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Mr secretary roll call please okay do we have Mr Alber no um gyos is here uh Mrs SW walish here miss Z stricks here miss worfolk here uh Dr Hall here had a l my voice like you make it deep and and president Brown here thank you like us to stand for the pledge been led by secretary Mr G followed by a mission statement led by Dr Hall 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 all our mission statement is to engage and Empower our students to positively impact their community and future thank you both need a motion open I need a motion to open up the open okay all right I need a motion to open up the truth and Taxation for for the public hearing I have a motion to do so moved moved by Bill second second by Dr Hall questions or comments roll call please all right um gyo says an i Mr swales hi miss zus I miss worfolk I Dr Hall I president Brown I motion pass all right Jason or or Brian is on you Cheryl are there any public comments regarding the truth and Taxation hearing okay thank you good evening everyone my name is Brian Johnson Director of Finance for the school district we're here to discuss the 2024 truth and Taxation hearing if you tuned in last month this is the same presentation we reviewed last time so just let me know if we have any questions otherwise I'll get to it um to start definitions equalized assessed value is the result of taking a third of your property's assessed value which you are then taxed upon an example of a $150,000 home valuation would be taxed at the $50,000 equalized assess value the tax levy is the amount of money the school district requests from property taxes for our operating funds the tax extension is the amount of money the county clerk gives us and the tax rate is the multiplier that the county clerk applies against your equalized assess value to know the amount of property taxes you are required to pay the requirements for us we can request an increase of taxes each year a maximum of 5% or CPI which was 3.4% so that is the max we could request for the 2024 Levy new construction and new tiffs rolling off are not part of this calculation the levy is more than 5% which ours is this year due to those tiffs rolling off that we'll discuss later um we do need to hold this truth and Taxation hearing our notice was published in the newspaper the week of Thanksgiving and we we have had this notice published on our website more than 30 days in advance of the hearing the board will vote to approve the levy next week and then it must be filed with the county clerk no later than December 31st which is the last Tuesday of December historical data equalized assess value throughout the district has steadily increased the data we show goes back to 2016 it's been pretty consistent because of that our tax rate that we've requested annually has gone down because we need less of a percentage of a higher dollar amount and that's going to remain consistent moving forward the data we used to determine the levy again Consumer Price Index was 3.4% so that is our cap maximum that we're allowed to request the eav throughout the District was just under $832 million the estimate of new construction is around 100 million doll based on what we received from the Will County Assessor because of the Moni or I'm sorry the University Park Tiff that's rolling off we're estimating approximately $4.9 million of additional revenue and our annual Bond payment will remain stagnant at just under $12 million annually the yellow column in 2024 is the ballooned levy that we are requesting from the county for this year the reason those numbers are so high again is because we have a tiff rolling off and we only get one chance to request that additional approximately $5 million in Revenue so we increase this by an amount much higher than we think just to make sure we're not missing any money because again we're working off of estimates at this time so we just want to make sure we're covering all of our bases and just a reminder we do have the Moni Tiff rolling off next year so we'll be in a similar boat where we'll Bel next year to make sure we get all of that Revenue as well our estimated extension the funds that we think we will receive is in the yellow column here again not as high as what we're requesting but we want to make sure we're getting everything and again the bond and interest payment is staying stagnant and then here is the historic view of our tax rate that we are requesting again you'll see that that has decreased annually and this year with that Tiff rolling off we're requesting about 6% less than we did last last year that 5.45 is about 6% lower than the 5.8 re we requested last year and then again because of that Tiff the bond and interest share that each taxpayer is being asked to pay is lowered as well by about a little over 8% so what does this mean to a property owner here are some examples of a home that was valued at $100,000 historically 150,000 200,000 and $250,000 we are estimating an increase in total taxes paid which we don't get any say in a lot of properties were revalued at a higher eav than they have been historically and again we get no say in what the taxpayer actually pays we just have a say in What proportion we are requesting and we are always very concerned conservative in these numbers last year the actual payment that came out after all the numbers were finalized was lower and we expect that to be the same for this example of the $100,000 home we do expect that $16 number to be high and the actuals to come out lower but again we're conservative in our estimates so that there's not any surprises so with that if anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them otherwise just a reminder of the important dates our hearing is today next week you'll vote to approve the tax levy and then everything is due to the county clerk by December 31st which we will likely get that submitted on the 18th once everything is finalized and approved are there any questions thank you Brian Bill did you say no I said thank you oh just a quick question U this time of the year you know the public is looking and seeing that their taxes is going to go up and a lot of times the finger get pointed at us being the big contributor of the tax increase and so I I do want to reach out to you to see if next week the both tax assessors that's in our district here being money tax assessor andc tax assessor attend our meeting next week just if there's some questions to be asked from the public about tax increase that the assessors are the ones that increase the eav or the assessment values of the homes not the district correct so I know we have the biggest rate for the property owners but nonetheless we have nothing to do with the assessed value correct and I've seen in many meetings where the public came out and hammered us as being the ones that caused their assessments to go up but that's not the case so we have had in the past where not all the time but assessors have showed up just to speak on that okay yeah we can reach out and see if we can get if you could if they you know it's not available that's fine but if we can extend an offer to now sure okay thank you and going back to the CPI if you can just clarify the CPI that's on the requirements PowerPoints the first couple sheets there the third sheet tax extension may increase a maximum 5% or CPI 3.4% of the previous year extension whichever is less so that CPI was based on this January number right December 31st of 2023 2023 2024 2024 23 the year before right it wasn't this January 20 December 31st 2023 CPI was 3.4% which is what our 2024 tax levy is based on I thought it comes out and it's well just if you can provide Clarity on that I thought it comes out and we capture it on that January like this January this past January we take the CPI of this past January I thought December okay let me clarify that okay okay do you know where CPI is running at now roughly not off the top of my head but could look it up and get back to once I get back to my computer it's a president Brown there'll be announced CPI tomorrow on a monthly basis it's hovering around 3% it's fluctuated between 3% and 3.2 on a monthly basis but I'm looking right here and uh Mr Johnson's correct compared to December of 2022 CPI inflation CPI inflation fell by 3.1 percentage points from 6.5% which probably led us which led us to Levy at 5% previous year in December of 2022 to 3.4% in December of 2023 2023 so that's the number we use the end of December or December one so this one that's coming up this December is going to be next year for next year correct next year okay so it's not January okay I thought it was January I thought we used the January CPI problem okay thanks thanks thanks Brian appreciate it any other questions any other questions board members right thank you okay thank you all right I like a motion to close the truth and Taxation public hearing moved move by Bill second second by Jamie questions comments if not roll call please okay uh gigos says an i Mrs swsh I miss zit somus I miss War folk I Dr Hall I president Brown I motion Carri okay coming up at number seven we do have a reason to go into close session and it is for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees can I have a motion to go into close session for reasons just stated second any questions or comments if not roll call please miss War folk Miss zeit stumber I Mrs swsh I Kos say an I uh Mr Alber I Dr Hall I president Brown I we will be in close session for about 15 no longer no longer than 15 minutes and when we come back we will continue on our meeting including taking actions as necessary thank you e e e and a little later than what we anticipated I got a question did we feed the dog he's good okay all right as he as he should okay okay um we're back here for public comments and we do have any electri electronic public comments none okay we do have two public comments Mr Bruce bar for yellow bus Group Transportation bid results and regular education all right please the mic uh my name is Bruce bar I'm the owner of yellow bus group I've been in the bus business for 48 years um used to own Illinois Central School Bus I submitted a bid here at your school district I want to let you know that your bid was very fair transparent um Jason was gave us all the information we needed gave us it was almost a perfect bid um because that's not always the case when you put bids together um I operated with Illinois Central about 3,300 school buses in 11 states so I've done a lot of bids but I just want to give him the Kudos that he did a very nice job and I also want to tell you that even though we're going to get kicked to the curb um thank you um for giving me the opportunity to give you a bid and maybe we'll see on your special ed bid we'll see thank you oh thank you well received and Jason the checking in the mail may have all zeros on it but the check is in the mail okay FR or behind I appreciate that comment there next up we have another public comment if I'm pronouncing this right right U Mr Tom Sebert okay regarding Mac scho bus or Knack School Bus good evening Tim Ste from North America Central School Bus uh thanks for giving me a minute today and I think he heard my notes because I said the same thing I was going to come up here hey oh wow we all work for each other sooner or later heck I started this business up 10 years ago for First Student whenever they came in here wow Bruce started it up before that on Illinois Central with his team so we all come around we know a little bit about your business I want to thank you for allowing us to bid I think it was pretty competitive you if there's any questions on it later on down the road or something you know you always feel free to give us a call and we look forward to the special needs bid if this one doesn't work out so thank you very much wow thank you wow that was uh great to hear you know uh been out there hearing a lot of contracts and been bidded on the bidding process have been seen just in my private life out there as being challenged and questionable for you guys to come and say that the bid process was fair and Equitable that says a lot about our guys again thank you appreciate it all righty next up board updates uh so I attended the uh the triple I conference and on Friday uh was in a session about bringing the student voice to the board um so there's a lot of uh a lot of discussion it was a it was a morning and afternoon session um I got the name of a lady a board member from asigo who has had um students on their board for the past two years um and uh I got her number to bounce ideas off of um she said that there's a there's a a separate meeting of students that meets with the superintendent prior to the board meeting so they can uh add things to the agenda um or discern which one which issues should come to the board and which uh and which shouldn't come um so there's uh they they spoke about an an application process where uh students uh Juniors and seniors in the high school would um present uh applications and then I think a total of like six uh students would be in a meeting with the superintend it and then they would rotate out um uh unless there was an issue that carried over to the next meeting then that person would have to uh see if they can uh adjust with the with the next person in line um so uh so I guess we need to um if we're serious about bringing a student voice to the board uh I guess there's some things that we should iron out here M uh so we can bring that back to the high school um there were some middle schoolers at the uh at the training um and we have we're unit district so we have both Middle School and High School uh I was I was asking how uh how to how to incorporate both schools into our board meeting and they said Slow Down slow down pump the brakes just do your high school first get that going and uh make that succeed and then we can talk about you know bringing in the middle school later um so that was that uh training and then I uh I got to hear um Dr Winkleman from uh District 220 it's uh the the district that I graduated from uh they he was talking about uh Innovations uh that was the session that he was talking about uh he had heard that there was going to be like a mandate for full day kindergarten or something like that and he didn't have a place to put all these students so what he did is he sectioned off like two classrooms in the high school so that uh the high school juniors and seniors could teach The Kindergartners and um I would like him to uh maybe present here or if we could go over there and visit and see how it how it works out uh cuz it's it sounded like when he talked about it it sounded like way out there uh but he says it works really well uh he's like if you've ever seen a high schooler defend a little guy a little kindergarten like they they they defend him pretty well so um he says it's it's been working out uh really well for both the uh upper classman and and the little gu so uh just for clarification purposes there are like licensed teachers with them okay cool just wanted to make sure cuz I was like oh no no but oh okay I down all right uh so it's it's they're they're doing like chemistry they're doing like chemistry classes and stuff like that and they're teaching the the kids how to do uh what they're learning in in school it's it's really cool uh I guess I haven't seen it in in practice yet um I got to make a trip up there and uh what else it's been so long since our last meeting couple weeks yeah um what else do I attend um I attended the the Creek Country Christmas where our show choir um performed and our choir kids um performed um what else there was uh there was a family night with the ELC that was in the gym uh with dinosaurs and stuff um so that was really cool I get to bring my little one she get to see all her friends and teachers uh so that was really good um and uh I like those because I'm not the focus nobody knows who I am like they don't care so I get to blend in it's really cool uh not blend in with the kids yeah they're they're tall no uh I'm trying to remember everything that I did since the last meeting but it's a lot of stuff while you're trying to remember just kudos to every all of the musicians that played at the holiday concert yeah yeah including your son right fine they were all great my son was as great as all of the other children I swear yeah right Alex uh I think that's it I think that's it for me okay that was a lot and thank you so much for all you do both you thank you and again and then the parade we were in we were in the parade that was on Saturday yeah uh we got new lights for the van yes they did a phenomenal job yeah they did really good app we did Christmas story that was a big hit people were laughing as we were driving up and down Main Street I I missed I missed it I where were you in the audence no I know wife M I was on the other side of the bus you didn't see me so but thank you Alex and again thank you kudos for you supporting the building principal visit thank you for that too as well okay yeah going we visit a couple schools okay doctor okay Nelson anybody else is that better oh it is a lot better um I also attended the triple I conference and so I was three days into my appointment so that was fun and educational um I did attend the supervisor evaluation so I I learned about that also learned about school finances come to find out I was in two workshops that I think I was supposed to pre-register for but okay um the one oh I did go to four and the one that actually kind of stuck with me was learning about how school districts partner with their local foundation and so I did want to know who I can talk to to learn more about that how our foundation works with our school district if we have one I I did I did hear we did have one um so I'm curious and interested to see how our foundation supports the board and the district in general and uh may not be at this moment but I would like to learn more about how the foundation H okay okay yeah that is the end of my report that was quick I like you [Laughter] quick all right uh I'll save my uh updates for the tripley that I went to and some other things for next week given that we went longer than we supposed to in our close session so thank you all board members that attended all the functions throughout and very busy oh Alex I will get with you and Bill because I did kind of reach out to you guys to kind of move forward with having a student having a seat at the board I did talk to our principal uh Mr holy Phil hly holy Hil and he's ready to go he's ready to go and submit a person to us even the first part of next year he's ready he's just ready to go okay we're trying to get this in before the school year so I'll be talking to Bill and and Alex and we have a building meeting with the principal on the 17 we're not going to really discuss that but that's offline I'll talk to you more about that okay and I don't want to surprise us think we don't want to surprise our superintendent and our superintendent should not surprise us okay so more on that okay all right no other board updates superintendent administrative updates uh just to say our our students and our staff are working really hard to uh get that last bit of instruction uh in these next few weeks um and then the other thing I wanted to highlight is you should have at your table a lovely note that was given to to us um I'm not going to read it all for you but this was in reference to the waiver the boundary waiver that was received and like I said it's not often that we get thank you notes um but I just wanted to read the bottom so the uh Community knew about this and this was from Carla Mike Caleb and Dylan gadusi and again this was just saying their gratitude for um taking the time to do the waiver it says there is a Bible u a story in the Bible that teaches the importance of never forgetting to acknowledge and Express gratitude Dr K my family and I want to express our sincer sincerest gratitude to Mr surma President Brown and the school board members and the attorney who pursued the waiver solution at your Direction please feel free to share this letter so I just wanted to uh certainly uh publicly thank the godlis for that kind gesture but also just wanted to uh thank the board for their continued support and helping us get this done for our families thank you thank you the only question I have on that Jason is just moving forward all the existing families are going to you know finish their tenure but to make sure that no one else is added to that list correct so that that if they move into one of those streets they go to their school district correct Mr swsh when I issued the certifi letters to those 24 students I addressed them specifically to those students and their parents and I've communicated that with registration that it is specifically those students not that home address yeah so if anybody else moves in on that street it doesn't accidentally get enrolled here right correct that's my understanding and I'll double check with Dr Milenko that there I mean I believe there was a couple people that recently tried to register uh one of the streets of denell um was one of the streets in the subdivision um they were told that they're to go to another district and when uh subsequent addresses in that area come up from my understanding registration checks the Will County uh property tax records and verifies the school districts to that address thank you just for clarification should there be an expansion in any one of the families that is already been grandfathered in when their child or new addition be allowed in I don't think so from my understanding it was specifically for those students perfect thank you and that's the way I addressed it was those specific students given that the people are aware of that that they can make those arrangements I think it was a specific an amount like 24 24 students specific students right correct and that's sorry no no perfect I just wanted the clarification thank you and I did take the time as I said to look up each and individual student and their parent or Guardian that was listed in Skyward to send the letters directly to them perfect thank you you're welcome okay so this is the good news really good news that was a collaborative team effort all right all right business oh you go ahead that's still on you yes well number 10 um B business and call up Jason there yeah um good evening president Brown distinguished members of the Board of Education Dr Cara Kagan e I'm here to present the bid results or discussion on the bid results for our regular pupils transportation services for the district um in November of 2024 we issued a publication to go out to bid for those Services uh mandatory bid meeting was held six companies attended the mandatory bid comp uh bid meeting we received competitive bids from three companies um first company being yellow bus company the second company being first student and then the third bus company being Illinois Central positive connections kicker and alltown all attended the mandatory bid meeting but submitted letter saying that they were not in position to bid on our services at that time um the bid specifications uh were laid out I was seeking a three-year bid for regular Pupil Transportation Services and i' like to share with you the bid results of the bid summary including the route pricing I have revised these from the ones that were in your board package just to be some bring some clar uh Clarity I'm sorry regarding the activity routes um so those numbers changed based on when I submitted it uh last week so the lowest bid came in and was submitted by yellow bus compan uh yellow bus group of America over a three-year estimate of $18 mil $1,375 the second bid came in from our current provider first student at a three-year estimate of1 19 m712 $51.1 and the third bid came in at a very close amount submitted by Ellen Illinois Central 9,734 55092 um my recommendation is to award the bid to First Student our current Transportation provider I would like to thank Mr bar and Mr Tim for those very kind words I apologize Tim I don't remember your last name off the top of my head um but I do want you guys to know that that the bid was done um in good faith and an effort to provide the best services and the best cost effective service to our district um well Mr bar his company did come in at the lowest bid um and he spoke to his knowledge of having 48 years in the transportation services his Corporation was incorporated in July of 2024 and um while I have faith that they will gain business in the area um I wasn't ready to make a recommendation based on that I felt it was in the best interest of the district to remain with first student um till we receive more established companies and bids in our region of the south suburbs so basically yeah you're good go okay so basically you're saying you would with the lowest responsible bidder correct and where the most responsible bidder to provide safety Transportation all right that makes sense in a form of you know in a form of familiarity considering sure consider sir sure okay so do I understand what you're saying is yellow bus company got Incorporated in July correct okay may may I ask another question how long have we been using for student um I want to say that since about 20 we've been using 2011 maybe uh I I don't have the exact date but it has been quite some time they have been our provider in the years that we've used them have we ever had a successful first week of school I'm seriously asking because I know we haven't while my son has been taking bosos I'm Ser so I'm seriously asking what makes somebody a responsible bidder when their first weeks of school an ability to maintain Staffing and transportation makes what it's Staffing was a problem for everyone I'm not doubting that but our students are and I'm sure all of the school buses had it that's fine I'm worried about our students in the district and their transportation and ability to get our students to and from their destinations in a timely manner has been lacking over the years so what are we doing to ensure that first student is actually maintaining their contracts and ability to pick up our students and deliver them on time instead of leaving them on Street street corners for sometimes two or three hours the first weeks of school that that's a great um question Jamie um what I have begun to do uh not only in the transportation department but also in the uh business department as we began to enforce liquidated damages with first student uh year-to date we've assessed about $6,400 in liquid damages which uh primarily are due to uh timely bus situations so that's an effort that a goal that I put out this year to ensure that we get the best service that we can okay and that'll be going forward as well with them yeah we continue to try and do that um each month and and there's very specific uh language in the contract um we need to notify them within a certain amount of time frame if we didn't receive notice so we continue to try and do that in the business office um and I I know you're speaking to the first week of school but after rolling out the my my ride K12 app and things um I'm I'm receiving a lot less Transportation complaints than I did uh last year so that was about the the one piece of Leverage that I could have um aside from you know frequent Communications to not only dispatch in Glenwood and also South Holland but also to the reg regional manager from first stent perfect as long as there's something happening for that I'm all about it cool thank you yeah we we continue to work with the building secretaries because they are first line of defense in terms of services um Marsha from the creep M Middle School is wonderful at at um uh notifying us and and documenting those violations and then uh Miss Katie Cooper verifies those via GPS that way we communicate those with the bus company thank you I appreciate that appreciate you well I can tell you over the years you know I think first student has been kind of a soul bitter I don't think we had much competition with other bus companies bidding against them so so being the only one out there you have a the propensity to do what whatever I'm the only one here so I think they got competition and seeing the competition I have never in my life seen bids so competitive of this magnitude of just all the people that bid it so this was a this was tight this was good so I'm sure they're going to tighten them belt on some loose ends so they have came to the plate uh Jamie when we had brought issues to and kind of straighten up some things but as Dr Cogan is alluded to that that's not uncommon for bus companies to to miss the boat the first day of the week uh and leave students but that doesn't make it right right and say like I know there are problems and that's cool like all of the world is having problems like that but like I'm concerned about and I think a little bit of that too kind of falls on us not meaning us our district because some of the communication is from registration to the we have someone that handles all the routing right yes so we have someone that hands all that routing so I think it's the way the the the information trickles down from there to there to there gets at a bus company I think it's collaboration of all of them I think a little bit of his us I think definitely the bus company because I will tell you my daughter's a junior and two first days she has not been picked up but I'm not offended by it because I'm a little bit outskirt but I already I know that process and we just called the uh somebody at the high school and they route us over and then it's it's taken care of after that yeah no I'm not I'm not saying right I get it I think it's a collective I think it's a collective thing too I think the bus companies definitely got a good portion of that but I still think a little bit of that is on our district from fueling that or uh sending that information down too absolutely we all got to do that better and I think in the last three years registrations gotting much better cuz before that it was it was way worse it was it was thank you okay like I just wanted to check so thank you didn't mean it to be that bad of a and that that was my intention to go out to bid this early for next year's Services was to solicit competitive bids in the market you know a lot of bus companies need to prepare staff prepare um Vehicles if they are awarded a contract um our special education Transportation contract is also up at the end of this year I've began um talks with our current provider about extending that and then going out to bid is still a possibility also to ensure that we have the best possible service and the most competitive service for our students I think the last contract no one bid but for a student I think they were the last the only one exactly yes so Jason will this be on the agenda next week for a vote Yes sir okay so is there anything think in the contract any provisions in the contract if first student was awarded the contract and down the road they just was not meeting our expectations can we relieve them of their contract uh I'm I'm not a lawyer but I'm sure there are uh you know they that we are going to ask for them to put up a performance bond that is in the bid specs um that kind of a I don't want to say a cash Bond but a deposit that they will perform in a certain manner what what percentage of contract 10% as a performance bond yes sir 1.9 $1.9 million okay okay thank you any other questions no I just know from uh personal experience uh uh our uh speed um transportation we we did have uh a new company I don't recall who it was but uh we had to end their contract and then start a new contract uh with a different bus company because of um uh their performance yeah because of their performance and their um training of their drivers a lot of those um drivers need to have like they need to know uh how to do with wheelchairs and things like that so right dis disabil exactly and so uh they had to uh cancel that uh the first uh contract and and get a new company to do it but yeah the and and the lawyer was really involved with the contracts and and going over uh telling us how to go about doing that so different language in the contct yeah it's it's too bad that our lawyer is not here so sorry yeah yeah yeah yeah okay well no further questions for Jason thank you so much thank you is kind of odd never seen a consent agenda so sure yes ah please I I'll spare you this one I'll spare you on this next up is the consent agenda on personnel and culture a to approve Personnel report a one a approve educational support staff employment can I have a motion to approve as what I just read so moved move by Nelson second second by Alex any questions or comments if not roll call please Mr secretary all right Mr Alber I Mr gigos is an i Mr swsh hi Miss zit stus I miss woolfork hi Dr Hall I president Brown I motion carry do we have any old business hearing n new business well it's not new business for me I guess maybe it is Alex can you get with Dr car on what's involved with policies as the secretary and the superintendent kind of work together with policies so she can if you can talk to her give her an email call her that's is no responsibility press plus and all that stuff yeah all of that okay and there something in actually something in our board policies that says that and also there something in there that said that the secretary should get $500 skip that part okay skip that part we're best practice zero okay I have any other news new business if not can I have a motion to adjourn moved second moved by Nelson second by Bill all in one voice say I I any Nays we are adjourned thank you thank you public for joining us

at this place that's our Public Announcement so I have a motion to move to Executive session a motion from Chuck second from Margaret all in favor say I I all right thank you very much

no talking signaling or mouthing of words by The Spectators and if you have a cell phone would you please silence it at this time all right spellers remember that you can retrace or repeat your word or your spelling but you can't change anything once you've set a letter it is said um you do not have to worry about saying a capital letter or if there is a hyphen you don't need to worry about those things we will um be siging a out a first second and third place speller today um our champion might be declared before a second and a third place depending on tie and tie raing situations all three first second and third place spellers will go to the County Spelling beat which we are hosting this year so at the end of January is the county be and our top three spellers will be competing in that any speller who goes out and around you're going to return to your chair where you are and at the end of the round after all 12 spellers have gone any people who have missed will all leave at the same time okay you will always stay in your chair for the whole spelling be don't worry about swiching together okay so your chair is your chair all right I am going to give the word a sentence and then the word again I would like for you to repeat the word to me before you begin spelling and you know that you can ask for me to repeat you can ask for a definition you can ask for part of speech ask for any if you're unsure of what your what the word is ask for more information and I will give you as much information as I can I want to make sure you know what you're trying to spell okay we good all right okay we're going to start with our practice round so we will start with spell number one Lara spot a small extent of space spot s p o t good job thank you number two Go Victoria cold having a temperature notably below that compatible with human Comfort cold C thank you grab to take or take hold of by a sudden motion or grasp grab grab g r a b grab thank you bump to hit or knock typically with a degree of force or violence and making a fing impact and usually with a degree of injy damage bump bump b u bump thank you dunk to dip as a piece of bread cake or donut into liquid as coffee milk or tea while eating Dunk Dunk d u n k DK very good Miss to feel the lack of to be unhappy because of the loss or absence of miss miss m i SS miss it is just flicked in my mind that I giving definitions not sentences did any of you notice that but nobody said anything what's wrong with you people I'm supposed to be giving sentences not definitions but you guys are all doing wonderfully well I'm going to switch to sentences now instead of definitions here we go lamp June turned on his lamp to read a book about dinosaurs before bedtime lamp L lamp l a m p lamp very good thank you lost michah found his lost glasses between the couch cushions lost l o s t lost green the bleach Ashley spilled ruined her favorite green shirt green g r e e n green math jet used the skills she learned in math class to figure out how many cookies she can share with the class without running out math math m a ma don't worry about your name it's okay warm the blanket let ASA stay warm and cozy on the cold winter night warm war w a r n War [Music] correct bear Jaren saw a brown bear in the woods during her camping trip bear b e a r bear very good all right guys are we ready to get started for real all right I'm going to go ahead and dismiss the kiddos that were watching thanks guys for coming if you need a Kleenex there are some available and I'll put the trash can over here with it okay or do you want me to put the trash can over here that we not to put in pockets 101 all right start number one bolts Hilda bolts Hilda locked the door with several heavy bolts to make sure it stayed closed during the storm bolts bolts b o l t s that's correct jigsaw Kim was beyond frustrated when her little brother ruined the Thousand piece jigsaw she had been close to finishing jigsaw j i GW that is correct spying Julius and eel Rosenberg were an American couple accused of spying for the Soviet Union spying spying s p y i n g spying that is correct women women gained the right to vote in the United States in the year 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment women women w n n that is correct handstand and jolly and her friends contest to see who could hold a handstand the longest handstand handstand h a n d s t a n d that is correct pretend when using her toy kitchen set leing loves to pretend that she a world famous chef pretend pretend p r e t e n d pretend that is correct sideways Alana likes to sleep sideways but her brother always sleeps on his back sideways s i d e w a y s that is correct welcome welcome Lucy was pleased by the welcome she received when she arrived at the Inn welcome welcome w w c o m e that is correct midday a cannon fires in Halifax Citadel National Historic Site every midday startling tourists not expecting to hear a loud boom midday midday m i d d that is correct softly Claire sang softly to her new baby cousin until the baby fell asleep softly softly s o f t y softly that is correct cobweb Yorn brushed a cobweb from his face as he climbed the attic stairs cobweb cobweb c o b w e b cobweb that is correct report Timmy had to write a report about his favorite animal for homework report r e p e o r t report that is correct all right all 12 spellers still alive after round one good job guys all right let's jump to [Music] 120 all right spell number one Highway the construction of the interstate highway system under President Eisenhower improved transportation and Commerce in the United States highway highway h i g h w a y that is correct recess when asked what his favorite subject in school was Matt always responded that it was Recess Recess r e c e s that is correct wee the children shouted wee of they went down the slide at the playground we we we e I'm sorry that is incorrect the correct spelling is w e rodent a tiny rodent scurried across the forest floor searching for food rodent rodent r o d that that is correct huddling Toni was upset when she saw her friends huddling in the corner without her huddling h u d l i n g i I'm sorry that's incorrect h u d d l i n g gra gasp everyone in the movie theater gasped at the plot twist gasped gasp g a s p D that is correct taxi cab Shandra called a taxi cab to get home from the airport taxi cab t a x i t a b taxi cab that is correct sandwich Calvin patiently explained to his mother that he liked his sandwich cut on the diagonal sandwich scwi s a n d w i c h I'm sorry that's incorrect s a n d w i c leaking the roofer fixed the Gap in the shingles that was responsible for rain leaking through the kitchen ceiling leaking leaking l e a k i n k leaking that is correct machine rather than hem the dress by hand Clyde used mom's sewing machine machine machine m a c h i machine that is correct astray the coach worried that she had led her players astray with her advice as stray astray a s g r a y AR stray that is correct scribbly the margins of Jay's notebook are full of scribbly drawings scribbly s c r i b b scribbly or scribbling scribbly scribbly scribbly drawings can I start you may start again yes s c r i b l y scribbly that is correct retrace but nothing changed okay okay if you missed a word that round thank you for joining us and I'll let you go to this the leachers please okay first spell round three should Dad should be home in 15 minutes should should o u l d that is correct Violet theia picked a Violet from the garden and tucked it behind her ear Violet i o l e t that's correct breathe when we breathe our lungs exchange carbon dioxide in our blood for oxygen in the air breathe that is correct rle Greta knew her compost pile was doing well when she saw an earthworm wriggle happily in the hum wle wle w r i g g l e wle that's correct squeeze the twins always squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle despite the protests of their parents squeeze s q u e e z e that's correct groceries Alana liked getting groceries with her dad because he always let her pick out one treat for herself groceries G groceries g r o c e r y I'm sorry that's incorrect I S at the end instead of Y solution although everyone fought long and hard nobody could come up with a solution to the problem solution solution o l u p i o n Solution that's correct liquid Annabelle wasn't sure if the suspicious liquid on the floor was water or if her new puppy had an accident liquid liquid l i q u i d liquid that is correct neighbors ASA neighbors always get together in the summer to clean up the park at the end of the street and have a cookout neighbors n e i g h b o u r s I'm sorry that that is incorrect there's no you at the end of that all right if you've missed during this round please move to the leachers brother Sean enjoyed playing chess with his brother during summer break brother brother b r o t h e r brother that is correct outcome the outcome of the researchers experiment was better than expected outcome outcome o u t c that's correct murky the river's murky water was probably not safe to drink murky murky that's correct wagon Jesse and Joseph pulled their wagon filled with toys and snacks to the park wagon wagon w a g o n wagon correct childhood Noel remembers how she spent most of her childhood Outdoors running around and riding bikes with friends childhood c h l d h o o d that's correct Critters the campground was bustling with Critters whose chirping and croaking filled the air Critters Critters c r i t t e r s Critters that is correct [Music] Snicker the class began to Snicker when the substitute teacher realized she was in the wrong room snicker snicker s n i c k e r Snicker that is correct all right SC balloon the principal liked the science project but wasn't sure if he enjoyed having the students name their hot air balloon after him balloon b a l l o o n that's correct promise Lacy and her best friend made a promise to never go a day without talking to each other promise p r o m i s that is correct Castle Harry wrote an essay on the history of a French castle that was the sight of a battle castle castle c a that is correct uproar an uproar swept the auditorium when Wayne sank a three-pointer at the buzzer uproar uo u p r o a r that is correct exactly Malik measured out the cake ingredients exactly is creation to be perfect exactly e x a c e l y that is correct nonsense Leanne said soothing nonsense to the crying baby nonsense nonsense n o n s e n s e that is correct jumbled am found a jumbled mess of papers and photographs in the old box from the attic jumbled jumbled j u m b l e d jumbl that is correct Hopscotch Freda skinned her knee playing Hopscotch h o p s c o t c h popscotch that is correct quill Deontay found a beautiful quill anded alongside his mom's antique ink well on her desk quill that is correct biology Makoto is learning about the structure of cells in her biology class biology biology i y that's correct convince no matter how much he tried Amir couldn't convince his friends that pineapple on pizza was a great idea convince convince c o n b i n c e that is correct tinge the artist decided to tinge her painting of the sky with a soft pink Hue to capture the beauty of the sunrise tinge t i n g e that's correct Terror Franklin D Roosevelt warned the only thing we have to fear is fear itself nameless unreasonable unjustified terror terror terror t e r r o r Terror that's correct Groves saon took a peaceful walk through the Orange Groves on a sunny afternoon Groves Groves g r o v gr that is correct all right midair Amy leaped off the diving board and posed midair while her friends took a picture midair midair m i d a i r midair that's correct fend just before heading out for dinner mom and dad reminded their daughters there was food in the fridge but otherwise they had to fend for themselves fend f n dend correct jerky Kevin enjoys jerky so much that he would eat it every day if it were not so expensive jerky jerky J that's correct bypass Mr Jakes took the bypass around the city to avoid all the downtown traffic bypass bypass b y p a s correct Bitter Sweet Kenji made a strange face after biting into the bittersweet chocolate Bittersweet b i t t e r s w e e t that's correct Daredevil Nia's friends from school consider her a daredevil after she did a flip off the monkey bars Daredevil Dar d a r e d e b i l d that is correct a blaze Gary's attempt to make dinner ended with parts of the kitchen Ablaze leaving everyone scrambling for the fire extinguisher a blaze a blaze a b l a z e a blaz that is correct Trek the hike in the area known as the chimney tops in the Great Smoky Mountains turned out to be quite a Tre Tre Tre t r [Music] correct bygone Wesley's grandfather lamented the bygone days of $1 gallons of gas bygone I'm sorry that's incorrect b y n demigod the hero Gilgamesh was a demigod in ancient Babylonian mythology demigod demig d e i o d that's correct merfolk in Legends merfolk are said to dwell deep beneath the ocean service surface murog murog m e r f o okay that's correct rebuke the preacher warned his flock not to rebuke others before they had first examined their own faults rebuke r e v u k e that is correct new fangle the new fold coffee maker had more buttons than an airplane cockpit confusing everyone who tried to use it new Fang new Fang n e w f a n g l e d new F that is correct Rogue the Rogue slipped through the bustling Marketplace picking pockets and stealing merchandise without anyone noticing rogue rogue r o g u e Rog that is correct all right anybody that missed that round please head to the ogres as huge as they were the ogres were no match for the witches spells ogres ogres hideous Giants represented in fairy tales and folklore ogres o g e r s o I'm sorry o g r e s column a column supporting the balcony shows signs of termite infestation column that is correct Mirage the exhausted desert Travelers were fooled by a mirage thinking there was water ahead when there was only sand Mirage Mirage m i r a g that is correct contribute Emily decided to contribute to her school's bake sale by making red velvet cupcakes contribute c o n t r i b u t e country yes that's correct Amnesia Alice suffered from Amnesia as a result of a head injury amnesia amnesia a m n e s i a Amnesia correct this word has a homonym or could be confused with another word so make sure we listen to the definition or the sentence okay burrow the easy pace and sure step of the burrow make it a good pack animal burrow burrow b u r r o burrow that's correct anybody that Miss round thank you H Dasher another X upscale haard daser has opened a shop on Brighton Street ha daser h r that's correct skeptical will was skeptical about the new students claim that he had climbed Mount Everest skeptical k p t i that is correct clientele kyone hopes to expand the clientele of shoe store clientele c l i n t e l I'm sorry that's incorrect Onyx Enrique decided to go with the Onyx phone case so it wouldn't look worn out right away Onyx onx NX onx correct anecdotes Grandpa entertained us with amusing anecdotes from his life as a traveling salesman anecdotes anec do a n e c d o t e s an that's correct Halo the Halo surrounding the famous author was diminished after various scandals came to light in the years following her death Halo correct spree after she won the lottery Janine went on a celebratory shopping spree spree spree correct Tiff Elena had a tiff with her sisters over who had to sit in the middle seat Tiff Tiff t i f f Tiff that is correct Buzzard the Buzzard swooped down on the unsuspecting pigeon and carried it off in its talents Buzzard Buzzard b u g g a r d buzzer that is correct parting the history teacher explained that parting facts wouldn't help them on the test they had to understand the historical event significance of the event parenting parting um to imitate the form or without understanding the sense or meaning evolved Partin Partin p a r o t i n g I'm sorry that's incorrect there's two RS p a r r o t i n g suffice TK's parents thought he was packing too much for the weekend trip insisting that one small suitcase should suffice suffice suffice s e f i c e suffice I'm sorry that's incorrect F the cell phone salesman tried to F an expensive monthly plan on the unsuspecting customer fo I please have the definition to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit to f f o i s t voice that is correct G Dax tends to laugh gly when he is nervous gly [Music] g i g g a l l y I'm sorry that's incorrect g i d d i l y all right so we had three misss that time so stay seated please here and um Maddie this will be our Championship word so um as the last remaining speller she has to complete a round on her own so if she completes this next word correctly you will be our check all right and tsunami the tsunami devastated the shores of 11 Nations Tsunami Tsunami p s n i i I'm sorry it's incorrect okay all four of you are back in so all four back in tsunami TS TS u n a m i tsunami all right okay 32 yeah all right back in everybody's back in here we go steeped living in Madrid Jacob became so steeped in Spanish that he started to dream and think in the language [Music] steeped steep I'm sorry that's incorrect mourners mourners surrounded the grave of the fallen soldier and placed wreaths and flowers around the tombstone mourners MERS m u n e r I'm sorry that's incorrect residential when the delivery driver got lost in the Maze of residential streets with almost identical houses he finally resorted to using his GPS app residential r e s i d that's correct deposition the psy the psychiatrist's deposition was presented to the judge before the defendant took the stand deposition deposition g e p o s i t i o n deposition that is correct okay so we had two eliminated this round and two that stay so I'm going to have the two of you stay here because we'll go we'll finish out first and second and then we'll have to figure out which one of you is third okay so stay there all right turly alesio answered his co-worker question turly wanting to get back to his own project turly may I please have a definition in a brief and concise manner turle turle t r s l y I'm sorry that's incorrect graphite the artists preferred soft graphite pencils for their ability to create subtle shading graphite graphite g r a p h i t e graphite that is correct okay wait stay here stay here C okay so as the only remaining um speller in this round you have to complete your own round by yourself okay Manana Mara kept promising her dad that she would clean her room Manana Manana m a n a n a Manana that is correct all right so that makes Ken our champion and Maddie Bell our second place runner up and we need to have a spell off between the two of you for third place okay so I am going to go back to 3:30 and you are up first Leeward the leeward side of the mountain gets less rain than the windward side Lee [Music] word repeat Lee word it means situated away from the wind Lee word I'm sorry that's incorrect w a r d banishment for her part in the uprising the rebel was sentenced to lifelong banishment from the tiny island of nation banishment b i that is correct okay all right so because this was the champion has to complete their own round but not during a tiebreaker all right so we have our champion our second place and our third place all right congratulations to all of our spellers but our top three round of applause please okay um i' like to we need to have a picture with all of our spellers first and then we will do our Trophy presentation so all of the spellers would you please come down and stand together over here in front of our mat sit on the sit on the bleachers instead okay right over here we're going to sit sit together e not she let first of all congratulations to all 12 of these spellers they were the top three out of each of the grade levels so that's quite an accomplishment to be one of the 12 people here in the gym today so congratulations guys good job there you go to 12 in the [Music] scho all right our third place spelling be participant Grace reading second place Maddie Bell and our champion Callen Krueger congratulations guys all right let's stand together so she can get your picture for the paper against the mats this time parents thank you guys for coming I appreciate that I know the kids Doo so it's great to see you guys here because

e e e I am also promoting bill so okay good recording in progress all right welcome to the Wednesday December 11 2024 design review board meeting public comment is by Zoom or by phone by calling 852 5247 or 888 78899 and entering meeting ID 974 sorry about that uh ID 974 9412 this information is also available on the published a published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN ch Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org slatch CN the volunteer resident design review board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by city council Fosters excellence in Ann Arbor's built environment design and advises applicants on meeting downtown design guidelines first the applicant presents their proposed project for 15 minutes then the board discusses the design after that members of the public can comment for up to 3 minutes each and Hank if you would uh take the [Music] role board member Perkins here board member Burns board member Singleton here board member Kinley here member Mitchell here uh liazon karski here board member Ramson here you have a quorum okay thank you for that Hank uh next on the agenda is uh approval of the agenda um everybody's had a chance to look at it I will entertain a motion and second motion to approve second moved by Bill and seconded with his hands up by dick uh all those any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I same sign and the agenda is approved next item is approved approval of the minutes of the November 13 design review board meeting uh entertain a motion in second moved second I'm gonna say moved by Wendy and seconded by Lori any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I osed same sign and November 13 2024 minutes are approved um next item is Communications uh Britney according to your notes there were none is that still the case that still holds true okay all right good um and then on to public comment Britney um so far we have no one with their H hands raised so there's no public comment at this time all right well there will be an opportunity for that later in the meeting so on to unfinished business um Dr 24-5 601 South Main Street um apparently the application has been withdrawn so nothing to uh deal with there I presume uh that is the case I just wanted to just briefly say that um the applicant is working on getting uh further approvals from the ownership of the property and they may come back at some point in the future but they are having renewed discussions with the ownership about their alignment on development of that okay stay tuned thank you for your early comments and we will uh let you know when they're ready to return all right thank you for that Hank uh then on to regular business uh dr24 d61 uh 1208 South University Avenue and 610 South Forest Avenue um looks like Matt is the planner assigned to this one um I guess let me read this uh brief thing here that Britney gave me and then I'll turn it over to you Matt uh an update to the original site plan to incorporate the adjacent parcel at 610 South Forest Avenue the project will be an 18 story mixed use residential and Retail Tower the proposed development consists of 259 rental apartment units and 5,189 square ft of ground level commercial tenant space the ground floor also incorporates storage for 52 bikes and 29 garage parking spaces parking and loading have been concealed off the Southside alley and additional 54 garage parking spaces are contained on level two for a total of 83 garage parking spaces within the building um and then Matt if you can uh take it from there um good afternoon everybody Matt kski city planner here um actually we have Mr John lski on the the um in the meeting right now and he will be doing the presentation for this project and then I'll kind of touch Bas after that with a little bit of a summary so at this time I'd like to turn it over to Mr M and share your screen for the presentation I believe you have I don't have it up could you share do you have it by chance yeah yeah I could I yep yep I've got it ready um here we go so let [Music] me thank you appreciate that okay yep no problem wait is that the that's the first right yep yeah you click you could click to the next one um if you don't mind I think overall this was just I want to do this because there's not a lot of time but this was what you saw the last time we came in and so I just wanted to show you basically what we had and then the next image is going to show you where we're adding on so hopefully it pops out here but I think it will if you don't mind clicking to the next one here we go there you can see where that portion of the extension of the building sticks out and that's what I'll kind of walk you through but that's conceptually the biggest difference Way by far from a massing perspective so if you click to the next this is actually talking about the materials that's the other aspect that's changed um currently the building the only difference that you see from this view which you saw the last time is we have added an extra floor in we were able to basically squeeze in an extra floor within the height requirements by taking a little bit out of each floor we still are maintaining 9 foot um basically 9 foot 10 floor to floor so our ceilings will be right around 8 foot1 so we still have you know a really decent ceiling height and then a higher ceiling height up above and basically a very high ceiling down on the very first floor so none of that is really changed material-wise everything is exactly the same except the last time we spoke with you there was a concern about everything above the brick being made out of ephis or Stow panels and um we were able to work with Landmark construction Landmark design to get them to agree to the idea of doing this out of metal panel which I think is a huge upgrade and we're very excited about it because it'll be a Precision wall panel that's basically um assembled and fastened on the outside of the building it's not something where somebody's going to have scaff or anything hanging over the side and it allow us to get those crisp edges that were kind of a bit of concern um so it worked out really well so basically everything you see above that third the third story which is all brick at the base on this view we switch then to metal panel the corner is still glass like it was before and the metal panels basically come in three different colors there's the dark dark charcoal color there is the composite metal panel which we're going to match the brick on it won't be a direct match but it'll pick up on that concept of color and then there's the silver panel uh the bands everything that you see is basically exactly the same as what you had seen before so why don't we wrap around to some of the other views I think the next one's the same view oh that's good the big the big difference you see here now it's kind of hard on the plan but on the lower right hand side there's is that extension that goes out to Forest and that just allowed us to basically Stack Up and add that much more to the building that property came for sale after we were approved and that was just something that our client decided it wouldn't be a good idea to add it um the part behind that in the lower level which we refer to as the Transformer Park is something we're going to work with DTE the Downtown Development Authority in the city and every other kind of engineering aspect that's within that building to see what we can do to kind of fix it up um probably can't get rid of the Transformers not intending to get rid of trees but there's going to be a lot of work that's going to go on there not for our building but for DTE to provide more power to this part of town so we're hoping what can come out of it is a major Improvement to not only the with the building there but to that partk the only other thing I would point out is previously where our trucks pull so in and out was not owned by our client but it is currently owned doesn't change the building but where you'd see the trash dumpsters wheeled out on the property that's now private property with an easement so the city can go in and out as as they please but it gives um us the ability to have a place to store the trash outside when it's picked up generally speaking other than adding parking as was mentioned we we added an additional 73 units we added 275 beds we picked up six extra parking spaces and added about 612 Square ft to the retail area which was something we were asked to do and then we also picked up 42 B bike parking spaces that just meets code we have plenty of bike parking um it is something that is intended so everybody understands that the post office is going to come back in in this plan they'll be in that upper right hand corner right next to the bike storage which fronts the street that was also a request that we received from the community and then if we just go to the next plan just a second floor parking that was here before but on the wing that sticks out we have a two-story fitness center over on Forest so we have weights pounding below and above our residence It's Kind of Perfect Situation over there and then the next level starts to show more of a typical floor I think you can click to the next one that just has a study this is very much the typical floor and you can see how that extension kind of sticks out we go to the next one that's just showing the same thing next one that takes us to our roof deck that hasn't really changed except there is that big extension that sticks out we've always had the pool up there in that open Terrace area um one of our primary kind of amenity spaces sits across the south side of that smaller portion of the building that sticks up on the 18th floor and then the next uh image shows you how we've been able to add the solar to meet the requirements for 60% of the roof this is literally one of the only projects where this is achievable because the we're focusing on the addition now with the 60% so you can see we're we are actually able to cover it pretty much everywhere except where we have to pull it back four to six feet for the fire department and for our window washing cleaning equipment around the outside edges and then the only thing we don't have it on top of because there's just not a lot of space and we have to have a big m of exhaust fan is on top of our stair and elevator but that is going to help us achieve what's needed to get to the requirement for solar and next let this just runs through all the numbers which I've basically already kind of run through so I think with that I would just open it up to any questions that you have we can go through these if you want real quick Matt why don't you click through them that that doesn't that doesn't show anything different sorry the next one will that actually shows the extension of the addition on the left side sticking out towards Forest the rest of the building was basically exactly the same as you see before now you see it actually sticking along the park to the South now a good third of that was already there before but then we extended it out all the way to Forest Avenue and you can see the parking garage is kind of shaded in and if you look very closely there's a dashed line a lot of this you won't see because the parking garage hides it um I think as we explained last night in our community meeting we have a good neighbor to our South for anybody who's concerned about height in Mass because that's actually owned by uh the university and the city the parking garage and that neighbor is not going to change in the foreseeable future this actually shows you if we're on basically the Rick side over on the other side you can see it and the building is kind of very similar on that side to what you had seen before except metal panel versus eus and those are insulated panels next and these just run through all the elevations so I'm more than happy to go through that I I think everybody has that the building is all electric as it was before it's always been a concern for a lot of folks we just want to make sure they're aware of it and it does fit into all the specific height requirements that were required to meet as it did before thank you Matt thank you John thank you for that um Matt you have a staff review that you can present to us please yes thank you um so uh pish good good did a good job of summarizing up the current project and they touched a little bit on the history as you know this project in a slightly reduced form was before you guys I think exactly a year ago um so that this project has already been so the previous project that the drb S has seen about a year ago that has already been approved by Planning Commission so they do have an approved site plan for the site based on the design review board plans that were previously presented um so again like it was an interesting project because again staff's comments most of which staff's comments were the original way uh time around most of them were equate by the drb and they and they've been addressed by the petitioner through the first review staff had concerns about the use of the sto panels that was addressed um also additional retail space and um some organization of the bicycle parking those they've through the between the drb and the Planning Commission last year those issues have been addressed so really at this time staff did not does not have any design uh issues to to point out um however there there is kind of the project does bring up a newer issue with the petitioner has touched on which is kind of that Frontage along of the Transformer park for lack of a better word so the frontage along that South that has now been opened up quite a bit now that the petitioner has control over that entire the frontage along that the uh Plaza Park area to the um directly to the South so as you can see from their their building designs they have um they're they're utilizing that space for mostly like emergency erass or like um I think it's access to a Stairway and things like that so um so that part of the project is new where staff would be looking for planning staff a little bit clarification and again this was pointed out with the partitioner and and he mentioned it as well just now that they're going to look to to work with City staff as well as probably will end up getting the DDA involved and ultimately seeing what dte's plans are for that area because a lot is of course dependent on them um so at this time really staff's only remaining comments would be to continue to work with the petitioner which we will through the development pro pro process we imagine this Project's going to be submitted shortly for another site plan review which will ultimately uh require City Planning Commission approval once again so um that kind of summarizes up my my staff report at this time I think again because it was a project that was reviewed in almost the same form especially along the South you Frontage there wasn't really a lot for staff to to pick out at this I tried I tried to pick something but you know it they did a pretty good job addressing most of the concerns last time so I'm obviously available for any questions I can pull up the presentation as well thank you all right man thanks it's always kind of refreshing to me when a reviewer comes across a project and says hey it looks good I don't really have anything to uh to complain about here so uh uh I like that uh so uh if any of the uh members of the uh board have comments uh go ahead and jump in dick hi John and John could you tell us I I can't remember we probably saw them before who Josh and Tucker and Lucas are oh sure Josh is with our office he's a principal within our firm and Tucker is with Landmark development a project manager um and I I remember the last time we talked about this there was concern and a lot of conversation about the coming and going of cars uh trash pickup uh door Dash that kind of things and how it potentially might have conflicted with pedestrians so what has changed in am I reading this correctly that the dumpster is now being picked up off forest and I think that's a new thing am I right um it's actually still being picked up off of the I'll call it the alley although I guess it's a city street to the South so we still are picking up in that it's exact same location the differ the difference is Landmark purchased that property from the city they're not building anything over it but they purchase the property so they have the right to roll the dumpsters out and have it become a pickup and access point okay we still I think we're all going to work together to try to keep the kind of public Plaza and there is some requirement for some parking along there and we want to work with the DDA to actually promote as much pickup and access as we can off of that Plaza because it still makes the most sense you know to be able to have that become active but fundamentally as far as um South University nothing has changed and everything that was set up there is basically set up after going back and forth with the fire department and the DDA and City staff so we haven't changed anything there okay um that's it for now no other comments I sort of echo a little bit of what Matt said where you know we did look at this project before and I think one of the major concerns for me anyway was uh the picking up of that orphan parcel uh on South University so or on South Forest I'm sorry um so I'm really glad to see that um another comment that um I agreed with from the last go around was the um substitution of some other building material besides um besides uh Stow or whatever drive it or whatever product uh was being proposed and so I'm really glad to see the uh the metal panel substitution I hope that you know as projects evolve and budgeting happens and things come and go and the whole push and pull thing I I hope it stays uh but um I don't have anything uh I guess further to add Lori the very minor point but um I don't recall how what the Finish was on the last go round of the metal railings on the balconies um I see that they're noted as painted to match the brick and this may be just a personal opinion but I think that color on the railing to me doesn't feel very sophisticated or exhibit kind of a quality or a richness that something that maybe a black or a charcoal or something would would have to me I'm having trouble visualizing that in a you know a reddish color for just the railings in front of I don't know to me it doesn't it doesn't jive with the design and and the kind of quality and a painted finish that's red seems a little odd to me but if I'm an odd man out on that perception uh and other reviewers don't agree then I could set that aside just felt the need to flag it and I would add we wouldn't have any problems studying that in Black so that or charcoal you know some some mother cumbler so the colors came about because we've been challenged by some of our residents in an arbor to punch the building and have more color now they would really like this to be super bright colors um we're trying to find something that's a little bit more respectable but I I totally get what you've said and would be more than happy to study that and kind of work with Matt to see what we think makes sense for everybody thank you all right thanks Lorie and John you need another voice voice I I'm comfortable with what I've seen today did you want to say something else okay all right um anybody else I just wanted to uh it seems like there's sort of a winnowing of comments and typically we just do a quick staff recap to make sure that the report that will be circulated to the board is accurate and reflects what your comments are today so I just wanted to invite planner Kowski to share just a brief summary of what he's heard yes though it is as a formality to just d triple check that we've understood your direction yes thank you that's a good reminder yeah I mean so generally there seems to be agreement the building is pretty similar to what was presented previously and generally favorable input there's we had the question about the trash pickup but I think we address address that about the consistent or or where that's coming from and how that would be served um glad that the Stow panels that was a comment that which was again brought up tonight was brought up previously glad that was addressed um we played for the better looking material and then really the only issue I have flagged is the you know potentially the color of the building or sorry building the uh railings along the balconies and tishner is indicated yeah they're willing to work with changing color um I get that that's probably one of those issues that right came out of a community input to splash some color some places so we can certainly work with them that's not a big deal at all so that those are really the only issues I had otherwise in that it seems like people are generally supportive of it as more or less in the same form as it was already seen so Hank always uh reminds us to to relate our comments to the guidelines which is a good thing and and so I I it might be useful to say that guidelines a 1.7 a 4.1 and a 4.3 all relate to vehicular pedestrian interaction and the petitioner has assured us nothing has changed from the site planine that we saw earlier thank you for that it really does help us with our notes and also drawing the link for the petitioner back to the the relationship of this board Visa the other staff comments they get in other forums so thank you for that all right well thank you to the developer and team for bringing this back to us um and uh it looks like it's going to be a good project so good luck going forward thank you very much appreciate it thank you all right uh public comment uh I guess we at the second you have one more action item Mr chair ah I don't see it here um what what are we doing Hank uh sorry it may not have been in the script it is in your agenda you need to approve your meeting calendar for next year yeah it was in the agenda um no worries uh so just by uh to let you know I know that you are curious the status of you your board how long you will continue to serve right now I it's the same status as we gave you last month it has there has been a presentation on how to implement the council resolution directing staff to uh incorporate the um design reviews at the staff level to Sunset the design review board however we have not progressed past that recommendation we do expect something some ordinance language to be presented to the Planning Commission in the new year but that I know for a fact will not be at either of the January meetings so we're looking at the earliest that this language would be presented to the Planning Commission would be February I will check in with you um as we know more however as it stands you have a draft meeting schedule because there still will be under the the current the current guidance and regulations of the UniFi development code you will still continue to receive projects until that time we're grateful for everyone continuing to serve in this un certain um scenario and we do appreciate your service to interpret and apply the the design guidance that that you have and your expertise while we do have you so please let me know if you think that you will be dropping off of the board early but um before before it uh is does have um a recommended closure date but this is this is the current meeting schedule that we're proposing and I'm happy to for me or miss Alexander to answer any questions you have about it he related to your comments about um the ending the drb we wrote a memo last summer I think to city council uh expressing our point of view on that and we we never got any feedback on that um will that be part of the packet that that goes to city council when they consider this that was already included in a city council packet I would have to check the date um but I believe that we did forward a communication to the board or it may have been a a verbal uh notification of the packet date in a meeting but I can follow back up with the lar information and confirming that if I'm wrong of course I will work with staff to make sure we get that on to their ridar ASAP but I remember that my to my recollection it was already put on a council agenda for consideration and I don't we did not receive further information back from Council as staff was there any turnover of Council in the November election yes one uh council member song um step down and um Matt uh someone helped me out with the last name for our new council member embarrassing my mind is blank right now no I I didn't expect you to pull that out of your hat I I'm just wondering if the new person could could get the information that existing council members are the forward to the new council member yeah it's John Malik I was going to say Malik I was like what if it's not Malik uh John Malik is the new W 2 council member was the the only incoming change and uh yes we could forward that communication to Mr Malik for his awareness thank you are there any of our appointments that are up for Renewal prior to um whatever the council decides Our Fate is going to be I think we're a member short right now and have been for quite a while yes I can basa be the timing because this has actually extended longer than we anticipated I will check with manager Leonard about potential uh new appointment to fill the vacancy that you have and I do know that we will need to know who would like to continue in their current capacity we're not removing anyone from the board if you however would not like to continue serving I need to know that before March because the deadline for us to send um continuation appoint um continue continuing rooll appointments to the city clerk's office is in March so please give me early notice and then I do believe that we will need to have a renewal of Interest form of some kind that we will circulate to uh the board of members in the New Year all right and then uh go ahead Wendy it looks like uh Jeff you and I expire we sunset in mayk for that information well given my age and stage of the game I'm about to Sunset any day now so that doesn't surprise me um and then what about uh I mean I'm happy to keep sharing this as long as I'm a member but uh it might be time for somebody else to uh consider taking over this role um when do we do that I think you should just stay Jeff and keep cheering you're doing great you can have an organizational meeting at we could incorporate something into one of your upcoming meetings if you'd like to vote on um an executive uh leadership for your board all right well uh anybody that wants to uh take that over um all you got to do is is volunteer um but I will continue to do it as long as you guys want me to um uh so I think we [Music] are on to public comment the second round of public comment I apologize you did not yet vote on adopting your calendar see I'm slipping already guys really need a new chair all right so any questions uh about the uh uh proposed schedule for 2025 all right then I will consider a motion in second to approve moved by Bill and seconded by Wendy uh any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign all right so the schedule is approved um everybody can put it on their calendar for next year and Hank if you could let us know what our fate is going to be with the earliest possible opportunity so we can plan uh accordingly that would be great we do and you will receive calendar invitations from Miss Alexander um so as long as your email is up to date with us then um we can put it on calendar for you okay thank you now we can do the second round of public comment Brittney yes at this time you guys don't have um no participants have their hands raised all right well then we are on to adjournment uh before we do so I hope everybody uh has a happy holiday season and safe and prosperous New Year and uh it's been uh enjoyable serving with you all uh during 2024 and I look forward to seeing you all next year thank you all happy holidays thank you for your service

