hope that the msba you know hope that the economic environment improves and the msba is able to continue their program which I would expect at some point will occur so that's sort of our our uh our bad news we also in our Capital Improvement plan have some other projects that might be related to the msba um that are further out in our Capital Improvement plan so those projects would also be delayed um and pushed off a little further because really this roof is going to be our priority project relating to that so Mr Oliver thank you Mr noons quick question for you Mr Kiley so in the event well it's happened that they've suspended the program so what are our what's what are your thoughts and maybe what are the committee thoughts on is this something that do we look to the springtime meeting to maybe ask for a couple hundred thousand dollars in capital to keep our roof at least from leaking because let's face it with without a dry root without a uh you know a solid roof everything within this building is jeopardized yes including in in rooms right next to where we are um where they've there's been continued leaking problems that we're trying to address so uh so one thing we're doing with the capital Improvement plan so right now we're creating our new capital Improvement plan uh that will cover FY 24 through 28.
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