e e e [Music] [Applause] [Music] AB for [Music] your [Music] for [Music] good evening everyone my name is k hon principal here at anal and on behalf of our superintendent of schools Dr Gentile in the back and our Board of Education including Mr Anthony Ms who's somewhere in the audience Welcome to our fifth grade Winter concert [Applause] before we get into program just want to mention a couple things for you guys um if anyone needs to use the restroom you can exit right out the doors in the back make a left bathrooms are pretty easily identifiable also we encourage you to take photos and videos of your students tonight uh all I ask is please set your phone to silent or vibrate and that way it won't disrupt the the program um I will say that the students have been working very hard since September to prepare for tonight and I think you guys are for a real treat uh one last thank you to mention I'd like to thank Miss brindle and the art program for the snowflakes we have on display this [Music] evening and without further Ado we'll begin the evening with our fifth grade Orchestra onon an direction of Miss marrison and please enjoy your evening [Applause] hello everyone my name is Isabella welcome to the fifth grade Winter concert we've been working hard to prepare this and we're so excited to share with you you'll hear songs on make think of snowflakes LS and this in the joy of the special time of the year my name is Clara the first song or orchestra will be performing is the New World Symphony this piece was written by ant the borac in 1893 the VAC composed this piece after moving to America from Czechoslovakia the New World Symphony was inspired by the lgate music and cultures that the borack fell in love with after moving [Music] [Applause] [Music] here for [Music] sh [Music] Happ all [Music] l [Music] [Applause] my name is Gabby our next song is Carol of the bels car of the Bells was inspired by from the Ukraine and has became a popular holiday song Carol the bells has been recorded lots of different ways from orchestras to rock bands and even in video [Applause] games my name is Leila many of us are custom to play this song and we enjoyed practicing it care of the Bells taught us how to read and play and read and play music and new time signature this song makes us feel energized and excited for the winter [Applause] season for [Music] h la [Applause] mom mom [Music] my name is Maya as the weather gets cold many of us like to spend time outside in the snow our next song sleigh ride in the park will have you imagine going for a cold snowy sleigh ride on a horse dwn sleigh we'll be using SL to help bring this song toight [Applause] [Music] hi my name is Angel we choose to be form this song Last the you to leave you filled with excitement for the winter season thank you for joining us tonight happy holidays [Applause] oh all [Music] oh [Music] all [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening everyone my name is Miss mayerson um I would like to thank so many of you for coming out on this cold rainy night um it means so much to our students and our school community that everyone is here to celebrate these awesome students um our fifth grade Orchestra has worked incredibly hard and um these students to be able to put on a concert like this and get all of these songs ready from September October oober November and into early December is not an easy task um so I applaud all of them for all of their hard work and thank them as well um I also need to give a huge shout out to Amelia who uh decided or I asked to played Jingles about Jingle Bells about six hours ago so she did a great job at jumping in um yeah give them all [Applause] Applause we are going to have a very short transition get these students off the stage and our band students on the stage I will be back shortly thank [Music] [Applause] you is that going d for [Applause] [Music] go oh [Applause] [Music] it's so great to see our friends and families at our concer my name is salucci next you'll hear the fifth grade band we are looking forward to playing three exciting pieces for you [Applause] my name is Anthony Young music can help us tell stories and share emotions Conquest is a song that is full of energy and was written about bravery and Adventure each section of our band will be will get a chance to be futured in the middle of the pieces before the excitement [Applause] [Music] la [Music] w [Applause] [Music] excuse me my name is Jordan holidays are celebrated differently all around the world merry kissy musy which means Merry Christmas in the Shona language which is spoken in Zimbabwe you'll notice the Unique Sounds inspired by music from Zimbabwe blended with a holiday song you might recognize [Applause] my name is Andrew Mary kissing Lucy is a challenging pink set that we're excited to share with you this piece taught us a lot about playing as a large group and listening to each other even when we aren't playing the same parts we also learned some new GES like dotted half notes and ties [Applause] hi [Music] [Laughter] [Music] n la [Music] a [Music] w [Music] hi my name is Anthony our final song is six no slay ride it is a version of jingle bells that we enjoy learning percussion instruments like the Slate bells and the temple blocks will help you imaginate that you're going on a sleigh ride through the [Applause] snow my name is Kaye the fifth grade band would like to thank you for joining us tonight we hope you enjoyed hearing us play and hope you have a happy holidays [Applause] [Music] l [Music] the [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] good job good job so before I pass the program off to Mrs Davidson um a couple of huge thank yous number one thank you to these students as well for putting in so much hard work in three short months I push them very hard and um they're always willing and ready to work we have bned every Friday morning and I look forward to it every week so let's give them one more round of applause I have so many people to thank um the first group of people are our teachers uh some of who are here tonight backstage um helping out they gave up their Wednesday night to come help these students so huge thank you to them we have such a great staff here big thank you to our custodial office staff as well for just helping any day-to-day things we need our Administration uh both at antile and throughout the entire District Mr Harrison Mr M Mrs Rodriguez Mr mland who's here tonight um just so many people that help the Arts and Music at Ying really Excel and it's such a great thing that we have here thank you to all of you thank you parents and families for supporting these students thank you you're welcome yeah she caught me I didn't have anything to say all right so we are going to have a very quick transition to get these students all packed up and get our core students out if you could bear with us we should be back with you momentarily thank you [Applause] [Music] think [Music] get [Music] [Applause] the [Applause] [Music] you [Music] that [Music] [Applause] everybody [Music] go SC [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening and Welcome to our chest part of our concert we will start off with our songs with a piece title we will come to greet you in peace it is a traditional Hebrew folk song We Will first singing it in English and then in Hebrew Alana sham [Applause] [Music] and we come to you andace we come to you to [Music] [Applause] Jose Fano Jose Feliciano wrote a song in October of 1970 that played that instantly became a hit song it is still played on just about every radio station in streaming service this time of year F dad I want to miss you a Merry Christmas [Applause] [Music] Poli I want to wish you a Merry Christmas I want to wish you a Merry Christmas I want to wishm heart Merry Christmas I want to wish you a Merry Christmas I want to wish you a merry chist [Music] [Applause] we know that Christmas always begins on December 25th this year so does Hanukkah to celebrate this holiday also known as the Festival of Lights this song tells about the SES and history of this holiday here is Festival of Lights [Music] and Cate the fesal of light [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] with one night then came Mir for days [Music] to beh the of and shame glory and [Applause] Holly Jolly Christmas was written in 1962 by Johnny Marx in 1964 bur L reported it for the stops animations film Rudolph The Rednosed Reindeer since then many other artists have recorded it but bar live standed out in the best [Applause] [Music] a Christmas is best time of the [Music] know a Christmas andet say hello to you know and [Music] Christmas oh my God have a h Christmas this year [Applause] having fun at holiday times is of course expected this Southern Appalachia fol song titled Christmas Christmas day is no difference lots of fun and lots of instruments we hope you enjoy Christmas Day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Christmas [Music] Christmas morning [Music] morning [Music] [Applause] [Music] Christmas day in the morning a cow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] morning a cow a sparrow Arrow [Music] AE Christmas Day the morning p a a cow a CL a sparrow [Music] a Christmas Day in the morning to a cow CL aarrow [Music] AEP in the morning in the morning Chistmas morning morning [Applause] [Music] speaking of fun how does 7et of snow sound okay probably too much but when you're singing about it in this song Sally alret is Sally out it really is fun here is s p [Applause] [Music] window [Music] [Applause] over we're waiting for 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 [Music] 7 we're for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 of sow we're 1 2 3 4 5 6 7ow [Music] all we wait for 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 we're for 1 2 3 4 5 6 [Music] even outside and a bunch of [Music] [Applause] [Music] sow we would like to take a moment to offer thank you to so many people before we sing our final song of course our administrators Board of Education our custodians secretaries Mr Harrison Mr Mali Mrs Rodriguez our teachers and all of you for coming [Applause] [Music] tonight we also want to make sure we thank our amazing accompanist Mrs Beverly McDonald's please give her a round of applause W happy [Applause] [Music] holiday wish you a mer Christmas we wish you a Merry Christmas we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year the tidings we bring to you and your kings We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year we wish you a Merry Christmas we wish you a Merry Christmas we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year there your kids [Applause] if that does not get you in a holiday spirit I don't know what will again the fifth grade choir [Applause] so the choir students who are backstage are aware of this the orchestra and band was not this was actually live streamed tonight on the YouTube channel and it will be available there on the district's YouTube page going forward so if you missed any part or just want to experience it again tonight or anym throughout this holiday season please do so I like to thank Miss Davidson for her work with the choir miss marison the back for work with the orchestra and the band a huge thank you Mr McDonald for being our accompanyment tonight and thank you all for coming hope you have a wonderful holiday season please be safe getting home thank you [Applause] oh [Applause]

M Rodriguez here Mr Guthrie here Dr Sto here Mrs Anon here and I'm here are okay and I will make a motion to Second all in favored stat governing board report events anybody on theard have anything to rep okay we will h on to the superintendent report of Cent yes Mr President members of the board I have a couple of things I want to share uh first I will read for uh for the record for everyone here in attendance and and people listening to accessing the meeting at home uh board members students staff families and a USD communi the uh Arizona Department of Education letter grade for a USD has improved from a c to a B for the whole District reflecting the combined performance of both yaho Elementary and AO High School the elementary USD staff whose dedication ensures students academic growth and high school students preparation for the future this is truly a testament to the exceptional partnership that has been established and continues to be developed between our motivated and caring staff and our a USD Families Our a USD staff's dedication to the Beyond textbooks online curriculum framework other helpful online resources and daily Dynamic instructional lessons and interventions in every classrooms I want to repeat that daily Dynamic instructional lessons and intervention in every classroom with our students must also be noted and recognized the ongoing professional Learning Community sessions DED by our PLC Leaders with their teams are so critical as is the renewed focus by our Dy MC English learner and special education teams we also want to recognize our dedicated pair of professionals as well as a continued to experience professional growth and use these strategies to support classroom teachers Mr Hopkins Mr Guffy Mr rigz and members of the community congratulations to every one of you our Unified School District is now Mr President that is the first part of my presentation my next part we want to do something a little bit different and so I'm going to ask Angelina if she can get the video ready Mr President honorable members of the board and a USD Community I want to introduce at this time Sergeant Chad chigi a USD Aerospace for instructor and a USD Career and Technical education director and Air Force veteran Sergeant J thank you four years ago I uh came before the board and asked permission to start the AOS space program we are now completing our fourth year first old grp that is graduating and Dr Salo invited us here so you could see them and they could introduce themselves and say thank you person hello everybody my name is Jak mono I'm an assistant instructor and this is my fourth year in the program my name is k i Am assistant instructor for board I am assistant instructor for Aerospace 4 I'm K assistant instructor forace for Jason Del Rosario I am an assistant instructor it's my fourth year in the Aerospace program this is myth in I am Moran Olson I'm an assistant instructor it's my fourth in AR program I am laa Ramos assistant instructor from a p Mr President honorable members of the board a USD Community we present to you the Aerospace sport class ofi school district and future Naval aviators Sergeant Ching what else would you like to share just thank you to the board for your support thank you to the community as well I would trust any of these guys to land a plane and then emergency Mr President members of the board that concludes my superintendent report lot of Pride this is historic we've never had our CT class present to the community at board meeting and they're Trend Setters and we know the best is yet to come we expect them to to be flying jets in the near future and that's all thank you very much next up we have theing recogition yes Mr President the board we have the uh superintendent St of the month Awards and at this time I shall present the certificates to our to our teachers we will start with Miss cot good evening school board members administrators um teachers parents and distinguished guest um it is my honor and pleasure to present to you um superintendent student of the for the prek level her name is Lexi Ruth bran let me say something more Lexi Lexi is a reserved and thoughtful member of our PR kindergarten class and we are delighted to celebrate her as student of the one all right her calm and gentle n gentle nature makes her a valued presence in our classroom creating a peaceful and welcoming environment for everyone Lexi quiet demeanor is paired with a strong sense of focus and determination she approaches every activity with care and attention whether she's working on her letters numbers creating art or exploring new Concepts during Circle time kindness is one of Lexi's defining traits though she is reserved her action speaks volumes she is always willing to lend a helping hand offer a comforting smile or share her materal with others Lexi's subtle but meaningful gestures show her deep empathy and understanding of her classmates needs Lexi's Serene and uplifting presence brings balance to our busy classroom her ability to listen attentively and follow directions makes her a Dependable student who contributes to the success of group activities she approaches learning with confidence and steady fortitude that inspires others we are so very very proud of Lexi for her many wonderful qualities and the positive impact she has on our classroom thank you Mr and Mrs Brian for sharing such a remarkable child with us we are grateful for your support and partnership congratulations Lexi you are truly a shining star let's give Lexi a big [Applause] round let's get a family picture going up there you guys [Music] one two awesome come on our respected superintendent and principal board members teachers and parents good evening I am jiny bagarus the kindergarten teacher and I am here to present a prestigious award to my superintendent student of the month Sebastian Kaa Sebastian is such a delight to have in class he comes to class each day and day ready and prepared to learn he has a great attitude and comes in the classroom each morning smiling I love seeing his sweet face enter my classroom every day Sebastian is one of those students that no matter what I give him to do he will do it and do it well he takes pride in his work by following instructions than doing the best work he can he is prepared for class eager to learn and gets busy when he comes into the classroom each day there is no slacking with this boy he has a great attitude and is always lending a helping hand in the classroom soan is a hardworking student he puts forth his best effort in class and is ready to grasp new Concepts and ideas he's always paying attention asking questions and giving answers he has an enthusiasm for Learning and often goes above and beyond his work Sebastian has a great attitude he never complains about what what he can't do instead he takes on daily challenges and works to overcome them he does not quit give up or become frustrated he just keeps trying recently he worked with me on an Ela concept he was struggling with just there just after a few moments of us working together he got it I loved seeing the look on his face when he realized that he had got it I love his willingness to work through some of the tough stuff because of this he has the kind of academic success any parent would be proud of most of the work he does is always above and beyond what I have asked to be done and always exceeds my expectations Sebastian has already proven that you can do anything if you will just do it any student with an attitude of I can and the willingness to work hard will overcome any obstacles and he is that student I am proud of you Sebastian keep up your hard work and determination [Applause] I'll just get yours [Music] [Laughter] first grade come on down okay you first grade you got all right good evening everyone today we are here to celebrate an exceptional student who truly exemplifies what it means to be respectful responsible and ready these are the qualities we value highly in our school and this individual demonstrates them every day this month's first grade student of the month is rodo Jimenez he consistently shows his best not only to his teachers but also to his peers by always treating others with kindness and fairness he takes responsibility for his actions his learn learning in his relationship to others he is always ready whether it's being prepared for class stepping up to help a friend or trying out new things above all these his most admirable quality is his compassion by sharing words of encouragement or simply being a good listener Rulo makes our school a more positive and welcoming place with his little actions of kindness and Rolo thank you for being a good example to all of us your hard work and positive attitude inspires those around you and again everyone let's give him a round of applause [Applause] evening everyone this day marks the moment and time to say that one student shines in a special way she's my new student just joining our crew this is her first time in a class classroom view home school she'd been I wondered how she'd adapt to the School's daily routine the classroom can be messy the kids can be loud but she stayed calm quiet and didn't join the messy crowd she's observant preserved but never aloof she reads the room and fits like a proof what I noticed first was her was her brilliant mind she's a reader a thinker sharp and refined she loves to draw her Talent is clear a comic artist I bet will soon appear she is humble not boastful with kindness to share she respects others always showing she cares but on our first week in math there was a tear at time three digigit sum brought a little fear some may say crying is the sign of the beat but I saw strength and result in her heartbeat in that alone I see a kid who strives for more a always aiming to SAR after that moment she promised herself to do better and now she's the leader her name is lotus a reflection of who she is pure resilient graceful and capable of flourishing even in challenging circum ances she shows us all how to rise above with strength with Grace and a Heart full of love so without further Ado she let's give her so bold a cheer so bold to our student of the month Lotus Ray AUST a family picture up there on everybody go guys [Music] ready where you go Lotus board that concludes our soon of the month of celebrations families you're more than welcome to stay but we understand if you have to go and do homework or have dinner and uh thank you for being here uh teachers and and parents of our proud uh be school district and the next school is to become an a district thank you guys have a good night thank you good night to go guys nice job ex make motion to approve the consern agenda for the second I just wanted to point out that we in under the donations there are um donations from Freeport to the reading pram the cas of the reading program uh for 500 each uh M Aron con went to their monthly meeting and accepted the the donations and a board policy says that we have to approve so uh I put them in the cons IED to out okay thank this is on top of the money they gave for the preschool huh yes yes there's no discussion we have a motion in a second all those in favor I all those opposed pass for okay on Personnel the first item of which is the certified resignation teacher Mr President members of the board um recommend the resignation of Mr aled November 624 motion I'll make a motion all those in favor all those opposed passes for next item we have the certifi resignation of the future Mr President members of the board I recommend the resignation of Miss AV effective November 22nd 2024 make Mo I second all those in favor I all those opposed pass next item is to certifi emplo Elementary feat General yes Mr President um members of the board darl P who was a kindergarten teacher at a schools from 2017 of 2022 and his currently substitute teacher has been recommended for a position as a full-time elementary teacher recomend the appointment of Dar as an elementary teacher for the 2425 school year all in favor all those opposed 4 to Z next up we have certified Sten for the move on Saturday Workshop Mr President members of the board the move on Mara coordinators principal are requesting a stifen for 12 elementary teachers to attend a Saturday training on January 11th 2025 teachers attending or listed recommend the approval of PD stien for Saturday training on January 11th 20 2025 should be 2025 motion all with the The annotation that the I'll change the motion to be 2025 I'm sorry all those in favor all those opposed pass this supp to do next up we have extra pay position extra pay position yes Mr President members of the board of the administration is asking for a yearly sement to be added to the supplemental pay positions and awarded in the following amounts you have there m Rona C grants coordinator out Miss Don Cory Williams tile investigator and decision maker Mr uh Babin ceran title line appeals officer uh just a little bit of background information uh Miss cot will be taking over the grants coordinator responsibilities effective January 2025 she has uh met with our finance consultant Tyler Moore to review planning the Grant's coordinator position and their responsibilities she also attended with Miss Jinger Wy our finance analy December 9th the ASCO grants professional development at the Pendergast Elementary School District um Mr Casey has a full plate long story short he's dean of students data analyst power school coordinator and also did sr3 grants coordinator in addition to what where he's at with with the tieline appeals officer so uh we've had a discussion with all the parties involved uh his focus on on dean of students and data analysis is critical enough and that's going to be it's a very important role that will help only not only him to be successful but that will help Miss be successful and help our entire school be successful so miss miss cot is going to be meeting with him to see where uh each of the grants are what detail is needed next a completion report what have you but um she's already been well informed and well prepared and that's where we are is so I just wanted to share that thank you very much so PR comforable absolutely yes she she's uh she's researched the grants the process and the finance adist team of Missus and Miss Wy have been also very helpful but the ASO training was was very productive I believe there was 80 grants coordinators Finance staff members who attended this training and and the whole the whole district office is going to train miss valuel miss M so these have been ongoing trainings that our whole district office has been attending and she wanted to be proactive and she went to the grants training on Monday so she has to handle her grant for her program for her prek program so she has experience and uh and we believe she's ready she's going to get a lot of support any question discussion all those in fav all those opposed passes for to next up we have approval of the 2025 board meeting calendar Mr President members of the board the board is expected to adopt the meeting calendar at the beginning of each fiscal year additional board meetings may be scheduled with a 24-hour notice scheduled meeting dates may be changed within a 24-hour notice below are the proposed study and regular session meetings for 2025 yearly calendar is attached with affected holidays marked in red and meetings marked in Blue uh just a few details here uh April 7th and 9th uh in that month I believe Good Friday is is April 18th is that right so just a few details there um to start January 13th like we said we'd be coming back from a twoe break January 6 so it may not be the best time as far as the New Year the first on the Wednesday Thursday Friday preparation long story short if we would have a little bit more time to prepare coming back right after the new year so uh but it looks good we we we looked it over and um and um Administration is recommending the above dates as scheduled wardening dates for 2025 Mr a second but I would like a change so in August we likely will start school August 4th right yes ma' so if we're moving January back down a week to the 13th because of a two- week break why would we not move August down one week also for that same reason that's is there reason well well no I well no I I my big thing was is I did not like how the school year started with the whole preas situation because they with you know we had first day school and a board meeting and I did not care for that personally yeah that I was more asking for something critical for the board in that for who has the school starts or it's not well that would be really um you know uh be up for you guys to discuss some more or um that's open for discussion I mean U I know we normally always had the meeting the 4th and the 6th which is the first day study sessions on that first Monday um but I see your point um because if we're doing that for January why are we not doing it for August when school starts do the same yeah well we had we had discussed that we had just really talked about the January because of the new year but that would be something um you guys we have two options either I can amend the motion with that change in or we can approve it like it is and change it change very that's that's a good point that's what it says right there metion um I'll approve with the change made that the August meetings be mov to the 11 13 second I'll second all those in favor I all those opposed passes as next up we we have second reading of the AL Unified School District governing board policy adoption Mr President members of the board um for the second reading now just to focus again on the explanation here which pretty much thms it up on October 21st 2024 Arizona State Board of Education SB approved a revision a board rule aacr 72401 g4a that is immediately effective this revision impacts individualized education program requirements particularly in the area of transition services including the inclusion of an estimated graduate tion date aacr 7241 g4a and written notification of parents of the anticipated graduation date aacr 7241 G4 AI these changes are noted in the appropriate sections of ihp special instructional programs and you and we reviewed some of those changes primarily estimated graduation date um it was 47 pages long as we saw and the pages really started to take shape on page 32 mostly some some grammatical changes and and you we went through that on on Monday so uh the attach policy is recommended for approval um on second I thought I uploaded it Dr and I looked at it and I I could have SW I did but I didn't um our previous two title n coordinators um made this page for our website um and I I have to change it now that when we're going to uh approve the the new decision maker then this name is going to change here on our website but um on our website here's the whole um what's Title 9 how to fill out the form filing a complaint all that stuff um that if somebody calls we can direct them to the website where all of the forms and and the contact information is there forms are going to be correct right with the correct name on them because last oh I have to yeah I have to get with um the new coordinator and and change all of those um because before today it was still this other okay so but if if um if anybody needs it I I forgot that we had this when we were discuss it on Monday but this page is here on our website under the um about us all the way down on the so if anybody's curious this is usually where we motion all those in favor allos passes 4 to Z up we have the possible new agenda item for next meeting anybody on the board have I would like an update on middle of the Year Benchmark testing and if we can get it I guess the same form form it at the beginning of the year so that way we can compare laterally yeah I mean I think it was um it was divided into subgroups recording so then we can see how each subgroup progressed okay so from the beginning of the year to the middle of the Year okay we right the windows corre anything else okay then we are set [Music] to for

e e e [Music] cons e e e night e e e we're gonna okay if we could get everybody's attention we also want to take a few minutes before we get started before the B the middle school band plays um there's a thankless job that good people always raise their hand to fill and that thankless job as a board member um it is a very highp paying job Zar for Mega hours um and so as we have a December meeting and we have uh some board members that will be transitioning off our um uh off uh the board we wanted to take a few moments just to to say thank you to them and thank you for all that they've done for us in some cases and I'll just call you up one at a time um I'm going to call up Shelly first [Applause] shelle's been on the board for 16 years uh which is Yan's uh work to to be that long it's been a board president for us um and what we've tried to do is we have a little plaque to thank them we also have some cards from our leadership team that just a note of thanks uh for everything they've done and in the case of Shelly um there's an award by as SBA which is called an honor roll uh you have to have served at least two terms consecutive terms to be on honor roll uh the actual uh award is given out next week so we couldn't present it here today but we also uh nominated shelle for that award and uh she will receive the that award um next week or after Christmas so we just want to thank shelle for all she's done you can stay there because we're going to take a picture and then the second one is Mr Bob Delena [Applause] and Bob has also been with us for a lengthy time he's been here 10 years two and a half terms uh he will also be getting the honor role um he and Shelley have uh comboed for many of those years as president and clerk um kind of running and steering the ship um he uh lives in encantara and it's always nice to to bring in people that uh are retired to come in and and help us out uh comes from California originally uh and again we're just so so so appreciative of of the job that that Bob's done so thank you Bob and then our third member is Miss Jennifer Tucker [Applause] Jennifer's been with us for two years filling out a term and we appreciate all that she's done in the case of Jennifer and and Shelly their children uh were in our system and so that's in large part why they came to help and be on the board uh so you get those that have their children are like Bob that they just want to serve for the board on the board for our kids and for our staff and for our community and again it's at times a thankless job um we can talk about covid as an example um but they're there and they show up every month to the meetings yeah they show up to the meetings and so truly from those of us that do this and I've been doing this at this level for close to 25 years uh from the bottom of my heart thank you for what you do for our kids thank you for what you do for our staff thank you for what you do for our community it truly is appreciated and you made a positive difference in the lives of all of those so thank you so much we a picture hi everybody my name is principal Ridge and I serve comes middle school and um today I have the honor of presenting our um jazz band we have orchestra band and choir but we have a special Ensemble which is our jazz band so they're going to just play for us until we start officially so here they go and they're led by our amazing teacher Mr Nelson [Applause] [Music] la [Music] Hal [Music] a [Music] w [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right uh thanks for having us here tonight to play for you um that was Freddy freeloader we're going to have a couple more for you up next l l here for some more of us thank you [Music] a [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w oh [Music] [Applause] than you thank you [Applause] thank you very much that was awesome I'm sure Bob especially appreciated that I hear he's a great musician I've never heard play but heard him talk about it a lot all right um call the meeting to order at 6:03 p.m.

ad Mar no present Carolyn Lopez present thank you now move Adam 1C Pledge of Allegiance and ask principal Bol to leaders in the pledge Al to the flag of United States of America to the Reps one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you when name 1D adoption off the agenda motion to approve as written second least we have a motion to Second Carn Lopez hi Adar no I Tory Anderson I Patty coute I Robert Downey I so moved we now move on to item two superintendent report Dr lopman thank you president Downey nearly 150 parents and family members attended the Butterfield Elementary steam night for an evening of Hands-On learning and fun students shared their semester projects while teachers LED interactive coding Robotics and math challenges Community Partners added excitement Dr Melissa bunt wowed them wowed them with rocks and gems cherol and Nigel pervis helped students plant seeds to take home Matt stetler lit things up with an interactive light display and George Carman shared the secrets of Native American PL plans events like this spark curiosity connect families and make learning an adventure the third annual musd celebration of the Arts was nothing short of spectacular the exclusive event showcased Talent from Maricopa High School Butterfield Maricopa elementary Maricopa Virtual Academy and Maricopa Wells culinary Musical and visual arts were also all on display each featured each featured artists received a well-deserved certificate commemorating the event and their artwork will remain on display for two years at the district office in fact if you look around the room you'll see their artwork including the stunning pieces behind the Das um just look at this Talent right before we left for Thanksgiving break Maricopa Unified School District marked the return of the fifth annual Great Pumpkin Pie pickup a simple but meaningful tradition that underscores our appreciation for the hard work and dedication of our staff generously sponsored by Chase Building team orcut Winslow and fmg the event is a small thanks to the musd employees who give their all to make a difference in the lives of our students and tonight you'll notice we have a lot of young people in our audience uh the reason we get out of bed every morning tonight we have a group of very talented fall sport sport athletes with us Varsity superstars from volleyball football flag football and swim are all in the house these teams had incredible Seasons with countless individual and team distinctions between them these slides represent the most notable honors teams if you made it out tonight please stand when I call your team from Maricopa High School varsity girls volleyball [Applause] varsity swim from Maricopa High School varsity football Maricopa High [Applause] School girls varsity flag football from Maricopa High School [Applause] and I like how Maricopa high school is over here in desert Sunrise is here um from Desert Sunrise varsity girls volleyball varsity swim varsity football there we go and girls varsity flag football athletes thank you for representing your high schools and our district so very well coaches thank you for your dedication and for making this a season to remember we would love a picture with those who made it out tonight so athletes and coaches please make your way to the front of the room for a group photo with our governing board yeah down in front Tor looks like a million bucks e e [Applause] I'm almost done and um and tonight uh president Downey I close my report with deep gratitude I'd like to take a moment to recognize our governing board members Tori Anderson and anamarie no this is their last meeting with us and and we can't leave uh we can't let them leave without um discussing uh the difference that their service has made uh to our district um anamarie became a governing board member in 2013 and Tori a lifetime Maricopa resident and Maricopa high school graduate joined the governing board in 2011 so Mrs no thank you for your service you were the first person to welcome me to the district and from the get-go your vision for the district was crystal clear uh as we were driving around in your Expedition that day um you gave specific directives about what you wanted to see for our students and our teachers most notably you mentioned the need to increase teacher salaries to State average and Beyond like today um and when the pandemic began Mrs no was the board president an impossible position and to say that times were difficult is an understatement Mrs nor Miss no handled that situation um with a plom and the selfless professionalism she's WID ly known for in our city and in those difficult moments she was always concerned about the kids who were home alone whose parents couldn't be at home with them because they were working and that has been her primary focus making sure the district lives up to its promise to all kids in the city of Maricopa including kids who may not have the advantages her own kids have and uh with four kids uh and not a lot of extra time on her hands um Miss no operates with urgency and an i for excellence and it's kind of funny because sometimes she doesn't even have time to to really say hello so our phone calls sort of answer you know sound like this I can tell the sound of her ring um and she says Tracy have you seen this the fence of peute this is completely unacceptable it's those kinds of conversations and that kind of urgency um that moves an organization forward quickly um she moves at a at a at a Brisk Pace but she always has time to do the important work of a governing board member I will miss your calls I will miss your ideas and your very honest feedback thank goodness you remain a city partner um a parent and a friend Mrs Anderson thank you for your service most families and staff will not remember a time when you were not perched on the dis you are an icon without exception you have led with Unapologetic Clarity unrivaled historical knowledge and a personal relationship with the city and the district it's that personal relationship that is distinguished you as a champion for teachers and a champion of Excellence as a former teacher herself Mrs Anderson has always prioritized the voice of teachers and the support they need for our students to succeed it's also important to mention that Mrs Anderson's dedication stretches far and wide Beyond her work on our local school board Mrs Anderson spent many years advocating for education at the state and National level she is highly regarded throughout Arizona and has many colleagues in other states through that work her efforts on behalf of domestic violence victims is important and impactful so she's really comfortable attacking big issues and Mrs Anderson is keenly skilled operating at that big 100,000 foot level and yet she manages to show up in the most small and intimate moments when she talks about her family when she asks about mine and really listens and when she drove Mr Jordan to his treatments in the weeks before he died Mrs Anderson you embody the privilege it is to serve in Maricopa so Mrs no and Mrs Anderson thank you for your service we have a gift for you um it's there before you on the dis you deserve a monument but there's no budget code for that um so it's a plaque a smaller Monument commemorating your years of service to musd thank you [Applause] thank you now1 m3a governing board members report member Lopez if you can could go right after that okay just doesn't seem as important right now um I finished the seven habits of highly effective families that Mees put on it's actually eight habits but the title seven habits um it is a wonderful program and if you are a family that attends Mees I really highly encourage you to join it when it the next session opens up um I think it's going to be in Spring I'm I'm not sure on the date yet but the amount of information that I learned and the strategies to be able to use at home and have that partnership between what's going on at home and and healthy habits along with the school just really affected our family and I think could could really help other families as well so highly highly encourage you to to ask get involved with that um it was one one night a month um they fed you dinner and watched the kids and be awesome helped watch the kids which and fed us so thank you be awesome um I just really encourage you to do that I also went to the Multicultural night last night and that was just fun um to see all the teachers involved and all the kids involved in learning about different cultures and we got our passport stamped and did arts and crafts of all over the world it was it was just great so thank you that was my thank you so I'm going change it up tonight vice president KRA thank you president Downey uh so I did participate in the great pie pickup uh which is so much fun to be able to thank all of our staff members as we give them their pies for everything that they do all year long um it was a lot of fun I enjoy doing it although next year I think I've challenged uh Jason to wear a turkey costume so we'll see what happens um I've been participating uh this week I had the opportunity to be a judge for the debate at Desert uh Sunrise high school and um the two topics that one was uh Private School uh is better than public school and then uh the second one was uh religion does more harm um than good so it was very interesting to see these kids um you they have to think on the fly to do the rebuttal and so it was it was interesting I was very very impressed um I had a Rotary meeting um this week and the Rotary Club of Maricopa is committed to we picked up all the tags that were not picked up at the trees at the elementary schools so that we can go ahead and provide gifts so that everyone gets one that was on the tag so um that was pretty cool and we we've done that this is our second year doing that and lastly and I'm gonna try to get through this without crying so I want to express my sincerest gratitude to you both for all of the years that you have Faithfully served this community as governing board members I am truly blessed to have served with you from the beginning I will never forget our first meeting Tor um on the board uh and I'm so very proud of what we've accomplished together um I will cherish all the times we shared all the meetings the board trainings the conferences is especially our day on the ropes course where Sergeant Barbie gave us the gave us all the team building tools that we needed to have the respect for each other and I have learned so much from both of you on how to be a good leader and I'm going to take that with me but I'm going to miss you both terribly thank you does not seem like enough but thank you thank you as I say I'm going to change up and now go next um I'm actually on tomorrow is my fourth day on an Asis resilience Summit four day Summit um Asis deals and this particular thing deals with um trauma and Trauma awareness and how to help situations of trauma um they dealt with many different topics obviously on a 4- day well three day so far but four- day seminar um the session I'm going to speak to tonight is one I've spoken to before and the the question or the topic was why do some kids who come from trauma backgrounds succeed in their adult life and this is a personal issue for me personal topic for me if I do the adverse childhood experiences questionnaire I'm actually somewhere between it n out of 10 however the professor presented this thing that I hadn't heard of before which was positive childhood experiences pcas and whenever did that questionnaire I actually ended up with seven out of the 10 on the positive side of things and whenever I look back at my middle and high school um years I remember Mr Thompson Mrs Dawson Mr Wilson Mr Bowen Mr Clark and several others and what they all had in common to give me positive feedback and father support they were all teachers they were all teachers I didn't have a good family life for social life it was teachers like this musd teachers administrators and counselors and others as well that come in contact with the students for example the transportation the cafeteria staff the maintenance staff be a current adult to every single student that we have you will make a difference I can guarantee you that I've seen it and I've experienced it myself okay that one over okay that the hard part over the last four years I've had the pleasure of serving with member Anderson and nor for legal legal and ethical reasons we as board members really have limited opportunities to get to know each other we we sort of can't socialize we can't meet for dinner we can't even meet as parties and things like that however in governing board meetings executive meetings workshops and training sessions I discovered that these ladies have integrity are willing to ask proving questions and challenge the norm are willing to propose and adopt new ideas and out of the box thinking and are totally dedicated to musd in the larger amopa Community I want to thank Tori and Anna Marie for their outstanding service to meropa Unified School District I want to thank them for their service and commitment to students specifically and the teachers but specifically I have to say specifically the students we're here for the students it has been a pleasure to serve with you I wish you all your best in your future endeavors and I want to State clearly that you both will be missed so thank you for your service now I will call upon member nor thank you president Downey and Dr lman and members for all of your kind words 12 years ago I joined the Maricopa Unified School District governing board and what a journey it has been at the time my children who are sitting back there were just Toddlers and their entire lives they have only known their mom as a school board member they have grown up with Wednesday evenings often spent with babysitters so I could fulfill my responsibilities I used to jokingly say that I paid to be on the board because of those extra expenses but the truth is serving this community has been priceless of sitting in the audience tonight my oldest child who was in first grade when I was first appointed to the board now he's a senior in high school preparing for his next big chapter it's surreal to reflect on how much we've grown together as a family and as a district during these 12 years I originally sought a seat on this board because I was deeply concerned about the decision to only offer half day kindergarten that decision was reversed after my first year on the board and today not only do we offer full day kindergarten and the state still doesn't pay for it but we've also added preschool programs taught by certified teachers from the very beginning I have believed that teaching is one of the hardest and most important jobs and I've remained steadfast in my commitment to supporting our Educators together we've achieved significant teacher pay raises placing Us in the top tier in the state a point of Pride for the district beyond that the accomplishments we've achieved together are incredible we've built a new high school we reduced class sizes we implemented Innovative programs like dual language immersion Advanced academic tracks starting in kindergarten Ram Academy and so much more one of the greatest honors of this role has been watching thousands of graduates rock across the stage at MHS ready to Take on the World to know that I've had even a small role in shaping the opportunities and experiences that prepared them for their next adventure is truly humbling serving on the Maricopa Unified School District governing board has been both a privilege and an honor one I do not take lightly as I step away I feel confident that this board alongside Dr Lan and her exceptional team will continue to lead with vision and make strides that we can't even yet imagine thank you to my fellow board members past and present for the collaboration and dedication that we've shared thank you to our teachers and staff who pour their hearts to our students every day and thank you to the community for entrusting me with this responsibility my name will be removed from this Das after tonight but my heart will forever be with musd the future of Maricopa unified is strong it's bright and it's filled with endless possibilities and it's been an honor thank [Applause] you thank you member Anderson thank you president Downey um nice job you know I had lots of things prepared um and going from my files clear back from 2010 it's been um such a journey um it's been such an honor to represent you and to be able to listen to you and be able to make those decisions that will benefit our children but more importantly benefit our community um thank you for the honor for reelecting me all these years um again and it has been my utmost honor I am humbled and I will miss you all I always say I'm not going away I'm just stepping down off the dis I look forward to the day when I can see these lovely people that sit here on the dis with me in the grocery store and be able to actually have a conversation and be able to claim my friends back um a lot of people think we're able to do that and uh and I miss that I miss those conversations we are in a good place when I first came on the board um with Patty we had to find a new superintendent and had to toy with closing down a middle school those were tough decisions um and we were in Dire Straits financially thank goodness o chin came in and gave us the money to keep the district going so that we didn't have to pink slip our teachers so if you think back from the 2010 2011 school year to where we are now I am so proud of what we have accomplished and the fact that we voted no when it came down to closing a middle school and instead we got a new superintendent that's how it works those decisions I do not take lightly I will continue to be the biggest supporter that musd has continue to be the strangest thing is in the first time in 25 years I won't have a school email that will be different tomorrow morning when I wake up and not have those hundreds of emails and have the opportunity to reach out to you you do still have my personal email and my personal phone number please call me anytime I will always be your biggest Advocate teachers students and parents and I will not go away but I will become a stronger voice in the community so thank you to this board to Dr Lan for putting us in a good place I am happy I am excited for the future and the journey is only beginning for all of you so thank you for taking this journey with me the past 25 years and I'm excited to see what the next adventure has but I'm not going away I'm just stepping down off the dis so thank you and have a wonderful holiday I will miss [Applause] you thank you all now move on to item four information item specifically 4A classroom Spotlight desert wi Middle School principal Bal good evening president Downey Dr Lan and members of the board I'm honored to be here tonight to present the Desert Wind middle school classroom Spotlight along with one of our sixth grade teams team Luigi and their extended team member miss eim our Structured English um immersion teacher and we are excited to share some of the work that we've been doing in addition to our teachers being here this evening we have some sixth grade students with us who will be sharing in their amazing work with you our presentation this evening will focus on team Luigi's implementation of right from the beginning and Beyond and their work on cross-curricular instruction this work focuses on two of the indicators from the ASU next education Workforce team instrument student voice and choice and dynamic student grouping our classroom Spotlight this evening aligns with Goal one every student graduates and goal two access and equity specifically 100% of students at or above grade level and it outlines how we are aligning our instructional outcomes with portrait of a graduate in this project students are developing all of the critical attributes from the portrait of a graduate through this cross-curricular and project-based learning experience students are persevering through a complex writing task and working on real world Topics in a collaborative setting at Desert Wind Middle School our vision is that 100% of students are reading or doing math at or above grade level by the time they leave Middle School our core values are accountability belonging and collaboration prior to the start of this school year teachers had three days of professional learning with ASU one of the key components of our teaming model is that every team establishes a unique vision for learning as a staff we set our learning intentions with a vision for 2030 team Luigi's unique vision for learning is to prioritize students by inspiring them to reach their full potential which captures all of our core values as a school team Luigi built a cross-content unit in which all students would become published authors in order to reach this Vision team Luigi used The Innovation Grant funded by our vision budget to revise the right from the beginning rubrics for each content area so that students could write or could demonstrate Mastery on the content standard through their piece of writing in order to do this team Luigi had to facilitate in team professional development in which all of the teachers regardless of content or background became writing teachers now I would like to introduce Mr Len to share more about how the unit addresses the content standards good evening everyone I'm Mr Len and I'm excited to share how academic cor standards aligned with our project-based learning approach particularly through the right from the beginning and Beyond program this initiative empowers the students to craft essays and stories that integrate skills and knowledge from multiple subject areas by blending the core standards of the slide above in English language arts social studies science and math students gain a deeper understanding of each subject while also enhancing their critical thinking analytical and communication skills this unit exemplifies how academic standards can be seamlessly integrated into a cohesive interdisciplinary project-based learning experience it not only strengthens the students grasp of individual subjects but also encourages them to apply their learning in meaningful and creative ways this process highlights the tangible connections between academic standards and real world applications now two of our Young Writers from sixth grade team Luigi are here to share their experiences with this project good evening board members teachers and guests here tonight my name is Brooklyn Stanley I am a sixth grade student from Team Luigi from Desert one middle school today I am proud to share team Luigi's Project based learning with you first our teachers had an orientation where they introduced a project to us they allowed us to pick whichever topic we wanted I picked the ELA topic which asked us to write about a cultural iconic individual around the world my I in my writing I know that I mastered my writing skills because I was able to write an informative essay an informative explanatory text to examine a topic and convey ideas which is one in of the essential state standards in my own experience with pbl I chose to write about Alexander Hamilton first we had to write a rough draft and went through revisions by checking the transition phrases we used punctuation in the overall content finally we had to add a picture which is a useful non-fiction or informational text feature that will help the readers get a clear understanding of the text in general team Luigi's pbl not only allowed me to write a complete essay but it also gave me a chance to develop my writing to prepare me for my dream of becoming an author someday writing is a big thing for me and with this continuous writing opportunity I can allow a dream come true for myself thank you [Applause] sorry okay good evening everyone I'm Randy of Costa Madrid a sixth grader in team Luigi at D middle school tonight I'm happy and proud to share with you how the right from the beginning and Beyond writing curriculum Advan our writing skills to begin I thought that this writing curriculum was only applicable to my Ela class however my teachers taught me that could also be applied in other content areas for example in my essay I was able to compute operations fluen in decimals using standard algorithms which is aligning the AZ standard under the number system we use a lot of curricular strategies including thinking maps just like the circle and the tree map the circle map helped me gather my ideas by responding to the right running writing prompt or topic that I chose for our project in math the flea map which is again a combination of flow and tree Maps help me organize my ideas and add more supporting details I can vouch for how useful this is in developing writing skills which I believe is a very essential skill one should have lastly I would like to give each member of the governing board the pieces of writing that myself and Brooklyn rot thank you for your [Applause] time thank you Randy Brooklyn looking at the graft you'll not significant growth in students writing skills as well as their understanding and Mastery of the standards across multiple subjects this data is based in a modified rubric from the right from the beginning and Beyond program additional criteria were incorporated into the rubric to assess the students Master standards in various subjects ensuring a more comprehensive evaluation of their progress as shown in the graph there is an inverse relationship between the students initial and current writing levels at the begin beginning of the school year the majority of students were concentrated in the below and approaching proficiency levels however after implementing the right from the beginning and Beyond program the concentration has shifted significantly with most students now performing at grade level or above grade level the growth we see is remarkable as demonstrated by the progression from their initial beginning of the year level to their final current level thank you right from the beginning and Beyond helps students Master standards across different subjects by integrating writing with core content areas through structured rubrics and interdisciplinary projects students develop critical thinking analytical and communication skills while applying their knowledge in meaningful ways as you can see Mr aosta highlighted a few important elements like that project-based learning allows us to combine contents and essential skills in new and innovative ways I would now like to invite Miss ursol up to share our next steps good evening to our board members and to our guests who are here tonight I am Mr Saul on behalf of Team Luigi I am very happy and excited to share with you our team's vision for the future one of our aims is that we establish we aim to establish a schoolwide publishing event which will provide a platform for our students to Showcase their writing output and share it with our elementary campuses um these initiatives will not only Foster a sense of community and but also instill a pride in their output and in their skill um additionally we are committed to the continued cross-content implementation of our ever favorite right from the beginning and Beyond which will serve as a crucial framework or writing tool for enhancing our students writing proficiency especially in informative essay most importantly this approach will ensure that our students occas consistently meet the state standards across all content areas thereby enriching their educational experience and equipping them for future academic success um all of our team brought our class book tonight copies of all the published books with me and then if anyone would like to see the awesome work of our team Luigi we are very happy and glad to share that with you as well as the modified rubric thank you thank you to team Luigi and to Randy and Brooklyn and I will now open it up for any questions um for myself or for the team yes I would just like sorry I I just sorry I would just like to ask um the parents of Randi and Brooklyn here yes and could they stand up yay and let's recognize that you have two very special children well done thank you sorry you're you're great yeah so the books that you have in front of you are their projects um and each the students chose the topic that they participated in so each of the books that you're holding are on a different content and a different topic um and so that's what makes this project very cool um and sorry to say that you cannot keep the books I'm so sorry um next year we will order books for you but they're very they're very very um talented and you may not have picked up on it but miss eim is an extended team member she's not on team Luigi fulltime time um she teaches our students Structured English immersion so all of our El students participated in this project with Team Luigi as well in grades six seven and eight all means all so any questions not a question but I love that you are taking this and the kids showing the younger grades in grade school what happens when you build bu upon what they're learning right and where they're going to be I think it encourages that gets them excited to want to write want to read want to so thank you for doing that absolutely thank you thank [Applause] you okay thank you very impressive um we don't have a call any call to the public so I'll skip item five and move to item six consent agenda motion to approve as written second Lis you have a motion to Second Carolyn Lopez I adamary no I Tory Anderson I Patty coute I Robert Downey I so moved we might I move on to item seven action items specifically 7A discussion of possible approval of the Personnel schedule Mr baket thank you president Downey members of the governing board Dr Lan member Anderson we're always in Need for good substitute teachers be happy to uh negotiate that email address as well there there you go if you have questions tonight on the Personnel schedule I'd be happy to take those at this time Mr Becket I don't have any questions just a comment you see a lot of movement back in the transportation department um that does grow some concern um I don't know if there's trends that we can track with that um but that's an awful lot of activity for this time of the year thank you member krae uh interesting we we just met today as a HR staff to talk through that uh we are planning kind of a mini job fair early January to address that we're also getting some signage put together we' be working with social media platforms to kind of increase our exposure in those openings so we're working on it again this is a little bit of an anomaly for us we we do have some transition in in transportation but we've seen an uptick in the last six weeks in particular but thank you for your concern if there's no other questions I'd like to make a motion that we approve the HR agenda second leis we have a motion to Second carola Lopez I adary no I Tor Anderson hi Patty crae hi Robert Downey I so mooved thank you Mr pcket I move on to item 7 B discussion and possible approval of the rapid pay card Mr Harmon good evening president Downey members of the governing board and Dr lman we have an agenda item to approve um rapid pay card I'm happy to answer any questions or give any clarification on this item if necessary I have a question please so these pay cards go out and teachers staff use them and they need cash so they go to an ATM when I go to an ATM that's not my bank it's going to charge me fee are there any fees associated with this card if they use it to get cash out uh similar to any Bank um there's an ATM network and so rapid is part of um sorry I think it's green light there's a there's a greater um Bank Network that um that this falls under so sorry um anyway there is a network of ATMs we have a number in Maricopa that are feess okay so there's plenty of options for the ability to withdraw funds without a charge currently we have about 20 or so individuals that get a a paper check every two weeks um so they will be able to take that card they'll get their their funds quicker um they don't have to come to the district office and get a check it will be um loaded onto this into their account and they'll have a card that they could liquefy that cash the same they could with a check without a fee okay most of the time when they're cashing these checks they're taking fees anyway anyway so this is this is beneficial uh for the employee there's no fees for the employee there's no fees for the district perfect so it's a it's a very win-win and a very common um Avenue that districts are using to get away from this paper check uh or bankless employees that that most districts have Mr Harmon when the money gets loaded is it the same process as our direct deposit so it's it appears on their card the same day as it would appear in your bank account then for direct deposit that is correct this rapid pay card it it it functions as any regular bank and they do have all of the um all of the features of a Traditional Bank um customer service they have a you know app a phone app or or a a web browser applications that they can access and they could get paper checks to actually you know um function the way a Traditional Bank functions or they can just liquefy that cash if they don't choose to use any of those other services um do we manage the cards like if somebody lost their card forgot their pin is that something that we would have to or do they pay a fee to get it replaced is that with us or is that with the the card company like I said uh rapid pay card does have a robust customer service um payroll is always there to help and assist and be um an advocate for our employees um we have a a strong representation with a rapid pay card we've we've had um just a a really good kind of uh you know launch with uh with the rep that we have um so we're really happy with um their features and the service that they have brought so far so we're confident that between payroll and this uh and Rapid pay car that our employees will be able to get responses to things like lost cards okay so they would come to us then if they lost their card they can go directly to Rapid pay we're there if uh for whatever reason they're struggling with that okay I'm I'm very excited that we finally have this because I know that paper checks is is somewhat not convenient on times when we have payroll so especially around the holidays yes especially around the holidays and then the summertime so thank you I appreciate that yeah and I think this is a great service for employees who may not have um electronic payment methods you know because so much has gone to only like no cash um and so I I think this is actually a service to those employees um if they don't have other means of paying electronically like this is a way they can do that so that's great thank you so Mr Harmon it wasn't clear in in the description and I apologize for not getting too sooner but is this mandatory for every employee or just those that choose it we would like to make it mandatory if there are challenges with that we are certainly team players with our with our employees and so we'll work through any challenges that may arise from that but yes the the goal what most districts make this they go this route make it a mandatory option um really we're trying to um free up the burden not just for District staff but also the employees have to come and get a papercheck especially around the holidays so we'll we'll work through those and yes we're we are going to make this a mandatory thing okay no I'm just I'm curious to see how it how it works out so thank you question one last question you said approximately how many employees get paper checks it's around 20 so yeah so it would just be 20 people that would have to get the cards yeah okay um no other questions I make a motion that we approve the rapid pay card I'll second Le we have a motion to Second Carol Lopez I adamary no I Tory Anderson i p gay I Robert Downey I so move thank you Mr Harmon I move on to 7 C approved to adjourn to Executive session Pur pursuant to ARS 3843 13 A1 for discussion and consideration of the superintendent's evaluation should the superintendent advise the board that she wants this discussion to happen in Open session it will occur in Open Session Dr lutman we can do it in executive session okay we need a motion motion to approve to go in E session second Lisa we have a motion to Second camon Lopez I adamary no I Tori Anderson I Patty KRA I Robert Downey I so mve we're now move into executive session you can stay if you want but it might be quite a while will you take a picture for me will you take a picture for me with my kids

good evening everyone and welcome to the board of school trustees regular meeting for Wednesday December 11th 2024 like to call the meeting to order and start off with a moment of silence in memory of Derek Le a former custodian who passed away recently thank you if fav I would fa please join me in the pledge allegiance 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 thank you moving right into the consent agenda 24101 approval of agenda of the December 11th 2024 regular meeting 24102 approval of the minutes of the October 28th 2024 attend of agreement meeting special board meeting and executive session and November 13th 2024 ratification meeting and regular board meeting 24103 approval of payment and claims 24104 approval of Finance cial report 24105 approval of construction payments which are as follows Etc systems pay app number six Cub Industries for 45215 and number two ton corporation pay app number eight Cub Industries 83695 24106 approval of personnel report 106.1 addenda Personnel report 24107 approval of donations and grants uh starting off with Deputy Elementary Deputy Big Shots donated $100 to the archery team tiny Timbers donated $100 to the archery team out at Riker's Ridge Dr Paul Cronin donated $1,000 to the Riker Ridge principal fund to be used for student needs to Madison Junior High Cru and auto donated $100 sponsorship to the archery team and SEI Communications donated $200 sponsorship to the Esports program at the high school an anonymous donation of 5 $4 to Athletics Janet and Gary spear donated $500 to the boys basketball team and Michael and Mary Joe J jich jurasovic excuse me donated $500 to the boys basketball team 2418 approval of field trip request we have a request from the French Club adviser Mr Michael Heights to take 8 to 10 French Club students to Greenwood Indiana on January 24th and 25th 2025 to participate in a Statewide French competition we have an overnight field trip request from high school FFA adviser Amanda Briggs to take 12 FFA students to the state forestry contest Rue University on December 13th and 14th 2024 we have a request from the athletic director Patrick Morrison for the girls wrestling team to participate in a tournament on Saturday December 7th 2024 at North Harden High School in Kentucky Dr Brown I recommend that the board approve approve with one motion and one vote the consent agenda items 24-11 through and including 24-18 as presented okay make a motion to approve Cass agenda 24-11 through 24-18 as presented thank you with a motion do we have a second second with a motion a second is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed set agenda pass any public comments okay moving right on to the action 2419 recommendation for approval of year end appropriation and other budgetary transfers Dr Brown I recommend the board approve the yearend appropriation and other budgetary transfers for 2024 by annually on June 30 and December 31st the finance department reviews the approved budget for necessary adjustments these transfers do not increase the total approved Appropriations budgeted for 2024 and the transfers will merely allow us to make appropriation and cash adjustments to individual accounts I'm requesting approval to make the necessary transfers that will then be available for your review in February 2025 very good you have a motion to approve 24109 I make a motion to approve 24109 thank you and a second please a second with a motion and a second is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed 2419 passes 24110 approval of property liability workers compensation and other insurance renewal Dr Brown yeah I recommend the board approve the property liability cyber workers compensation and other insurance renewal with the henriot group the estimated total overall annual pre premium increase is 84,3 25 the 2025 premium total is 56,59 So asking for approval entertain a motion to approve 24110 make a motion to approve 24110 thank you Mr Scott a second I'll second with a motion is a second uh is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor of approving 24110 signify by saying I I any oppos 24110 is approved 24111 first reading of revised MCS policies Dr Brown yeah this is the first reading of the policies so I just take a look at them and let me know if you have any questions okay no vote on that you should have put a paper clip like you did you're not GNA read them I've read them about 7217 in detail is there a wrestling meet tonight yes evidently somebody's be trying to help yeah 24112 first reading to resend MCS policies Dr Brown again this is the first reading therefore no actions required tonight so if you have any questions just let me know okay 2413 approval to purchase cameras for Madison junr High School and declare surveillance cameras Obsolete and of no further use to the corporation Dr Brown I recommend the board approve the purchase of cameras from ERS Wireless in the amount of $85,500 velon cameras as well as add four additional outside cameras that will be added to parking and playground areas uh it will be paid for out of the remaining 2324 Tech budget so asking for approval we're also seeking approval to recycle the surveillance cameras that will be removed as they are outdated of no further use to the corporation so asking for approval of those two items within that very good entertain a motion to approve 2413 I'll make a motion to approve 24-13 thank you Mr store is there a second please I'll second with a motion and a second is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed 24113 is approved 24114 approval of revised director of Safety and Security job description Dr Brown yeah we're actually working in HR on um approving and and getting revised uh job descriptions for each of our jobs in the district tonight we're just bringing to you the uh director of Safety and Security and asking the board to approve that updated job description entertain a motion to approve uh 24114 I'll make a motion thank you Mr V in a second second with a motion in the second is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor of 24114 signify by saying I I any oppose 24114 is approved 24115 approval of agreement to provide speech and language Services Dr Brown yeah I'm recommending the board approve the agreement to provide speech and language Services between MCS and Nancy duser this agreement will be effective as of December 2nd 2024 between Nancy duser and Madison Consolidated Schools the term of the contract will be from December 16 2024 through May 31st 2025 uh the days of work shall be consistent with our 2425 calendar so asking for approval of that agreement very good entertain a motion to approve 24 115 make a motion to approve 2415 thank you m Chan is there a second please I'll second with a motion and a second is there any discussion see no discussion all in favor of 24115 signified by saying I I any opposed 24115 is approved now we'll move on to reports our favorite part of the night and miss m Moen good evening um I just have a short report for you all this evening we are in the middle of winter sports season so be sure to be checking that athletics schedule for girls and boys basketall basketball games swim meets and wrestling meets so go Che on our boys and girls athletes um the MCHS Christmas concert will take place on December 19th at the high school auditorium so go check out our lovely choir and band students I just want to give a quick shout out to all of our um theater and Arts students at the junior high they've been doing a lot of cool things lately miss Block's Junior High theater classes are performing their plays this week um aliceon Wonderland was wonderful their production of Alis in Wonderland was great and down at Analog Coffee the meet the makers night and all of that has been down there with these nice mugs and they had lovely little paintings down there it was so nice to see all of that I loved that um the elementary students have also been performing their Christmas programs at the high school I want to extend a huge congratulations to Bod harson for winning the Lily endowment scholarship and congratulations to all of our other finalists um and I want to remind all of our students to check their email and if you have not signed up for your student Square account do that right now you should have done that forever ago but do it right now because you're missing a lot of really important announcements and good luck on finals to all of our high school students finish the semester out strong and then the Madison Consolidated school's Christmas break is December 23rd through January 7th so enjoy that happy holidays everybody thank you Miss W you do a great job representing the students at Madison I'm sure they're all very proud of you any open public comments okay then we will move on to the board member comments Mr Scott thank you uh first I'd like to give a shout out to uh Bob in the back room from Mass and Courier um I think he has done an excellent job of providing coverage for our Early Learning Center project in trying to get the message out as to what we're doing why we're doing it um trying to provide transparency for the board to the public and to the taxpayers um I so I really appreciate the job you've done Bob uh with that um and then lastly I sincerely want to wish uh every employee for Madison Consolidated Schools a very Merry Christmas and blessed New Year very nice Mr Scott thank you yeah Miss Jodie yeah so um just want to wish all the students good luck on their finals um study hard and then um go out and have a great holiday break um Merry Christmas Happy New Year to all our students and employees that's all I have very nice Mr B it's an echo of everything good luck on the finals to the high school uh students and have a safe and happy Merry Christmas and holidays to everybody thank you sir David uh gotta Echo everything the same um pretty much just want to once again thank everyone for the donations that goes a long ways uh this has to be one of the largest donation schools that we have around the state of Indiana we get a lot of donations from people so once again thank you very much it's very much appreciated uh want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year thank you David I'd like to uh thank Dr Holly Robinson and Tony steinhardt Jr from the city of Madison and Josh Wilbur from Gro and from the city for participating in our last Thursday's work session with regards to our Early Childhood Center proposal I think they brought a lot of uh good information for all of us to to ponder and and we appreciate their their time and their experience that they that they gave to us Mr demy I too would like to uh thank you for a well-written article of course all all your articles are well written but this might been one of your better ones actually but no Bob does a great job covering it we appreciate getting the getting the word out it's vital for for this project for the citizens to be well informed on you know what we're looking at and what we're hoping to do and and what we hope to accomplish and uh and I'll tell you this is this is certainly a program that will if Done Right will accomplish a lot so um we appreciate you helping us in getting that getting that information out and I will turn it over to our well let me finish by saying Merry Christmas I can't believe I still think it's like uh mid August where's it go to it's just unbelievable but uh but Merry Christmas to everybody and have a have a safe holiday vacation Dr Brown all right uh first of all I want to thank um ham Smith um she's a chairperson of our district social committee and they hosted our first employee event a couple weeks ago we had a trivia night the deputy team won they were victorious congratulations to the deputy team it's hard for me to say that but I am and uh it was it was it was a lot of fun we had about 75 uh people there and yeah it was just it was a good time people were dressed up and it was it was a good time together um also U Madison is hosting the Southeastern study Council tomorrow here so we have um lots of superintendant uh from all over Southern Indiana coming here and so we're looking forward to hosting them our farm our farm stop kids which Miss Emma's a part of um are going to be presenting to the superintendent about our program and our new student run Enterprise that's opening uh this winter um early spring so looking forward to sharing that with them and um displaying kind of all the great things going on in Madison for them to see be a great time to celebrate um also just a reminder those holiday program programs are going on tonight's Lydia Middleton so there's programs going on just about every night from now until when our uh winter break begins which is uh December the 20th through January the 6th so we look forward to um our employees having that time off with our families and our students and everybody just having a safe um and restful holiday season two weeks from today is Christmas so yeah it's coming up hard um and then lastly right and then lastly a big thanks to our board um I speak on behalf of our employees who get their stien checks tomorrow and their raises and retr pay on Friday so we greatly appreciate you thank you for that good for them they deserve every penny yeah that's all I've got thank you superintendent there will be a work session on Thursday January 9th 2025 at 4:30 p.m.

e e e good evening everybody it is December 11th this is our school committee meeting and we start each meeting reading our vision statement the Ashland Public School strives to be a model District that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff who feel safe and supportive are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and Global communities this meeting is being recorded by waa cable TV our order of business this evening is our call to order agenda review and adoption public participation the reports and presentations will include our student presentations with the school committee student advisor Council cares Miss St cerr from Ashlin High School unified basketball Josh Sanford field trip proposal Greece April 2026 Mr McAn El report Christy Arnold warrant approvals superintendence report assistant superintendent report our action items and discussion updates and votes include Chesterton Academy of the immaculada Catholic School proposal in Ashland approval of policies um including jjf jjf D athletic concussion regulations ad vision and mission statement ecfa face coverings DJ purchasing first read of policies includes dja purchasing Authority DJ bidding requirements bhe use of electronic messaging by school committee members the consent agenda includes approval of gifts and donations Grant approval minutes from November 3rd 2024 and then we will move to enter reports of school committee members and then we will move to enter into executive session under mgl chapter 30A section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel superintendent Jim Adams or to conduct collective bargaining with the intent of not returning to public session and then we will adjourn okay I'm just going to take attendance and ask if everybody is okay with the order of business this evening Marcy here yes Tina here and yes Paul yes Mark yes okay great um so first I'm going to ask if there's anybody from the public either online or in the room who would like to offer public comment and seeing none I will move on to our um student advisory Council presentation you guys are welcome to come on up to the podium and introduce yourselves and fill us in on what's going on hello hi I'm Sophia wety and I'm in 10th grade um so couple updates so we recently participated in the Alice drill which is like practicing barricading classrooms in case of a lockdown and um however some students didn't take this situation like completely seriously because they knew about it ahead of time time although it's definitely a good overall practice since some people like had never like learned how to like barricade their classrooms before um there's also the NHS induction ceremony recently where 63 students were inducted into the National Honor Society bringing the club participation total up to like above 90 and um so also the honors band and chorus participated in the senior District's music competition um and 12 band members and five chorus members qualified and for fall Sports um so there's a lot of successful teams so both girls and boys cross country made it to all states for the first time in history um girls volleyball made it to the final eight boy soccer made it to the Sweet 16 and both girls soccer and girls field hockey made it to the playoffs as well and we had 23 total League allar or 24 League All Stars and um also Mr Anderson made all of the sports banners in the gym like a uniform design and he purchased um new record boards for swimming and track and field awesome thanks all right good evening everyone my name is Max Mambo and I'm a junior so right now freshmen are beginning to plan their High School uh path in freshman seminar and juniors are looking into colleges and career paths in their junior seminar um it's an exciting time with lots of thoughtful planning in both grades on another note uh I'd like to address the recent change in the French program as you already know it's being phased out and I think it might be a little bit tough for the middle school students who are currently um taking French it might be forced to switch over to Spanish um I'd like to propose offering an alternative language like something like Portuguese which might be easier to staff in considering like the finding French teachers is considerably hard um and I'd also like to touch up on the upcoming winter break um as you you know it's the longest it's been in years and I think it's a positive change considering most teachers are already wrapping up like all their units by by the end of this week or the next week and um so it doesn't really interrupt the flow of learning and I feel like it's a good time for kids to come to connect with their families y so that's it thank you thank you that's very helpful input hi um I'm Sonia with thei and I'm in I'm a sophomore um so for Club fundraisers there was the Red Cross which had the blood drive and we got a lot of or they got a lot of participants um from students as well as teachers also make awish hosted a Harlem Wizards fundraiser which allowed um them to raise around $177,000 which allows them to Grant almost two wishes which is amazing um also right before Thanksgiving break we we had a hallway decorating competition and a lot of students came to help their class out and um there were so many creative designs and effort put into each hallway and uh yeah the class 2027 won um with their hallway of candy cane theme um also for college and military branch visitors there were several College visits um that that's been happening every week during xblock um some upcoming meeting dates this week or upcoming is Monday on the 16th and Tuesday on the 17th um a bus point Cadet who is a former graduate at Ashlin came to during X blog to and held an info session about what he does and like um the program um also students have seen military branch visits during lunch um who set up tables and provides F Fires for their program which many students love to check out and participate in awesome thank you thank you thank you all right all right thanks everybody we appreciate that all that great information and you are free to go whenever you want to uh Miss St CER cares on cares you going to do both okay beautiful awesome anything I'm really not doing anything but introducing them so um excited to um welcome our co-present for the cares team um who we're going to talk to a little bit tonight about what the car's team does at ashon high school so they'll introduce themselves and um explain a little bit about what we do um it's an unique group at ashon High School in that it's not just a student Club it's actually a group of students and adults who meet together regularly um so I'm going to let these wonderful young ladies explain it to you hello hello everyone my name is Genesis bukenya and I'm a senior and I'm co-president of Caris with together with I'm Sophia Silva and I'm a junior so a bit about cares um car stands for clerus for anti-racism equity and social justice we attended the connections conference and just this past year we presented and our topic was empathy in action programs to cultivate empathy from childhood to adulthood there were 5ool six schools in attendance and 600 people we also have the flag day that we do every year but now we've changed it to every two years it's a 60-minute old school assembly where students and staff sign up to represent a flag or country they feel a connection to you and each flag representative shares a couple sentences one or two about their connection and the assembly begins and ends with a beautiful pageantry of flags the car's team also has a reading team which is a team of 12 students who read picture books full of diverse characters and stories and they lead um a class discussion with students at Petway Warren and mes Caris is also responsible for the wome mural right at the front and we paint um a mirror with like the word welcome with with 28 languages at h a students speak and if any language that a student speaks isn't there make sure to add it and additionally we are also responsible for the M Martin Luther King Jr Court like right by the front office thank you okay um for cares we host um movie and book discussions and so our lineup for this year is the first book Is This Book book is anti-racist by Tiffany juel it's a book about how with 20 lessons on how to wake up take action and do the work next is a graphic novel Palestine by Joe Sao and it's a book that is the political and historical depiction of Palestine for movies we have on these grounds it's a documentary about police brutality then viral anti-Semitism in four mutations and talking about how anti anti-Semitism is rising and worsening in the US in Europe in not in ways not seen since the 1930s this has already passed we I was co- facilitator for this and it was a very good discussion a lot was learned in the community um next movie was on the basis of sex is a film based on the life and early cases of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then the next movie is called the disruptors it's a documentary about n neuro Divergence in ADHD um in light of recent of the recent swasa found in the boy's bathroom we are offering a x block entitled anti-Semitism the SW the swasa and AHS and it's a way to create a safe space for education and dialogue about the what H has happened we are having a short video on the history of anti-Semitism and questions about the video and how people feel with the swasa in that was found yeah also for any of the book discussions anybody part of the community it's free for the entire Community to join we would love to see people there just to come participate and discuss with students and faculty does it happen at the high school the no on Zoom online okay it's usually in the evenings for movie discussion it is one um one um 1 hour and 30 minute discussion but for books we have like every other week no every week we have like a Wednesday meeting for example and like how do we find out more about the schedule like if someone wants to join Zoom I think there like the information is on the the Ashen website but if not um we can contact misser or Miss nameth um at the high school awesome thank you thank you thank you great work thanks Miss Zer again hi again um at this time I'm going to invite up the coach and one member of our team a unified basketball team who we're going to talk to a little bit about their season um this year and their very special award [Music] hello hi oh little bit okay hi my name is Ethan ritterbush I am the this year I was the coach of the unified basketball team I'm taking over Holly LeBlanc who was the coach last year this is Noah George he was a student on the team um Noah has a little statement he would like to read and then I'm going to present you guys a Sportsmans sh award we won this year and then talk a little bit about the program does that sound okay fabulous cool thank you hello hi guys hello everyone my name is Noah George I am a senior at Ashton high school the INF Sports has been a a blessing in my life I am lucky to have this program at our school I am representing my coach and my teammates I have loved playing basketball and track at Ashen high school for 3 years now Sports make me a better person in life we hope to see you come to support some of games in the future thank you thank you thank you great job thank you Noah so um this is a sportsmanship award that we were awarded at the end of this year um that we won and congratulations to Noah and our players who hope to win it so exciting yes we were nominated for the award by the town of Hopkinton um if you want to learn more if you want to see more from our game against them there was a Metro West Daily News article about it um that you can look up um the prog program is a very good program you know this is my first year coaching and being involved with the program what I've seen it's great you know beyond just uh giving an opportunity for people um because we it's a Unified sports is a way for PE uh students with special needs to participate and play with students who don't so it's a very it's a very inclusive Sport and Beyond just you know being useful because some of our students don't have a lot of opportunities to be physically active um Beyond being a boon to the community in that degree um it's also just the culture is great you know it's not you know super competitive you know as you know um and I think that uh it's a it's a good league and I enjoyed my time with it and I think a lot of our students enjoyed our time at least that's what I heard from them do you guys have any questions or done is really important that is great what an honor to be nominated by another community so they're not you're being noticed so great work thanks for all you do and have fun thank you guys for recognizing us thank you okay follow that Mr Manan I don't I don't think you can can although I'm a very proud counselor right now because Noah is one of my guys ah um uh hello everyone uh Corey McAn uh school counselor at the high school um i i u doing a a trip to Europe uh for April 2026 um this is Athens uh Greece and the islands Greek Islands I did not know that they were making a sequel to Gladiator when I pitch this but we the kids will be seeing the Coliseum um so that's good um yeah uh typical 10-day trip um avoiding uh missing school like the plague as best as I can um and uh it's going to be about uh four days in Athens and then uh visiting the surrounding Islands questions how many kids do you typically expect to get on a trip like this it's a good question um I I don't like to take too many um for a variety of reasons um so 36 to 40 is my sometimes 44 um and my communication to EF is I want to stay on one bus and their communication to me is we will get you a bigger bus um because they are trying to uh uh EF is the travel agency EF is the travel used for other trips correct that you've worked with in the past since I've been in fifth grade I mean I've other than Coca-Cola this organization has been in my life more than any other um they are the gold standard they are the best they are worldwide and I know that when I'm in when I'm on tour there is a hotline number that if I need anything um it's it's immediate and um there's been a couple situations where I've needed to utilize them and it's amazing how resp responsive they are so that's what I love about EF the most they are the best Paul uh so I know over the last couple years you've been trying to really improve the front end of this and and the sign up and in the communication can you maybe talk a little bit more about changes and how that's evolved I actually the the last uh um when I uh uh sought approval for the last trip that's leaving uh in April I did implement the change of um staggering the signups not just based on year but also for students who toured before not t before I'm planning on doing it the same way where um we have the information session and then a week for Rising seniors who have never traveled before then a week for Rising Juniors who have never Rising sophomores have never traveled before and then looping back around Rising seniors who have had the opportunity Rising Juniors who to make sure that there's the opportunity that if you want a spot and you've never been able to do it and favoring the upper classman because for a a rising sophomore they're going to have to the rights of the Apple other questions and piggy back that with the most typical question in terms of the the efforts to make sure that students and families are aware of you know if obviously these trips are not cheap so you know kind of the efforts to make sure that there is inclusive as possible yeah so I make sure to put that in the announcement about the information session and then I I talk about it at the information session as well and then have one-on-one conversations with anyone that that 6m do you do you have I because I having gone through through cuz McKenna will be uh in in this next trip but uh I know we're trying to do this but you are going through EF and they have a process which involves some upfront you know funds and the commitment and and everything like that so have you have you talked to them about how to soften that for anyone that might be in that situation because it's still their process and at the onset when you sign up they're like I need this much money and I need a commitment to draw down on some account right these payments right up front whereas if we're trying to help somebody that might be a bit of a challenge right the sense I I've never had specific conversations about what a family would need in that moment the sense I get is that they're flexible especially since compared to most schools I I do it much earlier um because I give it I don't do it typically for an April trip most schools will that they'll introduce it that September um within that Academic School year I always do it the year before to give plenty of time it does two things one it lowers the the monthly payment for everyone but I anticipate that if I went to EF or the family went directly to EF to say can we not front end it as much um there's a way to do it especially if you don't do the automatic payment plan you just do manual um the just to hold your spot is $95 but that's fully refundable uh if you choose not to go um uh but the sense I get is that they would be flexible for individual so maybe just think about how you would work with a family because even though that that's what they're taking at that time I know when they sign up you're a commit you're also signing up for that draw right it only if you do automatic payment if you do manual payment you don't have to pay anything um up up front other than the $95 deposit other questions I know some of us have chaperoned with you before yes Mr mcan's an excellent chaperon yes um I it's a lot of work a lot of work can confirm I don't quite sleep right the whole time but uh but I know that's something that uh parents who might not know you or know what your experience is might want to know that uh some of us up here can vouch for you including me I apprciate can I I just want to ask some more just about managing international travel and safety for kids right and uh you know just kind of come back to that what what are we able to do to as much as you can for anybody who's traveling internationally or anywhere yeah you know what what are we doing to make sure we are keeping track of the safety of our kids and chaperons like yourself it's a great question so that's by the way that's number one reason why I go through EF because they just have people everywhere um and so if anything happened it's so quick for them to get um staff with us we are so EF provides us with um a uh tour director who is with us literally 247 for all 10 days so they are not with their families they're not with anyone they're just with us they're in our hotels everything um um so I always have someone who knows the area um immediately as well as the hotline that I can use at any point anywhere I I'm in the world I don't let the kids buy themselves um they're always if they do have free time and they're always in a a specific area that's safe um and they're always traveling in uh minimums of Threes um and the ability we use the WhatsApp uh app to be able to communicate so they can text me uh and immediately um I've also given out my my cell on tour and I tell them as soon as we land you are not allowed to text me or call me um but in the moment I want them to be able to like get to someone quickly the other thing that I do that I think um is really effective is um I always break the um the large group into uhp what I call groupo um just small groups and each chaperon has their group of five six seven kids and they really get to know that group of five six seven kids so they always have the ability to contact their groupo leader as well as me in case anything is happening so we've been very lucky um that we've been very s i I should also say like I definitely pick the trips based on safety um there's a reason why you know I I generally pick you know major cities which have a lot of tourists um EF is comfortable traveling there I wouldn't travel to places that are a little bit off the beaten path I I wouldn't feel comfortable myself doing that um I I I like I like tourist traps there's um it's great for the kids because they get that sort of experience of uh uh someplace where it for them it's totally different but but the city itself gets tourists all the time um and specifically American tourists um so I feel much more comfortable in that regard thank you thanks you have a motion I don't have it up but I move to approve the uh international trip as presented second all in favor hi hi thanks I'll just say Corey I appreciate you coming in a year and a half early for these things agreed yeah it gives us if yeah if we if we got stuck on something it gives me plenty of time to kind of come back and and provide more info so I think we've gotten better at that over the years and I just wanted to acknowledge that yeah it g it gives a lot of flexibility for me certainly for me the families um just us as a school just so that it's nothing is basically I'm just waiting for things nothing is last minute I'm a super especially when I'm a tour I've got my three- ring binder I've got all like I'm I'm super uh fixated on making sure that everything goes really smoothly yeah I appreciate you coming in in person to do something that is at this point with us almost Prof fora it's a it's a you might change up the the you know the cities but it's it's the same trip every year but you're you're still here and and and represented it so thank you yeah I'm I'll keep it short but I'm really proud of it I think it's a really good thing and kids come away from it with just uh an experience of culture and language and just also as a school counselor like I think learning how to travel and do so effectively and be able to kind of go with the flow which you definitely need to do with a group of 50 people um they they learn things that they take back to their families or or and a lot of kids will tell me that they did study abroad when they're in college one of my former AHS Travelers now lives in Germany um so it's a it's I I'd like to think that they had that early experience and then off they went so yeah you sure you don't want to take 200 down to DC thank you but but I what the important thing like I for me person I do know my limits as a counselor I would never want to put myself in a situation where I'm not feeling like it can go really well and I think that's a smart thing to do so yeah thank you I went on this trip um my God was it last year yeah and um London Paris Madrid LPM yeah and it was one of the best trips I've ever been on in my life so I just like to thank you for running this every year and kind of bum that I'm on the bottom of the list because I'm I'm going you never know man never know we'll see but but what I liked about your groupo is you correct me if I'm wrong but when you guys went off after your lunches I don't think you ever went to any of the chain restaurants you went to the local spots every time we went to one we went to Nando but that's local to London that's good but the immersion is amazing we went to I mean I can speak French Maximo is fluent you just met Maximo he's fluent in Spanish and um it it was just an amazing trip so you were speaking to everyone in in their native language yeah it was great that's awesome well that's nice to hear thank you thanks everybody all right have a good one okay Christie my son was on the trip last year as well and had a bless good same yeah all right are you Noah Noah Arnold yeah yes I am yep um so I'm Christy Arnold director for English language education thanks for having me here tonight I put together a few slides just to go over um some of the numbers currently in the program looking at some of the data uh for progress of our English Learners as well as um and as I go over some of the progress some of the uh reasons why I think we have progress in the places that we do um was it ding yeah yeah your like what do I say heart wasn't come on I'll try but I'll try harder for the next slide okay so um So currently so the numbers that you see here um just to distinguish between a multilingual learner and an English learner multilingual Learners are um kids that have or either speak fluently another language maybe their parents speak it maybe they're exposed to it in their home not all multilingual Learners are English Learners because they could be bilingual or bilingual trilingual actually we have some families that speak multiple languages at home because they've traveled they've lived in multiple countries um So currently we have 926 multilingual Learners meaning they've listed a language other than English as their primary language at home um so out of that 926 225 would be identified as English Learners meaning not fluent in English yet so somewhere between newcomer and maybe a level 3 four meaning almost proficient in English like you might be able to have a conversation with them but they need a little more support with academic language so English Learners is a wide range um and then former English Learners we currently have 147 those are students that were in the English language education program but met the exit criteria meaning they're proficient in English and can perform classwork in English without any support we monitor those students for four years after they've exited so that's the number of those students who are within that 4-year period there are more kids that have exited but they're past that foure so we don't keep count of those anymore so then in the next section where it says English Learners I just broke down the numbers by school um so at the so we've had increases at the high school in Warren this year the middle school we had a small decrease Mendes and uh uh pway were about the same and also our total number of multilingual Learners was actually the exact same as last year 926 so new students coming in Old students is it stayed the same in frame of reference the 926 is about a third of our student population that's really striking me just listening to like amazing thank you because I don't do well percentage um any questions about any of those numbers cuz we'll just keep moving forward ding thank [Music] you gosh so then this slide just um highlights the various languages that are spoken um in Ashland um Portuguese being the the highest after English um and then Indian languages and dialects I put those together um and then Spanish Russian Arabic ch Chinese which incorporates Mandarin and Cantonese Romanian um French and then if you see the bottom all of those other languages in no particular order have less than 10 but are represented in our student population including other because that's a choice um so here uh we'll start with some of the data um in this information I was able to pull from um open Architects which does a great job of putting together the data in a in charts and graphs so I don't have to figure that out which I think is great um so this is based on last year's we for Access scor so that's a test that all English Learners take in January February every year it's listening speaking reading and writing for most students it's online um for kindergarten it's all in person in first second third grade they do the writing part on paper everyone everything else is online so last year we had 196 students that took the um access test um and our average overall level is a level three so like it's one to six one newcomer six proficient and five six is proficient in English so in the mid level um is where our average is hey Christy the the uh 196 being 37 less than the previous school year is that is that because we we couldn't we we had a capacity issue on testing or did we have less to test less students to test at that time so that's in January February that's how many Els we had at that time so there might have been more in the beginning of the year at the end of the year but that's how many tested so the year before there were more kids in January February Okay so we've went up but now we're 30 students from that point yes okay I was trying to get there's a lot ofu we're 225 now and so yeah there's a lot numbers if I run the numbers tomorrow we'll be up three from today or plus minus one because someone could move um and then the bottom it it shows like firsttime participants so there 62 students who were new um Els that includes kindergarten so they were never tested before so of course 100% of those students made progress because it's their first time taking it um and then the 134 students that had taken access before 54% made progress um and then attainment means they made the um exit criteria so that's what attainment means ding [Laughter] yep goad can I ask a quick question so do you look at like when they make attainments so like in terms of schools like which schools and do that's maybe I didn't yes we can look at that I'm not going to look at that this today y um I can talk about it generally today the slides the next set of slides are about progress okay um and but I I can touch on the attainment we do look at we look at that um typically it depends on how many years they've been in school yep right so if they start as a kindergartener we're looking at attainment second third grade but if you started as a third grader yep then maybe it's sixth grade M like so it it varies on when the student started and what their level was when they started got it so it's hard to say we should have attainment at this level because it's it's fluid from when they started yeah no I was curious because it struck me that Warren has such a high number and that could be because they're young I don't I'm learning so um I was just curious if the number drops because you know they're making attainment or if the number drops because I don't know I I was just so I can tell you it kindergarten is our biggest number okay because it's their first time being screened tested and they're they are qualifying um I want to say at kindergarten right now there are 48 students okay got it thank you yes and just uh on the made progress for the pre students that previously were were tested um what's what's the number you're shooting for there uh you know just and coming in ignorant 54% seems like hey that that means 46% didn't make any progress and which would be alarming if I don't have more exactly so the the state determines the the the target based on how long they've been in US US schools their level their grade right so those three things so Pro so progress is something that's defined not just hey they no progress not being the 46 doesn't mean they made no progress they just haven't they didn't hit met some The Benchmark some Benchmark of progress correct okay so let's say like they would get like overall access score of a 3.2 and back it up so let's say they started at 2.1 and then um the state says okay this student should get a 3.1 next year if that student gets a three they they don't have progress there was progress but they didn't hit the target right so that's where that number comes in that makes a lot more sense because I'm like I know all the work you're doing so this correct this number just when you read it in layman's terms it looks absolutely appallingly low which I I know is not and then so for all those students that don't make that progress Target if you will they go on a Student Success plan where there are goals and we are measuring um and looking at those students closely to say okay what what do they need to work on what domain is it listening is it speaking is it reading is it writing but so yeah there's usually progress and we do look at each student individually to say okay were they point one off were they further away why why why aren't making the progress making the progress yeah great thank you good question good question okay so this is the data um since 2020 um again making that progress and thank you for M having me clarify that because it would help understand my next set of slides um so in 2020 59% of the students made The Benchmark progress that we were looking for 2021 obviously after Co there was a dip down to 36 and now we're on the way up and I'm hoping that we will continue to go up with progress in students making um making progress we put in some new curriculum and things like that Ding so one of the places that I'm really um proud of is up at the high school because if you can see the their dipped down was so last year was about 15% the year before was 16% and now up 32% and I believe that is due to the fact that um in the past couple of years the high school has created new classes um specific for student levels so that when they go in there they're getting the curriculum that they need at their level versus having all the students in there and the teachers trying to do lots of things additionally um they've created a math class and a science class for newcomer or students that haven't been in school before s students so students that might have interrupted schooling and so they're going into high school with maybe a third grade math level because they haven't been in school right they they just weren't in school and so I think that those so the pictures that you see there are the new science class that's co-taught with a science teacher and a el teacher the math class was um which was started last year the year before um is co-taught with El teacher and a math teacher and so really targeting instruction for what the kids need to learn English to access the content I think is making this difference here um additionally this year we've created a bridge support class so students who are El's and maybe they're that level four they're they're almost ready to exit so they're in general English classes but now they have a targeted support class with the El teacher to help them with some of those nuances of language to so that they can access that content and and be successful and that's going really well this year too so I'm excited to see what that um produces with attainment so you mentioned like you mentioned the dip with covid that that you saw and here um how has this group been able to rebound because I got a feeling that it has to be compounded exponentially right they're they experienced curricular covid like everybody else did and and created gaps you know academically but they also lost some time and and and some progress in this space which then just puts them even further kind of compounds the issue uh how how did am I right in saying that you saw that and and how are they been responding and and getting back on track absolutely and I think it's um and for some of us so specifically like a lot of our high school students a lot of them are newcomers so they have just arrived to US schools in the past couple of years and so for many of them school was completely shut down for covid and Beyond like there were there are families that I've spoken to and school never reopened like even after covid and so creating these courses and having um these spaces for these kids I think is really is really helping to build back up and to help close those gaps sure um is the um 50% figure a mark of like the average um is what's expected by the state for for each for each City or is it so um not necessarily and I did compare to State day data and forgive me I don't have it and I don't fully remember the state um data but I believe and Micha will fact checked me but I believe we're doing better than the state average but I don't know okay that's a good question because I I just saw the 15% from the past year and I was like I was a little confused do you see do you see that Trend across across the state or not so yeah he's going to check for me good question though yep um dang and including um so I asked the teachers to send me some pictures and we have an e student that was inducted into the National Honor Society very proud moment so I'm really excited about the work that's happening up at the high school all right and then Ashlin middle school again this is their progress over time so what the benchmarks were sent for set for those students so we see a a dip in the number here at 42% um and so one of the things that we're working on is updating the classes as well as the curriculum to try to model what we're doing at the high school which is working really well um and so that's something that we're working on with scheduling at the middle school I think that's going to help us to be able to set up the model at the middle school a little bit differently to so we can see some more successes there you talk a little bit about the uh you talk a little bit about the the 61% there that's kind of an interesting number given the other Trends and then of course it's come back down a little bit any sense of what was driving that number that year you know I I looked at this and I tried to look back and I don't know I can look into it and and see and get back to you on that but I'm do not know well and and how many students was that there right so a jump of 10% might just mean that you know three students did did or two students did did did better right so that the the these are small numbers probably so just a couple of couple of achievements probably skew things greatly I mean I I think it's a fair point but if you also look at the data points like we're not we're seeing some improvement like the high school on the last slide just enough tick right and you know good one last year but we're kind of getting back to the 2020 time frame like you know were a little bit below both middle school and the high school were a few points below where we were but it says it suggests some consistency to it yeah but that's why I ask the question yeah no and I'm curious too because as you mentioned before these numbers are very fluid and so if you have a number of students that move into the middle school halfway through the year who are level one it it's May likely change what this looks like so is there any way to put put these numbers into context with those numbers right in terms of when students move in what the levels because I would imagine that impacts I mean that that may be a much bigger ass to put that into all into perspective at the same time but I would imagine that has an impact on it as well but it has it has somewhat of an impact um because again if they move in and it's their first time taking access then they have 100% growth um and also so the kids who have taken it before um one of the things I do see at the middle school is kind of at that place where we have long-term English Learners so these are English Learners who have been English Learners since kindergarten and sometimes they're still um they can't hit the exit criteria because of maybe a disability because of a suspected disability so things like that and so the middle school is that place where we are definitely defitely trying to figure out a little bit more um and so that's where we're really trying to put in some of the energy yes because there are definitely students there that have been eels for a long time and they're not making progress possibly for other reasons as well but we want to then see okay well then how can we shift curriculum how can we shift classes to meet their needs so there'll be I mean it's the conversation that we're going to have in the next couple meetings with regard to the astral Middle School schedule right that that has a tremendous impact and Christy alluded to it uh that you know making sure that the schedule is appropriate for English Learners uh at the middle school it needs to be adjusted as well as um a defined curriculum which is what she started to implement you know the first tick of the 61% is a direct relationship to the first year chrisy was here so you might want to stop where you are now Chris yes I it was me just want to throw that out there I think it's fair to it it's fair to say you had a great deal to do with it correct I I know you you asked me to fact check you and unfortunately I do not have that information at my fingertips as I thought I would okay but what I what I can add to this is um we talk about students that are that are making progress it's I think it's more important to talk about students who have at least increased their percentage or increased their score from the previous year um and when I look at that data real quickly 88.1% of our students increased their score from the previous year so I we can delve deeper into that data to see maybe if that student was new to us or if that student has been with us but when you look at that it's pretty impressive that might be a slide later on I it's not but so so 88% though is is a pretty impressive data point to to talk abouts of our success right yeah can you tell we love data um I was going to say the other thing that would be interesting just some at some point in the future is following the cohorts of the students so like you know because you're you have five years here you're jumping kids are jumping schools right and so how does that look and is it the grade level or is it the the cohort of students or you know we could just slice this six ways to Sunday because we just love this stuff so okay this is great this is and not to get ahead too far ahead on the other ones but it looks like the trend is the percentage of uh progress as defined by the state kind of is lower at the the older the kids get but is do you think that's probably due to the curricular demands as well so you know if you're if you're at kindergarten whatever you're kind of doing social emotional learning you're doing all this other stuff you can really make a lot of progress on the English learning whereas you're a freshman in high school you're trying to you know access that curriculum via English and trying to learn English at the same time correct and they're competing competing resources in your uh in your learning there right absolutely and and in the younger grades there's more language instruction in general for all children yeah and yes you'll see in my next two slid okay dang he's giving me a look all right so ad Mendes um so we do see a small small dip from last year to this year however I did dig into this one a little bit more um and so and the last time I was here we I talked a little bit about flashlight 360 360 which is a speaking and writing progress monitoring tool so I Mendes is really taken flashlight 360 and really doing like flashlight Fridays and the kids are doing more speaking practice so I looked at the domains specifically and there was there was an increase in their speaking and writing scores um over last year so that that gave me a little bit of hope that they were really focusing on that and that improved um this year they do have new curriculum in all of the the 3 four five ELD classes um and also they are working closely with the mtss team to discuss the students that are not making progress um so the they're they're working on that they've met with the reading specialist to discuss every single English learner and have targeted goals for all of those students so I'm I'm hoping that the efforts that we're putting in this year will get that number uh back up at MES ding so Warren as what you alluded to more of the kids are making progress at Warren so that's where we have the least number of kids on those Student Success plans because they didn't make their Target because it is very much a language um Rich environment in general so they're they're making good progress um I don't have any notes on them and they also are adopting um new curriculum in the ELD classrooms here they're using flashlight 360 um so their numbers look good does this progress include like the the various amounts of 100% that the students get for um Baseline just completing the test for the first time okay yep so the kindergarteners there was like 48 of them well last year it was smaller they would be 100% right so there's more kids getting 100% at War um and so one of the areas and I talked a little bit about this and speaking about the middle schoolers we do have um that discrepancy between students on IEPs and not on IEPs making progress um so that is one of the areas where again we're working um with goals and trying to have more communication with the special education staff to really um figure out what we can do differently to meet their needs one of the El teachers at Mendes is getting her Ms in special education so she is doing a practicum um in the special education class and reverse the special education teacher going to be getting her El license as well and doing her El internship at the same time so that we can really have a programming for duly identified students that have a disability and [Music] rs so I spoke talked about flashlight 360 a little bit you can click on it so this is that progress monitoring tool that I spoke about um and so the students don't press play yet so the students would get um a prompt like this they might be a pictures the teachers can pick whatever prompts they want it might go with their theme it might go with the style of writing that they're working on the student can look at it and they would label the picture um so here they could type in there or they could do it together so the student like wrote book backpack lunch school bus then if they're doing speaking they would record themselves speaking and they can do it three times or if they're writing they could write it and then the teacher can give them feedback um and they can listen to the feedback and give them a goal right in here and so I put I picked a recording of a student who is at Mendes he um was he's been in US School for 3 years and this is his recording so you can press play hopefully you can hear it you can't hear it maew are something I need to do is there something I need to do to hear the speaker button is off yeah mind hold on no but the speaker um so no so so right on the right hand side on the bottom there's a little speaker there that's I think that's a speaker under the image right there yeah right there no it starts right away yeah oh there we go yeah yeah you're got get that mom says I love you and I and up that's all about his routine you know I was like I need to find a good one I listened to three and I got to this one I was like that's it that is it and so they have benchmarking on that so they do the like the Benchmark speaking and writing in the beginning middle and end of the year and then we can track the data and look at that in addition to having the access scores as well and that's it questions thank you thank you War approvals uh one sec between November 14 2024 and December 11th 2024 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 7929 this includes general fund expenses of 23,6 120 revolving expenses of 2 Grant expenses of 8,935 27 and meal tax expenses of $82.60 thank you superintendent report just briefly I just want to mention that this weekend on Saturday we have our first budget Workshop uh this will be an an interesting year what what we've done as you know we always start the process in the fall for the next year and um this year we've been meeting individually so Chris myself and Mike have been meeting individually with principles as well as directors going through their individual budgets first before we bring all the admin team together uh it's been helpful to identify truly what the needs are um individually before we we meet as a full admin team so Saturday uh will be our first meeting uh with the school committee uh and I just want to preface it by saying it'll be unlike any of the other meetings we've had in the year's past uh partly because it won't be about making decisions um at this point in time it's really to give an overview of of where we are uh in the process and I want to caution folks that uh when we look at the initial budget uh it it's always scary I think uh the admin team looks to me uh because I have Doom and Gloom always uh but we we eventually get through the the um every iteration uh with a a budget that's appropriate and it moves our district forward um and that will be the same we've got a lot of moving Parts this year uh with uh scheduling um adjustments at the middle school um for FY 26 uh looking at our special education population our out of District population uh the use of the one-time funds that we utilized last year how does that impact us moving forward um and and you know that's that's something that's it's important to understand next Friday uh obviously is um the beginning of of the December Break um and a lot of Spirit Week opportunities in all the schools and it's kind of a fun week in in terms of um you know the the different days um Mike and I are used to it now and Aaron has them every Friday at the middle school which is kind of fun uh yeah it's it's it's definitely a different vibe there right now um and and it feels great so um that's about it that's all I have confirm what time and where on Saturday yeah uh what time do you want to be no um I it it's posted for 8 uh and it should be from 8: to 12:00 at the David Mendes uh school but in the music room where we had it last year yeah and and I fully anticipate at least three meetings this year uh I really do uh based on where we are uh currently so and thank you to Chris I sent him an email today um just saying I apologize for I've always these stream of thoughts through my head with the budget and I'm constantly just shoot instead of writing one email with 15 things I write 15 emails with one thing uh it's just it hits me and I'm like I got to remember to get this to Chris but the the amount of time he puts in um and listening to me is um you know I feel sorry for him if you want to give us feedback for his evaluation certain yeah thanks thanks Jim Mike last week uh was able to attend a really fabulous conference uh the case conference is an annual conference for Title One leaders across the state um in this year I was able to bring Christie with me as well as assistant principles ER Alaris and Kate Alman good opportunity to hear about um how we can best serve our Title One population um with terms of interventions and um we've got a lot out of it most importantly it was a great time for the three of us to get together to collaborate as well so it was good discussion between us and how we can better serve our our students who have severe needs but aren't necessarily special education students um but a lot of these students are our English Learners so it's was great for Christie to be able to be there as well um we had a science curriculum leadership team meeting yesterday and it was it seemed like a perfect segue from Christie because one of the things that we're really um digging deeply into this year and all of our curriculum leadership teams is to the E is is in particular the El data um around mcast and we took some time to sort of dig deep into what specific areas our students are struggling the most in but one of the things that was was a proud moment was to listen to Kelly and Colleen Sherman talk about the success of the current programming that's happening the new class that's been developed for uh our English Learners specifically in the area of science those two Co toe cut co-taught classes and seeing um a breakdown of our students in their successes right now in those classes of first term was was pretty impressive so we're proud of the work that's being done right now and we're going to have some real time data to be able to track how those students are doing uh as opposed to how they did last year without those supports so it'll be nice to be able to to look at that regularly um data team meetings are continuing uh I feel like I said that every week we when we meet but those are happening on a regular basis and uh we had our second educator evaluation U committee meeting today uh which had a spirited discussion uh we are we are looking at our curent rubrics and the rubric that we utilize to to um assess teachers performance and uh for the state in terms of AD Val process uh we are taking a good hard look at the 2024 model rubric that was provided by the state we're comparing what we're currently using with the 2024 model um and we're going going to work hard to make some probably substantial changes to our current rubric um but it's it's a it's a really collaborative conversation between District leadership as well as our our teachers and I was I just left the meeting today excited about what we're going to be doing uh because the conversation was pretty rich um other than that our our students hitting the fact that we did have our first major districtwide Alice drill in terms of our Safety Committee procedures and protocols uh it was a barricade drill uh we tested it across the entire District uh while I I was reported that some of our high school students didn't take it as seriously as we wanted to I can say that every other school certainly did and the message was sent to our high school students who didn't take it seriously that this has to be something that that we take seriously but overall our our population did a fantastic job all of our rooms were safely barricaded uh and the police and fire department uh collaborated with us to do it efficiently and effectively and I can say that the drills for the most part um took under 10 minutes so it was really a a minimal disruption to our day teachers and students were able to move on right afterwards and uh you know Chris joined me for many of the scho TOS to walk around and it was it was really an effective drill excellent I'm going to put Chris on the spot just when Mike was talking about the educator evaluation um conversations as as you remember as we started negotiating contracts last year uh with the AA um you know we had formed a couple subcommittees and and Chris has been leading the charge uh with regard to our Student Activity um stiens Etc and just really high level Chris just a brief overview of of you know number of meetings you've had and the work you're you're undertaken with the Union leadership yeah so so we've been progressing uh we met uh I met this afternoon um which was my third meeting we've had one side meeting PRI you know outside of the larger group so essentially four meetings and um you know I think at this point within the next you know I'd say eight weeks we should be in a position where you know we can have some kind of recommendation hopefully to to Jim and I say eight weeks because you know the obviously holiday breaks coming up and everything like that so that you know um but I I think uh we're at a we're at a good point um and you know I'm right now I'm pretty satisfied with how the discussions are going I don't know if that provided enough Clarity on it or no it did thank you yeah it it's important to understand that you know I've sort of been pushing Chris on this as and he has been pushing the leadership uh because these are U monetary uh implications for our current budget for FY 26 uh as well I said listen if you want to slow it down and and not really worry about it we can push it to 27 I'm good with that but um prefer we have not adjusted stiens um in terms of looking at the ratios and the amount of time and what they look like in my 16 years so it's it's time that we um really focus on that and uh and thank you to Chris for doing that and keeping an eye on how it impacts us from a fiscal perspective as well thank you Chris thank you Jim okay we're moving on to the action items discussion updates votes and we've got U Miss calvo hello thank you for being here we've exchanged some emails and I know you've been in touch with Mr Adams yes I just want to introduce TOA Cody's my vice chair hello and Steve is on the board and we have two ashon residents Molly judge and Kelly JY who are friends of the school as well here wonderful thank you so do you want me to just give a yeah I why don't you just because I I know we've been in touch but I don't know that I think everybody else needs you to start at the beginning sure yeah okay so Natalie calvo I'm the chair of the board of Chesterton Academy of the immaculada we're a new school in the works to open in the fall this coming fall and we're requesting approval to operate as a private school high school in the jurisdiction of Ashland we are a member of the Chesterton school network which provides a rigorous classical curriculum taught through the lens of the Catholic faith there are currently over 60 Chesterton schools in the country the closest one is in Rhode Island and our curriculum is laid out in the course catalog that I included with our application that meets and exceed State curriculum framework all teachers are required to hold at least a bachelor's degree in education or the subject area they are teaching or related field many will have an advanced degree the school has provisional accreditation status from the Chesterton school network and will be eligible for full accreditation in the spring of year three our facility will be the St Sicilia Family Center located at 48 s Street in Ashland it includes six classrooms which are currently used for Religious Education on Sunday and afternoons and a large Hall and we are working closely with the local authorities to ensure compliance with state health safety and fire regulations including unnecessary inspections and certifications we will comply with all state repor reporting requirements and recordkeeping practices and we believe that Chesterton Academy of the immacula will be a valuable education option for families in Metro West Boston and respectfully request the school committee's approval to operate as a private school in Ashland and please if you have any questions happy to answer them because I know we've done this before yeah just for a frame of reference that was G to be ask Jim to give some background Natalie reached out to me and there is a process that's outlined by the state um and part of that process was Jim um reviewing the curriculum and and you can take it from there sure uh so school committee policy LBC talks about school relations um with non-public schools um and Mass general laws very specific uh with regard to the the role that we play um and there can be no undue denial of a school if they meet requirements that we would have uh internally as well for ashon high school for instance uh that means graduation requirements um the amount of school the types of classes they teach um ensuring it's a safe environment following policies of you know whether it's hazing whatever and and Mike and I both have reviewed uh the package and it meets all requirements um the last time we did this I think was 2015 uh when there was a hockey School uh that was looking at at Warren Conference Center uh where they were drawing folks not necessarily from Ashland but uh they wanted to set up a school inside of of the town the proper and therefore you know we did approve it then as well they met all the requirements same here um so I have no concerns with with having the board approve that so we have to then send a letter back to the state saying uh We've approved it so but we cannot deny if they've met all the requirements which they have so essentially we're just acting as the local correct administrator of both the state and any local requirements that's all right I mean certainly if you have questions that you're curious about like which communities around us for instance will you be drawing students from um yes so Framingham NAIC um marbor even there's at least one applicant from Ashland um so surrounding Metro since maryan high school closed there really isn't a Catholic co-ed option in the area so so I guess my only procedural question at all is um you I've certainly heard your your state statements of what you're working on right that you need to get approvals from other places we're okay going ahead with the approval from our end now just looking at the curricular thing understanding that there's some health as an example right safety uh health safy safety regulations um that they've got to make sure they comply with before they operate but we don't have to hold up our approval for that correct right and go ahead I'm sorry no go ahead I was just going to say and I'm assuming that you have whatever rental agreements or property agreements with st Sicilia so that you know that you have permanent use of that that space right we're in negotiation with them and part of that process was to get approval from you guys as well and and you know so the last one we did you said was the the hockey School uh and they were at the Warren Conference Center so being in a in this location and operating in a high school are there other either uh ashin uh resources uh that you need uh because they got the Warren conference are lots of lots of space to you know go outside and have you know PE do do different things where St Cecilia is pretty Compact and and there's not Fields there's not other things and so are there other resources in ashin that you'd be looking to use I think about field field scheduling Stone Park and and and all that and how that would jive with uh the other Youth Sports and different activities in town yeah so the field close to St Cecil is as long as it's not being used during the school hours we we would love to be able to have the students walk over there um knowing that you know it be reserved obviously for athletics for your programming yeah I don't know that that's something we have to get into it was more it was more just curiosity how that how does that work in this and if you haven't thought about it then there's there are the scheduling of fields are tight in general right I would imagine I mean I I don't know this that this is the answer but I would imagine they would go through the same process as anybody else outside of the district that wanted to use the uh the school property corre you know just in compliance with our policies about we we rent certain fields and so forth and so on um yeah with if um Mr Adams and Mr KY are both satisfied that they meet the statutory requirements i' move to approve the petition to operate the private school as presented second all in favor Marcy hi hi hi thanks thank you very much good luck good luck luck good luck if I just Contin a moment since we have you guys are all set um this came up but because you know I'm counseled to some school districts and um I was getting questions from a particular one about a private school application that was presented to them yeah and one of the things that appears to be the case I don't remember the dates on this is but it looks like desie has put out some further guidance and and set of details and things that that we should be looking at yeah I think we accessed that okay yeah that's what I included within the letter that's the that came directly from desie so yeah and appreciate that there was a lot of that data was in there um what I was just going to suggest is if it if we haven't looked at our policy the LBC y to for inclusion of that it's probably now and we don't have one in front of us great opportunity so that 5 years from now when there's somebody else that comes forward great idea um you know that we kind of make sure our policies in line sure um rather than saying oh well we should do different I was going to put it on the um attit was 25% 25% right right you you guys are all say you don't feel for the next the next contestant question yeah thank you have a good night thanks good luck yeah I just the reason I flagged it is because it become an issue for that particular client the issue was people started looking at what desie had out there it went beyond what their policies were yeah there I don't remember if there was opposition to it or not it was just details that people were getting the weeds of but they were trying to reconcile what they had as a very thin policy that just mirrored the statute which like that and then they're trying and like I said let's not get into a position of telling people no because we're putting up Road what appeared to be putting up road blocks at the wrong time right so that's why I wanted to flag it when I saw this on the agenda and just suggest that at the policy up committee level um whenever it suits your needs might be sport looking at no that's that makes a lot of sense speaking of policies um we have been talking about some set up for that reason alone yes exactly um and and we had the first read of of the next group that's coming up so we'll go through them but uh unless there are any issues hopefully we should be able to move through this pretty quickly the first is the athletic concussion regulations do anybody have anything to add or take away from that after our last discussion and again I just want to reiterate this is this comes directly from the nurses uh it was their work uh in addition to reviewing it with attorneys but also uh MIAA as well as um you know local um organizations hospitals Etc so right and then we looked at all these things at um policy subcommittee before we even came here and got some clarification before they even came here so I will move to approve policy JJ if- athletic concussion regulations as presented second all in favor I I okay next is the vision vision and mission statement it's just that we need to remember to change it and up every year make sure that that's still yeah yeah I mean again we just hadn't updated it and it's was significant so we we want to make sure we want to make sure our policy manual contains the the most updated version of it so it is something that we should I move to approve policy ad vision mission statement as presented second all in favor I I I um you'll remember the face coverings that was changed just based on the Rel that's just the removal removal resending that resending it yeah yeah so I move to resend policy ebcf face coverings second all in favor I I and then purchasing DJ purchasing yeah again um well it's it's really one uh two words that were changed within the policy it just under uh masc updated their policy in 2023 uh we have not had not updated it and there's literally a change to read the agent versus they will develop and we're just adopting MC's language that's all it is anybody else want to turn to make the motion keep it simple come on for excuse sorry fair fair enough I move to approve policy DJ purchasing as presented second all in favor I I okay first read of policies uh we won't be voting but we'll be discussing dja purchasing Authority so these were all like relatively minor things we can't well again I think we talked about Paul and Lori refreshed my mind memory when we had the policy subcommittee meeting um you know there's language such as in this one it says contracts may be entered into for a period up to three years do we want you know in a couple of the other policies do we want to stay consistent with what masc is saying or do we want to uh enact how we feel versus you know going with this that's all just these this is first reads I thought the change was small if we could just approve but well that's fine I I just I that's all yeah yeah and and and I I agree although we put it in first read so I would probably which is f just follow through that this time yep so there was really nothing major except for contracts maybe entered into remember that law changed a couple years ago with regard to purchasing and procurement stuff sorry yeah this this also didn't somebody raise this concern forgot what it was and it wasn't a real issue but it touched on this kind of thing so it had to do with uh when we were renting the um maintenance facility uh and long as the lease was less than three years and not not three with an option and take the option in the first year which made it four years uh it's and that's what it was yeah right um and and this uh is a straight adoption of correct their current that's right yeah so that's that then bidding requirements uh DJ uh certainly more significant changes um as recommended by masc so um based on chapter 198 of Acts of 2022 we just our last time we looked at the policy was 2017 just uh in the uh agenda the links for some of these are in somebody's trash so so I adjusted that today uh because when you copy it's interesting with Google Docs you can you can make a copy but it actually and place it in the folder what it doesn't do and I didn't notice that until today it doesn't take the red line or the green line in this instance the green line version it actually makes a copy literally a copy but no strike throughs right so I went back today so if you go back to the agenda now uh it should link no no I'm in I'm on the agenda right now doesn't yeah it says it's in somebody's chair you can take it out of the trash and look at it it's in the folder it's theer as red line I adjusted that not copy of red line so I apologize I'll make sure I didn't notice it until I went to review them today so but that's what it was Paul yeah thank you yeah I have the folder up too yeah the folder there with the red line I'm just going to click on it here and then then it's always in I adjusted it I added the red line but I forgot to do the links that's what I did so I okay take a hit for that one bhe which is use of electronic messaging by school committee members uh again they just strike per masc in 2023 the last uh part of the um the fourth paragraph so as long as nobody has any comments or questions simp we will vote on them at at our next meeting and then next up we have the consent agenda just looking for a motion to so I I would make a mo [Music] I'm not sure if we can do it this way that Paul had drawn this to my attention once we just sat down here that in the grant approval document yep and on the hockey program issue you've got it up here Paul there's reference to it as a cash gift as a as yeah it's it's it's not so so I think just from a consent agenda perspective where did she put that I wouldn't make a motion to approve the consent agenda because that's a problem yeah because it says funds to purchase right so why don't we I guess I would suggest nobody make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented and we'll just go through the items one by one okay so let's uh if gifts and donations so well yeah I mean we and so we can pull it out we can say you know with that if if there's verbiage that Chim has for that we can we can we can adjust the verbage we can adjust the verbage and uh approve it as amended right yeah because he's changing itang consent agend is either take it as it is or don't yeah pull it out and then do change on the Fly love computers it's it's it's donation of jerseys hockey jerseys for the girls hockey program it's all is okay okay all right well then I'll move to approve the consent agenda as amended as amended I guess there you go second all in favor I I excellent thank you that was easier wasn't it mm all right reports abash you have anything else you want to share well you didn't get to share with the students no so I had a junior seminar actually so sorry I had a junior seminar actually when they were preparing um their the remarks on today's meeting so um I mean they talked about it as well so I think they hit most of our bases so nothing for me excellent thanks Middle School site council's tomorrow so I'll get you next time okay and I want to say thank you to Aon she moved up a couple of the meetings um partly because again there the conversations with regard to the Asal Middle School schedule itself right um so I I I mentioned here at the last time I think there's a there's an order of how we should be doing business if you will uh in terms of the conversations with faculty and staff which will occur tomorrow as well uh in individual conversations how things might impact folks as well uh have have occurred already but then an entire faculty and then site Council because again if you look at the site Council roles and responsibilities it really has a lot to do with from a budgetary standpoint and in conversations within each school um so um before she comes to us on Saturday it's just sort of a um I wanted those conversations to start so um last week there was an ashack meeting um uh you know that discussed you know there were some questions about if we had started budget discussions yet which of course we haven't so I told them I'd have more to update um on the future um one of the things that parents brought up and asked me to kind of you know kind of continue to have the conversation with the committee um was around the community service day at the high school um that happened in the fall um there was there were a couple of parents there who were concerned about the fact that they felt that their kids um were they did not use the word excluded but I can't think of another word to use right now because there some of the kids in their the their students that they were speaking about who were in sub separate programs um either didn't go to school that day because their teachers weren't going to be there and it was a little too disruptive for them for their schedule so they felt as if they missed out on a day of school um other students uh were not able to get their their choice of volunteer opportunities and without kind of having one that they felt as if they connected to it didn't feel like a meaningful experience and so that student ended up staying home as well too and so we talked about it with Britney and Britney has you know some thoughts and ideas of how to potentially change things next year to to to really focus on opportunities for students in that classroom um and you know to make either a a community event and an outing potentially in conjunction with the um with the postsecondary program or you know be able to kind of better tailor opportunities for them but you know she did acknowledge that you know for some students it it ended up being a missed day um and so it's you kind of an ongoing discussion but one that you know there there were a few parents that continue to be concerned and want to know that it's it's a part of the conversation which Britney assured them that it is um yeah um and then this past Friday the um Ashland High School band did their holiday music concert in the Ash Music Association in conjunction with it for the first time did their first annual hopefully um they called it a winter fair so it was you know there were craft activities and games for the kids and pizza and hot cocoa and baked sale and you know lots of fun stuff so there were I don't know the total number of people but it was close to 300 um that came which was a really great Community um showing and everybody seemed to to have a good time and um so that was a fun event that I was able to attend uh and I think that's it since our last meeting awesome uh not a lot I did actually end up uh going to the Harlem Wizards uh event the make a wish event that was you know really really fun it was great to see the uh no one and his team out there for for halftime and and getting to play out there on the court and get cheered on it was uh was a pretty cool event and uh yeah I think that's going to enable them to do two wishes this year which is pretty amazing so um so I just came from High School site Council for this meeting um they picked up the biggest point of discussion was picking up the discussion around weighted grads and uh one of the foreign language sorry World language teachers um came in and talked a lot about concerns about weighted greeing trying to go to more proficiency based class structures um and something that the I guess the World Language Department would like to do is is move to sort of structuring their classes around proficiency rather than Spanish 1 two 3 4 kind of thing um so there there's a lot of conversation about that obviously no decisions they're going to talk to some other schools that have recently or more recently gone away from weighted grading like we have um I would say interestingly perhaps not surprisingly that most of the adults around the room were more away from weighted greeting and the kids were the ones who were being competitive about it um Miss Shield's shared an interesting comment too and she said you know when people came to talk to her five years ago six years ago three years ago and were concerned about stress related to grades it was the pressure that parents were putting on the kids but now it's the kids competing with the other kids um around grades so there's there's some good discussion um like I said the next step is to sort of examine what I think the districts were Holliston Needum and maybe Wayland when was the third have all kind of done this work recently um I don't think Kelly is anticipating it' be a recommendation that they're looking to implement for next year at all I mean it's still it's still somewhat in its infancy um but good conversation is going on there so just a question on uh I know when we have just talked a little bit about it we've talked a lot about how colleges approach things and stuff like that but uh are we also as are other groups like National society and other other groups that do also need to potentially modify their things are they involved in the conversation such that you know any decision we don't we're not missing somebody that does look at it in a certain way today that would need to look at it a different way if we did make any changes I I I would say that I I think to some degree I'm I'm surmising because I well it's a it's a really good question and it it didn't come up in today's conversation may have come up last year and I don't recall it um you know there are multiple administrators in the room right as well as faculty Representatives so there's miss cerr both Deans are in the room um Miss pille Shields is in the room um two faculty Representatives Miss Ean and Miss Tumi are in the room um Mr colant is in the room so there a lot she's the NHS yeah so yeah that's what I was gonna say when I was on High School South site Council she was always in and she has she is always there yeah I choose that one but I'm assuming there's prob most part that's the one that the GPA with regard to admittance beginning you know just getting the offer there there actually discussions sorry um there's some discussion actually about sort of tracking both weighted and non-weighted and then thinking about trying to come up with like a study period over four years five years whatever to see what happen happens with kids who choose one pathway or the other how that implements but sorry go um and most of the clubs that I I mean I don't know of many clubs that actually take GPA into into account but I know of NHS and academic decathalon which I'm both a part of and academic de cathlon just counts it completely separately it doesn't even take into account the Ashley and GPA system because it's more of a national kind of thing they have their own guidelines yeah exactly so if it's you find with some of the colleges too they don't exactly most colleges just recalculate your GP anyways based on your course fig and that's that has come up multiple times in this conversation um there apparently had been a recent conversation with um some of the guidance staff including Mr McAn who's here tonight um and I think Mr McAn still has this sort of secondary business he does in terms of College counseling for non- asland students um sort of like a private college counselor um you know and I I think his voice weighs heavily on this point and it's that colleges are used to looking at you know transcripts from 11,000 different schools if you talking big schools right and they've got their own way of looking at that and sorting through that and um and the weight seems to be more on our kids taking challenging classes you taking honors level AP level um and pushing yourself a little bit more than sort of how well you doing those um seems to be the the prevailing thought you know um but anyway I I won't get into the weeds of the conversation because it's going to be a while but um just the conversation's continuing um I also went to the Harlem Wizards I worked the front desk and I helped count the money at the end which was very fun and uh it was really nice to see um how it's going to impact make wish and it was fun it was a fun night and it was fun for me to see all the kids H there having a good time with their families um and also attended the um Warren site Council and what's going on there um it was our first meeting of the year so Pete was just getting us up to speed on what's happening in the building um some interesting conversation about how they're approaching like some data collection um about like getting to know different things about each student in in along the lines of what we had talked about um you know having a plan for each kid I mean they're not they're not to no one's to that level yet but in the motion of trying how do we go about this and what kinds of things do can we find out about kids and there are a couple teachers who are um experimenting with this program and adding data and getting together and having meetings um so that was a really interesting conversation yeah no the only if you're done I the only I wanted to uh mention and Tina jar of memory and I turned the mic um right before um Thanksgiving on Wednesday uh or was Tuesday I guess it was of of Thanksgiving week uh the launch program provided lunch uh so um me and Mike and a couple other staff members um were over in the launch room and it was awesome it was they did such a great job and we had a fun time you know um breaking bread with with the students yeah yeah I actually did not hear that piece but I did hear about the food drive that they did which was very successful very excited about that great also um budding entrepreneurs because they have just started a holiday gift wrapping business oh fabulous sign me up teach staff so I'm sure if you are interested in having some of your holiday gifts wrapped by our by our amazing launch students what a great idea fantas we are doing it and the price is right I will tell you so if you're interested let us know I'll see what I can do for seriously in yeah yeah I'll be in touch I hate rapping um it's awesome so okay well I'm going to move to enter into executive session under mg chapter 30A 21A to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel superintendant Jim Adams or to conduct collective bargaining with the intent of not returning into public session and I will take the roll call Marcy would you like a second first oh yes thank you second okay second first yeah second first first second all right we I've been seconded so on now I can see if you all um are on board with what we're about to do Marcy hi Tina hi Paul hi Mark hi hi all right good night everybody thanks good night

[Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday December um uh this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time seeing any um secretary Jive would you call the role sure all right um secretary Den I'm here Vice chair Martini here chair Johnson mad here mayor dorer okay member Goodwin here member seon here member Childs here all right we are all here and other than mayor dorer and we have a quorum great call the meeting to order at 6: PM um for public comment we'll start with people who are in the room um if there is any public comment okay is there anyone on Zoom who would like to make public comment not seeing any um we can move on to the report of student reps to the committee do feel like this is record time like start of meeting to me doing this this feels weird uh um okay so without further Ado then um beginning with student council um the last month the student council partnered with the local Boy Scouts for their annual scouting for food initiative this year we more than doubled the amount of food collected in the prior year in total we collected 4,700 pounds of food which equates to just under 4,000 meals this filled 85 crates and seven bins and to put that into perspective last year we collected 2100 pounds of food so again more than doubled thank you to everybody who helped our community who generously donated we ended the month with our traditional Spirit Week events um it was great to see the staff and students who dressed up on each theme day they included Celebrity Day throwback Thursday country vers Country Club senior dress up everyone else dress in pajamas teachers dress as students and students dress as teachers and of course class color day there was fierce competition during penny wars and all the money that we raised this year will be used to support the NHS adoptive family Spirit Week ended with our Thanksgiving pep rally and the lipsing theme that we had for this year was decades this prep rally was full of surprises and helped the students create positive memories and Foster a sense of belonging the lip syncs sorry the lip sync results were fourth place for sophomores third place for nth grade second place for the juniors and the seniors took first place this year looking ahead for the first time ever we are entire in sorry we are inviting the entire Community to help raise money and awareness about the power of inclusion with Special Olympics every year the student council participates in the Polar Plunge in March at the cape while we will still do this this year we are also inviting to um sorry we are also all inviting you to to plunge in a mobile tank at ghs on Thursday January 30th it will be open to the community from 2:30 to 3:30 we will send out more info soon in the meantime start spreading the word forming teams and prepping costumes registration is now open members also helped out at jinglefest this past weekend and they dressed up in costumes and helped the GBA promote the events downtown um a little plug for project 351 and our ambassador um project 351 is a transformative leadership development program that cultivates a new generation of change makers Civic leaders and social entrepreneurs by the effort and example 351 leaders forg strategies and solutions that build a more just inclusive and Equitable world we want to congratulate eth grader Janessa fent sorry Janessa Fuentes for being selected as the eighth grade um ghs project 351 Ambassador well done Janessa Key Club helped pass out gifts at the Salvation Army dinner and tomorrow they will be heading to a to reach out and teach Cooperative games to Children um fall Sports are hot and he or sorry winter sports now are hot and heavy at the moment um get out and go support the Green Wave Nation you can go to arbiterlive.com to find schedules for your favorite teams and we're very proud of our many teams who headed into the postseason in this last fall Sports season and did a great what job to wrap up the fall season Spanish club had a fun time learning about and celebrating Dia deos mortos this year with breakfast and face painting they also worked on a dance for the Thanksgiving pepper R Alle but unfortunately there was too much planned and they had to put it on until the December pepper R Alle which will be in just a couple weeks they're also preparing for an ice skating outing and a Spanish cooking night and they are hopeful about plans for their next trip to Spain for 2026 um for NHS earlier in November the NHS officers traveled to Holy Cross University to attend the Massachusetts NHS leadership conference our officers enjoyed workshops about leadership student mental health environmental projects and much more they came back with ideas to share with our members to enhance their program and better leaders NHS has been busy preparing for our adopted family project we sold wreaths and holiday dip mixes to raise money for this project um sorry we are currently bringing in food donations and using the funds raised to buy gifts for these families in need the culmination of the project comes at the end of the first day or sorry comes at the end of December when we go to the church to help with the heavy lifting needed for this endeavor um on the first day people of adopted families bring in their donations and we will help carry organize and keep track of donations we will also distribute food donations and organize the free clothing store on Friday the adopted families will help come to the church to get their holiday presents and food on this day we will help carry everything out and help with cleaning up this is an amazing opportunity to be a part of a great organization that helps others and this will be the 15th year that the NHS has participated in this event um in terms of drama club the cast is set for the somewhat true tale of Robinhood and the first table read will happen or did happen on December 3rd with the entirety of the cast they are excited about the talent and potential of this production rehearsals will be happening multiple afternoons a week leading up to Tech week and performance in the first weekend of April if you have any questions at all please contact Madame Hartman Miss Poe or Miss LAX um in the library this month on Green Wave reads they spoke with Kenneth an eighth grader and member of the student council and Library Club Kenneth is currently reading blooming into you volumes 1 through3 um quote this series follows two female high school students yukito and tuo nanami which I probably mispronounced in my apologies and the relationship that Den that develops between them as they learn more about themselves through their experiences together Kenneth explains that this series pertains to his interests as it is a manga his favorite genre book he especially enjoys the manga insomniacs after school he says I can relate to it um the kids have insomnia and I can barely sleep on my own Kenneth discovered reading when his friend uh recommended graphic novels because he noticed Kenneth enjoyed picture books he picked up his first manga in Middle School reading books like delicious and dungeon he likes to call these silly books goofy manga while Kenneth loves words and pictures on paper he can appreciate a good manga to movie his favorite movie adaptation is Comey can't communicate it's kind of like the first day of school everything is new and it becomes difficult to communicate the character struggle to communicate lastly Kenneth told us that he enjoys reading in the ghs library's long Booth chairs however if he isn't in school he reads during the nighttime with the comfort of the dark Kenneth hopes to continue to read great manga and someday read the whole series of insomniacs after school uh wishing congratulations to the ghs band for their wonderful evening of entertainment at the Winter concert on Thursday December 5th and concluding with the students of color club uh the students are currently presenting their lesson plan in December to eth graders during their advisories on how to effectively address slurs or racialized language in school they will continue this important work through January with e8th graders and move on to the Middle School in February if you are interested in joining this club students can contact either Devon Brown or Nate Woodard or Miss poy and miss paig that concludes what I've written here but I can gladly answer any questions you may have any questions thank you so much all right thank you have a nice day I had uh someone joined on Zoom who would like to make public comment so we'll go back to public comment you have h two minutes Doug two minutes goie uh so Doug swin Greenfield um good evening to all um given that ballot question two has passed um that means that high stakes testing will not be um happening in the state so I have three requests related to that related to The District number one is to carefully monitor what's happening at Desy in the legislature because they're already trying to figure out how to get around the will of the people so I hope that the school committee and administration will be hooking up with other districts and um and those interested to make sure that the the will of the people is not ignored so secondly I hope that there is as the district thinks about what are we going to do um that they don't that you don't that we don't turn to another one-size fits all assessment approach which could include simply Mass core but instead to take this as an opportunity to think carefully about what we really want for our students and what kind of assessment setup we want to um develop that will really support our kids to be the sort of creative and caring and critical and um growing adults that we hope they will become so it's um ballot question two being passed is just step one and now what do we want it's an opportunity that I hope we take full advantage of so that's it have good holidays all and thanks for your work thank you Doug um before we move on to um the reports of the administration um I'd like to uh take a motion sure why that's happening um a motion to move the um consent AG agenda Item B vote to approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 to next on the agenda and move it from the consent agenda so moved second all in favor I I I any opposed any extensions the motion carries let's move on to that Tara okay thank you now I hear myself um hi I am Tara cluder I am here to talk to you about my hope for my next trip to Spain with students in 2026 um this should be my 13th trip in in 24 years to Spain um I've taken three to Puerto Rico with groups almost all from Greenfield High School one from Smith Academy a really long time ago um I just want to start by saying I appreciate being here myself that hasn't been the plan for the last few years and so um thank you for having me um you should have the information I believe from passports um we're looking to start early this year to save money for our students and hopefully have more time for fundraising to to include more students um one thing that was awesome in the trip that I took last year is that the GFA um funded a scholarship for the first time and it seems like that might be the way that's happening to keep including more children um in this exciting opportunity and um you have the information I don't know how much you want me to to talk about um or do you have any questions for me any questions for Tara thanks for taking the initiative and for doing it all these years as we could hear a motion to vote to approve the um I move that we approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 here you go it's presented seconded great and any other discussion all right all in favor say I I I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously thank youim gracias all right thank you okay we're back to the order um so it let's see if Andy is here we might have to change the order a little bit and he's not here he's running a little bit late he had a conflict so we'll um move on to the presentation from the um where's the director of people Services Dave messing update thank you Dave good evening folks good evening awesome just to make sure I can share this for the folks tuning in great all right so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here um again I think there's a lot of interesting conversations related to what's going on in people's services and certainly as it relates to what's going on rest of the district in terms of effective use of our time tonight I thought a way to start would be just some Department vitals uh and really set the stage for some conversations both this evening and then into the future uh I think a couple of things that are uh likely of interest to both this body and Folks At Large and are certainly directly relevant to our decision- making and our planning in terms of the lived experience in schools uh has to do with both enrollment numbers what that means for Trends over years past and then where that brings us you know at this point this year and at this point of the year uh but then getting into some of the work in terms of how students with disabilities are currently placed specifically that has to do with how much of their day is spent within U the general Leed environment which is generally thought of as the belief restrictive placement and some of the work around that that's being done uh on the other end of that it's the trends in terms of the number of students that are supported out of District placements uh which is to say students for whom our Continuum of services isn't necessarily um have having the capacity to meet needs uh which is not unexpected and also less we forget you know the breadth of some of the work that the people Services uh office does you know touching base on where things stand for English language learning multilingual program as well as uh some other selected populations specifically you know homeless or underhouse students uh as well as some the related impact so in terms of that uh and all of these are a snapshot I think it's instructive to think about prevalence of disability uh specifically there's a lot of things that that can help us tap into specifically what is happening in terms of both uh enrollment in terms of either prevalence of specific types of disability are there practices related to our identification either over or under identification of students with particular profiles and more to the point what does that mean for the impact on students learning so it's not just about students that are presenting with the one or more qualifying disabilities it's about the degree to which those disabilities are educationally significant and what I mean by that is uh one of the things that we can dig down deep enough to and have some Nuance conversation about is the way in which our current instructional program and some of the related supports are more effective or less effective at supporting students with particular learning differences sorry to interrupt Mr messing I wonder are you muted on your computer indeed oh you are okay both uh the microphone but also the output okay great what I can do I mean is there another is this the sole source of input or is it picking up on all these as well are they any good so does that I'm just thinking about where that Echo is coming from how's that well all right sorry about that so in terms of to get to the point you know when we talk about rates it's not just about number of students enrolling although it is important for us to know so when we think about the 328 folks FKS we're starting it close to the number of total I APS that were in District back in like fy21 right so the 2021 school year uh what is in important to note there is overall enrollment was much higher at that time right so you know we think of a lot of reasons for that and certainly the comparison that we want to make even as we're careful about that comparison is against State average and what I mean by that is is any discussion about overidentification of students or something related to the work we're doing Greenfield Public Schools or the demographics of our students and their needs in terms of being identified for special education as compared to State average we also need to be thoughtful about that state average is a little bit of an arbitrary number right U because across the state there's some contextual differences that are very very different so for our purpose here in town the fact that we are slightly above State average should be of note to us and should be a sort of cause for us to be U thinking about why that could be and in what way the work that's being done you know not only in terms of last year and up until this point but this year and into the future is helping to address that right um because there's a variety of factors that go into disability identification and that prevalence and it's not to say that just because we are above State average that there's nothing wrong but it should be an indicator that we're keeping tabs of and having conversations about if that's fair uh so certainly those trend lines are important um both in the global piece but then also as they relate you know to particular clusters of students where those students are grade level bands and that sort well beyond tonight's conversation but something that I'd like to may be thinking about especially as we talk about the work right and how it informs the instructional program especially with the alignment between the work that's being done in our instructional programs from the district perspective um that you know has been underway in the last couple of years and how that's directly tied um to the work of the special education certainly as well as some of our other um diverse groups of subgroups of learners similarly when we think about the uptick in Section 504 uh the reason this isn't compared to other parts of the state in the way that you'll see our special ed numbers are as we don't have you know as straightforward access to those but again we see this slow rise in percentage right and why is that right we would expect for a variety of reasons there might be better identification of disability there might be uh more streamlined identification which is to say you know is it that we're over identifying folks or is it that students who may for one or another reason not have been identified appropriately previously are now being uh identified what the take-home messages at the end of the day for our purposes tonight is there's an increasing number of students for whom their presentation in the school environment is slightly different in some way and requires consideration that becomes really important for us when we talk about ensuring that more and more of our classrooms are able to support a wider uh group of Learners right because if the more of our environments that are supporting more students you know uh a rising tide raises All Ships if you will so for me these are the types of uh comparisons that I find super instructive and one of the things that the department of Ed has done at the state level to support districts is help make it easier to draw some comparisons uh again we always have to be cautious about any comparisons we make the each district is very different um all of our buildings in this District are different so I want to be careful about uh drawing more generalizations with APL just because they happen to be out our way as well uh and certainly as we get to other parts of the state what we do care about is size right because some of the the groupings are similar some of the scale is similar some of the systems and structures look either similar enough for us to draw some in some lessons or make some decisions the reason I thought this was really instructive is it's helpful to see that we are not all that far out of whack in terms of our disability prevalence rate in terms of end of last year you'll see so unlike the numbers I just shared with you that are as of October of this year this is essentially last year because we have reports from uh all of these other comparison districts so we are over State average so keep in mind State average for this year it's actually last year the 2023 2024 school year was about 20% Statewide just over and uh currently we're at 23% some of the other districts in our comparison District you know are as high as 25% to give you a sense so uh we're not all that far out of line with districts of a similar size some of whom are in our area you know navigating a lot of the same challenges both as organization U but also uh supporting some of the same type of student demographics that we are um and again this is helpful because it helps us have conversations around comparisons in one way or another U to some of these other districts as we are thinking about how we're doing in our CL class um similarly another thing that's helpful to think about is how it breaks down so we look at of all the students in uh Greenfield that are identified uh for special education what is the what we think of as the primary disability category uh this is something that's increasingly going to go away with the new IP format that was rolled out this year uh a lot of times we're sitting around a table with students who may be navigating multiple disabilities and there's some conversation about which is the primary right which uh is having the most impact uh at present there's a current one single primary disability identified as well as you know sometimes secondary and tertiary disabilities so when we look these numbers start to speak for themselves uh and like all of the data points in tonight's conversation these snapshots it's helpful only in that it gives us an opportunity to have some real interesting conversations about it right specifically autism right there's this by far um we see you know we're going to see high communication uh impairments because the number of young children coming in who receiving speech either through EI or not those are going to tend to fade the longer kids are in school uh and get speech and language therapy especially with the speech and language therapy that we're fortunate to have in District but when we talk about the autism numbers we say why is that okay and of course be much beyond the scope tonight's conversation but something to be thoughtful about is how is it that this number of students is being identified with Spectrum disorders and more to the point is there something that even for students who may have an identified autism spectrum disorder that we are doing or not doing or could do more of or adjust in a certain way to render the impact of that Spectrum Disorder for that individual less educationally significant which is to say ensure they're still making educational progress they're still making gains having a productive experience in our schools every day so that's the type of thing that I hope we're thinking about when we're talking about this group decision- making when we're getting into budget planning we think budget priorities when we think about the connection between and integration of the work that's being done in the instructional program as a whole and then the spe particular ways in which some of our students are impacted to a greater or lesser degree that's the type of thing that I hope people are thinking about when they're looking at these numbers uh the tragic piece about the number of emotional impairments here you know we talk about some of the students that come to us um for different reasons who maybe you know in different places uh and certainly when we think about the number of students that enroll in Greenfield uh whether it be for the Emergency residents in town or some of the other things um and what you'll see is there's a pretty even spread throughout the rest so of all the 13 disability categories there's a pretty even spread most of them I referenced the high number of communication impairments that we see especially with young children uh developmental delay some of you may know uh is up until eight you know uh for students for whom there isn't another identified disability so when we look at this and again I hope that this isn't the end of this conversation I hope this the beginning uh and certainly creates opportunities for us to talk about how we can make decisions and support the work um to impact students in a positive way I hope that folks are thinking about this and and trying to ask some question about what does that mean for us um even though the the some of the factors may impact kids similarly and some may be a little bit different um I imagine you know my time's running short I mean to take up all the air in the room but one of the things that I want to drive home is how students in our district are supportive across the spectrum of what we call least restrictive environment uh and the way you'll see these numbers when we talk about full inclusion that's a student who is in the general Leed classroom about 80% of the day or more right um there are students that might come out for speech as we've identified or physical therapy occupational therapy uh or specialized instruction from a special educator for example or a counselor um for students for whom that is a small part of their day we consider them full inclusion their day is not considered to be meaningfully impacted by the amount of services they're receiving when we start talking about students that are out of the general classroom more than 21% specifically that's 21 to 60% uh and you can do the math you know in a what six six and a half hour day the number of minutes that that uh represents but for students that more than a fifth of their day right so now we're talking about an hour plus so maybe they're getting reading and writing maybe they're getting reading writing and math maybe they're getting uh Beach OT PT and counseling right now those numbers start to add up those students are going to be identified in our partial inclusion why is that important for us why should that be something that you folks should care about the stakeholders watching should care about because it tells us a couple of things one some subset of those students absolutely need that level of support right so the increased time out of the general education environment to some degree should be thought of as increased intensity of service right though anytime we're not providing service in the general classroom there should be a good reason for it right so that these supports can't be satisfactory provided in the general setting uh would be inappropriate to do so right in the case of a speech session in some cases or a confidential counseling session of course but then also we should be thinking about are there some of these students that the services could with a little bit of lead time some thoughtfulness and you know configuration as the work continues over this year and into the future we can increase the amount of these services that are provided effectively in the General Ed setting uh that becomes most strikingly clear when we're talking about the number of our students that are currently supported the bulk of their day in substantially separate settings and what I mean by that is you know these students that are considered uh substantially separately placed are out of the general environment 60% of the day or more um and in a lot of cases that's absolutely appropriate right these might be students that are receiving discreet trial training for a majority of the day they might be students for whom a large group even of 12 or 15 kids is wildly overstimulating right uh the uh expectations in an environment of that sort render it uh really incompatible with learning or being available for learning so we don't want to be worried or concerned about students receiving that intensity of support and we want to celebrate the students that were able to support effectively in our community schools there is a direct connection between the number of students that we are supporting in our substantially separate programs and students who would otherwise have to be supported out of District which in and of itself is further away from what we're trying to do at the same time we need to be very sober about our approach to making sure that we're not just shifting students from these more intensive settings into the General Ed setting for the sake of doing so right for example um the audit of our programs which you know has since been called tiered Focus monitoring and has now continued you know monitoring Improvement identified that 20% of our students with disabilities are supported in substantially separate programs as compared to the state average of something like 13% so even as we are skeptical of State averages right because they don't do a great job U Mark Twain said there are lies there are damn lies and there are statistics right so we want to be very skeptical about those averages and what they mean at the same time we want to understand that those differences mean something we are supporting more kids in more restrictive environments than we probably should that's the type of thing we could say when compared to State average as a result of that the work that we're doing is to increase our ability to support kids effectively in less restricted environments and that becomes really important when we're talking about budget conversations when we're talking about instructional planning conversations when we're talking about policy conversations because it isn't just about moving a student into a gen classroom it's about what is happening in that General classroom what supports are available what does the experience look like as we roll out high quality instructional curriculum and materials as we spend a lot of time focusing on like high leverage practices that support all students and then we talk about the ways we keep tabs on kids over time the way we identify things early we talk about implementing some of the the recent learning over the last several years in Reading instruction at the early levels those types of things are very important for us because then we're able to get out ahead of it and and make sure that we have the infrastructure and by that I mean the decision-making capacity the identification and the tools to put interventions in place in a timely way so that students can have experiences that are productive and positive even if they may be navigating some uh disability challenges for example or in the case of multilingual Learners uh cultural or linguistic challenges that with some configuration hard work and and getting some traction we can minimize the negative impact on their progress and that really is the most important thing in our work when we talk about special education we talk about English as a second language instruction in working to ensure that students don't need those Services by the time they're graduating um so I had some concern about including the early uh education programming numbers here because it's nuanced I know that I'm short for time um and I'm not great at being brief so thinking about it is absolutely critical to ensure that students at this age some of whom have never set foot in a uh group structured educational setting before have access to their peers right it is super important that we are able to provide students exposure at this age you're talking about kids that are coming to us at three um some of whom we might have the benefit of having for a couple years in our preschool access to age level peers and yet in some cases whether there disability in some cases whether it's disability related or not we have students that are in those settings that need tremendous support so I'm skep you know I was skeptical of of sharing these numbers because of how they might be interpreted without the ability to talk uh about them but one of the things that we need to ensure that we do is still have opportunities to support students in uh highly intensive uh settings in our preschool while also ensuring that everything we're doing is intended to support all kids in an integrated fashion um and that's a really interesting conversation for us to have certainly at a at another time similar in philosophy uh to our K through2 programming but in some ways uh unique because of that age level uh and and students coming to us turning three uh this is what I was getting at before so I won't dwell on it it really has to do with a couple of the areas in our current um progress reporting to the state right so of all of the ways the state uh looks at our work as a district there are several special ed crit Ian the two that are related one is they just call it right out least restricted environment how many of your students are you educating in the general environment um the that is the most basic version of of that conversation and again I hope that folks will will understand there a direct connection between our ability to support the average General educator uh in being able to create and maintain uh a classroom environment at any grade level that can meet the needs of a diverse group of Learners you know it's a reasonable to say that these classrooms are are more diverse in their needs than ever before uh and we know more about how to teach at a high level in some of these high level practices that are happening so similarly when we talk about 34 this Continuum Services it's just what is the array of services offered by the district whether that be related Services you know teachers are visually impaired you know teachers of the deaf or counselors or speech pathologist for example or when we're think about special Educators the different types of specialized instruction that they provide so um continuing to both you know ensure that those are codified effectively that everybody's clear and that we have consensus that there's both a vertical so K you know prek through 12 but also horizontal alignment right as we look at redistricting ensuring that each student in a third grade classroom has a similar experience and similar access to the same types of supports that's you know really critical as we move forward um and I touched on before you know but again a message that I would hope to leave you with is the need to and the impact of educating uh diverse groups of Learners whether it be neurodiversity uh or cultural and linguistic diversity in General Ed settings and being thoughtful about that and always holding that lens up to our decision-making process um and how we're doing our work one of the flip side of that and I expect I'm um running overtime now so I'll be brief but the number of out of District program placements we have um uh again it's going to always be part of our Continuum certainly the 18 through 22 U populations these are students that may be in uh a variety of settings there is a direct connection between our ability to support students and our continu of services that I just talked about in District and how many students need to be supported in uh out of District placements that ranges from students with particular types of learning needs whether that be for example uh Clark's preschool um that supports students are heart of hearing in Northampton up until recently or other schools serving students who our heart of hearing for example like Willie Ross um or you talk about particular programs that support different coworks there are schools that specialize in providing high quality of care to students with intense um are intensely impacted by Spectrum disorders or have significant reading disorders that require you know really intensive and coherent and cohesive instruction throughout their day each of those has its place and is import important and we will never no public school district will ever be able to do all of it in the same way but we should be able to ensure that we are providing a high level care and instructional responses to students with those profiles so that we can especially it's the the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure situation that we can identify and address it early independent of those areas so that students gaps and needs aren't rising to a level where they can't be supported effectively in our district uh and that's both important because we want to support our kids in their Community Schools in that least restrictive environment but also it has some some very real uh budget implications for this body that I think are are critical so it very is very important for us to think about the direct connection between how we're standing up our organization and putting our folks in a position to to provide high quality work to the folks in the way that we are now and these out of District placements um as well as there are some things just a a function of special ed law some of these numbers are kids that we never see or have opportunity to make decisions about right it's literally just if folks lived in Greenfield right when they went into their uh went into foster care or their rights as parents were terminated and they're there right so it's always we always want to look at these with uh with some skepticism and identify how we got there uh the last piece I just don't want to lose sight you know we also look at the in people Services we also support the English as a second language program for multilingual Learners that's of Noe the last couple of years uh are the numbers of students whose non-native English speakers whose language of the home is not English has increased dramatically you know think about a couple years ago we were you know hovering about 60 high 60s year year over year and then it jumped to 80 you know last year jumped as high as 123 at one point now we're hovering about 100 right a regional person would expect we're going to be there uh for the forceable future and that has real ramifications both in terms of the the compliance side and the need to to sure our program is sound in that way but also because of the very real scale of uh these services so for example the as the number of students across our buildings increases and the diversity of their level of English language proficiency increases you know the ability to group them thoughtfully in instructional ways that are both age and skill appropriate becomes uh different so we want to be thoughtful of that I don't want folks to lose sight of the significant number of the high school school right which is why we added the position this year and again a reasonable person you know would expect we would need another position for next year to support this you know we get into conversations in the months to come the district is doing some really exciting work in terms of curriculum for ESL um as part of our work with the state uh very similar to the work that's being done for high quality instructional materials you know in other uh areas what a lot of people don't think about is that uh English language is a core a core cont content area it's just that some students are are doing math you know are doing four core area subjects for students who are um English language Learners they're doing five and I think the more we're able to help people understand that it helps understand you know certainly some of the conversations I'll be having as we get into the year um and then again certainly a reasonable person would take a look and identify the increase and number of students who are identified as homeless or underhouse is in direct uh correlation to the opening of a emergency shelter expansion site recently uh and again we expect that that will begin to level off as the numbers you know over the days in begin to shift uh and roll out in the you know the next year 18 months um but again all that being said each of these populations each of these subgroups experiences our district and their school buildings in slightly different ways and has needs that are both you know consistent with the needs of other learners but additional challenges that may not be a top of- mind for folks so I'm so grateful for the chance to to share with you tonight and I look forward to you know additional opportunities to have conversation because each of these can be thought of as a different facet right of of the gem that is our school district or a different lens to apply say how is one group or another advantaged or disadvantaged by the decisions we make um and I'm just super excited for the work that's happened last year into this year and uh and for what's going on um one of the things I really hope to get some visibility with is our two parent advisory councils uh we've had some traction recently getting uh additional core uh participants in our special ed parents advisory Council uh as well as continuing to ramp up our work with our English uh Learners parents advisory Council and both of those um are coming up we've got a meeting next week um so there's a a couple of things we can do certainly we can go to our website and folks can access that uh and we look to increase uh visibility of some of that to reach folks that might not be looking you know different places or might not catch it in some of our current communication threads um but there's a lot of exciting stuff going on and certainly the more folks can engage in those conversations um you know I think the more robust it is so the both of these parent advisory councils are really important ways for folks to be involved um as well as just exciting and really just conversation so I would urge uh anybody even if they're unsure you know or think that they might not necessarily be able to participate I think you uh be scratched you know everybody's perspective is is not only welcome but but necessary so with that very thank you yeah any questions for Mr Ming oh yes so we get to see your bills so some of my questions are directly related to that and one of them is I was very excited when we got a school psychologist I mean that was like a big thing to celebrate but we're still paying for other outside Consultants to do special EDI BS the numbers seem kind of high to me do you need another school psychologist absolutely yeah yeah so at present you know with the numbers that we're looking at we would always expect to have probably two and a half or two and three4 case load in terms of if our school syes were doing nothing but testing uh at present we our school pyes do mostly just the psych testing which is to say cognitive testing and behavior rating scales and our special educators are doing at present the majority of academ educational diagnostic or academic achievement testing if you will uh at present we have one of the two budgeted School psych positions we have one full-time psych we're fortunate to have an intern uh whose workload is is capped at about a third or a half three quarters of what we'd hope a full-time psych would be able to do so if a reasonable person would hope to get somewhere North 70 you know evaluations depending uh not all evaluations are the same uh but I would expect in a district of our size with the numbers of initials and reeval that we've saw um we've taken some steps to you know to ensure we're uh not getting to a point of frivolous aows so addressing at the front end but certainly So currently last year for example we utilized the better part of half a dozen different contracted School sites which was helpful in terms of being able to get out of a significant hold in terms of you know when I came on board in July of last year we had a backlog that was over two years old I wouldn't I literally wouldn't have believed you had I not walked into it I spent half of my career you know in this work I wouldn't have beli what we walked into last year with a regard to the backlog of evaluations we're fortunate we just last week actually got caught up at the high school level uh in terms of being on Target and we are on Pace to be compliant you know for the end of this year right which is super exciting so when we're talking about standing capacity or expectation for school psyches specifically psychological evaluations absolutely I would say a district of our size we would expect two and a half two and 3/4 full-time equivalent so when we're thinking about where we stand now we have a full-time site who's great came to us an internship last year staying on board is is phenomenal we're fortunate to have an intern again doing some of that work and then what you see is uh effectively a full another full-time effectively contracted psych and then we see some ancillary things whether they be bilingual all that um the last thing I would say on that is we've really leaned into technology being in Northern Franklin County we're always going to be up against it we are not the only ones that are short on school SES uh but we've really leaned into technology I was skeptical because of the pandemic uh what I had thought of at that point was people trying to do evaluations in a remote way because of some of the other issues of the pandemic at the time we have leaned into an interaction with Lily Pad learning actually a startup um you know out that eastern part of the state that's partnered with a lot of districts and without a doubt not only are they doing High quality work and able to support folks in a timely way with high quality valuations uh and support teams in effective decision making for students but we wouldn't be able to come compliant uh and be meeting our regulatory obligations to either students families you folks uh or the state uh without it so in short yeah I I would certainly love another school psych I have no illusions that we can reasonably expect to keep on staff more than two in District you know salaries school cyes so I would always you know best case scenario if we were able to have two uh full-time school pyes and you know nearly 2third of the equivalent I think that would allow us to be where we need to be um especially because the only other way to do a part-time would be if you had a retired you know somebody was retired and wanted to work the equivalent of you know two-thirds time other questions oh remember a good one so one of the things Greenfield Public Schools is worried about is attendance and one of the things I would love to see data on is the attendance in our special ed population because one of the things that in the past was never discussed at Team meetings attendance was never brought up so School psychologists when they did any vows weren't talking about attendance it's really hard to learn if you're not there so looking at the attendance for these children who have five or six service providers who are pulling out their hair because the child's not there um that's something that I would love to see that data because when we talk about the fact that we're above State average how many of the children who are in that category are just not coming to school is one of my concerns question questions member Martini uh I wondered if you could briefly explain for folks what is the district's obligation when it comes to evaluation there are timelines that need to be met uh and what the repercussions are for the district if we uh don't evaluate in timely manner and whether or not our lack of Staffing is considered an excuse yeah um so it's a a great question so all of special ed law can be thought of a civil rights law right came run the same time you know mid 70s up through you know most recently um the current version of it so the reason that's helpful is one of the things is this timeline right you think about districts can't stall families on these things so with regard to evaluation either if a parent makes a recommendation for testing you know has suspicions of disability or another Community stakeholder members of the school staff for example they go through they do the student sort of study team and they're you know trying interventions they have concerns as soon as that referral comes through uh the district is on a timeline where we have to send out an evaluation consent form that can be thought of as a permission slip any testing that we're not doing for all students and the way they do map testing um you know sort of standard Benchmark testing we need to ensure we're getting parent permission for so there's a timeline after which a parent ether reaches out to us it used to be in writing it's now the state has blown the doors off of that is another conversation entirely but we have uh a limited number of school days to be able to share uh with them a evaluation consent form for their consideration and then one of the options parents have is to then accept those evaluations and return it to us from the time we return that signed permission you know so if they bring it in the central office if they mail it in and it gets opened up we essentially have a 45 school day window 30 of those school days to get the testing done unless it's towards the end of the school year and then there's some additional pieces where you have to do it no later than two weeks at the end of the school year but essentially six weeks is probably the most helpful way of thinking about it to complete the tests that's a school psych doing their uh testing that's a special educator doing their testing or related service provider doing their testing and then the additional 15 days are for which between the 30 and the 45 are for the team to come together review those evaluations at a initial eligibility meeting and do one of two things in the event that a student is not found eligible for example if a student is not attending and they could have a disability they could be educationally significant but the reason for that uh Gap isn't the disability which is something that we try and do a better job of it I what's going on to spe m govern's point but the other 15 days between the 30 days to get the evaluations done that 45th day the district has to have met and done one of two things if the student is not found eligible provide written notice of that we call that an N2 or notice of no finding um it's essentially just the formal notification that they were not found eligible which in a lot of cases is great it means there's things going on that uh will allow the student to derive benefit from their time andreen for public schools without the support or if they are found eligible and more uh in some ways more timely and certainly more time intensive is furnish an IEP so when we talk about a student who's eligible for special ucation at any one of our grade levels that work of identifying what their needs are planning for it drafting the IEP in the case of a special educator for example who's also juggling a host of other case loads other responsibilities each day that absolutely matters and I would say to M Martini's point a lot of the findings from the previous program audit that we worked really hard to to come pretty close to uh getting compliant with has been our ability to furnish parents either an IEP in the case of a child find eligible within 45 days or a notice of no finding if they're not found eligible and uh to speak to the question that was asked the state isn't concerned one bit about why it didn't happen they certainly aren't interested to hear that we don't have the capacity or that there are some exceptions if the you know the child wasn't available if they were absent consistantly and we couldn't test them there are some things that the parent didn't make them available for testing so there are some exemptions but generally speaking the state expects us to meet that timeline come H high water so I think that's an important piece because we don't get to say you know we're doing our best and that's one of the interesting Parts about my experience is I've look at staff that are working very hard each day and effectively what I'm saying to them is I appreciate that and yet you know the Train's got to run on time so that is a very important part of it um and it's not just Staffing but I think the timeline is is important um it's a also opens the door to a much larger conversation about people's understanding either this body or in general about the very real legal framework of special education and English and a second language more broadly thank you for that uh that is related to my second question is it okay if I go ahead with that or did someone else want to take a shot do you want to go ahead uh so my question is about um identification early identification I appreciated what you said about uh the need to intervene early with students in order to prevent the need for more intensive Services later and I would like to see um at some point I'm not asking you this off the top of your head right now um but I would like to see um some data about how many of our students are being ident ified in or after the third grade and I would like to understand more about what the district is doing to uh coordinate between special education and general education so that we can identify students as early as possible and provide them the specialized instruction and accommodations that they need as early as possible so that we can address uh our longer term numbers and in special education in the district uh so I don't know if there is anything you would like to um offer off the top of your head about that right now if so please um please do I I would say one of the things that certainly cuts across all disability profiles is early literacy right one of the reasons I'm so grateful for the work that's being done at present and the work that's been done even before I joined the district last July is without high quality early literacy instruction and without the ability to identify students that are not responding to that literacy instruction when provided when they're attending regularly and the ability to look at other potential options allow them to be reading or able to access grade level text you know at and Beyond third grade is critical um it's not just students with reading difficulties that may be impacted there are students who are are presenting a variety of disability profiles for whom gaps in Reading are only going to be exacerbated so you know whether we talk we know more now about how to provide uh interventions of a variety of intensity whether we're talking about those that are these small snapshots to fill in small gaps uh in one aspect of fundamental reading uh skills or another um but when we talk about ramping up and getting uh I talked about vertical alignment and horizontal alignment having consistency in the way our different elementary schools run their SST process of course a little bit different because each school is different has its own flavor and you know needs to to look a little bit different in the context of that building consistency where it matters in terms of how we are looking at regular intervals of particular uh indicators in the case of reading for example indicators of Dyslexia and then how we are making decisions about that such that a student presenting in the same way across our three elementary schools has an equal or Equitable opportunity to be identified and provided the same opportunities uh in that way I think it's also instructive because again a lot of the work to support students with different learning needs can and should be done before especially that even comes into the the conversation if that makes sense um so that would be the one thing I would say now in terms of early literacy pieces and responses to that so there's been a little bit of of that work done one of the things I'm really excited to do is have more opportunities for the types of uh interventions that can be interwoven the kids programs without being overly disruptive uh and that's very consistent with some of the recent work as we've shifted into understanding more about the signs of reading how to have those particular uh therapeutic doses of instruction in particular skills and then being able to say did it you know did it achieve the result or not and then do we keep doing it until a student no longer requires it or shift you know to ensure that they're getting an intervention that is effective member ston I have a few different questions the first is just a numbers clarification are the IEP students and the 504 students mutually exclusive no that's a great question uh generally if a student isn't in most cases the only reason you would have in generally speaking uh where we see students having both IEPs that are active and 504s are things like medical needs if you have a medically significant allergy for example uh or similar uh that's because it's reasonable that the IP related pieces might resolve and this other piece would still uh be there um I would say generally speaking the overlap is pretty small if you were to say you know what is the number of students who have both an active IP and active 504 I would say likely single digits you know pretty pretty small um but no not mutually exclusive in that way which is to say having one doesn't preclude you from the other I would say in most cases where a student is on a 504 and then it's found eligible for an IP we be ask questions about what in the 504 would not just be subsumed into the I and again that's going to be medically signif analogies things of that sort yeah mostly asking so that I can get a better sense of the overall percentage of our students that are receiving some kind of something um another question is can you say a little bit more about how we are building the capacity that we need to be able to offer more inclusion you you mentioned the wanting to transition from more substantially separate to more inclusive strategies so yeah so uh a lot of it is providing the opportunity for uh general led classrooms to have the ability to support a variety of of meets uh again you know people tend to shy away from additional adult support because it has the capacity to be utilized both ineffectively and U and inefficiently frankly um and what I mean by that is if we're talking about insurance ing that a general education teacher at any given grade level has the ability to bring a group of kids forward for example if I'm a a high school biology teacher right I'm not teaching 180 days of content I'm bringing a group of Learners forward from where they are on the framework of biology content through the strands and topics right the scope and sequence of the bio content forward how their ability both with the materials instructional materials they have um ability to differentiate uh up or down but in most cases uh down and by that I mean making grade level Concepts right DNA replication for example a life cycle accessible to students who might be operating a A literacy level three or four grade levels below their ability to do so within reasonable expectation of their preping and teach are work in you know long hours anyway but being able to do so uh Within time that's one way capaity is increased so for example as we look at providing resources or help them identify either practices teaching practices um that reach more students whether we provide them with M uh materials that for more students whether we identify uh the types of supports that students in their classroom might need so specifically identifying things that would interrupt or disrupt or interfere with a teacher's ability to run a classroom uh and that is where adult support is has a role and I don't mean to to say that adult support is everything I mean to say that there's a lot of interventions and supports both passive and otherwise um that can't be done by a single educator in a room alone um so that's one of the ways we can talk about a capacity is helping have folks have clarity about what that looks like both so we as a group can be sure that adults that are identified so in this case for example par professionals instructional assistants um uh both specialized in some cases uh and more generalized they are clear on the ways in which their support can support or constrain kids learning right so when we're talking about ways that we are increasing capacity to support more students in less restrictive environments a lot of it is perspective building right U some of it is winning the hearts and Minds right communicating uh whether it be the teaching to strengths uh type work that uh you know has been historical whether it be the leading with dignity work um that superintendent patot is bringing the executive leadership team through now helping win hearts and minds of the members of the school Community both School staff and otherwise to the ability for all students to learn uh in inclusive settings and then how what that can look like um being able to break down you know not to be cliche about this idea of silos but breaking down this wall between General Ed and special ed uh building a shared ownership of the success and progress of all students right they're all all of our students helping you literally one of the most effective things I can do for the district is help build a shared understanding that if the students identified for special education they don't become Special Ed's responsibility right there's nothing that a special educator can do that is going to take the place of a student having access to a high quality uh General experience and that's true across grade levels across continer so in the same way I don't just get to say oh yeah if only General Educators would do more right that's not it at all so it's arming them with the tools that they need to be able to do the things we're asking them right we're asking U both General Educators and special Educators do more than we ever have before as a as a field so arming them with curric materials arming them with instructional understanding and professional development related to how do I support a student you know who uh may be navigating specific challenges especially in the context of externalizing behaviors so if I'm talking about an elementary student who may uh be academic capable but be unable to remain regulated you know at certain times what are some effective ways to identify that early what are some passive proactive things that we can do um that has to do with increasing our level of Behavioral support whether it be in terms of the two District bcba positions where it be the desire to have registered behavioral technician positions in the elementary schools that work where they're talking about the you know adjustment counselor work there's a lot of both Staffing capacity instructional resource capacity professional development and then a lot of it literally it's just perspective building helping build a shared vision and understanding of what the general environment can and should look like and what that can mean for different students uh another thing and you know especially as we think about like curriculum and instruction if you think of the desire of bringing that group of kids forward I use the example of the biology teacher if we can help give teachers an understanding that look your job is not to cover 100% of those strands your job is to bring the group of kids forward meaningfully and thoughtful identification about the power strands right the power topics within that or you know making effective decisions about use of time so that you're being thoughtful about reducing the impact on students learning of that there's a host of those so um in short it's well beyond the time that I have I appreciate the question there's a variety of things U that we're doing it really has to do with arming folks with instructional materials professional development uh and messaging and visioning about how to do so um in sure I have like one and a half more questions go ahead um so this next one requires a bit of a preamble but I was thinking about those 87 students that were identify as un or underhouse and you had mentioned that you expect that number to shift slightly as you know we know that the the state is making changes to the emergency shelter um policy Etc but I'm I'm curious about what we might be able to offer those students even once they find Semi or permanent housing the experience of having been under underhouse does not leave them um and I'm and that is sort of true I'm sort of wondering for students who are not directly part of one of these categories but who we know are experiencing things that could impact their ability to show up in a classroom and be ready to learn um or to be receiving education i l um what can we do for those students and does that fall under your opes yes am uh yeah I think it has a lot a lot of the things that we can do have have already been done the superintendent support for uh Transportation options for students that might not otherwise be able to do it you know again certainly not all students that take advantage of the additional Transportation uh solutions that the superintendent has you know has authorized to allow more students access are homeless R house but it's certainly not without impact um again when we think about creating spaces where students are able to come to the average setting whether it's a cafeteria whether it's a library setting whether it's a classroom setting certainly and not have the additional barriers um that they don't have the bandwidth right uh we talk about the backpacks right all of us have backpacks some students have heavier loads in those backpacks um a lot of which are invisible so when we talk about the things we can do it really starts with just creating and maintaining environments that are clearly communicating to students that they are seen welcomed and safe and not in a Kumbaya way right not in an abstract way but in a these are things that we do to be very clear and explicit in sharing with students that uh we have regard for them you know that the the classroom environment is a place where uh we welcome them and want them to be that they are missed when they are not there um it has to do with the way we talk to kids it has to do with the way that we respond when kids talk to us in ways that we might not always appreciate um you know people talk a lot about uh being trauma informed they talking about the impacts on early you know early development and all that oftentimes what gets lost is some of the ways in which some of the the folks that you're talking about are impacted their experience is is because they don't show up necessarily not only on uh metrics that we're reporting to the state but they might not be visible right they don't have these indicators over there you know over the heads that say hey please be um please be gentle with me today you know I used all my bandwidth uh so I would say more than anything the things for us to do are ensure that we are creating environments and communicating with kids in ways that uh are sensitive to that but also are pro not just being reactive to to students that may be vulner or having some difficulty but really proactive in communicating you know the sense of comfort and safety in regard you know in our schools there's a variety of ways we can have conversation about difference of opinion ways to do that um you know and the technical side of it but more than anything I'd say that's it and that's the through line between any of the initiatives that we look at that needs to be clear um because the absence of that serves to undermine any of the particular things we might try and do whether it be getting kids to school whether it be outfitting them whether it's food security whether it's an on down list that's the through line that we need to focus on because we can sort of add technical elements to the other first order needs but if we're never addressing that feeling of safety and comfort I think we're missing the boote my half question is um just the first part um what do you and your staff need from us to be able to best provide the education that you're wanting to provide for these kids yeah I think it's you know a a reasonable expectation of you know the organization's functioning you know uh we're fortunate to have a situation District now where the focus of the district as a whole is more consistent with what is good for the needs of our momal Learners than in a lot of districts uh and what I mean by that is is the district's current instructional Focus the the priorities of the district as a whole are consistent with the types of improvements instructionally uh and otherwise that will you know allow us to do better I think anything we can do to improve uh you know consistency or um you know or reduce you know churn whether that's policy whether Staffing you know those types of things are going to be important but I would say more than anything ensuring that we're not uh discontinuing or disrupting you know current initiatives that are are proving effective um and that we're raising up the visibility of the impact of certain decisions that might be made uh or not made uh with an eye for that I think that for me would be the most important thing it's not just oh you know we need Staffing we need this without uh we're actually fairly um we've got a lot of protective factors we got a lot of reason to be encouraged in District here I would think if this body is taking into account how decisions advantage or disadvantage particular groups of students that would be the main thing because there are particulars that are going to be different in time um but I think that's the the main piece I would look at you know what is the tip totale experience of a student at any grade level and how decisions that this body is making impact that the building unit analysis the classroom of analysis that's the real way if that's fair thank you any other questions for Mr messing remember good one can you tell me how many instructional assistants we have off the top of my head it' be interesting I'd have to think about you know the different buildings looking at the different vacancies you know uh depends if I include the you know the two that have to submit you know in terms of at some point in the future um but no I wouldn't want to give you uh a number today without the context of where some of those positions are you know I mean I came from a meeting earlier today that informs it there are a couple of plans that are in process that are going to inform it that's fair other questions M Mar I uh wanted to Carry On from Member seon's question um or last half question because that really gets at um the reason why I asked for this presentation previously which is about student achievement um is something that uh this committee has uh talked about periodically not enough in my opinion um and uh in our accountability data that was recently presented by uh the assistant superintendent uh we saw some nice gains for certain groups of students but the one group that really didn't have any gains was our students with disabilities and I'm also keenly aware that um a tiny teeny tiny percentage of our students with disabilities are able to meet expect patients on the mcast in grades 3 to eight for example uh and are uh otherwise showing indicators of not making uh what probably many of their parents would consider to be meaningful progress uh and what the law asks us to do for students with disabilities is to prepare them for uh higher education and employment and independent living so um I I appreciate um all of the data that you provided tonight and the discussion um about the having students as much as possible in the least restrictive environment planul so that they can receive what they need um that cannot be delivered there uh and I would also like to see a lot more data uh and information about the achievement of our students with disabilities and that's uh that leads me to um my questions which are uh probably too too big for this evening but um I would like to know what are the biggest gaps what are the biggest needs what would be the most impactful things that the district could do to improve its uh capacity in special education to uh to serve our students in order to answer those questions I think we would need more um information about where uh our students in different disability groups for example are falling when it comes to achievement so I would love to see you back here at some point in the near future with more information about that yeah and even the question is even the question is worded right I think it requires each of those pieces to be teased out you know because the differences aren't necessarily going to be similar across achievement areas you know across grade level so I would want to make sure we were able to give that due sort of consideration and certainly well beyond this but each of those is important and thinking about for all the things that might be common contributing factors or root causes u in some ways what's more instructive the differences in the ways kids are impacted whether it be by disability profile or an achievement area for sure any other questions from in the committee I guess I have a a thought I don't know if it's as much a question but maybe you can respond um I'm wondering given how expensive the out of District um placements are if there was a way to we had some more found some way to invest more resource in you know for example years one and two and it resulted in year three having one fewer person in an out out of District placement it may have been well worth that investment that's not exactly the way City budgets and school budgets work but um I wonder if you have any thoughts about what that investment might look like that might help us to reduce those placements yeah that's certainly a longer conversation than we have done for and again uh I'd love to have that conversation in Earnest uh when we have you know the full bre I would say in short what we're likely to come up against is what are legitimate limiting factors and what I mean by that is if we were to lay out the types of investment you're talking about that would result in decreased need it is very likely a reasonable person would expect that we would be hard pressed to make that manifest even with the blessing and Goodwill of this body just because of structural factors which is to say if I were to to identify particular areas of growth and we were to think that if we were able to provide more adults to provide a higher dose or intensity you know more of a certain service in a certain area that it would do so a reasonable person expects that we'd be unlikely to fill those additional positions for example um I think that would be the one thing that I would want to be concerned about uh and yes you're absolutely right there is a perverse incentive in a lot of ways you know talk about different layers of government and all of that for people to not be future planning in that way I I certainly understand the Val time value of budgets you know in terms of this year's budget as opposed to future benefit um so that you know that's when wants in a lot of ways and of course there's a lot of uh particular conversations around that but I think what we would want to include in part of that conversation if we were having it in a really candid way and comprehensive way is is with the full bore what are the parameters that are going to be constraints and that leads us into how do we how do we reduce the impact of those barriers for example in what ways can we leverage technology to overcome some of the uh reduced access to to labor force for example we talking about uh you know language access for low incidence languages for example interpretation and translation we wouldn't be able to do the work we do if I wasn't able B to reach out and get an Albanian interpreter you know from somewhere across the world right these Lo we don't have a lot of Greenfield residents that speak vanto dialects right like that sort of stuff so those that's part of the conversation is if there was a desire and a good faith effort to invest that intensity of resources to achieve what you're talking about achieving what are the other ways that we'd have to look at actually making that so and then more to the point I think one of the things that I would want to make sure is that we were ensuring it was sustaining so it doesn't just benefit this year or next year how are we taking those steps to make an investment that have lasting benefits on students that are if it was at a certain grade level if we said hey we we care a lot about grades K1 and two that students this year that were in K next year that are in K the year after MK so that's lasting right so we're not feeling as though the benefit of any investment whether monetary or otherwise is uh fleeting you know that it's lasting and we can feel really um as we've been fiscally responsible in investing in a enduring way thank you your your part of your answer made me think that part of it may be a conversation with our legislators about how to try to address some of that um the pipeline of of workers and what is going on at the state level to try to increase the number of candidates for those types of positions because you're right that's something that's kind of beyond the scope of this body and and of your work but it's the environment that you're hiring within that is creating a lot of the obstacles that you're talking about thank you all right thank you very much really appreciate your time and I guess we'll be seeing you again soon thanks all right um Andy pette has joined us Andy if you ready to sure thank you uh you have any packets the uh December 24 fi25 budget update uh we did as requested uh I've attached a a narrative summary regarding the highlights of uh the budget reports for the grant and the local budget so I can just walk you through that and then answer any questions you might have as of the practice has been in Green Field you know we charge the expenses to the local budget and then uh we work with the city come into the year and do our final rec classes to the revolving accounts uh to make it easier as far as a one-time adjustment so as I referenced in the middle of the uh Report with uh as you know there's some uh turnover at experiencing on the city Side so there are incumbrances from the last payroll that have not been reduced we wanted to be able to get the report to you in time to review so I've in a sense had to reduce that when I walk you through the I'm going to call it the true balance available uh so there's $674,000 of the last payroll that uh for hitting the local budget that in a sense are double encumbered it's in hitting the expense line and also in the encumbered for the respective salary lines so when you walk through that along with our other funding sources from when we built the budget as to what we're going to use as of this day uh we're having what is I'm calling a preliminary surplus of $384,500 of our fy2 budget I will refer you to the presentation that I did this is actually a good practice um in the sense that you know having 98% of your budget encumbered Andor committed uh is is you know it it's a good internal control to make sure that you don't overspend the budget even with the fact that there are some expenditures some of the normal year-end expenditures that might not yet be encumbered uh so that 384 will be reduced but again uh Administration we feel that we're at a comfort level regarding uh ending the year in a positive balance uh similar issue with the encumbered in a payroll there are some revenues that haven't been posted yet on the revolving account so I've summarized those uh there um all that means is that you know as of right now when you look at the revolving account report uh for those accounts in particular school lunch circuit breaker school choice and transportation were actually in better shape than what it is that's shown so this is like the standard narrative that we uh provide uh but without further Ado I can answer any questions you might have or attempt to answer any questions you might have regarding the update questions for Andy remember good one are we encumbering salaries of people we haven't hired yet say that again sorry are we encumbering the salaries of people that haven't been hired yet there are positions that are unfilled uh we I have to go and review those Mo most of the times we don't but if there is a position that was left mid year it could be a timing issue where those salaries could still be encumbered okay other questions thank you very much Andy and thanks very much for the narrative report I found that personally very helpful and appreciate the members who advocated for that and Susan Farber who did some research to help us deduce there was no apparent um conflict with school committee policy that would prevent you from doing that so thank you no problem moving on to the assistant superintendent Mr Sal good evening everybody excuse me okay okay so everyone has my report last month um I actually shared that we were kicking off the reading CH the stick to reading challenge with the Springfield Thunderbirds um and wanted to follow back up on that that we did launch the stick two reading challenge um on Wednesday November 27th there are pictures in this uh in this update again as Boomer the Springfield Thunderbirds mascot attend at each of our schools Turkey Trot um the superintendent and I along with Boomer and some of his handlers made our way around the town on that Wednesday half day um and I think we got to all the turkey trots one school he was able to visit some classrooms because um they had gone inside but again just encouraging students to find joy and enjoyment in Reading um I've seen some teachers talking to students about the reading challenge already I said to students and teachers that the idea of this was to encourage students to find enjoyment in Reading at home but if they're doing it in school and they're enjoying it then they can certainly fill in their log um for their right to a free ticket to the Saturday January 25th game down in Springfield where they will host a Greenfield night we will be in touch with some more information about tickets um and reaching out to families if they're looking for transportation um as well so looking forward to that in late January I also included it's t it's probably difficult you won't be able to do it on your hard copy but in the folder there is the press release that we had sent out on that um so a little bit more information about that and comments from the Thunderbirds as well couple of Grant updates in terms of the Innovation career pathway we had to submit a part a application um by the end of October we submitted that and found out um I think December 2nd we got the email that we were invited to do the part B application so the next step of the Innovation career pathway work is underway um essentially the part B application is a more in-depth application where we're providing um potential course sequences courses that could be included in the Innovation career pathway recruitment materials and such so uh the career pathway team is working on that and we're meeting with our partner from Mass hire Matt Allen um next Thursday afternoon for an update and the part B application is due in early February since we last spoke I had um the acceleration Academy Grant was a grant that we had applied for when I spoke in O when I spoke in November we have since received that Grant as well that will allow us to offer acceleration academies um the second paragraph is more about what the acceleration Academy should look like and that allows us to offer these in February and April so there's a meeting for Grant recipients next week that I'm attending and then I'll be working with our um principles to get this rolled out and begin to start identify find staff and students to participate in the acceleration and then finally I wanted to share um this was not a grant that I had mentioned last month but the mass cultural Council Council creative projects for schools Grant we pursued a grant for all three of our elementary schools um to have essentially an artist in residence for a period of time this winter and spring and we found out that we received um 5,000 grant for all three elementary schools so we're partnering with local artists Sarah aern belare um and we've titled the project hand inand a mural to connect our community and the idea is it will engage every student to create a largescale mural inspired by abstract quilts um we've also thought that this these murals at all three elementaries will be movable um so if at any point in the future schools come together or anything like that we'll make sure that the murals can also come together um it's also focused on inclu inclusive and collaborative art lessons students will Design individual um quilt squares that will be combined into the mural that will be displayed at each school um and we're very grateful to obviously Mass cultural Council and Sarah Hearn belar for supporting this meaningful project superintendent we'll do questions together for you two uh just a quick update that the desie district site review was the week of the November 18th through the 22nd um the data collection folks that did all of the site visits the stakeholder interviews as well as are compiling our preliminary report have been in touch with Stephen and I the last week or so just to get some clarification on some fact finding issues that have Arisen and hopefully we will have um some uh initial reports soon and then once those findings um are in its final form we will report back out to you what they have delivered to us um redistricting don't forget still happening um we have been working really hard though uh to talk to every family who is affected by the redistricting lines and redrawn street addresses for 25 26 we did initial site visits to lien Woods in Oak courts we also did a virtual information session for all of the families um we sent out letters and we had about uh 40 or so families that were not responding so then we did backpack letters when we've done personal phone calls and we've been following up this week so that every family has the opportunity to make the choice for their child um as of my report time it was 10 families we were still waiting to connect with but I'm happy to report today it's eight so I'm going to make sure we get those other eight to respond to us um our next step though obviously will be to coordinate with travel C and talk about Transportation needs for our three elementaries in the 2025 26 school year because you did vote to provide transportation for those folks who chose to age out of their current home school or transfer to their new so we will be working with the bus company um I had a meeting this morning with the high school folks and we talked about scheduling because the students have selected their coursework for 2025 26 so we've been working on enrollments and class projections there which will create the waterfall effect down to the Middle School and then down to the elementary I will be meeting with that Administration in the coming days and then um we'll meet with our union leaders and talk about uh potential staffing needs and changes for the 25 26 school year so um please know that all of that work is going on behind the scenes and we're constantly in communication with families affected as well as the staff in a short time uh Staffing updates unfortunately we accepted the resignation of our director of Behavior Services Katie Miller Murphy and our district and state data manager Deborah Coons for personal reasons um so they will be finishing up their time with us shortly um we are actively searching for replacements for both those positions and the jobs are posted so if anyone knows anyone please send them our way um we happily welcomed Carol Jacobs to Newton Elementary as our interim principal last week on Thursday December 5th she hit the ground running and is certainly happy to be back in Green Fields um and we're really happy to have her on board she joined our e team yesterday and um was really just a positive influence on taking over at Newton so we appreciate her efforts um we are still looking for instructional assistance custodians and food service positions and all of those positions are on school spring if you're interested and we also continually encourage volunteers parents caregivers school committee members if you want to come and help out if you have time at our elementary schools lunch and recess is um definitely in demand and we would appreciate your time if you are able um there are some capital updates based on some information that's been uh unfolding as of late the Federal Street elevator the project did go out to bid by the city um we had one sole bid which was nv5 which came in at 222,50 679 so my proposal um this evening would be that the district allocate school choice funds to fund the diff difference so the dis District can complete the Federal Street elevator project can we maybe get the whole report then do questions then come back to the Motions for things like that sure Ken um the other Capital update is the Middle School fire panel project in October the school committee approved a capital expense submission for 150,000 for FY 26 which was submitted to the city when the capital requests were made and then after that the district received an additional site visit from Fire Equipment Incorporated and upon their further inspection the upgrade is obviously going to be exponentially higher due to the fact that the GMS system as they called it is quote unquote obsolete so um the struggle is really finding replacement parts that are no longer available um so in order to fix all of the components an upgrade at GMS the new estimate is $315,000 um there is a little snafu in that as well though that there is some talk of future state requirements from the State Fire Marshall that any upgrades to new um fire alarm systems may have to include a voice over announcement instead of just having a fire alarm sound it's not currently in effect but it could be coming down the Pike so the facilities director Mike brro just wanted me to add that potentially by the time this project would go through capital and actually get bid on and be implemented there could be an additional 100,000 if we had to include the voice over system so um currently the increase would be 315 but the potential could be 415 at a later date um we have had a request from Member Goodwin in the past for enrollment updates so I decided to include them in my update thinking it would probably be easier than just reading the numbers and that way you can compare what was from month to month so I will just continue to update those each month but those are um obviously uh you can read on your own uh we currently as of December I think it was 9th it was run we had 1366 in District and then lastly I just really want to um if you haven't seen it my parent update or haven't been uh part of the project with your students that are in our district I really just want to let the community know the unity initiative that we've rolled out as of December 2nd um we're really trying to unite uh students staff families community members into the important role that they all play in the lives of our students each and every day and how you all are uh very valuable members of the green wave Nation we want to continue to support all of our students except diversity welcome all of them care for them um and make sure that they know that when they enter our Halls that they are uh part of our community which they belong to and that we love and care for each and every day so what we've been doing is launching some Unity messaging every morning and having days of the week where we can start to build stronger relationships with one another and really incorporate um some great chances for students to really get to know all those members of their Community whether they're adults or other students that they don't talk to so we have an ongoing initiative each day of the week um and you can talk to our students and our staff about maybe being caught being amazing so we are taking a a a be kind initiative we have shirts and stickers and wristbands and uh announcements and you will see the picture I shared was the Federal Street students who were caught to be amazing and they got the reward of having lunch with their principal so all of those students you see there were very excited to eat with Miss Helen so I encourage you to uh join in on our initiative and really uh celebrate our community and shine a light on all the good things things that Greenfield Public Schools do thank you uh let's do any questions related to anything besides the capital items which were the elevator and the fire panel for either Mr Sullivan or Miss Pat not yes remember Martini in regards to the stick to reading event I wanted to know if uh we are able to provide transportation to those students who win those tickets and not be able to go if they don't have it yes so that's something that we're working on and we're planning to offer transportation to those who wish to go to the game but might not be able to get there on their own thank you and um slightly another question related to the same um topic are the announcements and information related to that program um going home to parents uh in their primary languages yes they are primary languages and we're also looking into purchasing some tickets for families who may wish to go but may not be able to so so transportation and tickets we're thinking about and working with the Thunderbirds m ston i was this is regarding the enrollment update I was wondering if you had any information about where some of these students are going and why the majority of our moves have been due to some of our folks in the days in who have been actually housed so the majority of the moves you see are because they've moved to Sunderland most of them have gone to the name of the apartment complex is escaping me right now yeah so no Dave yes Cliffside thank you sorry is that what she said Susan I'm sorry yeah Cliffside yeah so those moves have happened and thankfully for them and they are having a a great experience being housed other questions remember Martini in regards to Staffing um what is our current rate of successfully finding substitute teachers when we need them uh and uh I mean having an actual substitute as opposed to using an IA or some other member of our staff to cover that we have a very low substitute population pool so that creates a very big strain on building operations every day on average um district is seeing between 20 and 40 absences across six schools um and we have about four solid Subs that report to duty every day so um it is definitely a strain on operations it's a strain on the current staff that are in school it's a strain on our IAS it's a strain on our principles other questions thank you okay okay um oh can I just say Wednesday is help each other out day so if you were caught helping someone out today you could get a sticker before you leave just want to share that you all deserve a sticker you are here you got double stickers superintendent um all right so the first is um the elevator so I'd like to hear a motion to use um $ 4,679 of fiscal year 25 school choice funds to fund the difference between the allocated Cal Capital expenditures and the amount of the nv5 bid for the F Federal Street School elevator project so moved second okay discussion yes please member Childs uh so important we get this done quickly our staff of RIT Federal Street School having to haul heavy things up and down that stair those stairs it's a safety issue for them as well as an accessibility issue so this has gone on for way too long let's get it done any other comments this is a question I intend to vot yes but I do want to understand what are the possible implications of moving these monies and are there any potential negatives from not having that 40K in that school choice account um May I yes may I answer yes uh no there would be no negatives um we as we proceed through the year uh there have been some uh changes as far as honestly between vacancy savings and also uh some additional funds that come in as you remember when we build these budgets we build them a year in advance and uh so when we built the budget on some of the grants that we are anticipating receiving we actually got more than we had we were conservative in our budget estimate so again I refer back to the presentation that we did where I referred to I believe the the the legitimate shell game of moving expenses to then free up the funds to be able to do this any other discussion mayor so you're taking the we going to move that from account 1521 that is correct thank you any other discussion or questions member Goodwin so I'm flashbacking I've been hearing about this elevator for decades how many times it's been repaired before so I guess as we go through this process if they fix it they better fix it I mean it's been fixed a lot I will let them know that other questions or comments okay all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously all right for this one you say Choose Your Own Adventure I would hear a motion to either increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 1 15K to 315k or if you want to plan for the possibility of of uh voice uh requirements then it would be 415k so when you say you're making the motion just say 315k or 415k I will move to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from a 150,000 to $415,000 is there a second second second from member seon any discussion May or Disorder so um I was just sitting here thinking that I wanted to ask the um fire chief if they knew if they put that law into effect or do you know if um usually there's a term and there'll be you know as of such and such you'd have to do that I was I was going to advocate for 315 but um do you have any knowledge on that soend um Alex kolie is who was talking with Mike buo about that just saying it could be coming down the pike but I'm not sure um the ifs and whens and if you had more information or could find more or we could certainly reach out to Chief Strahan about the potential but um I guess it's looming in the State Fire Marshall um Arena which is why they just wanted us to be aware with regards to this project so I'm I'm going to I'm not going to vote for the 415 I'd vote for three I would um make a motion cter motion to go for 315,000 if we need to come back for that I would certainly be in favor of it I just got a lot of news today that were all capital things that were going to be very expensive um as we're we're preparing to uh be moving City Hall so I I uh for short term I mean for short term because of uh line collapses and water and sewer so um so I would say 315,000 to and we would come back and certainly vote for that if we get more information about it but um i' look forward to hearing from you as well if you feel strongly or all of you feel strongly the other way I you know I'll go with whatever we decide can someone share a little bit more about the capital request process like if we put in 315k or it seems easier to put in for 415k and find out later we don't need the extra 100K and then just say oh we don't need that as much as we ask for how does that work mayor so um I will take that one because I I understand that many times you come through with an estimate of what you think it's going to be sometimes it's less and sometimes it's more generally people over you know they may overestimate a little bit but if there's a shortfall on whatever it is at the time we come back for another order for whatever it is I mean we did that this year already um something will be more than it is but the hard part is there's so many departments with capital needs that you're sitting and looking at at every Capital need like this this person will I think we have four or five trucks or cars and in DPW that are you know they're like 20 years old with 150,000 miles on it so you have to make a decision and although it might not sound like it that 100,000 would be something that you'd say well we're absolutely not going to do this this year because you you have so many asks so if we don't know right now that that law is not in effect I'd say well we do know it's going to be 315,000 that's where I am um certainly if when it goes out and it comes back and we have to do that you know um but I i' guess I'd like to take get a little bit more information on it then putting it up to 4:15 but it's so the will of the group other questions or comments or discussion about the motion member Martini I'd like to ask the mayor a clarifying question and I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse um say we request 315 and that is approved and then come July uh this new requirement comes out then Would we not need to go through the following year's Capital process in which case we would be looking at the next year like waiting an additional year in order to get that approval or no yeah member mayor Disorder so for example this year we paved the DPW Yard and um the cost of Paving went up so we had approved that project and then it ended up being more than it was so um we did the project in that year and then put in an order for additional funding and when you say an order for additional funding that means go you go to the city council for for that yeah it isn't that you make that project wait another year it that to answer um my fellow teammates uh question you you don't put the project off for a year but um we had two things that I can think of another thing that came through we were just an IT project that we waited six months and the bid was higher and you know had been approved by the capital committee and but the dollar figure was higher so we put an order through for more than it was so for example if we put that order through for 315,000 and we know six you you know you have it written that way and we know five or six months from now or whenever won't be five or six months it will probably be May that we would be voting on that and if we know that for sure then the order that we put forward would be for um a higher amount it's just that there are so many capital requests this year that that's just my thought on it thank you other discussion a question for the superintendent uh is this the type of um project that can be done in two pieces can we uh do the project that we were expecting to do and then should this voice uh requirement come through is this uh system in which that capability can be added at a later date easily or no um I don't know that answer 100% but from my discussions with our facilities director the wiring capability at the time has to be programmed for voice over so I don't think it can be done in two parts but I don't know that for certain um I certainly can get that information for you other questions or comments discussion I guess I wonder if they do change the law I imagine that there would be all over the state there would be a need to upgrade and whether the state would factor in at creating funds for Town buildings school buildings to they're just going to do it as an un Ed mandate you think well just a just a thought um yes member Childs so from this it's for new fire systems installed that means if we were to try to rush in under the wire and start the install and then this unfunded mandate came down then would it apply or not it seems like we just need more information on what EX exactly the rule would be when the rule would happen uh and then even the technical like would there be a way that we could have it installed with the voice add-on in the future as a possibility I have so many questions that I feel underinformative safety reason that it was it actually would might be in our interest to have the voiceover system this is my assumption I could be totally wrong um and so that's why I would support allocating us to go for that system now if we think that one it's coming down the pike anyway and two if it is actually the safer of the options available to us then we should do it that's my reasoning I am also wondering if we should postpone this discussion until next month so that we can get some of these questions answered do we have time for that if we delay that I would love to ask the mayor because I don't know the timelines on that because we do need to think about um fixing this ASAP yes that that's a it's certainly a priority to do it the capital committee will start meeting in January so a a dollar figure should be put in there um and but if Capital committee approves this for 315 and we find out by the time we're putting a financial order in which I would certainly prioritize this as something that is needed but if we know in a couple of months that the law is changing or it is necessary for us to do that um the financial order that will go in would be high than what the capital you know committee had approved that happens as well that happened with um we have a figure and something changes because of cost increase so a few months later is a few months later and you know more but you put the dollar figure that you know at the time what we know right now for sure is that it's going to be 3155 that's what I meant I'm all for safety as well but what we know now is this dollar figure I just was hearing the first time you know there may be there may be a law that is coming do you know what I'm saying member den oh I was gonna say the exact same thing that member seon said about potentially postponing it until we gather more information um if the if they're meeting in January and we're also meeting in January if our meeting happens before then we could Scuttle over some numbers in time might be worth postponing for a bit to gather inel our meeting is um January 10th um so uh I don't know when the capital committee's meeting how L how late in the game we can get things to you the other piece is that we may be looking at a special um school committee meeting an extra meeting getting scheduled before the end of this year so maybe we'd have more info by then but um I guess it to me it seems like we may we probably will not have the information about whether the system is actually required before January 8th so member Martini uh I have another question for the mayor can the capital committee not uh approve prove a smaller amount than was requested if the committee requests 415 they are given the context do they approve 315 for now they'll approve the dollar figure that you know it's put in front of them they'll do an up or down approval or disapproval of the of the whatever number is put forward that's a good that's a very valid point wait when you say it's a valid point we you you mean it was a good question but the answer is no it's either it's an up or down vote on whatever number we put forward okay see you not okay um let's see I guess we are we ready to vote could let's see what happens so uh just a reminder the motion was to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 150k to 450 15K uh well the mayor the mayor advocated for 315k I haven't heard the um a request for a friendly Amendment or an acceptance of a friendly Amendment so the original motion was 415 that's what's on the table now I moveed to make a friendly Amendment for it to be 315,000 member Martini do you accept the friendly amendment I would like to hear the views of other members as to whether they would want that Amendment okay discussion number good one the word obsolete fire panel I think we get this in the pipeline at 3:15 knowing that this is a priority because it's a safety issue and knowing that it's children and a safety issue knowing that the city council would bump it up if it comes in higher I think the sooner this is in the pipeline the better I think waiting for some law in this world is just every day is different but if it's on paper in front of people at 3:15 and it says obsolete fire panel I think it'll get get done that's my gut I just want to say I appreciate member Goodwin's point and that is why I would like to uh vote on one of these two amounts tonight and not put it off to our next meeting okay uh anyone else want to speak to the uh request to member Martini to for the friendly amendment to reduce the motion from 4:15 to 3:15 M child I have a question for the mayor so what is the Practical impact of asking for the 415 but then only needing 315 versus asking for the 315 and then having the money later added on if needed is it something that's better for the town on paper or something that is more projects that you know that you could fund this year and certainly I I saw this one for the school it's a priority that it's just math you have to add all of the things that everybody has requested I'm already looking at the list and this far far the requests outnumber the funds that we have um I there's no question in my heart that the safety ones come first so I would as long as capital committee approves it I would put that order forward but you have just so much to spend and I'm starting to look at them now and thinking there's more than we have the expenditure for on paper right now so if we do the 315 and then that extra 100,000 we're not asking then but we later need would that have already been allocated somewhere else how do we make sure we could still get it if needed so so it actually generally works out we have one thing that's coming up tonight a big um I mean one thing that's coming up very shortly and you you cannot purchase something unless you have allocated the the funding for it and um but you don't pay for that until it's received so it's really so I I know of one big thing that we probably will be approving and we won't be expending that funds but I do have to do the math and it has to add up and but it's really the number of projects that you can approve that's really what it is and I just know the number of requests can I yes M Martini I'm sorry I need to ask another clarifying question I think correct me if I'm wrong I think what member child's was getting at is what's the likelihood um of the possibility that we request 315 we need 415 and then we're not able to get the additional 100,000 because we didn't request it up front I've heard the mayor say and to correct me if I'm wrong mayor but you're pretty optimistic that an order could be put forward to the city council and they would fund the extra 100K right it frequently happens that things cost more than you might think and it frequently happens that things are less this one I just I was just listening to you know how this was presented tonight and I thought well it it it sounded like what we really knew it was going to cost was so much so that would have been been the number I I would have put in that's all um but this just happened with an IT project it was six months later and a lot more you know I don't know 30 or $40,000 more you've already committed to do that so I don't see an issue with that I would just rather take the number that we knew what that we knew for sure that it's going to be this much the other one was a law that had not been written yet do you you know what I'm saying um and I know how long a law takes to write we've been you I think you probably do some of you do as well we were rating for a you know ched change and we you do your steps here and then you send it into the state and it was a year and a half later and so if people are talking about that it just we had a little bit more research to do even by May the time that we were putting orders in we we don't I we don't know factually anything about where that is um I wouldn't put an order through five months from now for a dollar figure that was inaccurate either if the law had changed it's frequently something gets through one committee and the numbers are a little different for one reason or another thank you any other discussion oh I'll share my view um I while I respect it probably the um voice is a uh optimal way of alerting people of a danger I just have a hard time imagining a situation where all the alarms are going off and someone is somehow threatened because we didn't spend 100K on a on a voice alert system and since as the mayor said the law hasn't come down yet to say that we are required to do this I don't I I guess I do feel better putting it forward as 315k because that's what we actually need today so in your deliberation member Martini about whether to accept the friendly Amendment that's my thank you I just wanted to hear other people's views um I will accept the mayor's friendly Amendment so the motion is now to uh change sorry let me do this again to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from 150,000 to $315,000 second wait uh there was already a second to that motion so whoever seconded it needs to accept the except okay member ston accepts the friendly Amendment as well as the second is there any other discussion before we vote okay all in favor say I I all opposed all extensions motion carries unanimously thank you everybody it's now 810 you are entitled to a f minute break during which I suppose stickers could be administered [Music] he [Music] all right we resume our meeting we are up to the consent agenda which now has one item on it approv minutes of full committee meeting November 13 2024 is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second second discussion all in favor I I any opposed extensions motion carries unanimously uh report of the chair I have no report budget and finance submitt committee okay so uh we met recently and discussed two things uh we uh had a discussion in regards to the process of approving warrants which was sent off to budget and finance uh to discuss and uh make a recommendation about and uh we did discuss uh the fact that we have a policy about this and uh we're not certain that this ought not to be in the policy subcommittee and not budget and finance uh however we went ahead and discussed it anyway and uh arrived at a consensus suggestion for our warrant process uh because in the past we required a quorum of the committee to approve warrants and that process was frequently cumbersome uh and resulted in last minute approvals that were stressful for the uh administrators responsible uh being the reason that we went to one member signing uh we did not feel that going back to a uh Quorum signature requirement would be advisable however we do want of course uh members to feel like they are able to ask uh any question that they would like to ask about warrants and to be able to bring a question uh if they're not able to get an answer that's satisfactory to them to the committee so uh the suggested process um that we would like to put forward is that uh members ask their questions related to the warrant at least a week ahead of time before school committee meetings the superintendent will uh take every effort to answer those questions and if a member has a remaining question that either wasn't answered or there was not an answer that was satisfactory to them to please bring that question to the attention of the chair for uh the agenda at the following meeting uh am I saying that correctly okay M child's I feel like I'm forgetting something uh closest thing to forgetting it's not so much forgetting as a clarification uh this is bringing the warrant for discussion not saying that we're not signing the warrant or not paying our bill it it's more of so the questions might be asked after the warrant is signed if needed correct so this would make no change to the uh process of signing and approving the warrants but would provide more codification to uh the asking of of questions and the uh getting answers to questions that's the other thing I forgot uh we also wanted to suggest that the uh chair put uh warrant as a standing placeholder in your uh meeting planning template so that should a member have a uh unanswered or in their view unsatisfactorily answered question ahead of a meeting that you already have it in your uh in your planning template for meetings and it does not get lost yeah we can definitely do that we can't I mean with the recent kind of changes to what the town city clerk's office will approve or not approve in terms of our agendas we can't just like well somehow this got on there the report of the chair but in general they're wanting more detail from us about like what exactly we're discussing so if there aren't any questions or comments it won't appear on your agenda but it will be on our template to jog our memory to add things if they come up with the process that you described yes that's exactly the intention um there my understanding is that the uh advice that has been um coming out over the past few years in regards to open meeting law is that agendas do need to be quite specific uh and so we shouldn't have a kind of bland agenda item that's on there every time but if it's in the planning template and there is a a question uh then you already have a spot in there to plug that specific question in for the agenda great thank you um the one thing though that does need to change about our current process is we um need to have a particular person or a particular role who is designated so that was kind of not done exactly correctly when we um we were following the guidance that was given to us but we've s learned that we really need to have a designated person or role for example the chair or the chair of the budget subcommittee or someone some specific person who will be doing the approval on behalf of the school committee um so the motion I would like to hear then if we wanted to kind of follow the um the recommendation of the budget subcommittee is um a motion to designate um you could name a person or name a role to approve warrants mayor disor can I ask a question about that be before sure so I actually haven't been to one of these yet I haven't been to one of your um the budget subcommittees um and I I get those on email you know I get like I'm sure all of you do you get all of the on email so do you go over them in the meetings um I know I'm supposed to ask the chair can I my question is do they go over those in meetings the warrants the warrants are not no the warrants are not gone over and so we have meetings we have warrants every two weeks we don't have any committee or um subcommittee that is designated to meet every two weeks to review the warrants together yeah please and I'm not suggesting that we did I just was thinking it took me a while as the mayor to figure out because they were it took me for a long time to go through the the warrants it took me forever because I was making sure on each one and this one you know there's there's things that I figured there's a lot of others who are looking at that so I took me a while before going through them like one at a time I feel like there's still some things that that I didn't know so I I assumed that I know that the superintendent's gone through it and the the business manager has gone through it but on ours on our end I don't know does anybody else do that any differently on any other um I guess I just was asking about the process and thinking about it you've been doing this for a long time some of us who haven't been doing this school for a long time there were a lot of things that popped up that I didn't know what they were for what that's wor yeah exactly and that's why I I found the superintendent and the business manager to be incredibly accessible for any questions that I've had but I think what the budget subcommittee has done is basically put forward a procedure so that if questions aren't addressed to memb satisfactions they can be addressed at the full committee level May member um mayor it sounded like you were um wanting to ask what other committees do how do other people do this and I did do a bunch of um research on that going into our recent um budget and finance meeting so um as you'll recall uh uh the Massachusetts Association of school committees now has a database of policy manuals and everybody who has updated their policy manuals gets to post it on there and it's searchable so that was a very useful function when um trying to find out how other committees um handle their warrant approval uh and it's really all over the board um so by far the most common um approach was a single member signing um I think it's sort of odd that the advice is that there needs to be one individual because that was definitely not the case in a lot of these other committees policies but uh in any case I um and bearing in mind there are many committees who are not on this database yet but uh of the ones that are um I counted 41 that had a policy um similar to ours and it's a one member signing policy um there were the next largest group was 20 who left their warrant signing process unclear in their policy manual believe it or not so we're apparently actually ahead on this um and then after that that um the next uh largest group there were uh like 11 that um have an either or policy where warrants are either approved by the school committee which and it doesn't say how or by a subcommittee of at least three of the members and I would add a couple of other committees on there that specifically have a warrant subcommittee that that's their job um there were just a handful that have a majority of their school committee required to sign warrants um one of them said it was a majority of the committee or the chair or the chair's designate um there was a similar handful um that was like f six that um approve their warrants at their meetings and those are committees that meet every every other we week basically um and so there's language in there that um if the committee is only meeting once that month then the budget and finance subcommittee is supposed to approve the warrants sounds complicated to me um then there are other committees that designate a certain person so I found one that designates the secretary there were five that designate the chair um and there were uh there was one that designates the chair of their budget and finance subcommittee uh a couple of school committees have their own Treasurer as an officer who who's job it is to approve warrants um there was one that had three members required to sign on a rotation and the budget and finance chair gets to pick who's on the rotation and has toy them um and I think I've covered all different like I said it's all over the board so oh there were a couple question it's the budget and finance subcommittee so we can do whatever we want basically there's not like yeah it was just leond our our repit mask who had kind of given me the impression that we were out of compliance by only having the one member rule but maybe we can check with our attorney if that's actually accurate you know I mean if there's one member who wants to like raise their hand right now and say I want this responsibility every other week then that's great but I just feel like that's not really fair so that's a lot of work so member Childs I would also be concerned about having only one person doing it because what happens if one week uh they're traveling and their laptop gets destroyed and then what happens right I I like fail safes right well if it it sounds like the recommendation was to kind of keep our our warrant signing process as is and why don't we do that until our attorney tells us we can't so does that sound good um I would be good with that I would like to know from folks um if they like the more codified approach to um questions and um how to put uh certain questions if necessary on the uh School committee's agenda and uh this is obviously something that would go into our school Committee Member handbook but um if members have other ideas then U please chime in yeah any so okay so we have two items basically the the warrant signing process and then this uh discussion of Warrant questions and problems so but can I can we resolve first the warrant signing thing so we're just on that is anybody object to us just leaving it the way it is until the attorneys tell us we can't okay great so now back to your proposal about the process anyone discussion about that member Goodwin I think my concern was that we weren't being allow I felt like we weren't being allowed to ask questions and that was concerning for me um because we chartering the course I mean they' made it really clear we all are responsible um when those things get signed not just one person every single one of us sitting here um so if we have a question about something we should get it answered I mean that's really the issue um and I like the fact that the idea of it being on that template so that if there is some question even if you've made phone calls and you're still not sure that you get to ask I think what I liked is we were all asking questions and we were learning from each other because as you asked questions about different line items I felt like we lost that uh in the process and I would like to see that back we need to be asking more questions I think M sorer I just want to say for myself I was new to this and I'm going to kind of look at the other new members when I first saw these warrants I had so many questions not not like doubting anything it there were so many things that were unfamiliar to me like on the warrant there would have been like 40 or 50 I know what it's like to be the mayor and I can only imagine what it's like to be the superintendant I wasn't calling with all of my questions because our superintendent had a school to run that I mean that really I didn't call with every question that I had because they were all things that were foreign to me the names of the schools and everything I mean maybe it's just me but um so am I the only person that felt like that there's a whole list of things and nobody else had any questions but I didn't want to you know burden anyone with all of the things that I ask and I don't feel like we actually discuss that part I don't I I always when I was on Council I always had aund questions but there's things on that and I thought who signs it have you I have not signed it have you signed it I mean can we ask can can May usually the person who signs I sign it of okay you you sign through everyone and yeah sign okay I have signed it you've signed it okay I've never signed it has can I can we ask could we ask chair is anybody else signed it on the other side of the room I don't want to we're not supposed to be talking back and forth no it's fine yeah I'll read them but I defer and let the more experienced knowledgeable people do the signing okay remember Den I think the reason that this is coming up is because [Music] when when we first got on the three of us like no there is no class on warrant sign like nobody comes to talk to you about this in fact I think it was like day two after getting my email Vera's thing pops up and it's like warrants and I'm like what what is that like and it kept popping up and she's like desperate to get a signature and I'm like I guess we're supposed to just do this like I don't even know what it is so we didn't have any training or discussion about it and I can tell you that the word warrants never came up in the first two years of school committee like no one it was never discussed in full committee ever one once ever about anything so just us talking about it is like a baby step experience so I feel like we kind of can do whatever works for us and probably should come up with something that we all like and that feels you know as good as it possibly can for all of our schedules and time and desires but that also leaves us the flexibility to ask the questions because real quickly I learned oh we're supposed to be talking about this but Avenue was closed until now so we should make our path is how I feel however we want it and make sure that new members that come on feel like they can ask the questions they need to ask and understand what it is because there's really no information for us about that and it's a big part of what we have to do and it's a lot of pages and like 90% of them are all pretty self-explanatory and fine so it's just we're talking about like tiny little things that we may have questions about so and I think our our just was not so much about whether people could ask questions I I don't know me unless there was a huge communication uh error I think I've told everybody as often as I could anytime you have a question about an invoice feel free to ask the superintendent or business manager like that is I I think I feel like that's been a pretty consistent message for me but I'm not sure given the conversation whether that really got through I will say the superintendent and business manager have endless question endless patience for questions from school committee members about warrants and invoices and don't feel like you're bothering them it is your job you have to understand what's going on in those in those warrants but I definitely concur with the idea that our Orient school committee orientation could use a lot of beefing up including the aspect of the kind of process for how to get questions answered about warrants and what are they and what is your role um and I really appreciate the kind of codifying of the the process you know that really starts with uh well maybe you can summarize again what the process was that you all came up with okay uh so the process is when members have questions about warrants please get them to the superintendent uh as quickly as possible but definitely at least a week before for the following school committee meeting if you want to potentially address it at that meeting the superintendent will take the next uh four days to do everything that she can to answer your questions if you have something that's left over it's not answered or the you weren't um satisfied with the answer that you got then um ask the chair to put your question on the school committee agenda uh three days before the meeting and the reason it's three days is so that we can meet the posting requirement for the meeting um and uh if you have a question that falls after that timeline still ask it it's just potentially going to go on the next school committee agenda because we need to be able to post things on time for our meetings so that people know what we're going to talk about yep and I would say if we can adjust the timeline just the Thursday before the meeting then the superintendent I meet on Friday morning and G to get all the agenda ducks in a row we're finding that trying to post on Monday is um not workable given the bounce backs we've been getting from the city clerk's office at times so all right any other discussion about warrants thank you and thank you very much for uh taking on that project in spite of thinking maybe it should have landed with my committee the policy committee I just have one other request oh yes please um I think this does um need to be sent to the handbook subcommittee so that a new section can be created okay so let's see a motion to take the recommendation of the to send the recommendation of the budget subcommittee about the approval of warrants and questions about warrants to the handbook subcommittee so moved motion from M Childs is there a second second second from Member suon discussion the handbook subcommittee will gladly add a section if you wish thank you member Den our living document will live on mayor dor I'm going to vote in favor of that but I want to thank member Martini for doing all that research and looking through all of those to give to this committee thank you yes thank you any other discussion all in favor say I I I opposed abstain motion carries unanimously member Farber I think I spoke kind of quickly did you get my motion okay great thank you we can now move on to policy and program oh sorry discussion that's right go ahead member margini sorry you can Piller me later we had one other um topic that we TR in budget and finance um which is the feedback that we received from our recent Outreach um and in the community about the development of the FY 26 budget so I wanted to share that feedback with you if I can find it here it is okay uh this is a summary of uh the information that was um or or suggestions wishes uh views that were offered to us um by attending uh pto's as well as the ghs school council and the cek and the lpac so uh boiled down into themes the number one across theboard uh thing that was brought up was the need to improve Staffing no surprises there uh we especially need to improve our staffing of substitute teachers and IAS as well as special education teachers uh and that's something we've touched on earlier this evening we uh last year did approve an increase in our sub rate but unfortunately we are still greatly struggling to attract adequate substitutes and that is impacting uh some of the other positions for which we already have staffing issues like IAS um if we have an IA who's being pulled um to substitute because we don't have a substitute then that individual is not able to provide what they are supposed to be providing in the classroom and I would like to um add that some of what our IAS are providing are things that our students with disabilities are legally entitled to receive so if they don't have their IIA they may not be receiving the accommodations um and services that they require in order to learn so it's a big issue uh and that was um certainly the thing that was spoken to the most and uh there is uh support in the community uh of course for maintaining small class sizes uh we have uh the second most uh frequent issue that was uh brought up was the need to support social emotional learning uh and uh the well-being of our students in that area so uh there is a lot of support for continued um seal for students and teachers uh and including things like anti-bullying program access to counseling ensuring cultural and linguistic capacity in counseling uh professional development for our IAS in this area and uh that aligns very much with what uh the superintendent shared at our last school committee meeting uh that was gleaned through listening sessions from last year uh and uh is definitely well understood to be a front burner issue um in the district there was also um happiness expressed with our high quality instructional materials and a desire to continue to support them as well as the need for a consistent K to5 science curriculum um and instructional resources a desire to bring foreign language instruction back to Greenfield Middle School and a desire for additional Arts and Music opportunities in the district such as bringing specials to a funding for Instrument Repair music non-performance electives and uh vertically aligned Arts extracurriculars so that we um have students building um skills in those areas from early on uh for later uh there is a across theboard desire to have more in school enrichment activities um as well as more field trips and those I would say constitute the um the big ones the ones that were brought up the most frequently uh there were additional things that were brought up less frequently but are still important um including Tech needs um such as uh the elevation platform to support our English language Learners as a wish uh the need for things like Prometheans and smartboards document cameras iPads and laptops there uh is interest in supporting our library liaries and making sure that they have uh more books and more Librarians when we're able to provide them a desire to support developing parents' capacity for understanding their rights in special education uh and desire to support lpac to elpac Intergroup activities um Transportation uh was brought up as a need for Co-Op Sports and extracurricular activities as well as specifically for the elpac uh in order to provide transportation for both intra and Intergroup activities and uh there is a wish for a volunteer coordinator or Community coordinator and community resource support for parents uh those are all the things that I think are pertinent to the operating budget there were also a number of um needs brought up that would be U perhaps more pertinent to to Capital sorry mayor uh there are a number of um issues that were brought up at Federal Street uh the elevator of chorus is top of everyone's mind and uh I would just reiterate what member Childs said earlier about that um also there were um issues uh with stair flooring and railings in need of repair the sidewalk in front of the accessible entrance in need of repair the brick wall on the playground and dooring window issues and there were some additional um problems like that at a such as gaps in the fence and the need for uh play structure and cafeteria tables that are actually sized for 3 to four yearolds oh and there may be an heat issue at Four Corners because we evidently have a staff person who's not able to turn the heat down in their classroom thank you for the Outreach and for the report would you take questions and comments from the committee anyone thank you you're welcome great great thank you very much to policy and program subcommittee so um these are what's in your agenda as first read um our process is basically to share it with you uh provide an opportunity for discussion and then at the next meeting to vote on on policies um so um any discussion of either policy jca dress code or policy kbg parent advisory councils okay we'll bring those back to you next month for the vote if you have any questions or comments that come to you in the meantime um you can let me know as chair of the policy committee um we can try to address them before the next meeting on to the community engagement subcommittee yeah uh we met three-ish weeks ago now um and two items that are before us we were brainstorming ways that we could make meetings even just slightly more accessible to families and parents in particular and one of the things that we discussed was actually moving our start time for these regular monthly committee meetings to 6:30 to give parents and families an opportunity and I would also add committee members an opportunity to have dinner um or do other activities but if they wanted to come here it is a struggle to do all the stuff they need to do by the time they're done with work and get here by six um additionally it would make us consistent with City Council meetings which I think is just a helpful so that's one less shift that you have to keep in your brain um when you're thinking about when you might want to participate in your Civic activities so that's something that we are making a recommendation um and would entertain a vote on if we wanted to do that um the other was more of a discussion about about Committee Member participation in school community activities and being a visible presence so that we can also be available when people have questions about policy or when they want to give us feedback about budgets um when it's even not budget season perhaps um and so the the and y'all y'all might not like this but we're going to say it anyway is to see if we can put some language in our policy manual thats us to show up to things on a regular basis and it's not just the community engagement subcommittee's responsibility to show up to stuff um and we're talking things like athletic games band stuff um other community events maybe the ComicCon you know and that we right like there's so much stuff that our that our kids are involved in and that our schools do that if we just one or two of us went and made our El available and made ourselves a visible presence we think that that would go a long way to saying we're wanting to be where you are and maybe that will encourage you to come to where we are next time when you have a question or a concern or want to talk to us um as a way of sort of building additional connection and Rapport so the the idea there and i' love to hear yall's thoughts on this would be to actually add language now keep in mind we did ask um this would not be legally binding or enforcable and we could not kick you off the committee for not doing it but it's more of a statement of this is an intention of how we would like to operate this is what we would like to hold ourselves to as Greenfield school committee members that we want to be engaged and active and visible members of this community and that this is sort of an expectation that people can have when they're running for the position Al of course like I said we can't enforce it but we can make it a norm thank you so I think I heard uh possibility of two motions in there the first would be a motion to change the school committee meeting start time to 6:30 pm.

[Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday December 11th um uh this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time seeing any um secretary Jive would you call the role sure all right um secretary Den I'm here Vice chair Martini here chair Johnson mad here mayor dorer okay member Goodwin here member seon here member Childs here all right we are all here and other than mayor dorer and we have a quorum great call the meeting to order at 6 PM um for public comment we'll start with people who are in the room um if there is any public comment okay is there anyone on Zoom who would like to make public comment not seeing any um we can move on to the report of student reps to the committee I do feel like this is record time like startup meeting to me doing this this feels weird um okay so without further Ado then um beginning with student council um the last month the student council partnered with the local Boy Scouts for their annual scouting for food initiative this year we more than doubled the amount of food collected in the prior year in total we collected 4 700 lbs of food which equates to just under 4,000 meals this filled 85 crates and seven bins and to put that into perspective last year we collected 2100 lbs of food so again more than doubled thank you to everybody who helped our community who generously donated we ended the month with our traditional Spirit Week events um it was great to see the staff and students who dressed up on each theme day they included Celebrity Day throwback Thursday country vers Country Club senior dress up everyone else dress in pajamas teachers dress as students and students dress as teachers and of course class last color day there was fierce competition during penny wars and all the money that we raised this year will be used to support the NHS adopted family Spirit Week ended with our Thanksgiving pep rally and the lip sync theme that we had for this year was decades this pep rally was full of surprises and helped the students create positive memories and Foster a sense of belonging the lip syncs sorry the lip sync results were fourth place for sophomores third place for ninth grade second place for the juniors and the seniors took first place this year looking ahead for the first time ever we are entire in sorry we are inviting the entire Community to help raise money and awareness about the power of inclusion with Special Olympics every year the student council participates in the Polar Plunge in March at the cape while we will still do this this year we are also inviting to um sorry we are also all inviting you to plunge in a mobile tank at ghs on Thursday January 30th it will be open to the community from 2:30 to 3:30 we will send out more info soon in the meantime start spreading the word forming teams and prepping costumes registration is now open members also helped out at jinglefest this past weekend and they dressed up in costumes and helped the GBA promote the events downtown um a little plug for project 351 and our ambassador um project 351 is a transformative leadership development program that cultivates a new generation of changemakers Civic leaders and social entrepreneurs by the effort and example 351 leaders forg strategies and solutions that build a more just inclusive and Equitable world we want to congratulate eth grader Janessa fent sorry Janessa Fuentes for being selected as the e8th grade um ghs project 351 Ambassador well done Janessa Key Club helped pass out gifts at the Salvation Army dinner and tomorrow they will be heading to AAL to reach out and teach Cooperative games to Children um fall sports are hot and he or sorry winter sports now are hot and heavy at the moment um get out and go support the Green Wave Nation you can go to arbiterlive.com to find schedules for your favorite teams and we're very proud of our many teams who headed into the postseason in this last fall Sports season and did a great what job to wrap up the fall season Spanish club had a fun time learning about and celebrating dios mortos this year with breakfast and face painting they also worked on a dance for the Thanksgiving pep rally but unfortunately there was too much planned and they had to put it on until the December pep rally which will be in just a couple weeks they're also preparing for an ice skating outing and a Spanish cooking night and they are hopeful about plans for their next trip to Spain for 2026 um for NHS earlier in November the NHS officers traveled to Holy Cross University to attend the Massachusetts NHS leadership ship conference our officers enjoyed workshops about leadership student mental health environmental projects and much more they came back with ideas to share with our members to enhance our program and better leaders NHS has been busy preparing for our adopt a family project we sold wreaths and holiday dip mixes to raise money for this project um sorry we are currently bringing in food donations and using the funds raised to buy gifts for these families in need the culmination of the project comes at the end of the first day or sorry comes at the end of December when we go to the church to help with the heavy lifting needed for this endeavor um on the first day people have adopted families bring in their donations and we will help carry organize and keep track of donations we will also distribute food donations and organize the free clothing store on Friday the adopted families will help come to the church to get their holiday presents and food on this day we will help carry everything out and help with cleaning up this is an amazing opportunity to be a part of a great organization that helps others and this will be the 15th year that the NHS has participated in this event um in terms of drama club the cast is set for the somewhat true tale of Robin Hood and the first table read will happen or did happen on December 3rd with the entirety of the cast they are excited about the talent and potential of this production rehearsals will be happening multiple afternoons a week leading up to Tech week and performance in the first weekend of April if you have any questions at all please contact Madame Hartman Miss Poe or Miss LAX um in the library this month on Green Wave reads they spoke with Kenneth an eighth grader and member of the student council and Library Club Kenneth is currently reading blooming to you volumes 1 through three um quote this series follows two female high school students Yuko and tuo nanami which I probably mispronounced in my apologies and the relationship that Den that develops between them as they learn more about themselves through their experiences together Kenneth explains that this series pertains to his interests as it is a manga his favorite genre book he especially enjoys the manga insomniacs after school he says I can relate to it um the kids have insomnia and I can barely sleep on my own Kenneth discovered reading when his friend uh recommended graphic novels because he noticed Kenneth enjoyed picture books he picked up his first manga in Middle School reading books like delicious and dungeon he likes to call these silly books goofy manga while Kenneth loves words and pictures on paper he can appreciate a good manga to movie his favorite movie adaptation is Comey can't communicate it's kind of like the first day of school everything is new and it becomes difficult to communicate the character struggle to communicate lastly Kenneth told us that he enjoys reading in the ghs library's long Booth chairs however if he isn't in school he reads during the night time with the comfort of the dark Kenneth hopes to continue to read great manga and someday read the whole series of insomniacs after school uh wishing congratulations to the ghs band for their wonderful evening of entertainment at the Winter concert on Thursday December 5th and concluding with the students of color club uh the students are currently presenting their lesson plan in December to eth graders during their advisories on how to effectively address slurs or racialized language in school they will continue this important work through January with e8th graders and move on to the Middle School in February if you are interested in joining this club students can contact either Devon Brown or Nate Woodard or Miss poy and Miss Paige that concludes what I've written here but I can gladly answer any questions you may have any questions thank you so much all right thank you have a nice day I had uh someone joined on Zoom who would like to make public comment so we'll go back to public comment you have h two minutes Doug two minutes goie um so Doug selwin Greenfield um good evening to all um given that ballot question two has passed um that means that high stakes testing will not be um happening in the state so I have three requests related to that related to The District number one is to carefully monitor what's happening at Desy and the legislature because they're already trying to figure out how to get around the will of the people so I hope that the school committee and administration will be hooking up with other districts and um and those interested to make sure that the the will of the people is not endured secondly I hope that there is as the district thinks about what are we going to do um that they don't that you don't that we don't turn to another one-size fits all assessment approach which could include simply Mass Corp but instead to take this as an opportunity to think carefully about what we really want for our students and what kind of assessment setup we want to um develop that will really support our kids to be the sort of creative and caring and critical and um growing adults that we hope they will become so it's um ballad question question two being passed is just step one and now what do we want it's an opportunity that I hope we take full advantage up so that's it have good holidays all and thanks for your work thank you Doug um before we move on to um the reports of the administration um I'd like to uh take a motion sure why that's happening um a motion to move the um consent agenda Item B vote to approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 to next on the agenda and remove it from the consent agenda so moved second all in favor I I I any opposed any extensions the motion carries let's move on to that Tara okay thank you now I hear myself um hi I am Tera cluder I am here to talk to you about my hope for my next trip to Spain with students in 2026 um this should be my 13th trip in in 24 years to Spain um I've taken three to Puerto Rico with groups almost all from Greenfield High School one from Smith Academy a really long time ago um I just want to start by saying I appreciate being here myself that hasn't been the plan for the last few years and so um thank you for having me um you should have the information I believe from passports um we're looking to start early this year to save money for our students and hopefully have more time for fundraising to include more students um one thing that was awesome in the trip that I took last year is that the GFA um funded a scholarship for the first time and it seems like that might be the way that's happening to keep including more children um in this exciting opportunity and um you have the information I don't know how much you want me to to talk about um or do you have any questions for me any questions for Tara thanks for taking the initiative and for doing it all these years as we could hear a motion to vote to approve the I move that we approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 there you go is presented seconded and any other discussion all right all in favor say I I I I any opposed any abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you muchim gracias all right thank you okay we're back to the order um so it let's see if Andy is here we might have to change the order a little bit Andy's not here he's running a little bit late he had a family conflict so we'll um move on to the presentation from the um where's the director of people Services Dave messing update thank you Dave good evening folks good evening welcome just to make sure I can share this for the folks tuning in great all right so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here um again I think there's a lot of interesting conversations related to what's going on in people's services and certainly as it relates to what's going on rest of the district in terms of effective use of our time tonight I thought a way to start would be just some Department vitals uh and really set the stage for some conversations both this evening and then into the future uh I think a couple of things that are uh likely of interest to both this body and Folks At Large and are certainly directly relevant to our decision- making and our planning in terms of the lived experience in schools uh has to do with both enrollment numbers what that means for Trends over years past and then where that brings us you know at this point this year and at this point of the year uh but then getting into some of the work in terms of how students with disabilities are currently placed specifically that has to do with how much of their day is spent within um the general environment which is generally thought of as the least restrictive placement and some of the work around that that's being done uh on the other end of that it's the trends in terms of the number of students that are supported out of District placements uh which is to say students for whom our Continuum of services isn't necessarily um have having the capacity to meet needs uh which is not unexpected and also less we forget you know the breadth of some of the work that the people Services office does you know touching base on where things stand for English language learning you know a multilingual program as well as uh some other selected populations specifically you know homeless or underhouse students uh as well as some the related impact so in terms of that uh and all of these are a SN shot I think it's instructive to think about prevalence of disability U specifically there's a lot of things that that can help us tap into specifically what is happening in terms of both uh enrollment in terms of either prevalence of specific types of disability are there practices related to our identification either over or under identification of students with particular profiles and more to the point what does that mean for the impact on students learning so it's not just about students that are presenting with one or more qualifying disabilities it's about the degree to which those disabilities are educationally significant and what I mean by that is uh one of the things that we can dig down deep enough to and have some Nuance conversation about is the way in which our current instructional program and some of the related supports are more effective or less effective at supporting students with particular learning differences sorry to interrupt Mr messing I wonder are you muted on your computer indeed oh you are okay both the microphone but also the output okay great thank what I can do I mean is there another is this the sole source of input or is it picking up on all these as well any good so does that I'm just thinking about where that Echo is coming from how's that well all right sorry about that so in terms of to get to the point you know when we talk about rates it's not just about number of students enrolling although it is important for us to know so when we think about the 328 folks we're starting it close to the number of total I APS that were in District back in like fy21 right so the 2021 school year uh what isimportant to knowe there is overall enrollment was much higher at that time right so you know we think a lot of reasons for that and certainly the comparison that we want to make even as we're careful about that comparison is Again State average and what I mean by that is is any discussion about overidentification of students or something related to the work we're doing in Greenfield Public Schools or the demographics of our students and their needs in terms of being identified for special education as compared to State average we also need to be thoughtful about that state average is a little bit of an arbitrary number right um because across the state there's some contextual differences that are very very different so for our purpose here in town the fact that we are slightly above State average should be of no to us and should be a sort of cause for us to be U thinking about why that could be and in what ways the work that's being done you know not only in terms of last year and up until this point but this year and into the future is helping to address that right um because there's a variety of factors that go into disability identification and that prevalence and it's not to say that just because we are above State average that there's nothing wrong but it should be an indicator that we're keeping tabs of and having conversations about if that's fair um so certainly those trend lines are important um both in the global piece but then also as they relate you know to particular clusters of students where those students are grade level bands and that sort well beyond tonight's conversation but something that I'd like this may be thinking about especially as we talk about the work right and how it informs the instructional program especially with the alignment between the work that's being done in our instructional programs from the district perspective um that you know has been underway in the last couple years and how that's directly tied um to the work of the special education certainly as well as some of our other um diverse groups of subgroups of Learners similarly when we think about the uptick in Section 504 uh the reason this isn't compared to other parts of the state in the way that you'll see our special ed numbers are as we don't have you know as straightforward access to those but again we see this slow low rise in percentage right and why is that right we would expect for a variety of reasons there might be better identification of disability there might be uh more streamlined identification which is to say you know is it that we're over identifying folks or is it that students who may for one or another reason not have been identified appropriately previously are now being uh identified what the take-home messages at the end of the day for our purposes tonight is there's an increasing number of students for whom their presentation in the school environment is slightly different in some way and requires consideration that becomes really important for us when we talk about ensuring that more and more of our classrooms are able to support a wider uh group of Learners right because if the more of our environments that are supporting more students you know uh a rising tide raises All Ships if you will so for me these are the types of uh comparisons that I find super instructive and one of the things that the department of Ed has done at the state level to support districts is help make it easier to draw some comparisons uh again we always have to be cautious about any comparisons we make the each district is very different um all of our buildings in this District are different so I want to be careful about uh drawing more generalizations with affl just because they happen to be out our way as well uh and certainly as we get to other parts of the state what we do care about is size right because some of the the groupings are similar some of the scale is similar some of the systems and structures look either similar enough for us to draw some in some lessons or make some decisions the reason I thought this was really instructive is it's helpful to see that we are not all that far out of whack in terms of our disability prevalence rate in terms of end of last year you'll see so unlike the numbers I just shared with you that are as of October of this year this is essentially last year because we have reports from uh all of these other comparison districts so we are over State average so keep in mind State average for this year essentially last year the 2023 2024 school year was about 20% Statewide just over and uh currently we're at 23% some of the other districts in our comparison districts you know are as high as 25% to give you a sense so uh we're not all that far out of line with districts of a similar size some of whom are in our area you know navigating a lot of the same challenges both as the organization but also uh supporting some of the same type of student demographics that we are um and again this is helpful because it helps us have conversations around comparisons in one way or another U to some of these other districts as we are thinking about how we're doing in our class um similarly another thing that's helpful to think about is how it breaks down so we look at of all the students in uh Greenfield that are identified uh for special education what what is the what we think of as the primary disability category uh this is something that's increasingly going to go away with the new IP format that was rolled out this year um a lot of times we're sitting around a table with students who may be navigating multiple disabilities and there's some conversation about which is the primary right which uh is having the most impact uh at present there is a current one single primary disability identified as well as you know sometimes secondary and tertiary disability so when we look these numbers start to speak for themselves uh and like all the data points in tonight's conversation these snapshots it's helpful only in that it gives us an opportunity to have some real interesting conversations about it right specifically autism right there's this by far um we see you know we're going to see high communication uh impairments because the number of young children coming in who receiving speech either through EI or not those are going to tend to fade the longer kids are in school uh and get speech and language therapy especially with the speech and language therapy that we're fortunate to have in District but when we talk about the autism numbers we say why is that okay and of course be much beyond the scope of tonight's conversation but something to be thoughtful about is how is it that this number of students is being identified with Spectrum disorders and more to the point is there something that even for students who may have an identified autism spectrum disorder that we are doing or not doing or could do more of or adjust in a certain way to render the impact of that Spectrum Disorder for for that individual less educationally significant which is to say ensure they're still making educational progress they're still making gains having a productive experience in our schools every day so that's the type of thing that I hope we're thinking about when we're talking about this group decision- making when we're getting into budget planning we think budget priorities when we think about the connection between and integration of the work that's being done in the instructional program as a whole and then the particular ways in which some of our students are impacted to a greater or lesser degree that's the type of thing that I hope people are thinking about when they're looking at these numbers uh the tragic piece about the number of emotional impairments here you know we talk about some of the students that come to us um for different reasons who may be you know in different places uh and certainly when we think about the number of students that enroll in Greenfield uh whether it be for the Emergency residents in town or some of the other things um and what you'll see is there's a pretty even spread throughout the rest so of all the 13 disability categories there's a pretty even spread most of them I referenced the high number of communication impairments that we see especially with young children uh developmental delay some of you may know uh is up until eight you know uh for students for whom there isn't another identified disability so when we look at this and again I hope that this isn't the end of this conversation I hope this is the beginning uh and certainly creates opportunities for us to talk about how we can make decisions and support the work um to impact students in a positive way I hope that folks are thinking about this and and trying to ask some question about what does that mean for us um even though the the some of the factors may impact kids similarly and some may be a little bit different uh I imagine you know my time's running short I going to take up all the air in the room about one of the things that I want to drive home is how students in our district are supported across the spectrum of what we call least restrictive environment uh and the way you'll see these numbers when we talk about full inclusion that's a student who is in the general Leed classroom about 80% of the day or more right um there are students that might come out for speech as we've identified or physical therapy occupational therapy uh or specialized instruction from a special educator for example or a counselor um for students for whom that is a small part of their day we consider them full inclusion their day is not considered to be meaningfully uh impacted by the amount of services they're receiving when we start talking about students that are out of the general classroom more than 21% specifically that's 21 to 60% uh and you can do the math you know in a what six six and a half hour day the number of minutes that that uh represents but for students that's more than a fifth of their day right so now we're talking about an hour plus so maybe they're getting reading and writing maybe they're getting reading writing and math maybe they're getting uh Speech OT PT and counseling right now those numbers start to add up those students are going to be identified in our partial inclusion and why is that important for us why should that be something that you folks should care about the stakeholders watching should care about because it tells us a couple of things one some subset of those students absolutely need that level of support right so the increased time out of the general education environment to some degree should be thought of as increased intensity of service right the anytime we're not providing a service in the general classroom there should be a good reason for it right so that these supports can't be satisfactory provided in the general setting uh or would be inappropriate to do so right in the case of a speech session in some cases or a conf iial counseling session of course but then also we should be thinking about are there some of these students that the services could with a little bit of lead time some thoughtfulness and you know configuration as the work continues over this year and into the future we can increase the amount of these services that are provided effectively in the General Ed setting uh that becomes most strikingly clear when we're talking about the number of our students that are currently supported the bulk of their day in substantially separate settings and what I mean by that is you know these students that are considered uh substantially separately placed are out of the general environment 60% of the a day or more um and in a lot of cases that's absolutely appropriate right these might be students that are receiving discret trial training for a majority of their day they might be students for whom a large group even of 12 or 15 kids is wildly over stimula right uh the uh expectations in an environment of that sort render it uh really in compatible with learning or being available for learning so we don't want to be worried or concerned about students receiving that intensity of support and we want to celebrate the students that we're able to support effectively in our community schools there is a direct connection between the number of students that we are supporting in our substantially separate programs and students who would otherwise have to be supported out of District which in and of itself is further away from what we're trying to do at the same time we need to be very sober about our approach to making sure that we're not just shifting students from these more intensive settings into the General Ed setting for the sake of doing so right for example um the audit of our programs which you know has since been called tiered Focus monitoring and it's now continued you know monitoring Improvement identified that 20% of our students with disabilities are supported in substantially separate programs as compared to the state average of something like 133% so even as we are skeptical of State averages right because they don't do a great job Mark Twain said there are lies there are damn lies and there are statistics right so we want to be very skeptical about those averages and what they mean at the same time we want to understand that those differences mean something we are supporting more kids in more restrictive environments than we probably should that's the type of thing we could say when compared to State average as a result of that the work that we're doing is to increase our ability to support kids effectively in less restrictive environments and that becomes really important when we're talking about budget conversations when we're talking about instructional planning conversations when we're talking about policy conversations because it isn't just about moving a student into a gened classroom it's about what is happening in that General classroom what supports are available what does the experience look like as we roll out high quality instructional curriculum and materials as we spend a lot of time focusing on like high leverage practices that support all students and then we talk about about the ways we keep tabs on kids over time the way we identify things early we talk about implementing some of the the recent learning over the last several years in Reading instruction at the early levels those types of things are very important for us because then we're able to get out ahead of it and make sure that we have the infrastructure and by that I mean the decision-making capacity the identification and the tools to put interventions in place in a timely way so that students can have experiences that are productive and positive even if they may be navigating some uh disability challenges for example or in the case of multilingual Learners uh cultural or linguistic challenges that with some configuration hard work and and getting some traction we can minimize the negative impact on their progress and that really is the most important thing in our work when we talk about special education we talk about English as a second language instruction in working to Ure that students don't need those Services by the time they're graduating um so I had some concern about including the early uh education programming numbers here because it's nuanced I know that I'm short for time um and I'm not great at being brief so thinking about it is absolutely critical to ensure that students at this age some of whom have never set foot in a uh group structured educational setting before have access to their peers right it is super important that we are able to provide students exposure at this age you're talking about kids that are coming to us at 3 um some of whom we might have the benefit of having for a couple of years in our preschool access to age level peers and yet in some cases whether there disabil in some cases whether it's disability related or not we have students that are in those settings that need tremendous support so I'm skep you know I was skeptical of of sharing these numbers because of how they might be interpreted without the ability to talk uh about them but one of things that we need to ensure that we do is still have opportunities to support students in uh highly intensive settings in our preschool while also ensuring that everything we're doing is intended to support all kids in an integrated fashion um and that's a really interesting conversation for us to have certainly at a at another time similar in philosophy uh to our K through 12 programming but in some ways uh unique because of that age level uh and and students coming to us turning three uh this is what I was getting at before so I won't dwell on it it really has to do with a couple of the areas in our current um progress reporting to the state right so of all of the ways the state uh looks at our work as a district there are several special ed Criterion the two that are related one is they just call it right out least restricted environment how many of your students are you educating in the general environment um the that is the most basic version of of that conversation and again I hope that folks will will understand there's a direct connection between our ability to support the average General educator uh in being able to create and maintain uh a classroom environment at any grade level that can meet the needs of a diverse group of Learners you know it's a reasonable to say that these classrooms are are more diverse in their needs than ever before uh and we know more about how to teach at a high level in some of these high level practices that are happening so similarly when we talk about 34 this cont of services it's just what is the array of services offered by the district whether that be related Services you know teachers are visually impaired you know teachers of the deaf or counselors or speech pathologists for example or when we're think about special Educators the different types of specialized instruction that they provide so um continuing to both you know ensure that those are codified effectively that everybody's clear and that we have consensus that there's both a vertical so K you know prek through 12 but also horizontal alignment right as we look at redistricting ensuring that each student in a third grade classroom has a similar experience and similar access to the same types of supports that's you know really critical as we move forward um and I touched on before you know but again a message that I hope to leave you with is the need to and the impact of educating uh diverse groups of Learners whether it be neurodiversity uh or cultural and linguistic diversity in General Ed settings and being thoughtful about that and always holding that lens up to our decision-making process um and how we're doing our work one of the flip side of that and I expect I'm um running over time now so I'll be brief but the number of out of District program placements we have uh again it's going to always be part of our Continuum certainly the 18 through 22 um populations these are students that may be in uh a variety of settings there is a direct connection between our ability to support students our continu of services that I just talked about in District and how many students need to be supported in uh out of District placements that ranges from students with particular types of learning needs whether that be for example uh Clark's preschool um that supports students are heart of hearing that was in Northampton up until recently or other schools serving students who heart of hearing for example like lyly Ross or you talk about particular programs that support different cohorts there are schools that specialize in providing High quality of care to students with intense um are intensely impacted by Spectrum disorders or have significant reading disorders that require you know really intensive and coherent and cohesive instruction throughout their day each of those has its place and is important and we will never no the public school district will ever be able to do all of it in the same way but we should be able to ensure that we are providing a high level care and instructional responses to students with those profiles so that we can especially it's the the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure situation that we can identify and address it early independent of those areas so that students gaps and needs uh aren't rising to a level where they can't be supported effectively in our district uh and that's both important because we want to support our kids in their Community Schools in that least restrictive environment but also it has some some very real uh budget implications for this body that I think are are critical so it very is very important for us to think about the direct connection between how we're standing up our organization and putting our folks in a position to to provide high quality work to to folks in the way that we are now and these out of District placements um as well as there are some things just a a function of special ed law some of these numbers are kids that we never see or have opportunity to make decisions about right it's literally just if folks lived in Green Field right when they went into their uh went into foster care their rights as parents were terminated and they're there right so so always we always want to look at these with uh with some skepticism and identify how we got there uh the last piece I just don't want to lose sight you know we also look at the in people Services we also support the English as a second language program for multilingual Learners that's of note because the last couple of years are the numbers of students whose non-native English speakers whose language the home is not English has increased dramatically you know think about a couple years ago we were you know hovering about 60 high 60 year over year and then it jumped 80 you know last year jumped as high as 123 at one point now we're hovering about 100 right a reasonable person would expect going to be there uh for the foreseeable future and that has real ramifications both in terms of the the compliance side and the need to to ensure our program is sound in that way but also because of the very real scale of uh these services so for example the as the number of students across our buildings increases and the diversity of their level of English language proficiency increases you know the ability to group them thoughtfully in instructional ways that are both age and skill appropriate becomes uh different so we want to be thoughtful of that I don't want folks to lose sight of the significant number of the high school right which is why we added the position this year and again a reasonable person you know would expect we would need another position for next year to support this you know we get into those conversations in the months to come the district is doing some really exciting work work in terms of curriculum for ESL um as part of our work with the state uh very similar to the the work that's being done for high quality instructional materials you know in other uh areas what a lot of people don't think about is that uh English language is a core a core content area it's just that some students are doing math you know are doing four core area subjects for students who are um English language Learners they're doing five and I think the more we're able to help people understand that it helps understand and you know certainly some of the conversations I'll be having as we get into the year um and then again certainly uh reasonable person would take a look and identify the increase in number of students who are identified as homeless or underhouse is in direct uh correlation to the opening of a emergency shelter expansion site recently uh and again we expect that that will begin to level off as the numbers you know over the days in begin to shift uh and roll out in the you know the next year 18 months um but again all that being said each of these populations each of these subgroups experiences our district and their school buildings in slightly different ways and has needs that are both you know consistent with the needs of other learners but additional challenges that may not be a top of- mind for folks so I'm so grateful for the chance to to share with you tonight and I look forward to you know additional opportunities to have conversation because each of these can be thought of as a different facet right of of the gem that is our school dist District or a different lens to apply say how is one group or another advantaged or disadvantaged by the decisions we make um and I'm just super excited for the work that's happened last year into this year and uh and for what's going on um one of the things I really hope to get some visibility with is our two parent advisory councils uh we've had some traction recently getting uh additional core uh participants in our special ed parents advisory Council uh as well as continuing to ramp up our work with our English uh Learners parents advisory Council and both of those um are coming up we've got a meeting next week um so there's a a couple of things we can do certainly we can go to our website and folks can access that uh and we look to increase uh visibility of some of that to reach folks that might not be looking you know different places or might not catch it in some of our current communication threads um but there's a lot of exciting stuff going on and certainly the more folks can engage in those conversations um you know I think the the more robust it is so the both of these parent advisory councils are really important ways for folks to be involved um as well as just exciting and really just interesting conversation so I would urge uh anybody even if they're unsure you know or think that they might not necessarily be able to participate I think you uh be surprised you know everybody's perspective is is not only welcome but but necessary so with that very interest thank you yeah any questions for Mr messing oh yes M so we get to see your bills so some of my questions are directly related to that and one of them is I was very excited when we got a school psychologist I mean that was like a big thing to celebrate but we're still pay for other outside Consultants to do special Edie BS the numbers seem kind of high to me do you need another school psychologist absolutely yeah yeah so at present you know with the numbers that we're looking at we would always expect to have probably two and a half or two and three4 case load in terms of if our school sites were doing nothing but testing uh at present we our school psyches do mostly just the psych testing which is to say cognitive testing and behavior rating scales and our special educators are doing at present the majority of academ educational diagnostic or academic achievement testing if you will uh at present we have one of the two budgeted School psych positions we have one full-time psych we're fortunate to have an intern uh whose workload is is capped at about a third or a half three4 of what we'd hope a full-time psych would be able to do so if a reasonable person would hope to get somewhere north of 70 you know evaluations depending uh not all evaluations are the same U but I would expect in District of our size with the numbers of initials and reeval that we've saw um we've taken some steps to you know to ensure we're uh not getting to a point of frivolous aows so addressing at the front end but certainly So currently last year for example we utilized the better part of half a dozen different cont contracted School SES which was helpful in terms of being able to get out of a significant hole in terms of you know I came on board in July of last year we had a backlog that was over two years old I wouldn't I literally wouldn't have believed you had I not walked into it I spent half of my career you know in this work I wouldn't believe what we walked into last year with a regard to the backlog of evaluations we're fortunate we just last week actually got caught up at the high school level uh in terms of being on Target and we are on Pace to be complet Cent you know for the end of this year right which is super exciting so when we're talking about standing capacity or expectation for School site specifically psychological evaluations absolutely I would say a district of our size we would expect two and a half two and three4 full-time equivalent so when we're thinking about where we stand now we have a full-time site who's great came through us an internship last year staying on board is is phenomenal we're fortunate to have an intern again doing some of that work and then what you see is effectively a full another full-time effectively contracted site and then we see some ancillary things whether they be bilingual all that um the last thing I would say on that is we've really leaned into technology being in Northern Franklin County we're always going to be up against it we are not the only ones that are short on school SES uh but we've really leaned into technology I was skeptical because of the pandemic uh what I had thought of at that point was people trying to do evaluations in remote way because of some of the other issues of the pandemic at the time we have leaned into uh an interaction with Lily Pad learning actually a startup um you know out the eastern part of the state that's partnered with a lot of districts and without a doubt not only are they doing high quality work and able to support folks in a timely way with high quality valuations uh and support teams in effective decision making for students but we wouldn't be able to come compliant uh and be meeting our regulatory obligations to either students families you uh or the state without it so in short yeah I I would certainly love another school psych I have no illusions that we can reasonably expect to keep on staff more than two in District you know salar school cyes so I would always you know best case scenario if we were able to have two uh full-time school pyes and you know nearly 2third of the equivalent I think that would allow us to be where we need to be um especially because the only other way to do a part-time would be if you had a retired you know somebody was retired and wanted to work the equivalent of you know two-thirds time there questions oh remember a good one so one of the things Greenfield Public Schools is worried about is attendance and one of the things I would love to see data on is the attendance in our special ed population because one of the things that in the past was never discussed at Team meetings attendance was never brought up so School psychologists when they did vows weren't talking about attendance it's really hard to learn if you're not there so looking at the attendance for these children who have five or six service providers who are pulling out their hair because the child's not there um that's something that I would love to see that data because when we talk about the fact that we're above State average how many of the children who are in that category are just not coming to school is one of my concerns other questions member Martini uh I wondered if you could briefly explain for folks what is the district's obligation when it comes to evaluation they are timelines that need to be met uh and what the repercussions are for the district if we uh don't evaluate in a timely manner and whether or not our lack of Staffing is considered an excuse yeah um so it's a a great question so all of special ed law can be thought of a civil rights law right came on the same time you know mid 70s up through you know most recently um the current version of it so the reason that's helpful is one of the things is this timeline right you think about districts can't stall families on these things so with regard to evaluation either if a parent makes a recommendation for testing you know has suspicions of disability or another Community stakeholder members of the school staff for example they go through they do the student sort of study team and they're you know trying interventions they have concerns as soon as that referral comes through uh the district is on a timeline where we have to send out an evaluation consent form that can be thought of as the permission slip any testing that we're not doing for all students and the way they do map testing um you know sort of standard Benchmark testing we need to ensure we're getting parent permission for so there's a timeline after which a parent either reaches out to us it used to be in writing it's now the state has blown the doors off of that which is another conversation entirely but we have uh a limited number of school days to be able to share uh with them a evaluation consent form for their consideration and then one of the options parents have is to then accept those evaluations and return it to us from the time we return that signed permission you know so if they bring it into the central office if they mail it in and it gets opened up we essentially have a 45 school day window 30 of those school days to get the testing done unless it's towards the end of the school year and then there's some additional pieces where we have to do it no later than two weeks at the end of the school year but essentially six weeks is probably the most helpful way of thinking about it to complete the tests that's a school psych doing their uh test testing that's a special educator doing their testing or related service provider doing their testing and then the additional 15 days are for which between the 30 and the 45 are for the team to come together review those evaluations at a initial eligibility meeting and do one of two things in the event that a student is not found eligible for example if student is not attending and they could have a disability they could be educationally significant but the reason for that uh Gap isn't the disability which is something that we try and do a better job of if I what's going on to speech member group point but the other 15 days between the 30 days to get the evaluations done that 45th day the district has to have met and done one of two things if the student is not found eligible provide written notice of that we call that an N2 or notice of no finding um it's essentially just the formal notification that they were not F eligible which in a lot of cases is great it means there's things going on that uh will allow the student to dve benefits Ben from their time agreement for public schools without the support or if they are found eligible and more uh in some ways more timely and certainly more time intensive is furnish an IEP so when we talk about a student who's eligible for special education at any one of our grade levels that work of identifying what their needs are planning for it drafting the IEP in the case of a special educator for example who's also juggling a host of other case loads other responsib ilities each day that absolutely matters and I would say to member Martini's point a lot of the findings from the previous program audit that we worked really hard to to come pretty close to uh getting compliant with has been our ability to furnish parents either an IEP in the case of a child find eligible within 45 days or a notice of no finding if they're not found eligible and uh to speak to the question that was asked the state is in concerned one bit about why it didn't happen they certainly aren't interested to hear that we don't have the capacity or that there are some exceptions if the you know the child wasn't available if they were absent consistently and we couldn't test them there are some things that the parent didn't make them available for testing so there are some exemptions but generally speaking the state expects us to meet that timeline come H high water so I think that's an important piece because we don't get to say you know we're doing our best and that's one of the interesting Parts about my experience is I look at staff that are working very hard each day and effectively what I'm saying to them is I appreciate that and yet you know the Train's got to run on time so that is a very important part of it um and it's not just Staffing but I think the timeline is is important um it's a also opens the door to a much larger conversation about people's understanding either this body or in general about the very real legal framework of special education and and English and second language more broadly thank you for that uh that is related to my second question is it okay if I go ahead with that or did someone else want to take a shot do you wna go ahead uh so my question is about um identification early identification I appreciated what you said about uh the need to intervene early with student students in order to prevent the need for more intensive Services later and I would like to see um at some point I'm not asking you this off the top of your head right now um but I would like to see um some data about how many of our students are being identified in or after the third grade and I would like to understand more about what the district is doing to uh coordinate between special education and general education so that we can identify students as early as possible and provide them the specialized instruction and accommodations that they need as early as possible so that we can address uh our longer term numbers uh in special education in the district uh so I don't know if there is anything you would like to um offer off the top of your head about that right now if so please um please do I I would say one of the things that certainly cuts across all disability profiles is early literacy right one of the reasons I'm so grateful for the work that's being done at present and the work that's been done even before I joined the district last July is without high quality early literacy instruction and without the ability to identify students that are not responding to that literacy instruction when provided when they're attending regularly and the ability to look at other potential options allow them to be reading or able to access grade level text you know at and Beyond third grade is critical um it's not just students with reading difficulties that may be impacted there are students who are are presenting a variety of disability profiles for whom gaps in Reading are only going to be exacerbated so you know whether we talk we know more now about how to provide um interventions of a variety of intensity whether we're talking about those that are these small snapshots to fill in small gaps uh in one aspect of fundamental reading uh skills or another um but when we talk about ramping up and getting uh I talked about vertical alignment horizontal alignment having consistency in the way our different elementary schools run their SST process of course a little bit different because each school is different has its own flavor and you know needs to to look a little bit different in the context of that building consistency where it matters in terms of how we are looking at regular intervals of particular uh indicators in the case of reading for example indicators dyslexia and then how we are making decisions about that such that a student presenting in the same way across our three elementary schools has an equal or Equitable opportunity to be identified and provided the same opportunities uh in that way I think it's also instructive because again a lot of the work to support students with different learning needs can and should be done before special that even comes into the the conversation if that makes sense um so that would be the one thing I would say now in terms of early literacy pieces and responses to that so there's been a little bit of of that work done one of the things I'm really excited to do is have more opportunities for the types of uh interventions that can be interwoven into kids programs without being overly disruptive uh and that's very consistent with some of the recent work as we've shifted into understanding more about the signs of reading how to have those particular uh therapeutic doses of instruction in particular skills and then being able to say did it you know did it achieve the result or not and then do we keep doing it until a student no longer requires it or shift you know to ensure that they're getting an intervention that is effective member ston I have a few different questions the first is just a numbers clarification are the IEP students and the 504 students mutually exclusive no that's a great question uh generally if a student isn't in most cases the only reason you would have in generally speaking uh where we see students having both IEPs that are active and 504s are things like medical needs if you have a medically significant allergy for example uh or similar uh that's because it's reasonable that the IP related pieces might resolve and this other piece would still uh be there um I would say generally speaking the overlap is pretty small if you were to say you know what is the number of students who have both an active IP and active 504 I would say likely single digits you know pretty pretty small um but no not mutually exclusive in that way which is to say having one doesn't preclude you from the other I would say in most cases where a student is on a 504 and then it's found eligible for an IP we'd be asking questions about what in the 504 would not just be subsumed into the IP and again that's going to be medical analogies things of that sort yeah mostly asking so that I can get a better sense of the overall percentage of our students are receiving some kind of something um another question is can you say a little bit more about how we are building the capacity that we need to be able to offer more inclusion as you you mentioned the wanting to transition from more substantially separate to more inclusive strategies so yeah so uh a lot of it is providing the opportunity for uh General Leed classrooms to have the ability to support a variety of of needs uh again you know people tend to shy away from additional adult support because it has the capacity to be utilized both ineffectively and U and inefficiently frankly um and what I mean by that is if we're talking about ensuring that a general education teacher at any given grade level has the ability to bring a group of kids forward for example if I'm a a high school biology teacher right I'm not teaching 180 days of cont I'm bringing a group of Learners forward from where they are on the framework of biology content through the strands and topics right the scope and sequence of the bio content forward how their ability both with the material instructional materials they have um ability to differentiate up or down but in most cases down and by that I mean making grade level Concepts right DNA replication for example a life cycle accessible to students might be operating a A literacy level three or four grade levels below their ability to do so within reasonable expectation of their PR teach are work in you know long hours anyway but being able to do so uh within the time that's one way capaity increased so for example as we look at providing resources or help them identify either practices teaching practices um that reach more students whether we provide them with M uh materials that provot students whether we identify uh the types of supports that students in their classroom might need so specifically identifying things that would interrupt or disrupt or interfere with a teacher's ability to run a classroom uh and that is where adult support is has a role and I don't mean to to say that adult support is everything I mean to say that there's a lot of interventions and supports both passive and otherwise um that can't be done by a single educator in a room alone um so that's one of the ways we can talk about capacity is helping have folks have clarity about what that looks like both so we as a group can be sure that adults that are identified so in this case for example PA professionals instructional assistants um uh both specialized in some cases uh and more generalized they are clear on the ways in which their support can support or constrain kids learning right so when we're talking about ways that we are increasing capacity to support more students in less restrictive environments a lot of it is perspective building right U some of it is winning the hearts and Minds right communicating uh whether it be the teaching to strengths uh type work that uh you know has been historical whether it be the leading with dignity work um that superintendent patot is bringing the executive leadership team through now helping win hearts and minds of the members of the school Community both School staff and otherwise to the ability for all students to learn uh in inclusive settings and then how what that can look like um being able to break down you know not to be cliche about this idea of silos but breaking down this wall between General Ed and special ed uh building a shared ownership of the success and progress of all students right they're all all of our students helping you know literally one of the most effective things I can do for the district is help build a shared understanding that if a student's identified for special education they don't become Special Ed's responsibility right there's nothing that a special educator can do that is going to take the place of a student having access to a high quality uh GED experience and that's true across grade levels across content eras so in the same way I don't just get to say oh yeah if only General Educators would do more right that's not it at all so it's arming them with the tools that they need to be able to do the things we're asking them right we're asking U both General Educators and special Educators do more than we ever have before as a as a field so arming them with curricular materials arming them with instructional understanding and professional development related to how do I support a student you know who may be navigating specific challenges especially in the context of externalizing behaviors so if I'm talking about an elementary student who may uh be academically capable but be unable to remain regulated you know at certain times what are some effective ways to identify that early what are some passive proactive things that we can do um that has to do with increasing our level of Behavioral support whether it be terms of the two District bcba positions whether it be the desire to have registered behavioral technician positions in the elementary schools that work where they're talking about the you know adjustment counselor work there's a lot of both Staffing capacity instruction resource capacity professional development and then a lot of it literally it's just perspective building helping build a shared vision and understanding of what the general environment can and should look like and what that can mean for different students uh another thing and you know especially as we think about like curriculum and instruction if you think of the desire of bringing that group of kids forward I use the example of the biology teacher if we can help give teachers an understanding that look your job is not to cover 100% of those strands your job is to bring a group of kids forward meaningfully and thoughtful identification about the power strands right the power topics within that or you know making effective decisions about use of time so that you're being thoughtful about reducing the impact on students learning of that there's a host of those so um in short it's well beyond the time that I have I appreciate the question there's a variety of things um that we're doing it really has to do with arming folks with instructional materials professional development uh and messaging andv visioning about how to do so um and sure I have like one and a half more questions go ahead um so this next one requires a bit of a pre but I was thinking about those 87 students that were identified as un or underhouse and you had mentioned that you expect that number to shift slightly as you know we know that the the state is making changes to the emergency shelter um policy Etc but I'm I'm curious about what we might be able to offer those students even once they find Semi or permanent housing the experience of having been under underhouse does not leave them um and I'm and that is sort of true I'm sort of wondering for students who are not directly part of one of these categories but who we know are experiencing things that could impact their ability to show up in a classroom and be ready to learn um or to be receiving education effectively um what can we do for those students and does that fall under your opes yes am uh yeah I think it has a lot a lot of the things that we can do have have already been done the superintendent support support for uh Transportation options for students that might not otherwise be able to do it you know again certainly not all students that take advantage of the additional Transportation uh solutions that the superintendent has you know has authorized to allow more students access are homeless or underhouse but it's certainly not without impact um again when we think about creating spaces where students are able to come to the average setting whether it's a cafeteria whether it's Library setting whether it's a classroom setting certainly and not have the additional barriers um that they don't have the bandwidth right uh we talk about the backpacks right all of us have backpacks some students have heavier loads in those backpacks um a lot of times which are invisible so when we talk about the things we can do it really starts with just creating and maintaining environments that are clearly communicating to students that they are seen welcomed and safe and not in a Kumbaya way right not in an abstract way but in a these are things that we do to be very clear and explicit in sharing with students that uh we have regard for them you know that uh the classroom environment is a place where uh we welcome them and want them to be that they are missed when they are not there um it has to do with the way we talk to kids it has to do with the way that we respond when kids talk to us in ways that we might not always appreciate um you know people talk a lot about about uh being trauma informed they talk about the impact on early you know early development and all of that often times what gets lost is some of the ways in which some of the folks that you're talking about are impacted their experience is is because they don't show up necessarily not only on uh metrics that we're reporting to the state but they might not be visible right they don't have these indicators over there you know over the heads that say hey please be um please be gentle with me today you know I used all my bandwidth uh so I would say more than anything the things for us to do are ensure that we are creating environments and communicating with kids in ways that uh are sensitive to that but also are pro not just being reactive to to students that may be vulnerable or having some difficulty but really proactive in communicating you know the sense of comfort and safety and regard you know in our schools there's a variety of ways we can have conversation about differ of opin ways to do that um you know in the technical side of it but more than anything I'd say that's it and that's the through line between any of the initiatives that we look at that needs to be clear um because the absence of that serves to undermine any of the particular things we might try and do whether it be getting kids to school whether it be outfitting them whether it's food security whether an on down list that's the through line that we need to focus on because we can sort of add technical elements to the other first order needs but if we're never addressing that feeling safy I think we're missing the boat my half question is um just the first part um what do you and your staff need from us to be able to best provide the education that you're wanting to provide for these kids yeah I think it's you know a a reasonable expectation of you know the organizations functioning you know uh we're fortunate to have a situation in District now where the focus of the district as a whole is more consistent with what is good for the needs of our momal Learners than in a lot of districts um and what I mean by that is the district's current instructional Focus the the priorities of the district as a whole are consistent with the types of improvements instructionally uh and otherwise that will you know to do better I think anything we can do to improve uh you know consistency or um you know we reduce you know churn whether that's policy whether that's Staffing you know those types of things are going to be important but I would say more than anything ensuring that we're not uh discontinuing or disrupting you know current initiatives that are are proving effective um and that we're raising up the visibility of the impact of certain decisions that might be made uh or not made uh with an eye for that I think that for me would be the most important thing it's not just oh you know we need Staffing we need this or that uh we're actually fairly um we've got a lot of protective factors we got a lot of reason to be encouraged in District here I would think if this body is taking into account how decisions advantage or disadvantage particular groups of students that would be the main thing because there are particulars that are going to be different in time um but I think that's the the main piece I would look at you know what is the tip totale experience of a student at any grade level and how decisions that this body is making impact that either the the building unit analysis the classroom of analysis that's the real way if that's fair thank you any other questions for Mr Messing good one can you tell me how many instructional assistants we have off the top of my head it' be interesting I'd have to think about you know in the different buildings looking at the different vacancies you know uh depends if I include you know the two that I have to submit you know in terms of at some point in the future um but no I wouldn't want to give you uh a number today without the context of where some of those positions are you know I mean I came from a meeting earlier today that informed forms it there are a couple of plans that are in process that are going to inform it that's fair other questions member Martini I uh wanted to Carry On from Member Sexton's question um or last half question because that really gets at um the reason why I asked for this presentation previously which is about student achievement um is something that uh this committee has uh talked about periodically not enough in my opinion um and uh in our accountability data that was recently presented by uh the assistant superintendent uh we saw some nice gains for certain groups of students but the one group that really didn't have any gains was our students with disabilities and I'm also keenly aware that um a tiny teeny tiny percentage of our students with disabilities are able to meet expectations on the mcast in grades three to eight for example uh and are uh otherwise showing indicators of not making uh what probably many of their parents would consider to be meaningful progress uh and what the law asks us to do for students with disabilities is to prepare them for uh higher education and employment and independent living so um I I appreciate um all of the data that you provided tonight and the discussion um about the having students as much as possible in the least restrictive environment planful so that they can receive what they need um that cannot be delivered there uh and I would also like to see a lot more data uh and information about the achievement of our students with disabilities um that's uh that leads me to um my questions which are uh probably too too big for this evening but um I would like to know what are the biggest gaps what are the biggest needs what would be the most impactful things that the district could do to improve its uh capacity in special education to uh to serve our students in order to answer those questions I think we would need more um information about where uh our students in different disability groups for example are falling when it comes to achievement so I would love to see you back here at some point in the near future with more information about that yeah and even the question is even the question is worded right I think it requires each of those pieces to be teased out you know because the differences aren't necessarily going to be similar across achievement areas you know across grade level so I would want to make sure we were able to give that due sort of consideration and certainly well beyond this but each of those is important and thinking about for all the things that might be common contributing factors or root causes u in some ways what's more instructive the differences in the ways kids are impacted whether it be by disability profile or an achievement area for sure any other questions from the committee I guess I have a a thought I don't know if it's as much a question but maybe you can respond um I'm wondering given how expensive that out of District um placements are if there was a way to we had some more found some way to invest more resource in you know for example years one and two and it resulted in year three having one fewer person and an out of out of District placement it may have been well worth that investment that's not exactly the way City budgets and school budgets work but um I wonder if you have any thoughts about what that investment might look like that might help us to reduce those placements yeah that's certainly a longer conversation that we have done for and again uh I'd love to have that convers in Earnest uh when we have you know the full breadth I would say in short what we're likely to come up against is what are legitimate limiting factors and what I mean by that is if we were to lay out the types of investment you're talking about that would result in decreased need it is very likely a reasonable person would expect that we would be hard pressed to make that manifest even with the blessing and Goodwill of this body just because of structural factors which is to say if I were to to identify particular areas of growth and we were to think that if we were able to provide more adults to provide a higher dose or intensity you know a more of a certain service in a certain area that it would do so a reasonable person expects that we be likely to fill those additional positions for example um I think that would be the one thing that I would want to be concerned about uh and yes you're absolutely right there is a perverse incentive in a lot of ways you know talking about the different layers of government and all of that for people to not be future planning in that way I I certainly understand the uh Val time value of budgets you know in terms of this year's budget as opposed to future benefit um so that you know that's new want in a lot of ways and of course there's a lot of uh particular conversations around that but I think what we would want to include in part of that conversation if we were having it in a really candid way and comprehensive way is with the full boore what are the parameters that are going to be constraints and that leads us into how do we how do we reduce the impact of those barriers for example in what ways can we leverage technology to overcome some of the uh reduced access to to labor force for example for talking about uh you know language access for low incidence languages for example interpretation and translation we wouldn't be able to do the work we do if I wasn't able to reach out and get an Albanian interpreter you know from somewhere across the world right these loans we don't have a lot of Greenfield residents that speak Mano dialects right like that sort of stuff so those that's part of the conversation is if there was a desire and a good faith effort to invest that intensity of resources to achieve what you're talking about achieving what are the other ways that we'd have to look at actually making that so and then more to the point I think one of the things that I would want to make sure is that we were ensuring it was sustaining so that it isn't just benefit this year or next year how are we taking those steps to make an investment that have lasting benefits on students that are if it was a certain grade level if we said hey we we care a lot about grades K one two that students students this year that were in K next year that in K the year after in K so that's it's lasting right so we're not feeling as though the benefit of any investment whether monetary or otherwise is uh fleeting you know that it's lasting and we can feel really um as though we've been fiscally responsible in investing in a enduring way thank you you're your part of your answer made me think that part of it may be a conversation with our legislator about how to try to address some of that um the pipeline of of workers and what is going on at the state level to try to increase the number of candidates for those types of positions because you're right that's something that's kind of beyond the scope of this body and and of your work but it's the environment that you're hiring within that is creating a lot of the obstacles that you're talking about thank you all right thank you very much really appreciate your time and I guess we'll be seeing you again soon thanks all right um Andy pad has joined us Andy if you are ready to sure thank you uh you have in your packets the uh December 24 fi25 budget update uh we did as a requested uh I've attached a a narrative summary regarding the highlights of uh the budget reports for the grants and the local budget so I can just walk you through that and then answer any questions you might have as the practice has been in Green Field you know we charge the expenses to the local budget and then uh we work with the city come into the year and do our final rec classes to the revolving accounts uh to make it easier as far as a one-time adjustment so as I referenced in the middle of the uh Report with uh as you know there's some uh turnover that experiencing on the city Side so there are encumbrances from the last payroll that have not been reduced we wanted to be able to get the report to you in time to review so I've in a sense had to reduce that when I walk you through the I'm going to call it the true balance available uh so there's $674,000 of the last payroll that uh for hitting a local budget that in a sense are double encumbered it's in hitting the expense line and also in the encumbered for the respective salary lines so when you walk through that along with our other funding sources from when we built the budget as to what we're going to use uh as of this day uh we're having what is I'm calling a preliminary Surplus of$ 384,000 47.72 which is only 1 62% of our fy2 budget I will refer you to the presentation that I did this is actually a good practice um in the sense that you know having 98% of your budget encumbered Andor committed uh is is you know it's a good internal control to make sure that you don't overspend the budget even with the fact that there are some expenditures some of the normal year-end expenditures that might not yet be encumbered uh so that 384 will be reduced but again uh Administration we feel that we're at a comfort level regarding uh ending the year in a positive balance uh similar issue with the incumbered in a payroll there are some revenues that haven't been posted yet on the revolving account so I've summarized those uh there um all that means is that you know as of right now when you look at the revolving account report uh for those accounts in particular school lunch circuit breaker school choice and transportation we actually in better shape than what it is that's shown so this is like the standard narrative that we uh provide uh but without further Ado I can answer any questions you might have or attempt to answer any questions you might have regarding their update questions for Andy remember good one are we encumbering salaries of people we haven't hired yet say that again sorry are we encumbering the salaries of people that haven't been hired yet there are positions that are unfilled uh we I have to go and review those Mo most of the times we don't but if there is a position that was left mid year it could be a timing issue where those salaries could still be encumbered okay other questions thank you very much Andy and thanks very much for the narrative report I found that personally very helpful and appreciate the members who advocated for that and Susan Farber who did some research to help us deduce there was no apparent um conflict with school committee policy uh that would prevent you from doing that so thank you no problem moving on on to the assistant superintendent Mr salivan good evening everybody excuse me okay so everyone has my report last month um I actually shared that we were kicking off the reading CH the stick to reading challenge with the Springfield Thunderbirds um and wanted to follow back up up on that that we did launch the stick two reading challenge um on Wednesday November 27th there are pictures in this uh in this update again as Boomer the Springfield Thunderbirds mascot attended each of our schools Turkey Trot um superintendent and I along with Boomer and some of his handlers made our way around the town on that Wednesday half day um and I think we got to all the turkey trots one school he was able to visit some classrooms because um they had gone inside but again just encouraging students to find joy and enjoyment in Reading um I've seen some teachers talking to students about the reading challenge already I said to students and teachers that the idea of this was to encourage students to find enjoyment in Reading at home but if they're doing it in school and they're enjoying it then they can certainly fill in their log um for their right to a free ticket to the Saturday January 25th game down in Springfield where they will host a Greenfield night we will be in touch with some more information about tickets um and reaching out to families if they're looking for transportation um as well so looking forward to that in late January I also included it's t it's probably difficult you won't be able to do it on your hard copy but in the folder there is the press release that we had sent out on that um so a little bit more information about that and comments from the Thunderbirds as well couple of Grant updates in terms of the Innovation career pathway we had to submit a part a application um by the end of October we submitted that and found out um I think December 2nd we got the email that we were inviting to do the part B application so the next step of the Innovation career pathway work is underway um essentially the part B application is a more in-depth application where we're providing um potential course sequences courses that could be included in the Innovation career pathway recruitment materials and such so uh the career pathway team is working on that and we're meeting with our partner from Mass higher Matt Allen um next Thursday afternoon for an update and the part B application is due in early February since we last spoke I had um the acceleration Academy Grant was a grant that we had applied for when I spoke in O when I spoke in November we have since received that Grant as well that will allow us to offer acceleration um the second paragraph is more about what the acceleration Academy should look like and that allows us to offer these in February and April so there's a meeting for Grant recipients next week that I'm attending and then I'll be working with our um principles to get this rolled out and begin to start identifying staff and students to participate in the acceleration acmy and then finally I wanted to share um this was not a grant that I had mentioned last month but the m cultural Council Council creative projects for schools Grant we pursued a grant for all three of our elementary schools um to have essentially an artist in residence for a period of time this winter and spring and we found out that we received um 5,000 grant for all three elementary schools so we're partnering with local artist Sarah aern belare um and we've titled the project hand in hand and a mural to connect our community and the idea is it will engage every student to create a large scale mural inspired by abstract quilts um we've also thought that this these murals at all three elementaries will be movable um so if at any point in the future schools come together or anything like that we'll make sure that the murals can also come together um it's also focused on includ inclusive and collaborative art lessons students will Design individual um quilt squares that will be combined into the mural that will be displayed at each school um and we're very grateful to obviously Mass cultural Council and Sarah Hearn bmer for supporting this meaningful project superintendent we'll do questions together for you to thanks uh just a quick update that the desie district site review was the week of the November 18th through the 22nd um the data collection folks that did all of the site visits the stakeholder interviews as well as are compiling our preliminary report have been in touch with Stephen and I the last week or so just to get some clarification on some fact finding issues that have Arisen and hopefully we will have um some um initial reports soon and then once those findings um are in its final form we will report back out to you what they have delivered to us um redistricting don't forget still happening um we have been working really hard though uh to talk to every family who is affected by the redistricting lines and redrawn street addresses for 2526 we did initial site visits to lien Woods in in Oak courts we also did a virtual information session for all of the families um we sent out letters and we had about uh 40 or so families that were not responding so then we did backpack letters when we've done personal phone calls and we've been following up this week so that every family has the opportunity to make the choice for their child um as of my report time it was 10 families we were still waiting to connect with but I'm Happ happy to report today it's eight so I'm going to make sure we get those other eight to respond to us um our next step though obviously will be to coordinate with travel CZ and talk about Transportation needs for our three elementaries in the 2025 26 school year because you did vote to provide transportation for those folks who chose to age out of their current homeschool or transfer to their new so we will be working with the bus company um I had a meeting this morning with the high school folks and we talked about scheduling because the students have selected their coursework for 2025 26 so we've been working on enrollments and class projections there which will create the waterfall effect down to the middle school and then down to the elementary I will be meeting with that Administration in the coming days and then um we'll meet with our union leaders and talk about uh potential staffing needs and changes for the 25 26 school year so um please know that all of that work is going on behind the scenes and we're constantly in communication with families affected as well as the staff in uh short time uh Staffing updates unfortunately we accepted the resignation of our director of Behavior Services Katie Miller Murphy and our district and state data manager Deborah Coons for personal reasons um so they will be finishing up their time time with us shortly um we are actively searching for replacements for both those positions and the jobs are posted so if anyone knows anyone please send them our way um we happily welcomed Carol Jacobs to Newton Elementary as our interim principal last week on Thursday December 5th she hit the ground running and is certainly happy to be back in greenfields um and we're really happy to have her on board she joined our e team yesterday and um was really just a positive influence on taking over at Newton so we appreciate her efforts um we are still looking for instructional assistance custodians and food service positions and all of those positions are on school spring if you're interested and we also continually encourage volunteers parents caregivers school committee members if you want to come and help out if you have time at our elementary schools lunch and recess is um definitely in demand and we would appreciate your time if you are able um there are some capital updates based on some information that's been uh unfolding as of late the Federal Street elevator the project did go out to bid by the city uh we had one sole bid which was nv5 which came in at previous allotments in the total of 181 989 so we are um short obviously a deficit of 4,679 so my proposal um this evening would be that the district allocate school choice funds to fund the diff difference so the dis District can complete the Federal Street elevator project can we maybe get the whole report then do questions then come back to the Motions for things like that sure um the other Capital update is the Middle School fire panel project in October the school committee approved a capital expense submission for 150,000 for FY 26 which was submitted to the city when the capital uh requests were made and then after that the district received an additional site visit from Fire Equipment Incorporated and upon their further inspection the upgrade is obviously going to be exponentially higher due to the fact that the GMS system as they called it is quote unquote obsolete so um the struggle is really finding replacement parts that are no longer available um so in order to fix all of the components and upgrade at GMS the new estimate is $315,000 um there is a little snafu in that as well though that there is some talk of future state requirements from the State Fire Marshall that any upgrades to new um fire alarm systems may have to include a voice over announcement instead of just having a fire alarm sound it's not currently in effect but it could be coming down the pike so the facilities director Mike brro just wanted me to add that potentially by the time this project would go through capital and actually get bid on and be implemented there could be an additional 100,000 if we had to include the voice over system so um currently the increase would be 35 but the potential could be 415 at a later date um we have had a request from Member Goodwin in the P for enrollment updates so I decided to include them in my update thinking it would probably be easier than just reading the numbers and that way you can compare what was from month to month so I will just continue to up update those each month but those are um obviously uh you can read on your own uh we currently as of December I think it was 9th it was run we had 1366 in District and then lastly I just really want to um if you haven't seen it my parent update or haven't been uh part of the project with your students that are in our district I really just want to let the community know the unity initiative that we've rolled out as a December 2nd um we're really trying to unite uh students staff families community members into the important role that they all play in the lives of our students each and every day and how you all are uh very valuable members of the green wve Nation we want to continue to support all of our students except diversity welcome all of them care for them um and make sure that they know that when they enter our Halls that they are uh part of our community which they belong to and that we love and care for each and every day so what we've been doing is launching some Unity messaging every morning and having days of the week where we can start to build stronger relationships with one another and really incorporate um some great chances for students to really get to know all those members of their Community whether they're adults or other students that they don't talk talk to so we have an ongoing initiative each day of the week um and you can talk to our students and our staff about maybe being caught being amazing so we are taking a a be kind initiative we have shirts and stickers and wristbands and uh announcements and you will see the picture I shared was the Federal Street students who were caught to be amazing and they got the reward of having lunch with their principal so all of those students you see there were very excited to eat with Miss helin so I encourage you to uh join in on our initiative and really uh celebrate our community and shine a light on all the good things that Greenfield Public Schools do thank you uh let's do any questions related to anything besides the capital items which were the elevator and the fire panel for either Mr Sullivan or Miss patod yes member Martini in regards to the stick to reading event I wanted to know if uh we are able to provide transportation to those students who win those tickets it may not be able to go if they don't have it yes so that's something that we're working on and we're planning to offer transportation to those who wish to go to the game but might not be able to to get there on their own thank you and um slightly another question related to the same um topic are the announcements and information related to that program um going home to parents uh in their primary languages yes they are primary languages and we're also looking into purchasing some tickets for families who may wish to go but may not be able to so so transportation and tickets were thinking about and working with the Thunderbirds member ston I was this is regarding the enrollment update I was wondering if you had any information about where some of these students are going and why the majority of our moves have been due to some of our folks in the days in who have been actually housed so the majority of the moves you see are because they've moved to Sunderland most of them have gone to the name of the apartment conflix is escaping me right now yeah so no Dave yes Cliffside thank you sorry is that what she said Susan I'm sorry yeah Cliffside yeah so those moves have happened and thankfully for them and they are having a a great experience being housed other questions member Martini in regards to Staffing um what is our current rate of successfully finding substitute teachers when we need them uh and uh I mean having an actual substitute as opposed to using an IA or some other member of our staff to cover that we have a very low substitute population pool so that creates a very big strain on building operations every day on average um district is seeing between 20 and 40 absences across six schools um and we have about four solid Subs that report to duty every day so um it is definitely a strain on operations it's a strain on the current staff that are in school it's a strain on our IAS it's a strain on our principles other questions thank you okay um oh can I just say Wednesday is help each other out day so if you were caught helping someone out today you could get a sticker before you leave just want to share that you all deserve a sticker you are here you got double stickers superintendent um all right so the first is um the elevator so I'd like to hear a motion to use um $ 4,679 of fiscal year 25 school choice funds to fund the difference between the allocated C Capital expenditures and the amount of the nv5 bid for the F Federal Street School elevator project so moved second okay discussion yes please member Childs uh so important we get this done quickly our staff over at Federal Street School having to haul heavy things up and down that stair those stairs it's a safety issue for them as well as an accessibility issue so this has gone on for way too long let's get it done any other comments this is a question I intend to vote Yes but I do want to understand what are the possible implications of moving these monies and are there any potential negatives from not having that 40K in that school choice account def that um May I yes may I answer yes uh no there would be no negatives um we as we proceed through the year uh there have been some uh changes as far as honestly between vacancy savings and also uh some additional funds that come in as you remember when we build these budgets we build them a year in advance and uh so when we built a budget on some of the grants that we are anticipating receiving we actually got more than we had we were conservative in our budget estimate so again I refer back to the presentation that we did where I refer to I believe the the the legitimate shell game of moving expenses to then free up the funds to be able to do this any other discussion mayor so you're taking the we want to move that from account 1521 that is correct thank you any other discussion or questions remember goodwi so I'm flashbacking I've been hearing about this elevator for decades how many times it's been repaired before so I guess as we go through this process if they fix it they better fix it I mean it's been fixed a lot I will let them know that other questions or comments okay all in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously all right for this one you say Choose Your Own Adventure I would hear a motion to either increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 150k to 315k or if you want to plan for the possibility of uh voice uh requirements then it would be 415k so when you say you're making the motion just say 315k or 415k I will move to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from a 150,000 to $415,000 is there a second second second from Member ston any discussion mayor Disorder so um I was just sitting here thinking that I wanted to ask the um fire Chief if they knew if they put that law into effect or do you know if um usually there's a term and there'll be you know as of such and such you'd have to do that I was I was going to advocate for 315 but um do you have any knowledge on that soend um Alex is who was talking with Mike buo about that just saying it could be coming down the pike but I'm not sure um the ifs and when and if you had more information or could find more or we could certainly reach out to Chief Strahan about the potential but um I guess it's looming in the State Fire Marshall U Arena which is why they just wanted us to be aware with regards to this project so I'm I'm going to I'm not going to vote for the 415 I'd vote for three I would um make a motion uh a counter motion to go for 315,000 if we need to come back for that I would certainly be in favor of it I just got a lot of news today that were all capital things that were going to be very expensive um as we're we're preparing to uh be moving City Hall so I I uh for short term I mean for short term because of uh line collapses some water and sewer so um so I would say 315,000 to and we would come back and certainly vote for that if we get more information about it but um i' look forward to hearing from you as well if you feel strongly or all of you feel strongly the other way I you know I'll go with whatever we decide can someone share a little bit more about the capital request process like if we put in 315k or it seems easier to put in for 415k and find out later we don't need the extra 100K and then just say oh we don't need that as much as we asked for how does that work mayor so I I will take that one because I I understand that many times you come through with an estimate of what you think it's going to be sometimes it's less and sometimes it's more generally people over you know they may overestimate a little bit but if there's a shortfall on whatever it is at the time we come back for another order for whatever it is I mean we did that this year already um something will be more than it is but the hard part is there's so many departments with capital needs that you're sitting and looking at at every Capital need like this this person will I think we have four or five trucks or cars and in DPW that are you know they're like 20 years old with 150,000 miles on it so you have to make a decision and although it might not sound like it that 100,000 would be something that you'd say well we're absolutely not going to do this this year because you have so many asks so if we don't know right now that that law is not in effect I'd say well we do know it's going to be 315,000 that's where I am um certainly if if when it goes out and it comes back and we have to do that you know um but I guess I'd like to take get a little bit more information on it than putting it up to 4:15 but it's the will of the group other questions or comments or discussion about the motion member Martini I'd like to ask the mayor a clarifying question and I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse um say we request 315 and that is approved and then come July uh this new requirement comes out then would we not need to go through the following years's Capital process in which case we would be looking at the next year like waiting an additional year year in order to get that approval or no yeah member mayor Disorder so for example this year we paved the DPW Yard and um the cost of Paving went up so we had approved that project and then it ended up being more than it was so um we did the project in that year and then put in an order for additional funding and when you say an order for additional funding that means go you go to the city council for for that okay yeah it isn't that you make that project wait another year it that to to answer um my fellow teammates uh question you you don't put the project off for a year but um we had two things that I can think of another thing that came through we were just an IT project that we waited 6 months and the bid was higher and you know it had been approved by the capital committee and but the dollar figure was higher so we put an order through for more than it was so for example if we put that order through for 315,000 and we know six you you know you have it written that way and we know five or six months from now or whenever won't be five or six months it will probably be May that we would be voting on that and if we know that for sure then the order that we' put forward would be for um a higher amount it's just that there are so many capital requests this year that that that's just my thought on it thank you other discussion question from superintendent uh is this the type of um project that can be done in two pieces can we uh do the project that we were expecting to do and then should this voice uh requirement come through is this uh system in which that capability can be added at a later date easily or no um I don't know that answer 100% but from my discussions with our facilities director the wiring capability at the time has to be programmed for voice over so I don't think it can be done in two parts but I don't know that for certain um I certainly can get that information for you other questions or comments discussion I guess I wonder if they do change the law I imagine that there would be all over the state there would be a need to upgrade whether the state would factor in at creating funds for Town buildings school buildings to do they're just going to do it as an unfunded mandate you think well just a just a thought um yes member child's so from this it's for new fire systems installed that means if we were to try to rush in under the wire and start the install and then this unfunded mandate came down then would it apply or not it seems like we just need more information on what exactly the rule would be when the rule would happen uh and then even the technical like would there be a way that we could have it installed with the voice add-on in the future as a possibility I have so many questions that I feel underiner is coming down like this they are doing it for some kind of safety reason that it was it actually would might be in our interest to have the voiceover system this is my assumption I could be totally wrong um and so that's why I would support allocating us to go for that system now if we think that one it's coming down the pike anyway and two if it is actually the safer of the options available to us then we should do it that's my reasoning I am also wondering if we should postpone this discussion until next month so that we can get some of these questions answered do we have time for that if we delayed it I would love to ask the mayor because I don't know the time on that because we do need to think about um fixing this ASAP yes that that's a it's certainly a priority to do it the capital committee will start meeting in January so a a dollar figure should be put in there um and but if Capital committee approves this for 35 and we find out by the time we're putting a financial order in which I would certainly prior prioritize this is something that is needed but if we know in a couple of months that the law is changing or it is necessary for us to do that um the financial order that will go in would be higher than what the capital you know committee had approved that happens as well that happened with um we have a figure something changes because of cost increase so a few months later is a few months later and you know more but you put the dollar figure that you know at the time what we know right now for sure is that it's going to be 3155 that's what I meant I'm all for safety as well but what we know now is this dollar figure I just was hearing the first time you know there may be there may be a law that is coming do you know what I'm saying member Den I was going to say the exact same thing that member seon said about potentially postponing it until we gather more information um if the if they're meeting in January and we're also meeting in January if our meeting happens before then we could Scuttle over some numbers in time might be worth postponing for a bit to gather inel our meeting is um January 10th um so uh I don't know when the capital committee's meeting how like how late in the game we can get things to you the other piece is that we may be looking at a special um school committee meeting an extra meeting getting scheduled before the end of this year so maybe we'd have more info by then but um I guess it to me it seems like we may we probably will not have the information about whether the system is actually required before January 8th so member Martini uh I have another question for the mayor can the capital committee not uh approve a smaller amount than was requested if the committee requests 415 they are given the context they approve 315 for now they'll approve the dollar figure that you know it's put in front of them they'll do an up or down approval or disapproval of the of the whatever number is put forward that's a good that's a very valid point wait when you say it's a valid point we you you mean it was a good question but the answer is no it's either it's an up or down vote on whatever number we put forward okay I'm seeing you nod okay um let's see I guess we are we ready to vote could let's see what happens so uh just a reminder the motion was to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 150k to 450 15K uh well the mayor the mayor advocated for 315k that I haven't heard the um a request for a friendly Amendment or an acceptance of a friendly Amendment so the original motion was 4:15 that's what's on the table now I move to make a friendly Amendment for it to be 315,000 member Martini do you accept the friendly amendment I would like to hear the views of other members as to whether they would want that Amendment okay discussion M good one the word obsolete fire panel I think we get this in the pipeline at 315 knowing that this is a priority because it's a safety issue and knowing that it's children and a safety issue knowing that the city council would bump it up if it comes in higher I think the sooner this is in the pipeline the better I think waiting for some law in this world is just every day is different but if it's on paper in front of people at 3:15 and it says obsolete fire panel I think it'll get get done that's my gut I just want to say I appreciate member Goodwin's point and that is why I would like to uh vote on one of these two amounts tonight not put it off to our next meeting okay uh anyone else want to speak to the uh request to member Martini to for the friendly amendment to reduce the motion from 4:15 to 3:15 member child I have a question for the mayor so what is the Practical impact of asking for the 415 but then needing 315 versus asking for the 315 and then having the money later added on if needed is it something that's better for the town on paper or something that there's more projects that you know that you could fund this year and certainly I I saw this one for the school it's a priority that it's just math you have to add all of the things that everybody has requested I'm already looking at the list and this far far the requests outnumber the funds that we have um I there's no question in my heart that the safety ones come first so I would as long as capital committee approves it I would put that order forward but you have just so much to spend and I'm starting to look at them now and thinking there's more than we have the expenditure for on paper right now so if we do the 315 and then that extra 100,000 we're not asking then but we later need would that have already been allocated somewhere else had we make sure we could still get it if needed so it actually generally works out we have one one thing that's coming up tonight a big um I mean one thing that's coming up very shortly and you you cannot purchase something unless you have allocated the the funding for it and um but you don't pay for that until it's received so it's really so I I know of one big thing that we probably will be approving and we won't be expending that funds but I do have to do the math and it has to add up and but it's really the number of projects that you can approve that's really what it is and I just know the number of requests can I yes member Martini I'm sorry I need to ask another clarifying question I think correct me if I'm wrong I think what member child's was getting at is what's the likelihood um of the possibility that we request 315 we need 415 and then we're not able to get the additional 100,000 because we didn't request it UPF front I've heard the mayor say and correct me if I'm wrong mayor but you're pretty optimistic that an order could be put forward to the city council and they would fund the extra 100K right it frequently happens that things cost more than you might think and it frequently happens that things are less this one I just I was just listening to you know how this was presented tonight and I thought well it it it sounded like what we really knew it was going to cost was so much so that would have been the number I I would have put in that's all um but this just happened with an IT project it was six months later and a lot more you know I don't know 30 or $40,000 more you've already committed to do that so I don't see an issue with that I would just rather take the number that we knew what that we knew for sure that it's going to be this much the other one was a law that had not been written yet do you know what I'm saying um and I know how long a law takes to write we've been you I think you probably do some of you do as well we were rating for a you know chared change and we you do your steps here and then you send it into the state and it was a year and a half later and so if people are talking about that it just we had a little bit more research to do even by May the time that we were putting orders in we we don't I we don't know factually anything about where that is um I wouldn't put an order through five months from now for a dollar figure that was inactive accurate either if the law had changed it's frequently something gets through one committee and the numbers are a little different for one reason or another thank you any other discussion I'll share my view um I while I respect it probably the um voice is a uh optimal way of alerting people of a danger I just have a hard time imagining a situation where all the alarms are going off and someone is somehow threatened because we didn't spend 100K on a on a voice alert system and since as the mayor said the law hasn't come down yet to say that we are required to do this I don't I I guess I do feel better putting it forward as 35k because that's what we actually need today so in your deliberation member Martini about whether to accept the friendly Amendment that's my view thank you I just wanted to hear other people's views um I will accept the mayor's friendly Amendment so the motion is now to uh change sorry let me do this again to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from 150,000 to $315,000 second wait uh there was already a a second to that motion so whoever second it needs to accept the accept Stacey okay member ston accepts the friendly Amendment as well as the second is there any other discussion before we vote okay all in favor say I I all opposed all extensions motion carries unanimously thank you everybody it's now 8:10 you are entitled to a f minute break during which I suppose stickers could be administered [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] all right we resume our meeting we are up to the consent agenda which now has one item on it approv minutes of full committee meeting November 13 2024 is there motion to approve the consent agenda so move second second discussion all in favor I any opposed extensions motion carries unanimously uh report of the chair I have no report budget and finance subcommittee okay so uh we met recently and discussed two things uh we uh had a discussion in regards to the process of approving warrants which was sent off to budget and finance uh to discuss and uh make a recommendation about and uh we did discuss the fact that we have a policy about this and uh we're not certain that this ought not to be in the policy subcommittee and not budget and finance uh however we went ahead and discussed it anyway and uh arrived at a consensus suggestion for our warrant process uh because in the past we required a quorum of the committee to approve warrants and that process was frequently cumbersome uh and resulted in last minute approvals that were stressful for the uh administrators responsible uh being the reason that we went to one member signing uh we did not feel that going back to a uh Quorum signature requirement would be advisable however we do want of course uh members to feel like they are able to ask uh any question that they would like to ask about warrants and to be able to bring a question uh if they're not able to get an answer that's satisfactory to them to the committee so uh the suggested process um that we would like to put forward is that uh members ask their questions related to the warrant at least a week ahead of time before school committee meetings the superintendent will uh take every effort to answer those questions and if a member has a remaining question that either wasn't answered or there was not an answer that was satis Factory to them to please bring that question to the attention of the chair for uh the agenda at the following meeting uh am I saying that correctly okay M child's I feel like I'm forgetting something uh closest thing to forgetting it's not so much forgetting as a clarification uh this is bringing the warrant for discussion not saying that we're not signing the warrant or not paying our bill it it's more of so the questions might be asked after the warrant is signed if needed correct so this would make no change to the uh process of signing and approving the warrants but would provide more codification to uh the asking of questions and the uh getting answers to questions that's the other thing I forgot uh we also wanted to suggest that the uh chair put uh warrants as a standing placeholder in your uh meeting planning template so that should a member have a uh unanswered or in their view unsatisfactorily answered question ahead of a meeting that you already have it in your uh in your planning template for meetings and it does not get lost yeah we can definitely do that we can't I mean with the recent kind of changes to what the town city clerk's office will approve or not approve in terms of our agendas we can't just like well somehow this got on there the report of the chair but in general they're wanting more detail from us about like what exactly we're discussing so if there aren't any questions or comments it won't appear on your agenda but it will be on our template to jog our memory to add things if they come up with the process that you described yes that's exactly the intention um there my understanding is that the uh advice that has been um coming out over the past few years in regards to open meeting law is that agendas do need to be quite specific uh and so we shouldn't have a kind of bland agenda item that's on there every time but if it's in the planning template and there is a question uh then you already have a spot in there to plug that specific question in for the agenda great thank you um the one thing though that does need to to change about our current processes we um need to have a particular person or a particular role who is designated so that was kind of not done exactly correctly when we um we were following the guidance that was given to us but we've since learned that we really need to have a designated person or role for example the chair or the chair of the budget subcommittee or someone some specific person who will be doing the approval on behalf of the school committee um so the motion I would like to hear then if we wanted to kind of follow the um the recommendation of the budget subcommittee is um a motion to designate um you could name a person or name a role to approve warrants mayor disorder can can I ask a question about that be before sure so I actually haven't been to one of these yet I haven't been to one of your um the budget subcommittees um and I I I get those on email you know I get the like I'm sure all of you do you get all of the on email so do you go over them in the meetings do I know I'm supposed to ask the chair do can I my question is do they go over those in meetings the warrants the warrants are not together no the warrants are not gone over so we have meetings we have warrants every two weeks we don't have any committee or um subcommittee that is designated to meet every two weeks to review the warrants together yeah please and I'm not suggesting that we did I just was thinking it took me a while as the mayor to figure out because there it took me for a long time to go through the the warrants it took me forever because I was making sure on each one and this one you know there's there's things that I figured there's a lot of others who are looking at that so I took me a while before going through them like one at a time I feel like there's still some things that that I didn't know so I I assumed that I know that the superintendent's gone through it and uh the business manager has gone through it but on ours on our end I don't know does anybody else do that any differently on any other um I guess I just was asking about the process and thinking about it you've been doing this for a long time some of us who haven't been doing this school for a long time there were a lot of things that popped up that I didn't know what they were for what that's wor yeah exactly and that's why i' I found the superintendent and the business manager to be incredibly accessible for any questions that I've had but I think what the budget subcommittee has done is basically put forward a procedure so that if questions aren't addressed to member satisfactions they can be addressed at the full committee level May member Martini um mayor it sounded like you were um wanting to ask what other committees do how do other people do this and I did do a bunch of uh research on that going into our recent um budget and finance meeting so um as you'll recall uh uh the Massachusetts Association of school committees now has a database of policy manuals and everybody who has updated their policy manuals gets to post it on there and it's searchable so that was a very useful function when um trying to find out how other committees um handle their warrant approval uh and it's really all over the board um so by far the most common um approach was a single member signing um I think it's sort of odd that the advice is that there needs to be one individual because that was definitely not the case in a lot of these other committees policies but uh in any case I um and bearing in mind there are many committees who are not on this database yet but uh of the ones that are um I counted 41 that had a policy um similar to ours and it's a one member signing policy um there were the next largest group was 20 who left their warrant signing process unclear in their policy manual believe it or not so we're apparently actually ahead on this um and then after that um the next uh largest group there were uh like 11 that um have an either or policy where warrants are either approved by the school committee which end do do say how or by a subcommittee of at least three of the members and I would add a couple of other committees on there that specifically have a warrant subcommittee that that's their job um there were just a handful that have a majority of their school committee required to sign warrants um one of them said it was a majority of the Comm committee or the chair or the chair's designate um there was a similar handful um that was like f six that um approve their warrants at their meetings and those are committees that meet every every other week basically um and so there's language in there that um if the committee is only meeting once that month then the budget and finance subcommittee is supposed to approve the warrants sounds complicated to me um then then there are other committees that designate a certain person so I found one that designates the secretary there were five that designate the chair um and there were uh there was one that designates the chair of their budget and finance subcommittee uh a couple of school committees have their own Treasurer as an officer who whose job it is to approve warrants um there was one that had three members required to sign on a rotation and the budget and finance chair gets to pick who's on the rotation and has to notify them um and I think I've covered all different like I said it's all over the board so oh and there were a couple question it's the budget and finance subcommittee so we can do whatever we want basically there's not like yeah it was just our our repit mask who had kind of given me the impression that we were out of compliance by only having the one member rule but maybe we can check with our attorney if that's actually accurate you know I mean if there's one member who wants to like raise their hand right now and say I want this responsibility every other week then that's great but I just feel like that's not really fair so that's a lot of work so member Childs I would also be concerned about having only one person doing it because what happens if one week uh they're traveling and their laptop gets destroyed and then what happens right I I like fail safes all right well if it it sounds like the recommendation was to kind of keep our our warrant signing process as is and why don't we do that until our attorney tells us we can't so does that sound good um um I would be good with that I would like to know from folks um if they like the more codified approach to um questions and um how to put uh certain questions if necessary on the uh School committee's agenda and um this is obviously something that would go into our school Committee Member handbook but um if members have other ideas then U please chime in yeah any so okay so we have two items basically the the warrant signing process and then this uh discussion of Warrant questions and problems so but can I can we resolve first the warrant signing thing because we're just on that is anybody object to us just leaving it the way it is until the attorneys tell us we can't okay great so now now back to your proposal about the process anyone discussion about that member Goodwin I think my concern was that we weren't being allow I felt like we weren't being allowed to ask questions and that was concerning for me um because we chartering the course I mean they made it really clear we all are responsible um when those things get signed not just one person every single one of us sitting here um so if we have a question about something we should get it answered I mean that's really the issue um and I like the fact that the idea of it being on that template so that if there is some question even if you've made phone calls and you're still not sure that you get to ask I think what I liked is we were all asking questions and we were learning from each other because as you asked questions about different line items I felt like we lost that uh in the process and I would like to see that back we need to be asking more questions I think mayor S I just want to say for myself I was new to this and I'm gonna kind of look at the other new members when I first saw these warrants I had so many questions not not like doubting anything it there were so many things that were unfamiliar to me me like on the warrant there would have been like 40 or 50 I know what it's like to be the mayor and I can only imagine what it's like to be the superintendent I wasn't calling with all of my questions because our superintendent had a school to run that I mean that really I didn't call with every question that I had because they were all things that were foreign to me the names of the schools and everything I mean maybe it's just me but um so am I the only person that felt like that there's a whole list of things and nobody else had any questions but I didn't want to you know burden anyone with all of the things that I asked and I don't feel like we actually discussed that part I don't I I always when I was on Council I always had aund questions but this things on that and I thought who signs it have you I have not signed it have you signed it I mean can we ask can can I'm usually the person who signs sign it often okay you you sign through everyone and yeah okay I have signed it you've signed it okay I've never signed it has can I can we ask could we ask chair is anybody else signed it on the other side of the room I don't want to we're not supposed to be talking back and forth no it's fine yeah I'll read them but I defer and let the more experienced knowledgeable people do do the signing remember Den I think the reason that this is coming up is because when when we first got on the three of us like no there is no class on warrant sign like nobody comes to talk to you about this in fact I think it was like day two after getting my email Vera's thing pops up in his like warrants and I'm like what what is that like and it kept popping up and she's like desperate to get a signature and I'm like I guess we're supposed to just do this like I don't even know what it is so we didn't have any training or discussion about it and I can tell you that the word warrants never came up in the first two years of school committee like no one it was never discussed in full committee ever once ever about anything so just us talking about it is like a baby step experience so I feel like we kind of can do whatever works for us and probably should come up with something that we all like and that feels you know as good as it possibly can for all of our schedules and time and desires but that also leaves us the flexibility to ask the questions because real quickly I learned oh we're supposed to be talking about this but the Avenue was closed until now so we should make our path is how I feel however we want it and make sure that new members that come on feel like they can ask the questions they need to ask and understand what it is because there's really no information for us about that and it's a big part of what we have to do and it's a lot of pages and like 90% of them are all pretty self-explanatory and fine so it's just we're talking about like tiny little things that we may have questions about so and I think our our dispute was not so much about whether people could ask questions I I don't know me unless there is a huge communication uh error I think I've told everybody as often as I could anytime you have a question about an invoice feel free to ask the superintendent or business manager like that is I I think I feel like that's been a pretty consistent message for me but I'm not sure given the conversation whether that really got through I will say the superintendent and business manager have endless question endless patience for questions from school committee members about warrants and invoices and don't feel like you're bothering them it is your job you have to understand what's going on in those in those warrants but I definitely concur with the idea that our Orient school committee orientation could use a lot of beefing up including the aspect of the kind of process for how to get questions answered about warrants and what are they and what is your role um and I really appreciate the kind of codifying of the the process you know that really starts with uh well maybe you can summarize again what the process was that you all came up with okay uh so the process is when members have questions about warrants please get them to the superintendent uh as quickly as possible but definitely at least a week before the following school committee meeting if you want to potentially address it at that meeting the superintendent will take the next uh four days to do everything that she can to answer your question questions if you have something that's left over it's not answered or the you weren't um satisfied with the answer that you got then um ask the chair to put your question on the school committee agenda uh three days before the meeting and the reason it's three days is so that we can meet the posting requirement for the meeting um and uh if you have a question that falls after that timeline still ask it it's just potentially going to go on the next school committee the agenda because we need to be able to post things on time for our meetings so that people know what we're going to talk about yep and I would say if we can adjust the timeline just the Thursday before the meeting then the superintendent I meet on Friday morning and GNA get all the agenda ducks in a row we're finding that trying to post on Monday is um not workable given the bounce backs we've been getting from the city clerk's office at times so all right any other discussion about warrant thank you and thank you very much for uh taking on that project in spite of thinking maybe it should have landed with my committee the policy committee I just have one other request yes please um I think this does um need to be sent to the handbook subcommittee so that a new section can be created okay so let's see uh motion to take the recommendation of the to send the recommendation of the budget subcommittee about the approval of warrants and questions about warrants to the handbook subcommittee so moved motion from Member Charles is there a second second second from Member suon discussion the handbook subcommittee will gladly add a section if you wish thank you you member Den our living document will live on mayor dor I'm going to vote in favor of that but I want to thank member Martini for doing all that research and looking through all of those to give to this committee thank you yes thank you any other discussion all in favor say I I I opposed abstain motion carries unanimously member Farber I think I spoke kind of quickly did you get my motion okay great thank you ah we can now move on to policy and program sorry discussion that's right go ahead member Martini sorry you can Piller me later we have one other um topic that we addressed in budget and finance um which is the feedback that we received from our recent Outreach um in in the community about the development of the FY 26 budget so I wanted to share that feedback with you if I can find it here it is okay uh this is a summary of uh the information that was um or or suggestions wishes uh views that were offered to us um by attending uh pto's as well as the ghs school council and the CPC and the elpac so uh boiled down into themes the number one across the board uh thing that was brought up was the need to improve Staffing no surprises there uh we especially need to improve our staffing of substitute teachers and IAS as well as special education teachers uh and that's something we've touched on earlier this evening we uh last year did approve an increase in our sub rate but unfortunately we are still greatly struggling to attract adequate substitutes and that is impacting uh some of the other positions for which we already have staffing issues like IAS um if we have an IIA who's being pulled um to substitute because we don't have a substitute then that individual is not able to provide what they are supposed to be providing in the classroom and I would like to um add that some of what our IAS are providing are things that our students with disabilities are legally entitled to receive so if they don't have their IIA they may not be receiving the accommodations um and services that they require in order to learn so it's a big issue uh and that was um certainly the thing that was spoken to the most and uh there is uh support in the community uh of course for maintaining small class sizes uh we have uh the second most uh frequent issue that was uh brought up was the need to support social emotional learning uh and uh the well-being of our students in that area so uh there is a lot of support for continued um seal for students and teachers uh including things like anti-bullying program access to counseling ensuring cultural and linguistic capacity in counseling uh professional development for our IAS in this area and and uh that aligns very much with what uh the superintendent shared at our last school committee meeting uh that was gleaned through listening sessions from last year uh and uh is definitely well understood to be a front burner issue um in the district there was also um happiness expressed with our high quality instructional materials and a desire to continue to support them as well as the need for a consistent K to5 science curriculum um and instructional resources a desire to bring foreign language instruction back to Greenfield Middle School and a desire for additional Arts and Music opportunities in the district such as bringing specials to a funding for Instrument Repair music nonperformance electives and uh vertically aligned Arts extracurriculars so that we um have students building um skills in those areas from early on uh for later uh there is a across theboard desire to have more in school enrichment activities um as well as more field trips and those I would say constitute the um the big ones the ones that were brought up the most frequently uh there were additional things that were brought up less frequently but are still important um including Tech needs uh such as the elevation platform to support our English language Learners as a wish uh the need for things like Prometheans and smartboards document cameras iPads and laptops there uh is interest in supporting our libraries and making sure that they have uh more books and more Librarians when we're um able to provide them a desire to support developing parents' capacity for understanding their rights in special education uh and desire to support lpac to elpac Intergroup activities um Transportation uh was brought up as a need for Co-Op Sports and extracurricular activities as well as specifically for the elpac uh in order to provide transportation for both intra and Intergroup activities and uh there is a wish for a volunteer coordinator or Community Co coordinator and community resource support for parents uh those are all the things that I think are pertinant to the operating budget there were also a number of um needs brought up that would be U perhaps more pertinant to Capital sorry mayor uh there are a number of um issues that were brought up at Federal Street uh the elevator of chorus is top of everyone's mind and uh I would just reiterate what member child's said earlier about that um also there were um issues uh with stair flooring and railings in need of repair the sidewalk in front of the accessible entrance in need of repair the brick wall on the playground and Door and Window issues and there were some additional um problems like that at a such as gaps in the fence and the need for uh play structure and cafeteria tables that are actually sized for 3 to four year olds oh and there may be an heat issue at Four Corners because we evidently have a staff person who's not able to turn the heat down in their classroom thank you for the Outreach and for the report would you take questions and comments from the committee anyone thank you you're welcome right great thank you very much to policy and program subcommittee so um these are what's in your agenda as first read um our process is basically to share with you uh provide an opportunity for discussion and then at the next meeting to vote on on on policies um so um any discussion of either policy jica dress code or policy kbg parent advisory councils okay we'll bring those back to you next month for the vote if you have any questions or comments that come to you in the meantime um you can let me know as chair of the policy committee um we can try to address them before the next meeting on to the community engagement subcommittee yeah uh we met three-ish weeks ago now um and the two items that are before us we were brainstorming ways that we could make meetings even just slightly more accessible to families and parents in particular and one of the things that we discussed was actually moving our start time for these regular monthly committee meetings to 6:30 to give parents and families an opportunity and I would also add committee members an opportunity to have dinner um or do other activities but if they wanted to come here it is a struggle to do all the stuff they need to do by the time they're done with work and get here by 6 um additionally it would make us consistent with City Council meetings which I think is just a helpful so that's one less shift that you have to keep in in your brain um when you're thinking about when you might want to participate in your Civic activities so that's something that we are making a recommendation um and would entertain a vote on if we wanted to do that um the other was more of a discussion about Committee Member participation in school community activities and being a visible presence so that we can also be available when people have questions about policy or when they want to give us feedback about budgets um when it's even not budget season perhaps um and so the the and y'all y'all might not like this but we're gonna say it anyway is to see if we can put some language in our policy manual that asks us to show up to things on a regular basis and it's not just the community engagement subcommittee's responsibility to show up to stuff um and we're talking things like athletic games baned stuff um other community events maybe the Comic Con you know and that we right like there's so much stuff that our that our kids are involved in and that our schools do that if we just one or two of us went and made ourselves available and made ourselves a visible presence we think that that would go a long way to saying we're wanting to be where you are and maybe that will encourage you to come to where we are next time when you have a question or a concern or want to talk to us um as a way of sort of building additional connection and Rapport so the the idea there and i' love to hear yall thoughts on this would be to actually add language now keep in mind we did ask um this would not be legally binding or enforcable and we could not kick you off the committee for not doing it but it's more of a statement of this is an intention of how we would like to operate this is what we would like to hold ourselves to as Greenfield school committee members that we want to be engag and active and visible members of this community and that this is sort of an expectation that people can have when they're running for the position well of course like I said we can't enforce it but we can make it a norm thank you so I think I heard uh possibility of two motions in there the first would be a motion to change the school committee meeting start time to 6:30 p.m.

e for shall we call the meeting to order folks we're short too but we're understanding one will be here yep okay well I'd like to call the December 11th 2024 uh Bethany Board of Education meeting the order we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of to the flag United States of America the for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice for all Charlotte schol we be seeing gentlemen stter engine all right PTO report you're up hi everyone uh my name is Melissa zaldo I am the current PTO president uh since we last met um our student or excuse me our teacher appreciation chair and her committee um walked around to provide uh uh holiday pies and coffee right before the um Thanksgiving break we also right now currently have our smake shop going on if you want to take a little Gander in the gym on the non-stage side it is still set up uh this shop is scheduled to last through tomorrow um most of the class V visited today and yesterday tomorrow it's just going to be open for kids who didn't get a chance to um go with their class on either one of these days uh we're still looking for help to help take down the um the shop so if anybody can give a hand tomorrow afternoon after school um I would say just show up at this point you don't need to um register to volunteer our next meeting um I sent my weekly out my weekly announcement out uh this morning there wasn't error on the date of our next meeting um our next meeting is scheduled a week from today which is the 18th erroneously erroneously put the 15th um a new announcement just went out like about five minutes ago with a crack date um I just I just blank but the next meeting is next Wednesday it's a zoom meeting uh the link is sent is in the weekly that is corra it's also in the flyer that just went out um our BCS spirit store is still open uh if you need to purchase some items for uh upcoming holidays certainly check that out everybody's loving that um hockey sweatshirt with the with the laces on it and then um we currently have uh BCS night at quinap Pak hocki tickets are for sale for that um the game is January 11th at 700 p.m.

um and I'll take a motion to adopt the adopt the agenda I move to adopt the agenda as presented I'll second have a first and second all in favor I motion passes 5 if you can all please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands indis andice all right um we are at approval of the minutes for I'll take a motion to approve the minutes for regular board meeting Martin November 13th 2024 I move to approve the me minutes from the uh board meeting of November 13 2024 as presented I'll second have a first and second all in favor I I I motion passes 5 um I'll next I'll take a motion to approve the minutes for the executive session for no November 13 2024 I move to approve the minutes from the executive session from November 13 2024 as presented I'll second I have a first and second all in favor I I motion passes by V all right that takes us to um superintendent report and celebrations and recognitions thank you um a number of things going on this month it's extremely uh busy month um do you want to highlight a variety of different uh uh successes in the district I'll also let the um audience know there are some copies out on the on the desk as you go out so if you want to get all the details because I'm not going to read every detail you can grab one of those want to thank everyone in the district we were able to assist 200 families at Thanksgiving and probably a little bit more than 200 families will be assisting at Christmas with a food drive um we also received from uh uh Central Christian Church uh a thousand uh gifts to give out to kids and families that need gifts as well as uh additional $400 so that's a uh a great way for us to uh celebrate uh the holiday season by taking care of those that may be in need football team had a lot of success this year going to uh the playoffs uh you'll see that they have uh first second and an AAL mention uh for All Region Awards in the Desert Sky Conference Isaac Jeff Cod running back Sam Pearson the defensive line Levi angland the linebacker and Matel Gomez offensive line we're first team uh part of our giving Traditions within our community the Santan Lions Club also did a generous donation to help our amilies and needs as part of what we're doing so we appreciate their success uh or their uh help in that area uh the volleyball team at the high school also had a uh successful season and they had uh Molly aens Khloe Gonzalez Mariah Luhan celian Lions Avery lions and Lily Ortiz were honorable mention over at Harmon Again part of the giving season uh the Honor Society students participated in Operation Christmas Child was uh uh maran's purse preparing and donating boxes of personal care uh for needy children and they also hosted the weeklong food drive to help multiple uh families uh in uh the area the drama department at uh CHS was honored with a gold honor troop at the Arizona thesbian State Festival um they also had uh uh received a superior ranking for the one o play this is a test and they also did some fundraising they also have three students set of accepted scholarships uh to various colleges around the country for their uh to display their talents down at CTA the nights of a giving table uh selected eight families to adopt during Christmas season uh and as always they have assistance and help from enanta and the ovace neighborhood and I know everybody down there is excited for the Anantara Chris Kringle event that's coming up so we appreciate the partnership with uh um with ananta at CTA Ranch Elementary was was honored with a couple of their staff members as part of our inclusion in the modern uh uh teacher network uh Mr Christensen is a finalist for the modern teacher conference personalized learning classroom uh award on a national level and Dr selie peoples has been named finalist for the uh conference for the change agent instructional coach of the year that conference will be held in uh the tail end of February so we'll let you know how they do there simonon was also participating in the comes annual Drive um the winners there got to throw pies in Mrs Lopez's face so that had to be a fun time um they're also looking forward to their holiday market and uh visit from the Grinch in the holiday singal along uh at uh CMS uh they celebrate their accomplishments um the math team earned first place in the panal county math school math competition with yep with Luke kler and Steven hilm securing third place and team division Lila Guzman was awarded a fiesta bow Grant to purchase new refrigerator for the fax room Alexis Elliott received an SRP Grant to purchase new art supplies the girls softball team remains undefeated with a 13-0 record um wrestling is earn second place uh at their recent tournament uh and they also had a very successful science night with over 15 vendors in uh there including the Phoenix Zoo and and far Veri uh CHS continues uh the robotics Club was awarded the Gan hos Foundation Grant of 27 a little over $2,700 thank you to Kyle young they will have uh uh uh uplifting message tomorrow uh with the ninth graders trying to keep them on track uh to graduate the palty uh festable Charities awarded first year teacher Cataline Catalina Valdez teacher Grant the cheer team in in addition to hosting both uh the 3K Color Run as well as um the very successful Trunk or Treat fundraisers earned third place finish at NCA state competition and three of the cheerleaders Liliana dwier Brey Lucas and Isabella horn were named NCA All-American team at Ellsworth the Ellsworth students five were recognized in the top 40 for the panal county anti-drug poster contest Malon Dawson Sophia rubic calva Ariana Hernandez Kaylee Daniels and Addie archeleta and then in the uh VW sponsored Patriots pen contest Riley Baker earned first place and Kandy Mel earned second place um and Mrs G uh gon was awarded a $2,500 fiestable scholarship so a lot of things happening around the district I just wanted to highlight those and say congratulations to everybody getting it good um for our staff recognition I'm going to go ahead and call up a group of people and then I'll have Miss Ridge come up to do her part so this month we have um this is a special month to recognize some of our staff members and this month uh there's a recognition of those special people that work with special needs children so we want to recognize I'll have them come up here and uh we'll get a group picture but I'll also say a few words after I recognize them so we have uh Christine purle from Ranch Jenny Curtis in our prek [Applause] program Meredith Brennan uh from Ellsworth Tanya basah from Ellsworth Heidi bush from the high school Eva flake from [Applause] CMS Santos Bagnal from uh Harmon Karina Gastelum from Simington Christine grie from alter School C c s and Teisha Thomas from CTA and these are the special people that take care of all the special needs kids in our district um they go above and beyond and and if you want to see magic happen every day if you want to see what teaching is really about walk into special education classroom anytime any place in our uh in our district these people do m with kids they give kids that extra love that extra little attention that allows them to have the same experience as any other child in our school and so when you take a look and you see what they do with with those kids it is just God's work and so from the bottom of my heart thank you for what you do for our kids every single day thank [Music] you actually before we have Laura come up I'm just GNA have uh Mr Tesa come up and talk about his piece so I can give Laura more time for CMS and he's going to come up and talk about Esports which is brand new uh for the younger kids in our district and so we want to give them a chance to recognize some kids the clinking sound makes you sound important all right hello everyone um board members Dr Wyman uh guests um my name is Robert Testa I am the head Esports coach over at Colmes high school and this year year we started something really cool um for those of you who don't know what orts is it's competitive video gaming um we are basically a video game sport and I know some people don't consider us a sport but we are officially in the Olympics so can't really argue it anymore um so we uh this year we started a middle school and Elementary League that was solely dedicated to our comb students so every student who competed was at one of our elementary schools or at our middle school so it truly represented the best best and brightest of combs in our Esports team and I really wanted to um recognize the Champions the first ever Combs Esports Champions here in front of everyone so you can see that the hard work that they put in over the course of four or five months now um has really paid off for them and I do want to give a special shout out to miss Ridge um she has been super supportive of Esports at the middle school anytime I asked her hey can we do this she says just go for it like blank check you can do whatever so she has been awesome it's also because of her we're actually going to be starting a middle school specific team in the spring even furthering Esports at the school so or at the district so that's awesome thank you Miss Ridge all right all right so I'd like to call up the coach of the Junior League or the middle school team uh Victor Hernandez he's actually also one of our high school players as well High School captains I should say he's going to help hand out the uh actual Awards I like the CL he's actually won what four gold medals just himself alone at the high school so he's pretty accomplished in his field all right um so first up we have captain of the middle school team Quinton Thompson we have Lis Hernandez our coach's younger brother Wesley I'm sorry I'm going to butcher your last name but Wesley katans Aurora Mills Avery Maguire who's also a second generation Esports player his brother was on the high school team and last but not least Carlos Bernal Jr these students really gave some dedicated hard work this season they put in the hours the time the effort and it's paid off and every single one of them also made our Middle School team as well [Applause] all right and the last thing I want to hand out and then I'll jump off is this is our championship trophy that goes to the school and it is going to be a traveling trophy so every year the kids have to defend it or it's going to go to another school in our district I'm going to present this to miss Ridge so she can take it back to the middle school all right thank you everyone I'm glad I got this moment to recognize these kids in this new era of Sports remember we're in the Olympics you can't argue us anymore all right thank you [Applause] guys Mr Ridge you're on I'm gonna set that right there so you guys can look at it while I'm up here since we did win not modest at all board president member of the board and Dr Wyman and audience thank you for coming out tonight so I can tell you all the great things that are happening at Colmes middle school as you heard um the girl softball team is still undefeated and they are on their way to State nice so and most importantly in that we beat ala Ironwood twice and Legacy twice so oh yeah I don't want to get this wrong but boys wrestling I believe came in second place um for finals so we had that too so I needed to mention that um but what I really want to highlight tonight because I know we're kicking butt in all the athletic stuff and um the official sport now um we are also kicking butt in AC mics and so yeah I I I just want to say it again that um we are the number one in all of panel County all of panal County Middle School Math Champions um I'm going to have two kids speak about their experiences um really quickly um but I I just want to share a a really quick story um of how they got me they came back I was having a really really tough day that day um with middle school kids I know you can't imagine that and so um I was in my feelings and then they came I heard them coming back in and then uh they came in and um Miss LEP Tick's like you know we really tried our hardest and I was just like you know I'm just so proud you guys showed up and you made it and in my really my heart of hearts I was like really we didn't get nothing but I was like okay you know I'm so proud of the team d so she was like well you come and tell them how proud you are muster my face together and then I go in and then the whole team is in the conference room and then they all start just shouting how they took first place and I literally wept in the conference room in front of all of them um followed by McDonald's so I I treated them all to McDonald so um at this time I'm going to let Mariana come up first um so will you come up and share with them what your math experience was I told Luke he was going first um so this is actually my second time going to the math competition I went last year with my partner Miss leptic and my mom but this year was like so much fun um so last year we met after school and it was like really hard we didn't really know like the people that we were working with but the Year miss leptic um took us out of our first hour and we worked on all the questions together and that really helped us understand what we were doing and um helped us like get more close to each other and that like really helped us build the bond during the competition um the competition was just like Tim Ely really fun and it was really amazing thank you Miss leptic for letting us do karaoke on the bus that really um got us excited and got us in the mood and when we got there it was really fun so we got there and like we were all so nervous we had like we were very very nervous we didn't know like what we were going to do we heard some music and our karaoke Vibes some of us either dance and karaoke did out and all the other schools just looked at us but we knew that that was how we were getting our nerves out some of us didn't want to karaoke and dance so we decided last minute um studying K mytic brought the packets so we like studied and worked and we really had some fun I think the most nerve-wracking part was when they were announcing who won we heard all this stuff for like the individuals we didn't win that one but we were all we had a lot of High Hopes because one of us made it top 15 top 15 and we're all like oh man we thought like she was definitely going to make it we heard individuals I already said we heard um partners we were really happy that we got second and when we hit um Team average none of us thought that we were going to get first they said third we didn't hear our name and we're like oh that's we're not going to be anywhere else but they said first wow I could like none of us could believe it we're like we got first um but yeah it was honestly really fun I want to thank Miss Ridge for like supporting us and taking us there I want to and for the McDonald's that's like she asked says what can I get you guys pizza and we're like um no but she she's she offered McDonald's and who are we to say no um thanks for Miss leptic for helping us study and like also supporting us thank you for um to miss Andrew for helping us out on the questions that we had no idea what they were asking um thank you to miss Lena for paying for some ice cream sandwiches when we came home with the Victory and thanks to my mom for supporting me and being an awesome Karen sha Brown I think I'm gonna have to do some karaoke to get in the mood to do math are you surprised that my students sing and dance no Absolut absolutely not almost a prerequisite to go to comes Middle School okay and next we have Luke ker he's going to come up and talk about his experience and then I have um a surprise a surprise more McDonald's so I want to start and say how grateful I am for having the opportunity to go to the math competition had a great time I was pretty nervous at first but I got there and I saw my team you know dancing to the music outside and you didn't dance I didn't dance I was studying but after seeing them dance I was encouraged and I knew we could do this um while we were doing the qualified test it was funny the whole time I was praying and hoping that I'd pass cuz if you did you got to do the solo round of the competition and when some time passed we had the team competition me and my teammate thought we did well all the questions were multiple choice questions but we got third in teams overall meaning we did well so after we had lunch and it was borrows pizza that's why when um Miss Ridge offered to have pizza we were like will pass cuz we just had a bunch of pizza and then um after lunch we had the individual competition it was knockout so if you got two questions wrong you were out so that's why when we got someone in the top 15 that was like really surprising and really good really excited for that and um later we had the team competition which you had to answer 25 questions on a Scantron which I didn't know what a Scranton was until just then wow and then we had to turn it in our team did great during the solo competition after we had a small break and we had Awards they started with teams and then they announced Luke and Steven for third place and I was excited because I was able to make my school proud and when they announced J Colmes Middle School school got first place for overall average score our whole math team was excited and jumping for joy so overall had a great time representing our school and doing math so I want to give a special shout out to miss leptic miss Ridge and the whole math team for making this happen good job you guys that have your Elementary I'm sorry did you say there were 15 teams that's the leader can you tell okay so when I say we kick but that's she said it ni all the elementary parents and students in the audience if this isn't a selling point for comes Middle School I don't know what is so this is a Shameless plug send your kids to comes Middle School great things are happening at [Applause] [Music] CMS now they took a picture with a fake trophy right something was not right and so we called and Sue got really mad um because the soap trophy wasn't ready so then she put me on the people to be not disrespectful but I made my point and so um I got a call yesterday and the guy said if you can meet me in uh Santan Central College in 15 minutes I can meet you and I have the trophy so I snuck it in so I'm GNA give this to miss leptic our fearless math leader and thank you to Luke if as I say your name please stand up Luke Stephen kendle Mariana Sophia Ellie Isabella Isobel oh I did I said it right yep Ava Jade Michaela Ivy shayen Issa [Applause] nice all right thank you [Applause] guys okay like really quick I feel like we're doing a filibuster up here yes okay this is a really quick guys take a [Applause] picture so excited all right thank you guys you can sit down good job job good job okay yes math can be cool and math can be fun all right so I'm going to speed up this part so the adults that I'm about to honor will understand that I'm going to speed this up so we can get it on to the other recognitions but so right out the gate I'm going to recognize Miss shindel Decker um she is my school social worker she started at CMS like one year after I started when I was still teaching at CMS so we've been rocking together for a very long time I I wouldn't even want to work there anymore if she ever decided to leave me so she's not allowed to leave um until I retire which I did the math the other day and it was eight years so she's going to be there for another eight years so get your kids there before we leave um she is phenomenal I think I forgot to tell you to come up yes you want to talk about ride or die she is my ride or die chick there's nothing that I can't um ask her for and I have this thing where I'm delusional and thinking we can pull off anything even if it's five minutes before it's due um and she just goes right along with me she makes sure every students I'm delusional every student's ch um um need is met at our school and um I actually sometimes have to tell her to go we go home together almost the same time every day like I say okay five more minutes she says five and we we are the last people out of the building you can't um you can't put a price on people that stick with you and stay with you and just no questions asked and so I am forever grateful for not only the business relationship we have but how um your people become your family and shindy is my family so thank you nice um so this is a gift card to salad and go my creativity [Applause] next up this is probably killing her right now but Wendy Cabanas and I'd like to thank Yeta for this um Wendy applied for our school a couple of years ago come on up Wendy come on up Wendy is our health assistant and um she applied to our school I wasn't really familiar with her but I got a call from Yeta and she said this is one of our most amazing parents at CTA please um take a look at her application she came in nailed it and um she's allegedly going to school for something but she's not allowed to leave me to grow bigger in life she's stuck with me too so um um I will tell you if your kids have an injury even a fake one um she takes good care of them because everybody needs ice all day at middle school I don't know what it is but she will give your child ice and um she takes such good care of our students and again another person I'm so lucky that whatever I asked for she's like I got it and um the other day I had to run to go get something she didn't even ask any questions she's like running with me already and she's like you need me and I was like no it's not really an emergency I'm just trying to get there fast but I didn't even have to ask I was already running and she was right behind me so that's the kind of people you can train they're just in tune with you and she just always has my back as well so Wendy goes to Dutch Bros every morning so I got her a Dutch Bros Cup oh we have to take a picture [Music] did it break the Le always does the leaf always takes it bandaid It Up watch the glass okay is Dr Peterson here yes I was hoping you made it so my volunteer of the month is no other than the famous Dr Peterson he has the orthodontics um business um by McDonald's and so um I'm so it's I'm just so thankful that you can come with your schedule and everything when I tell you it is nothing like having a business um partner that supports your school I call him with the weirdest requests and he just always sees it through um he helps us with teacher appreciation week I just I don't think I tell you enough how much I appreciate you I know I send postcards and I call but um I slightly cheated him the other time we were doing a um fundraiser not a fundraiser but raising for Thanksgiving and so at the middle school we have houses and so I saw him out in the streets and I was like hey I need you to donate stuffing to me and he's like uhoh I think your math team is adding some things up right now well my house was responsible for bringing stuffing so I forgot to mention to bring stuff for the other houses I just said bring stuff for my house and so when he brought it somebody let the cat out of the bag and let him know that he was bringing stuffing specifically for my house but just running into him you know he showed up with 20 boxes of stuffing for me and that's the kind of thing you can't buy with business Partnerships so my favor to you guys in the audience when you have an orthodontic need for your children please support the people that support this school and support this District he not only supports the middle school I know he supports other schools in the district as well he just likes us the best so Dr Peterson please come [Applause] up thank you so much and I wasn't sure what to get a dentist so I got you Dutch Bros too hold it don't drop it I'm not going to give a speech about Sue um and how she helped me in math when we started a math program together and um how I stole her from Apache Junction um when she was teaching there but I am going to give her salad and go yeah [Applause] okay we'll do student of the month good evening Mr President and members of the governing board Dr Wyman members of our community and some great students that we get to celebrate tonight um this month on our portrait of a graduate we're looking at uh Innovation and technology so you're going to hear some amazing things that some of our students are involved in so from the uh high school well first let me just say as I call your name up come join me up here I'm going to read the uh the scriptor that has been passed on by your principal or a teacher and then when we're done I'll have you go across and you'll receive a a medal and certificate so first from the high school Franchesca Maya Franchesca are you here let me just read a little bit uh Franchesca is um involved with the social media she's the student body social media correspondent who regularly uses our Instagram to spread the word of all the great things happening at comes high school so congratulations to Francesca our second St uh student is from com Center for success and I know that Carson can't join us tonight but I believe that he's either watching live or he'll have an opportunity to watch it online as a recording but let me tell you a little bit about Carson in today's fast-paced world technology is the Cornerstone of progress transforming the way we live and work the ability to harness technology creatively is a skill that can truly set one apart and Carson Lindley a talented com Center for Success Middle School student embodies this Spirit of innovation and adaptability Carson integrates technology into into his schoolwork showcasing both efficiency and creativity in every assignment in science class he submits detailed lab reports using digital tools to present his findings his creativity also shines in history where he leverages interactive geography quizlets finally Carson's artistic efforts lead him to utilize digital tools to sketch and visualize his ideas before bringing them to life in a TR traditional media so let's give it up for Carson again hope you're watching tonight Carson all right Miss Ridge was talking about some of the amazing students at the middle school and we have one more to bring up so Caitlyn Kerr come on [Music] up you come stand right here Caitlyn awesome Caitlyn came to comes Middle School a little overwhelmed with the prospect of navigating a larger campus as a new student this along with some other life obstacles does not stop Caitlyn from learning she is talented at drawing and creating even generating her own comics on her laptop one of her greatest achievements this fall has been in self-discipline and using her laptop to study the curriculum and complete her assignments she is an innovator but maybe more importantly an amazing person who is a joy to have in your company Caitlyn [Applause] congratulations next from comes Traditional Academy me Max Pingree Max are you here all right Max come on up Max is nominated because he shows outstanding skill in using technology to make his learning better his digital literacy allows him to work with Innovative tools and resources really well improving not just his own understanding but also that of his classmates Max's ability to lead and Inspire others in using technology for academic assignments is noteworthy his ability to use techn technology in his studies makes him a strong candidate for student of the month for technology and Innovation congratulations [Applause] Max from Ellsworth Elementary we're celebrating Jameson Sawyer Jameson Jameson Sawyer has been doing great things at logging into the computer he even helps his classmates with the computers he is very skilled in technology and working on computers he's Innovative and always comes up with new ways to play with his friends he follows the rise code and does his Best in Class congratulations Jameson from Harmon we have Elijah ad me [Applause] Elijah so here's a little bit about Elijah Elijah is a standout student who cons who consistently demonstrates creativity and adaptability in using technology to enhance his learning in class he often takes the initiative to explore new tools like designing visually engaging presentations using canva or Google slides his enthusiasm for technology not only enriches his learning experiences but also inspires his peers to think outside the box and embrace modern tools in creative ways by integrating these tools into classwork Elijah demonstrates a Mastery of digital literacy making learning not only fun but also more impactful for himself and his classmates congratulations Elijah great job all right from Ranch Tatiana janz are you here all right Tatiana is a fifth grader and she's being recognized for technology and Innovation award she's shown amazing creativity and skill with technology this school year recently she completed a project where she created a digital Math game that impressed both her teachers and classmates she not only excelled in her project but also encouraged her peers to explore new ideas by sharing her tech knowledge uh technology knowledge during group activities she truly is a deserving candidate and I believe the math club at the middle school is waiting for you so [Applause] congratulations and finally from simonon we have London L [Applause] Coleman London has creatively constructed multiple presentations this year they are visually interesting and informational she uses all the tools available to her within the program to enhance her presentation and is fearless in trying new approaches she has served as a model for other St students and has taught them how to use online tools as well London congratulations and let's give one more hand for our technology experts and innovators that's awesome we will take a short break so you can get any pictures or if you want to leave at this point in time you can stay for the whole meeting but uh we'll just take a a quick 3 to 5 minute break e e e ready good to see you oh I didn't see her walk by so three times fast I know tell Jen to come back in we got calling Miss Tucker we can go go ahead I don't care what we got four we can go okay you do you boy let's go all right that takes to 6.5 anything from governing board members yes I have one thing uh Dr Wyman had mentioned about the kids cringle at CTA it's tomorrow tomorrow so uh people the kids will be getting gifts to give to their loved ones at home nice very nice all right takes this a 7.1 public comments we don't have any all right that's all right that takes us to the consent agenda we can if there's any questions we can take those or I'll take a a vote to take it in full or in part I don't have any I don't have any this week okay all right then I'll take a motion to uh to approve the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll second all right I have a first and a second I'll in favor third four i i i i motion passes 550 that takes us to give me a minute dat nine I don't know if it's on oh it is Mr President members of the board Dr weinan colleagues members of the audience the agenda item you have all been waiting for yes it is the adoption of the FY 25 annual expenditure budget revision number one which you know needs to be adopted by December 15th this revision takes into consideration the current Group B weight on averages the FY 24 finalized carry forward balance and the most recent budget 75 information issued by ad it does not amend the 3,640 1167 average daily membership from what our original adopted budget was the M budget was therefore increased by 1, se2 and our capital budget was reduced by $239 these amounts have been allocated across the various areas and the projected expenditures for this year so you will see those on page one and on page four are there any questions about the budget revision why are you looking oh please Mr Delany you have to have at least one Bob I happen to look at every I'm gonna cry you just noticed no I looked at him I legit looked right at him that's okay what can I say it looks good thank you I will miss your questions greatly I'll I'll look in and call them in feel for free to call me email me I can take it we got Bob on the line you have to fill out add to the agenda on the line all right I'll take a motion uh I move to adopt the 2024 2025 annual expenditure budget revision number one as presented all right I have a first and a second all in favor I I I'll get your signature before executive session please yes thank thank you all right that motion passes 50 9.2 discussion and consideration approval of the Grand County University personalized admission program agreement this is the agreement we talked about last month in in the discussion items it's the same program essentially as what we already have an agreement with Helios and the three major universities in the state um Grand Canyon was not part of that original program uh and so therefore they've gone ahead and moved on on their own there's a slight variation in that program uh for the new board members what the program allows is they review uh students who are juniors in the summer between their Junior and Senior year they go ahead and review transcripts and if they have the grades and the classes that they've taken there's a provision for them to get early admittance if they obviously they have to continue with the same grades and completion of classes and so this just uh puts a program in from GCU along with the programs we currently have with uh with ASU UV and naau so I would recommend approval as presented all right any questions it's just a like the dual enrollment stuff it's helping them yeah but this is really more just uh entrance into into actually college so they review their transcripts and if the kids have gotten the right GPA and taken the right courses and are on target to to be there it's almost like preferred admittance um and they they still have to go through all the the stuff with applying and and fastsun all that but they get a letter from the University saying we encourage you to go ahead and and you will meet the criteria for admittance uh and it just covers the major universities now in the in the state so it's a it's a positive uh we're it's not across the entire State we're one of I believe uh about 50 school districts that are doing it the Grand Canyon is brand new I think in talking with Grand Canyon we're probably one of about 10 districts right now but they're expanding they just they're in the process of expanding as we speak um they're going to a lot of the schools that were in the Helios program and then asking them if they want to be part of their own program and and I said yeah we it's an opportunity for kids so why wouldn't we it's almost like athletic recruiting where they're seeing someone who's doing well hey come our way come our way that's kind of cool all right there's no other questions I'll take a motion I motion to approve the gr Canen University personalized Admissions and data sharing agreement as presented I'll second I have a first and a second all in favor I I I motion passes 5 all right 9.3 discussion and consideration of approval the division of school facilities preventive maintenance reporting statements for school for district schools yeah this is just an annual PM uh report that we have to provide the board has to approve and we have to provide to the sfd uh it just speaks to what we've done for our preventative maintenance uh as you can see within uh uh the the statement there um obviously there are some things that are blank we don't have tile roofs we have flat roofs so therefore we don't check off tile we check off flat roofs but it just is uh where it becomes important is as they go through these systems and as we check them off if we were to come to the sfd later on and say hey we want to uh we need to have a roof replaced one of the very first things they're going to do is say have you done in fact your preventative maintenance like you're supposed to they're going to come back have you reported uh done this report like you're supposed to and that's going to be a a reason or rationale uh in some cases to bump you up the line more than anything else they wouldn't necessarily say no it depends depends on on what the issue is and what the system is that needs help um but there's obviously limited resources available with a line that's very long and so by by doing this and getting it approved it just puts us in the best possible light when it comes time to to move to the sfd for uh different systems that need replacement within our school system so I would recommend approval as presented all right any if I there are no questions I'll take a motion I motion to approve the 2023 2024 division of school facilities preventative maintenance reporting statement for the ja comes Unified School District as presented second I have a first and second all in favor I I passes 5 okay that takes us to 10.1 discussion and information on board organization uh this is just a heads up for next month um the way the statute reads a slight change to the statute but the way the statute reads is you must organize the board meaning determine either in our case a president a clerk other places it's a vice president not a clerk you must do it the January after an election so you don't have to do it every year if you don't want to it's actually silent you can do it every month if you want to but you have to do it on this January the laws changed uh previous to last year you had to do it within the first two weeks of January um and now it's changed to sometime in the month of January January that could become important for us I just want to give you just a slight uh A variation on this is uh because uh we did have a full board and then uh one of our members had to step down before they were even seated uh it has been posted uh by uh uh the county superintendent uh the question is if one person applies for the one job then they will probably have that person uh appointed uh prior to the start of the new year if two people or more apply for it then there's an interview process that has to take place the interview process would take place as scheduled for right now on the 7th our meeting is on the 8th so I believe we'll be able to go with an organizational meeting on the 8th however if we can't do that because of the way the law reads for appointments um I may look to push uh the meeting off another week um I should have a better understanding it closes next Friday so right away I'll know whether we have a problem or not depending on how many put how many people uh move forward with it um and then I will talk with Miss brousard uh to see the fine-tuning of what we have to do with that final person but our goal would be that we would have a full board uh on the uh on the first meeting in January so that when the organizational meeting comes up again the two positions that we're looking for will be the president and uh the clerk um so those who on the board those you in the audience that might be on the board that have interest in that area then that's something that that we will address as we as we move forward into that into that meeting so just informational more than anything else thank you okay that brings us 10.2 discussion of information regarding the 2024 governing board self- evaluation so what you have uh what I'm handing out to you right now is uh the um summation of your guys's uh evaluation that was turned into us and so uh it's really up to you as to the the depth and breadth and and direction of the discussion about the self- evaluation but this is a compilation of the average score uh that was received based on the the way you rated yourself as a board this is part of our policy that says you have to do this uh again how long what you discuss is usually up to boards uh and uh it's not an action item so there's no legal requirement on any of this uh but it is something that our policy asks us to bring uh to you guys for a discussion every single year at this time so turn it over to you for how you choose to proceed all right well I would just like to say thank you so much to Bob and Shelly because I think you are both exemplary board members and all that you do so I appreciate that definitely you you both deserve it and exceeds as you you know leave today so um when I when I look at this composite um the thing that occurs to me is the two areas where we scored ourselves the lowest and the last evaluation appear to be the same two areas where we scored oursel the lowest on this evaluation and that would be um in D board relations with staff and personnel number two was a 2.75 the board members make every effort to become acquainted with the Personnel of the district so I think you know we're greeting ourselves that we probably could do a little bit better there uh and the other thing would be item e board relationships to the instructional program number one the board makes an effort to keep informed about the instructional program by providing for periodic reports as deemed necessary and by periodic visitation in the schools and I got to tell you I haven't done the periodic visitation so I've I scored myself as needing Improvement but overall the board gave ourselves a 2.5 so um as I leave the board and say how can we do better those would be the two areas that I think that the board should focus on thank you any other comments I agree I I do not totally agree and I gave myself I gave myself at two in that area as well yeah I I agree we have Liaisons but I don't think that we yeah needs to step up for sure yeah I I think when covid happened and things fell apart with visiting schools um when we got back to a more normal routine I got to tell you I just didn't pick up the slack so I think the next Board needs to do that and and the other thing I would say we are looking at and once the board has seated the new board seated conversation of maybe having one study session at the tail end of of January to maybe just talk about what we have the governing board handbook that we hand out to everybody uh but talk about the different aspects of how the new board wants to work together and what are their expectations and and for any number of different things and one of the other things we're going to have to deal with since three of you are potentially leaving is that um Who's got what school from the leaone waiting until uh The Retreat gives a six month with with holes so um that's something we can talk about with the once we get into New Year but just so you know there's some thought but that maybe we just have one quick meeting about an hour maybe an hour and 15 minutes just to get everybody on the same page because we are potentially bringing in two we are definitely bringing in two and potentially three new board members so that's just something we can talk about all right any other questions or comments on that all right that brings us to um executive session now with this do we need to talk about all the things we might possibly discuss in exe executive session no all right that's on there okay take a motion to move into executive session I move to move into executive session pursuing to ARS 15- 843 and 38-43 1.03 A1 a public body go into executive session for discussion or consideration of personal matters so I do so move a second I all right I have a first and a second all in favor I I okay motion passes 5 and we need to we need to uh sign before we go into yes e

the next regular set story and board of Finance meeting will be Wednesday January 15 2025 at 6 pm entertain a motion to adjourn so Mr Ben can get to the wrestling match I'll make a motion to adj in a second please I'll second the motion second all in favor of adjournment signified by saying I I we are adjourned thank you all very much for coming 616 I still I still have the record

is there a motion to do that so moved is there a second second discussion is there anyone for whom if it was changed it would make it impossible for you to attend the meeting okay I have a question yes mayor um so that's fine with me either way but um did the did that come from parents or do I I'm just yeah it is it has previously come from some parents but it has also come from some other committee members and their past experience thank you okay any other discussion let's vote all those in favor I all those opposed abstain I'm G to abstain so the motion carries we will change our start time to 6:30 pm thank you and then I think the other motion would be to refer the incorporating the expectation of school committee members to participate in school events in our policy manual okay and also the handbook probably because those two things should be hand in hand and the handbook okay um so maybe we would start though with the policy and then refer to the handbook for guidelines on implementation so motion would be to refer the expectation the school committee members participate in school events into our policy manual is there a motion so moved member Martini is there a second no second okay discussion member Childs I have a clarifying question just because uh the the language being vague you're going to have some members of the community who who will expect full school committee at every single School event that they go to and then you might have school committee meet members in the future who think going to one or two events a year is sufficient to count so I'm trying to figure out what the intent is and if we can make that a little clearer and I would welcome the support of the policy and program subcommittee to put ual language to this but the intent is not that every that the full committee is at every single event that is impossible um that is flatly that's not going to happen um but that is we make an intention to have at least one school committee member at many like I can't even put a percentage on it necessarily because there's lots of events that we don't don't even know about honestly um but that it's maybe more akin to like three events per Committee Member per semester or something like that or per year so oh remember Den I'm just remembering from our meeting that what we sort of said was at the beginning of the year or when we have a calendar of events we'll sort of all divvy it up and if one person has more time great if another person doesn't fine but each person should expect to attend two or three events a year nothing nothing that would make it too difficult and um something that would be able to disperse it fairly evenly amongst us depending on how uh thick the calendar is other discussion number child's so the other thing I'm like thinking already like into the weeds of this because we've got our monthly meetings at the elementary schools and then we've got our PTO meetings everywhere and I would hate for a situation to develop where one school has uh school committee representation every single month while another school only once or twice at these routine things if you are there as an official school committee person as opposed to a parent and even then there's that little bit of messy overlap sorry I'm just trying to pick out every possible [Music] way that this could cause us trouble in advance so that we can prevent the trouble and keep the good sorry it's late thank you other member Martini well my comment relates to what member Childs was just saying um school committee members already devote a great deal of time to the school district we are here every month for meetings we are responsible for things in between meetings like everyone should be looking at the warrant um and we have subcommittee meetings to attend on a regular basis among other things so um I'm not opposed at all to committee members attending um school events and uh I think that we should but I do want to be cognizant of the fact that not everyone has the same capacity to do that um especially people who are um working and parenting um parenting kids of special needs um and I wouldn't want to create an expectation that discourages people from uh running for a school committee or wanting to serve on it because because they have constraining factors like that in their life um I think we should just um give some thought to potential um systemic bias that could be in a policy like that uh that being said I would happily see uh a norm or a statement of encouragement or something like that um to do things like this in the school Committee Member handbook uh just my thoughts thank you other discussion remember Goodwin I totally agree it's it's more of a a norm than a policy because I don't think you can make it a policy because everybody comes to this committee with different time restraints but just even a a statement that says um that school committee members are welcome to attend various school you know events I think that's um because there's always this in the back of your head you have the conflict of interest video in your head but I think of all the things that even just even when we're invited like whether it's to the band or to different events um that we represent not just who we are whether it's a parent or Community member but we're also representing school committee and I think that's why it probably belongs a lot in the handbook um that when you are in that public situation you are still a school Committee Member I'm thinking of that video with forget the guy's name where he was like at some game and he was being bad so um but there you know in the training it basically says to remember as you attend those things even though you're there for another the reason you're still a school Committee Member thank you other discussion is it okay if I resp respond some of that yeah um I am open to it being something that's included in the handbook and like I said even if we had a policy it's not enforceable so um I understand where folks are coming coming from with that I really do that you don't always have the intention but the real reason why the community engagement subcommittee put this even forward as an idea is not to give us more work to do just to give us more work to do but as an actual strategy for building relationship with parents we might not see or hear from often or all the time and to give that one more bit of like we are reaching out to you so that maybe you might reach a little bit further back toward us you know because I I understand we're here every every month I'm here with you girl but we don't always get the engagement we might want with folks um and so maybe if we are slightly more like yeah we're here we're at your games we're at your whatever and we're not always expecting them to come to us at our forums that we go to them where they're at where their kids are at where what they really care about is at um that that might just be one way that we can build more Rapport and more engagement and hopefully just have more open lines of communication that's the real intent member CHS I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit to that I would just want us to add on some communication component among us so that we can make sure that none of the schools fall through the cracks and end up under represented in our Outreach other discussion so I think I heard from you member ston a willingness to amend your motion to refer to the handbook rather than the policy committee correct and the person who seconded we do you accept that Amendment okay um I think I actually moved it and I will accept the friendly Amendment great all right do you accept it yeah okay okay um so now the motion is that and I guess I have one uh I guess I'll add a little to the discussion I just want to really con concur with what member Martini was saying that um I'm already concerned with the extent to which being on school committee is essentially there's a kind of a class divide in terms of who who could even run and participate in this you know um stipended position with all the number of hours involved and so on and I I really appreciate all the school committee members and the sacrifices you make in your families make to be here and I know that for some even running for this is just not doable given their their lives and then adding more to the expectation is concerning but I also agree with the the kind of building the culture and the the kind of ethic of doing it amongst ourselves and I think the handbooks a good place I also would welcome the community engagement um subcommittee to create tools that might be useful to us in terms of that like if it's a Google doc with a table with different events that are coming up in a place where people can s you know put their name and say I intend to go here um might be useful to us in terms of being able to see who's going to what and um make sure as um a member child was it member child who was saying concerned about like not having one school that's left out so I think that'd be great but that's a big effort too so appreciate whatever you can do to help um make it even easier for us and I certainly appreciate um all the communication from the superintendent and the different building principles and the PTO and so on to let us know what is going on um because it it definitely is possible to to know what is happening given the communication that we're receiving and I appreciate that so any other discussion all right let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously thank you very much we're on to Old business and I'd like to um move to take from the table the motion postponed at the November school committee meeting to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new elementary school is there a second second okay um so so all in favor of um taking that up I I I Okay so now we're returning to our original motion which is uh to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School discussion mayor derer when did this come up what what meeting was this at full full committee meeting last month okay was table pretty quickly so if you were thinking of that who would you be thinking would be on it just people on the school committee yeah it would be a school a school committee subcommittee yeah it could also be structured as an advisory committee there our policy allows us to have either of those um formats but that the advisory committees allow for more members besides just school committee members and um I think it oh thank you okay yes remember Goodwin and then member seon as a principal of construction who survived um a lot of cities or towns have one building and sites group of people you know they're made of all kinds of different areas that look at schools in every building in the city so I don't know if that exists mayor um but that's usually where it all starts and then it brings in school committee members as part of that um but usually it starts with the city building and sites committee and then they those are usually the people who apply for the the loany member ston if I'm reading the motion as worded correctly we are not yet proposing to have a subcommittee actually Advance doing work to get us a new elementary school what the subcommittee would do is decide whether or not we're even bringing the goal forward am I reading that correctly they'd make a proposal to the full school committee about whether to adopt that as a goal then at this time I think that it is appropriate for it to remain a subcommittee of us to decide whether or not and do some due diligence and then if we do in fact say yes that's a goal and we create another body that achieves that goal that makes progress towards it at that point I think it's time for us to bring in the other folks the other the other parties other discussion member Martini I think it's the responsibility of the school committee to look out for the well-being of the schools and if we do not push the issue then it will just continually sit as it has been sitting for a long time uh we and I will just briefly reiterate what I said last month uh we have three elementary schools all of which have problems uh our buildings are quite old we have known issues uh one of which member Goodwin spoke to earlier this evening uh at Federal Street School where what we are doing with the elevator is a fix and my recollection from our previous superintendent's explanation was that uh we were given to understand it is only a fix and there is the possibility that this thing will actually need to be replaced and at that time the estimated cost of that was a million dollars I'm sure that it would be more now and a cost like that is exactly what led to the closure of Green River School and the chaos that subsequently ensued in the district moving grade levels around uh with the repercussions of which we're still dealing with and have not finished um with the redistricting process we're in right now so uh I would wholeheartedly support the committee doing some research on this so that we can be very forward thinking about the needs of our schools uh because this is definitely um if it is to happen a at least 10year plan other discussion um I guess one thing I want to say is um I think it's you know I guess whoever is chairing the school committee next year um will be responsible for providing the subcommittee their kind of job description and I just think it's important with ad hoc subcommittees that there's Clarity um from the beginning about um when the ad hoc ends essentially and I think with this one it would be when the proposal was put forward to the um to the full committee um then the ad hoc subcommittee ends and if a new subcommittee gets created to advance whatever goal they put forward that's a different committee but I just think that would be useful for the school committee's functioning to have those kind of metrics of when a subcommittee's work is done ad hoc subcommittee's work is done um and I think just to say that I think because the organization meeting is on Monday the 6th and the first meeting of the year will be the eth um the whoever's elected chair at the meeting on the 6th we'll have a quick turnaround to do assignment of subcommittees and so on but I wouldn't think that it would make sense to essentially staff this ad hoc subcommittee um before um January 8th so uh all right uh let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions exstension from the mayor so motion carries thank you everybody all right we are on to uh school committee yearlong agenda um so I um gratefully accepted the gift from Member den and member seon um was a very useful starting point um for our work in putting together yearlong agenda I hope you like what I did with it um this version of it um the the version I I received had some specific dates for 2025 I thought this would be a good um template for essentially what are the things that happen every year um and then once it's adopted for a given year you could add in specific goals of the committee and specific timelines based on the calendar year and stuff like that but so think of this as kind of like your um uh your stand kind of standing year long agenda I guess and any questions or comments remember good one what is y l o uh it's youth engaged legislative officials and it happens every year at the high school and it's the best day ever so you should go everyone should go um you get to talk to the students and the students get to tell you what they're what they're into and thinking about and want and so it's it's a wonderful Hands-On day um I love I love this I love your actions love it oh will this be public will this be on the website so that the public can also see what our work timeline is um absolutely if the committee adopts it we can definitely get it out there wonderful and um and I think the recommendation was to to have it basically in a way that as the school committee is updating its yearlong work plan and it gets a a living document that gets updated for the on the website as well any other discussion any changes or recommendations for the yearlong agenda member mayor disorder what is the date of that yellow because it's December do we know what the actual date is H the superintendent's working on it I've been it is fun I've been a couple times yeah it's good Thursday January 23rd and then this the snow date is Thursday January 30th thank you um I wanted to say one thing about a one change that I made to the calendar was to make it a July through June calendar um because I thought if you're electing a new chair in January it might help them to have you know six months to be starting to work on the one for the following fiscal year essentially so and they would come in with some work that's already been programmed by the by the previous subcommittee so hope that was okay seems like there is an it's your gift we intended you give it to me as a made up dates so was we needed you to fix it all right great yes M seex it for if when we post this if we post this online um can we add like a paragraph Preamble that's just like this is a template sure be on the lookout for actual stuff yeah absosmurfly I have a question may member Martini about the um annual tour of schools by City officials am I crazy or did this used to happen around January I and is there a reason that it's moved to August and does that affect what otherwise would be these schools who next month I moved it and I think because I remember tromping around in the in a heatwave sweating like you would not believe it definitely did not happen for me in January but maybe it got moved to January but what is most convenient for you uh superintendent for that happen um it did happen in January last year because Christine um I think was sick because I gave the tour and we did it on no you're not crazy so um we did it on the PD day um in January but um I can do one in January we can do one in August it before school starts it's just when students aren't in the building that way folks can you know um go where they want to go see what they want to see and not interrupt learning so as long as it's prechool beginning or if it is on a PD day it is least disruptive okay so my preference would be to have that take place uh closer to the uh Capital requests approvals I I would like City Council Members to be in our school buildings seeing what's really going on with them right before before they have to decide whether to approve our requests for a capital so January would be my preferred time to do that great can we do it in 25 great all right so I'll um I'll make that adjustment so I guess maybe that then maybe we're ready I I wasn't sure if we would be so a motion to approve the um yearlong agenda template as presented so I mean sorry not as presented with the change of the school tour from August to January so moved I'm so excited motion for member Den is there a second second for member child any other discussion all in favor I I all opposed any extensions I'll abstain motion carries wonderful um okay um I'm just gonna breathe for a second okay on to self committee school committee self- evaluation data presentation you may remember we had taken a uh this survey for our self evaluation and we realized after we had taken it that there was yeah it was broken we fixed it and then you all then uh six of us retook it or some number of us retook it and these are finally at last the um results of it thanks very much to the superintendent and for the collaborative for Educational Services for um putting together this very nice report for us um I'm gonna say I have lost bandwidth for this discussion just because of the time of the night would there be any objection to uh revisiting this next month okay not hearing any any um problems with that great um so let's see moving um moving on um we have theou between the Greenfield school committee and the Greenfield Police Department superintendent will you queue this up for us sure um as we have been discussing ing on our increased um Safety and Security protocols and the improvements that we've been making districtwide to our systems um one of the things that we had discussed was allowing access to our live video feeds by the Greenfield Police Department um in certain instances uh when there is a emergency situation or an active threat um theou um was drafted and then finalized by our attorney and you are presented with the final umou to discuss and vote on this evening so that we can then engage with the Greenfield Police Department and get it approved and in place so let's see where are my where are my motions motion to approve theou between the Greenfield school committee and the green Police Department as presented could we have a few more minutes to look at it I only got to look at it briefly before is it okay absolutely but let's get the motion and the second on the table so moved is there a second okay great and while you're reviewing I'll just remind us that in our discussion of this we can talk about the general mou but we just have to be thoughtful about not um asking about or revealing any particular procedures or um things that could potentially put the schools at risk for I think we should proceed to discussion member ston I have questions just to better understand the emergency alert system and like when that gets triggered who who actually does that because if that's the only instance they actually don't need your permission I want to understand exactly what conditions trigger that sort of case that would have to be an executive session discussion okay any other questions for discussion member T this might be an executive session discussion one two but I was wondering if we could get clarification on the uh indemnification clause where it says the um the GPD agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the public school district from any liability arising from unauthorized use or access to the live video feeds I'm just wondering what the unauthorized use exactly means because there should never be any unauthorized use I guess is why I'm the standard part it may totally be boiler PL basically is saying that um they're they're holding us harmless um from any liability so they're not going to sue us basically is that what they're saying they're not going to sue us I don't know why they would sue us that's what I thought that's why I wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly yeah um but it's they're not going to sue us if they use or access it you're right that is a little bit confusing a little bit that's why I was like that's why I was trying to understand I'm sorry like that's just seemed odd yeah um okay great I don't want them to sue us but yeah um I'm wondering if we should maybe unless you have any superintendent you have any clarification on that maybe we should make sure that that language is actually correct because it doesn't actually now that I now you brought it to my attention remember it doesn't totally make sense to me I would presume that if it was being used with an unauthorized access and there was um some potential for I think I would prefer if we have this discussion in executive session because as I'm playing it out there is just um too many scenarios all right and what's the um time timeline how quickly do we need this mou we needed it yesterday or it would be preferred yes we can't we can't because it's not on the agenda um [Music] so oh okay all right let me pull up my the reason for the executive session and we'll do that we're doing that tonight oh oh God okay okay like to hear a motion to enter um Executives this session to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there too so M second um any discussion secretary Den will you call the vote yeah hold on one second who made the motion to enter executive session okay and Kate you second okay all right um Den I a yes Vice chair Martini yes mayor disorder yes I'm a yes member seon yes member Childs yes member goodwi okay we were we are all in agreement and our entering executive session and we will um return to the um public session so we'll be back [Music] oh [Music] okay welcome back we're back from executive session um I'd like to let's see I think we're returning to our existing motion to approve theou any further discussion okay let's vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously minus the mayor who left when we adjourned for executive session and then we are on to request for future agenda items hearing none I'd take a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second okay uh any discussion all those in favor I we are adjourned at 9:42 p.m.

is there a motion to do that so moved is there a second second discussion is there anyone for whom if it was changed it would make it impossible for you to attend the meeting okay I have a question yes mayor um so that's fine with me either way but um did the did that come from parents or do I I'm just yeah it is it has previously come from some parents but it has also come from some other committee members and their past experience thank you okay any other discussion let's vote all those in favor I all those opposed abstain I'm going to abstain so the motion carries we will change our start time to 6:30 p.m thank you and then I think the other motion would be to refer the incorporating the expectation of school committee members to participate in school events in our policy manual okay and also the handbook probably because those two things should be hand in hand and the handbook okay um so maybe we would start though with the policy and then refer to the handbook for guidelines on implementation so motion would be to refer the expectation that school committee members participate in school events into our policy manual is there a motion so moved member Martini is there a second no second okay discussion member Childs I have a clarifying question just because uh the the language being vague you're going to have some members of the community who will expect full school committee at every single School event that they go to and then you might have school committee meet members in the future who think going to one or two events a year here is sufficient to count so I'm trying to figure out what the intent is and if we can make that a little clearer and I would welcome the support of the policy and program subcommittee to put actual language to this but the intent is not that ever that the full committee is at every single event that is impossible um that is flatly that's not going to happen um but that is we make an intention to have at least one school committee member at many like I can't even put a percentage on it necessarily because there's lots of events that we don't don't even know about honestly um but that it's maybe more akin to like three events per Committee Member per semester or something like that or per year so oh remember Den I'm just remembering remembering from our meeting that what we sort of said was at the beginning of the year or when we have a calendar of events we sort of all divvy it up and if one person has more time great if another person doesn't fine but each person should expect to attend two or three events a year nothing nothing that would make it too difficult and um something that would be able to disperse it fairly evenly among us depending on how uh thick the calendar is other discussion M Childs so the other thing I'm like thinking already like into the weeds of this because we've got our monthly meetings at the elementary schools and then we've got our PTO meetings everywhere and I would hate for a situation to develop where one school has uh school committee representation every single single month while another school only once or twice at these routine things if you are there as an official school committee person as opposed to a parent and even then there's that little bit of messy overlap sorry I'm just trying to pick out every possible way that this could cause us trouble in advance so that we can prevent the trouble and keep the good sorry it's late thank you member Martini well my comment relates to what member Childs was just saying um school committee members already devote a great deal of time to the school district we are here every month for meetings we are responsible for things in between meetings like everyone should be looking at the warrant um and we have subcommittee meetings to attend on a regular basis among other things so um I'm not opposed at all to committee members attending um school events and uh I think that we should but I do want to be cognizant of the fact that not everyone has the same capacity to do that um especially people who are um working and parenting um parenting kids' special needs um and I wouldn't want to create an expectation that discourages people from uh running for a school committee or wanting to serve on it because they have constraining factors like that in their life um I think we should just um give some thought to potential um systemic bias that could be in a policy like that uh that being said I would happily see uh a norm or a statement of encouragement or something like that um to do things like this in the school Committee Member handbook uh just my thoughts thank you other discussion remember Goodwin I told toally agree it's it's more of a a norm than a policy because I don't think you can make it a policy because everybody comes to this committee with different time restraints but just even a a statement that says um that school committee members are welcome to attend various school you know events I think that's um because there's always this in the back of your head you have the conflict of interest video in your head but I think of all the things that even just even when we're invited like whether it's to the band or to different events um that we represent not just who we are whether it's a parent or Community member but we're also representing school committee and I think that's why it probably belongs a lot in the hook um that when you are in that public situation you are still a school committee member I'm thinking of that video with forget the guy's name where he was like at some game and he was being bad so um but there you know in the training it basically says to remember as you attend those things even though you're there for another reason you're still a school Committee Member thank you other discussion is it okay if I resp respond to some of that yeah um I am open to it being something that's included in the handbook and like I said even if we had a policy it's not enforceable so um I understand where folks are coming coming from with that I really do that you don't always have the intention but the real reason why the community engagement subcommittee put this even forward as an idea is not to give us more work to do just to give us more work to do but as an actual strategy for building relationship with parents we might not see or hear from often or all the time and to give that one more bit of like we are reaching out to you so that maybe you might reach a little bit further back toward us you know because I understand we're here every month I'm here with you girl but we don't always get the engagement we might want with folks um and so maybe if we are slightly more like yeah we're here we're at your game where at your whatever and we're not always expecting them to come to us at our forums that we go to them where they're at where their kids are at where what they really care about is that um that that might just be one way that we can build more Rapport and more engagement and hopefully just have more open lines of communication that's the real intent M CHS I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit to that I would just want us to add on some Comm communication component among us so that we can make sure that none of the schools fall through the cracks and end up under represented in our Outreach other discussion so I think I heard from you member seon a willingness to amend your motion to refer to the handbook rather than the policy committee correct and the person who seconded we do you accept that Amendment sure okay um I think I actually moved it yeah you moved it and I will accept the friendly Amendment great all right do you accept it yeah okay um so now the motion is that and I guess I have one uh I guess I'll add a little to the discussion I just want to really concur with what member Martini was saying that um I'm already concerned with the extent to which being on school committee is essentially there's a kind of a class divide in terms of who who could even run and participate in this you know um stipended position with all the number of hours involved and so on and I I really appreciate all the school committee members and the sacrifices you make in your families make to be here and I know that for some even running for this is just not doable given their their lives and then adding more to the expectation is concerning but I also agree with the kind of building the culture and the the kind of ethic of doing it amongst ourselves and I think the handbooks a good place I also would welcome the community engagement um subcommittee to create tools that might be useful to us in terms of that like if it's a Google doc with a table with different events that are coming up in a place where people can s you know put their name and say I intend to go here um might be useful to us in terms of being able to see who's going to what and um make sure as um a member child was it member child who was saying concerned about like not having one school that's left out so I think that'd be great but that's a big effort too so appreciate whatever you can do to help um make it even easier for us and I certainly appreciate um um all the communication from the superintendent and the different building principles and the PTO and so on to let us know what is going on um because it it definitely is possible to to know what is happening given the communication that we're receiving and I appreciate that so any other discussion all right let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion car vares unanimously thank you very much we're on to Old business and I'd like to um move to take from the table the motion postponed at the November school committee meeting to create an ad hoc subcomittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School is there a second second okay um so so all in favor of um taking that up I I I okay so now we're returning to our original motion which is uh to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School discussion mayor derer when did this come up what what meeting was this at full full committee meeting last month okay was tabled pretty quickly so if you were thinking of that who would you be thinking would be on it just people on the school committee yeah it would be a school a school committee subcommittee yeah it could also be structured as an advisory committee there our policy allows us to have either of those um formats but that the advisory committees allow for more members besides just school committee members and um I think it oh thank you okay yes remember good one and then member ston as a principal of construction who survived um a lot of cities or towns have one building and sites group of people you know they're made of all kinds of different areas that look at schools in every building in the city so I don't know if that exists mayor um but that's usually where it all starts and then it brings in school committee members as part of that um but usually it starts with the city building and sites committee and then they those are usually the people who apply for the the money member ston if I'm reading the motion as worded correctly we are not yet proposing to have a subcommittee actually Advance doing work to get us a new elementary school what the subcommittee would do is decide whether or not we're even bringing the goal forward am I reading that correctly they'd make a proposal to the full school committee about whether to adopt that as a goal then at this time I think that it is appropriate for it to remain a subcommittee of us to decide whether or not and do some due diligence and then if we do in fact say yes that's a goal and we create another body that achieves that goal that makes progress towards it at that point I think it's time for us to bring in the other folks the other the other parties other discussion member Martini I think it's the responsibility of the school committee to look out for the well-being of the schools and if we do not push the issue then it will just continually sit as it has been sitting for a long time uh we and I will just briefly reiterate what I said last month uh we have three elementary schools all of which have problems uh our buildings are quite old we have known issues uh one of which member Goodwin spoke to earlier this evening uh at Federal Street School where what we are doing with the elevator is a fix and my recollection from our previous superintendent's explanation was that uh we were given to understand it is only a fix and there is the possibility that this thing will actually need to be replaced and at that time the estimated cost of that was a million I'm sure that it would be more now and a cost like that is exactly what led to the closure of Green River School and the chaos that subsequently ensued in the district moving grade levels around uh with the repercussions of which we're still dealing with and have not finished um with the redistricting process we're in right now so uh I would wholeheartedly support the committee doing some research on this so that we can be very forward thinking about the need needs of our schools um because this is definitely um if it is to happen a at least 10year plan other discussion um I guess one thing I want to say is um I think it's you know I guess whoever is chairing the school committee next year um will be responsible for providing the subcommittee there kind of a job description and I just think it's important with ad hoc subcommittees that there's Clarity um from the beginning about um when the ad hoc ends essentially and I think with this one it would be when the proposal was put forward to the um to the full committee um then the ad hoc subcommittee ends and if a new subcommittee gets created to advance whatever goal they put forward that's a different committee but I just think that would be useful for the school committee's functioning to have those kind of metrics of when a subcommittee's work is done ad hoc subcommittee's work is done um and I think just to say that I think because the organization meeting is on Monday the 6th and the first meeting of the year will be the 8th um the whoever is elected chair at the meeting on the 6th will have a quick turnaround to do assignment of subcommittees and so on but I wouldn't think that it would make sense to essentially staff this ad hoc subcommittee um before um January 8th so uh all right uh let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions anain exstension from the mayor so motion carries thank you everybody all right we are on to uh school committee yearlong agenda um so I um gratefully accepted the gift from Member den and member seon um was a very useful starting point um for our work in putting together yearlong agenda I hope you like what I did with it um this version of it um the the version I I received had some specific dates for 2025 I thought this would be a good um template for essentially what are the things that happen every year um and then once it's adopted for a given year you could add in specific goals of the committee and specific timelines based on the calendar year and stuff like that but so think of this as kind of like your um uh your stand kind of standing yearlong agenda I guess and any questions or comments remember good one what is y l o uh what does it with engage legislative officials and it happens every year at the high school and it's the best day ever so you should go everyone should go um you get to talk to the students and the students get to tell you what they're what they're into and thinking about and want and so it's it's a wonderful wonderful Hands-On day um I love I love this I love your actions love it oh will this be public will this be on the website so that the public can also see what our work time line is um absolutely if the committee adopts it we can definitely get it out there wonderful and um and I think the recommendation was to to have it basically in a way that as the school committee is updating its year long work plan it gets a a living document that gets updated for the on the website as well any other discussion any changes or recommendations for the yearlong agenda remember mayor disorder what is the date of that yellow because it's December do we know what the actual date is H the superintendent's working on it I've been it is fun I've been a couple times yeah it's good Thursday January 23rd and then this the snow date is Thursday January 30th thank you um I wanted to say one thing about it a one change that I made to the calendar was to make it a July through June calendar um because I thought if you're electing a new chair in January it might help them to have you know six months to be starting to work on the one for the following fiscal year essentially so and they would come in with some work that's already been programmed by the by the previous subcommittee so hope that was okay seems like there's it's your gift tended you did give it to me as a made up dates so it was we needed you to fix it all right great yes M seed it for if when we post this if we post this online um can we add like a paragraph Preamble that's just like this is a template sure be on the lookout for actual stuff yeah absosmurfly I have a question may member Martini about the um annual tour of schools by City officials am I crazy or did this used to happen around January I and is there a reason that it's moved to August and does that affect what otherwise would be these schools whoour next month I moved it and I think because I remember tromping around in the in a heatwave sweating like you would not believe it definitely did not happen for me in January but maybe it got moved to January but what is most convenient for you uh superintendent for that to happen um it did happen in January last year because Christine um I think was sick because I gave the tour and we did it on no you're not great so um we did it on the PD day um in January but um I can do one in January we can do one in August it before school starts it's just when students aren't in the building that way folks can you know um go where they want to go see what they want to see and not interrupt learning so as long as it's prechool beginning or if it is on a PD day it is least disruptive okay so my preference would be to have that take place uh closer to the uh Capital requests approvals I I would like City Council Members to be in our school buildings seeing what's really going on with them right before they have to decide whether to approve our requests for a capital so January would be my preferred time to do that great can we do it in 25 great all right so so I'll um I'll make that adjustment so I guess maybe the then maybe we're ready I I wasn't sure if we would be so a motion to approve the um yearlong agenda template as presented so I mean sorry not as presented with the change of the school tour from August to January so moved I'm so excited motion for member Den is there a second second for member child any other discussion all in favor I all opposed any extensions I'll abstain motion carries wonderful um okay um I'm just G to breathe for a second okay on to self committee so school committee self- evaluation data presentation you may remember we had taken a uh this survey for our self- evaluation and we realized after we had taken it that there was yeah it was broken we fixed it and then you all then uh six of us retook it or some number of us retook it and these are finally at last the um results of it thanks very much to the superintendent and for the collaborative for Educational Services for um putting together this very nice report for us um I'm gonna say I have lost bandwidth for this discussion just because of the time of the night would there be any objection to uh revisiting this next month okay not hearing any any um problems with that great um so let's see moving um moving on um we have theou between the Greenfield school committee and the Greenfield Police Department superintendent will you cue this up for us sure um as we have been discussing on our increased um Safety and Security protocols and the improvements that we've been making districtwide to our systems um one of the things that we had discussed was allowing access to our live video feeds by the Greenfield Police Department um in certain instances uh when there is a emergency situation or an active threat um theou um was drafted and then finalized by our attorney and you are presented with the final umou to discuss and vote on this evening so that we can then engage with the Greenfield Police Department department and get it approved and in place so let's see where are my where are my motions motion to approve the mou between the Greenfield school committee and the Greenfield Police Department as presented could we have a few more minutes to look at it I only got to look at it briefly before is it okay absolutely but let's get the motion and the second on the table so moved is there a second okay great and while you're reviewing I'll just remind us that in our discussion of this we can talk about the general mou but we just have to be thoughtful about not um asking about or revealing any particular procedures or um things that could potentially put the schools at risk for for I think we should proceed to discussion member ston I have questions just to better understand the emergency alert system and like when that gets triggered who who actually does that because if that's the only instance where they actually don't need your permission I want to understand exactly what conditions trigger that sort of case that would have to be an executive session discussion okay any other questions for discussion member tenive this might be an executive session discussion one two but I was wondering if we could get clarification on the uh indemnification Clause where it says the um the GPD agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the public school district from any liability arising from unauthorized use or access to the live video feed I'm just wondering what the the unauthorized use exactly means because there should never be any unauthorized use I guess is why I'm standard part it may totally be boiler plate basically is saying that um they're they're holding us harmless um from any liability so they're not going to sue us basically is that what they're saying they're not going to sue us I don't know why they would sue us okay that's what I thought that's why I wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly yeah um but it's they're not going to sue us if they use or access it you're right that is a little bit confusing a little bit that's why I was like that's why I was trying to understand I'm sorry like that's just seemed odd yeah um oh okay great I don't want them to sue us but yeah um I'm wondering if we should maybe unless you have any superintendent you have any clarification on that maybe we should make sure that that language is actually correct because it doesn't actually now that I now you brought it to my attention remember it doesn't totally make sense to me I would presume that if it was being used with uh an unauthorized access and there was um some potential for I think I would prefer if we have this discussion in executive session because as I'm playing it out there is just um too many scenarios all right and what's the um time timeline how quickly do we need this mou we needed it yesterday or it would be preferred yes we can't we can't because it's not on the agenda um [Music] so you may oh okay all right let me pull up my the reason for the executive session and we'll do that're doing that tonight oh oh God okay okay like to hear a motion to enter um executive session to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there too moved second um any discussion secretary Den will you call the vote yeah hold on one second made the motion to enter executive session okay and Kate you second okay okay all right um Den I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes mayor disorder yes I'm a yes member seon yes member Childs yes remember good one okay we were we are all in agreement and our entering executive session and we will um return to the um public session so we'll be back [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] w [Music] a [Music] a [Music] oh oh [Music] oh [Music] okay welcome back we're back from executive session um I'd like to let's see I think we're returning to our existing motion to approve theou any further discussion okay let's vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously minus the mayor who left when we adjourned for executive session and then we are on to request for future agenda items hearing none I'd take a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second okay uh any discussion all those in fav favor hi we are adjourned at 9:42 p.m.

it's going to be Quinn Pak versus Princeton we have 100 tickets resered for BCS when I checked last night I think we had sold about 42 so there's still quite a few left um tickets are $15 a piece everybody over the age of two needs a ticket and you can go on to the BCS website to purchase tickets for that and that is all I have thank you thank you very [Music] much uh presentation student achievement by Mr Reed whale and Miss natham have move right [Music] somebody might have had it before I'm see if I can find all right oh generally there all right um so uh every year we kind of come together we have our um Smart Balance and our ngss assessments that we take in the spring uh we get that data in the early fall we're able to take a look at that analyze it uh and then be able to share out a report uh to you all what we try and do as best we can is to try and do a year-over presentation so things that we've shown you similarly last year we try and bring that back again this year so you can kind of get a sense of how we're doing longitudinally um when we look at this data there's uh really kind of three types of data so previously um kinetic used to have what was called the Connecticut Mastery test or the CMT and it was a it was a norm reference test so what it meant was when a kid got a report and I know this cuz I took it and I got a report um you would get a percentile score so it would tell you what percentile you were in the state of Connecticut um which was great for any kid that was in say the 80th or the 90th percentile but the problem with Norm reference data is that no matter how good every kid does in the state some kid was sitting there in the first percentile which if you think about children is really awful to do for data so what the state did is they looked and they said well this is kind of crazy we should do Criterion reference data we should take and say what is the standard that we want to meet where do we want kids to get and if they meet it then they meet it if 100% of the kids in the state meet the expectation that's good that's really great and we can celebrate each of those kids and so that's what we look at now is um we look at Criterion reference data so um for this it overall there's a raw score that kids get it's um in the thousands it's like 2,300 to 2600 right but it really equates to four bands 1 2 3 or four nice way of thinking of it is one and two is not meeting three and four is meeting and then exceeding um the other thing that they're able to do now is they're also able to be able to have growth scores so any child that took it in third grade once they take it in third grade they get that achievement score how did they do against the expectation and then the state says based on that score how would we expect that student to do how much would we want them to grow into the next year and that's for every kid if they really struggled and they were in a level one two three or four um and so what we end up with is we end up with data not only looking at achievement which I'm going to tell you a little bit about but also growth we only have growth for fourth fifth and sixth because our third graders have only taken it once so when we look at achievement um they set that expectation for third fourth fifth and sixth grade students it's what we typically think of when you see esack data right when you have smarter balanc data what gets reported in the current um and the state will always say we don't report it out that's what they're talking about when you get that number the percentile that's typically what we're talking about but we can really look deeply at it when we think about this you want to think did they get a high enough score did they meet that level three or four so we're going to measure that in what percentage of students met that achiev Target this is the too long didn't read when you get bored of hearing what we're saying and you can't remember everything that we said I want you to think about this slide there are 182 reporting districts in the state of Connecticut now the fun thing is for math there's 187 why because there's some that have really really really really small groups and when there's a certain small number they can't actually report all of that data out to us reliably and so um there's 182 reporting districts for ELA and we ranked 11th out of 18 2 when you look at that it puts us in the 94th percentile out of all districts in the state um so other districts with Ela scores comparable to us were Simsbury Farmington Greenwich Guilford reading Avon um all of whom scored at or below our achievement level of 77% Meeting those expectations for math uh out of the 187 reporting districts we ranked 12 um that puts us in the 94th percentile on the state as well um both of those are increases from the mid 80s last year so we were 84 and 86% I believe um I have it in a later slide um but we're in the 94th percentile now so uh districts other districts that had scores comparable to us in math were towns like chesher Greenwich Trumble Glastonberry Fairfield all of whom scored um at or below our achievement level of 74% in math so what do the numbers look like this is our overall score for the last six years that we've taken the assessment you'll notice that we still don't have that bar in 2020 it's because we didn't take it um so the two years prior we at 62 and 66 prior to the pandemic um we had a bit of a drop off in 2021 um but we've gotten that back and then exceeded it now to 74% of our students last year met expectations in math um that's the highest that we've achieved ever um in Bethany for the all um 15 years that we've given this assessment um if you look it's also in contrast to the um to the trend in the state um and you'll also see that we talk later um in our co- our dur cohort our dur sea so our dur sea often you're seeing a lot of towns that are also having some of this drop off where um we're not only getting back to preand prepandemic levels um but exceeding those levels this is what it looks like grade by grade I'm really proud of this slide um previously this was just last year um you can see we were at 68 80 58 67 we were kind of up and down this year we've really kind of leveled off and overall um strong data and universally strong data so what we're trying to do is make sure that we're doing a really great job with all of our grades um and we're starting to see that both um in math and Ela um this is one of those things that like I thought in my head and I need to actually look at it in the data because we've had a lot of talk about what are we doing for those kids right we say okay the kids are meeting it and and we have a lot right we'll talk about you know our MLL services our services for students who have um who have IEP our srbi students who are getting intervention but what about those kids that are already getting it what about the kids that might need enrichment and so when we look at it those students um when we look this the gray bars are our Trend in overall achievement but the blue bars below are our overall growth in those students who are in and achieving a level four so not just meeting but exceeding so in 2021 27% of our students were exceeding in 23 24 this year 45% of them were exceeding so we've almost doubled that number when we look at it and we're really proud of we've more than doubled um but we're really proud of looking at that as a data within the data not only are we increasing our overall um number of percentage of students who we're meeting but we're also increasing the percentage of students who are exceeding time read do me fa yeah can you stop with all the rations sorry ma'am yeah English language artarts Ela is English language arts you got if I can't follow on the people at home can either you got it so uh I'll jump back one so uh SBA is smarter balanced assessments so when we think about it that's your reading and math assessments that we give um in the spring um and Ela is just short for English language arts sorry I'll get I'll just go thank you Sean I'll just yep um so when we look at it longitudinally for our um for our English language arts um so we were also looking at math but um our Ela um has traditionally been a lot stronger for us right so um English language arts has typically um eclipsed math um and what you'll see is that uh this year we got to 77% which again is the highest level of achievement that we've had in the 15 years that we've taken it um you'll see that it is also again in contrast to the trend that we see for the state this is it split out by grade again what we're starting to see is we're getting that leveling out of that data we've got less of an up and down there and overall really strong data by grade same thing looking at the level fours those students who are exceeding uh in 2021 44% of our students were exceeding in 23 24 49% of those students are exceeding so again we're not only increasing the overall percentage of students who are meeting and exceeding but the data within the data we're also having stronger um numbers of students in that exceeding data so ngss next generation science standards assessment so they give it in fifth and eth grade um so the great thing here and I'll tell you this we're going to live by the sword right now we'll also Die By The Sword it's a really small cohort so in this you have to remember that five kids is 10% right so if we do a really good job with those five kids and they crush it we look like Geniuses if those five kids have a rough time they had a meltdown they didn't eat breakfast they could tank it and we look foolish right so um I'm going to live by the sword so 81% this last year um met or exceeded on our Science assessment in fifth grade again that's the highest level of achievement that we've had um since we've given the Science assessment in fifth grade all right um there's another way to look at the data and you can break it down um the dangerous thing that you have here is that we're talking about children we can really kind of split kids into really small subgroups and sections um but we can look at our subgroup data it's important to really think about kids who they are how we can support them and this data really looks at how are we doing not only overall as a school but how are we doing with individual students and groups of students and trying to think about what might else we be able to do to support them so um one of the groups that we really focus on and the state um expects us to focus on is that group called our high needs subgroup It's a combination of the students who are either um English language Learners or Ells those students um whose primary um or um first language was not English so students who are still learning or needing support with the English language um students who have an IEP who are receiving special ed services an IEP is an individualized educational plan um or students who are low socioeconomic status those who qualify for free or reduced lunch so you take all three of those subgroups you put them together and that's considered our high need subgroup um we can also look at race and ethnicity and gender the challenge that we have here is that sometimes the data gets really small right so when you look at a subgroup you could get to a really really small number of students and we're not going to report out if we have say a subgroup of three students it's inappropriate and it violates their confidentiality so when we get to a really really small subgroup what we do sometimes and this happens with race and ethnicity is we combine those into say like an other um that is not to other students it's to protect their confidentiality um so here's what our math achievement looks like by race and ethnicity um so uh overall strong data uh we have noticed that our students who identify as Hispanic or Latino um are are the lowest subgroup and so that's something that we're really trying to think about how we can ensure that um we're helping those students ultimately what we do is we take a look at individual students too we just look straight at the data and say who met who didn't and then we also think about what factors um might we need to do um what factors might we be able to address to try and support those students uh this is the same for uh Ela for uh reading and writing um for our students uh by race and ethnicity kind of a similar Trend there as well this is it by gender um this is a pretty typical graph for us uh it it tends to Waffle back and forth for both math and uh reading in terms of uh how our students split on achievement for uh female or male students uh it's not a large gap there that we see between those two same thing for um Ela uh for reading and writing this is our high need subgroup versus our not high needs subgroup um while there is a noticeable difference there it's a smaller difference than it has been it's a number that we've really been working on trying to think about those students their individual needs and the intersectionality of right when we look at a high need subgroup it's identified as meeting in one of those subgroups but you could have a child who could meet all three of those subgroups which means that they've got several things that could be um challenges for them as they're facing this you know as they're facing their learning and this assessment same thing for ELA um and I'll talk a little bit more about this in terms of how the state calculates this for an achievement Gap um but it's really we've really really shortened that distance between those two subgroups so uh the other way that we can take a look at it is growth data I'm up all right growth data um so looking at achievement is great uh but when we look at those achievement uh graphs it only takes into account the students that have scored three or four um and our growth data really takes into account the growth of all of our students so think about a student who might be scoring at a level one um and maybe they did really well and the next year they scored a level two and they met their growth Target that will be accounted for in these graphs so the growth rate is each student regard regardless of their achievement score will will receive a growth Target for the next year's assessment so if they grow by that amount um they are said to have met their growth Target then um on the graph you're going to see a dark green and a light green bar this is going to be the light green bar so a percentage of Target achieved so for each student the state Compares how much they expected that student to grow versus how much they actually grew so you're going to see an average percentage of how much um our kids grew something to just keep in mind too is that they cap it at 110% so we have a lot of kids that actually exceeded 110% of of their growth so we had 70 out of 161 students um in ela or English language arts with 110% growth or more and then in math same thing 70 out of 161 kids with 110% growth and more so it's a significant amount so just looking across the board here um from uh year to year we have grown as far as students who are meeting their growth Target starting from 48% in 2018 to um 62% in 2024 um and we have grown also in the average percentage of how much of that Target they have achieved ending at 80% uh last year in ela um pretty much the same Trend we kind of stay steady with Ela um with 50% meeting uh the growth Target in 2018 and 54% meeting it in 2024 and then if you break it down by grade so again we don't have it for third grade um because they have they've only taken it once so um but you can see by grade um in math 66% are meeting that Target in fourth 53 in fifth and 66 um in sixth grade and this is Ela so same thing 64% in fourth grade and then just about uh over half for Fifth and six so one of the other things that we think about is that comparing third grade to third grade works on some levels but ultimately it doesn't because when you think about this year's third grade it's different than last year's third grade so what we want to also think about is what about cohorts as they travel through with us how did we do with a cohort when they went from third to Fourth to fifth to sixth let's track their data and see how they've done over those years um so in this way we can see how that group of students is progressing and so um in reading and writing it's been a typical Trend um the last couple of years um have been a little uh trickier I think some of that is what I would consider Ripple effects and and aftershocks of the pandemic um I think we saw some of those uh students just having some overall challenges and gaps as they had um from the pandemic but filling back in when you look at our current sixth grade in um third grade they were at 73% 82% of them met in fourth grade and then 86% of them met in fifth grade so we're taking that same group of students and we're picking off just a couple more students we've gotten to crack the code to fix you know whatever is a challenge for them chipping away chipping away chipping away same thing we're seeing with our current fifth grade and then we're starting with our fourth grade they were at 66% in third uh this was something that we saw um uh as not a trend for math math was kind of up and down we really didn't see kind of a linear growth there um and you can see that in the 24 and 20 classes of 24 and 23 um but what we're seeing is really kind of overall strong growth for our current sixth grade we're seeing that upward trend for our current fifth grade um and then we've got really strong data starting out um for math in our fourth grade so that's really promising okay we're always going to ask it so I'm going to share it people want to know how do we do against our neighbors answer good um there's two ways to look at it though and I think it's really important to understand how do we compare our eles right how do we compare ourselves and what's a reasonable comparison right and so the state of Connecticut recognizes this that um there's lots of different towns there's everything from new Canan and Fairfield and Greenwich all the way down to um cities that could have real challenges that they might not be facing um bridgeportspeedway way um from an A to an I am I right yes uh a to I um think ultimately a is more affluent I is less that's ultimately one of the largest ways that you can really think about it splitting out with those 169 ttimes they split those through for reference we are a durg c it should also be noted that all of the other districts in boa are a durg b all right so we're punching above our weight the other thing so we can look at um both boa and dur sea um while we compare ourselves to Orange Woodbridge and Amity um and I think it's important that we do um it's also important to note that they're in dur B like Avon grenwich Guilford West Hartford Fairfield dur C towns uh towns that are in our dur um would be towns like Andover tand uh Hein Suffield Summers um Canton I grew up in Canton where at dur SE um so uh when we look at that three of four we already talked about that great so uh this is the thing so I wanted to share so um we were in that 94th percentile last year we were in the 84th percentile I did have it right um this year we were uh 12th out of 187 or the 94th percentile overall in the state last year we were in the 86th percent so this is how we did comparative to other districts in baa for math um so you'll see that we are um just behind Woodbridge um but we're eclipsing Amity and orange good job us um also for ELA um right behind uh Woodbridge um and right in there with Amity and orange it should be noted ultimately when we look at this like this is not the hate on orange like 66% I mean maybe some people would those are all really really strong scores right you're looking at top third of the state scores all around regardless of where you are if you're at that point um so here's how we do in terms of growth so I think that's also a really important thing right where are your kids how are you getting them to move um and so this is what we're seeing so we're really doing a great job in terms of that growth you'll see that we have the strongest growth numbers in um math um through boa and then we're right there um with all of those growth numbers uh for ELA for our reading and writing compared to our boa counterparts the other thing that we can do is we can take a look at how we're doing against those other dur sea towns um what I did is I took a look at all the dur sea data that was publicly available and I extrapolated out every town that counted in that just their third fourth fifth and sixth grade data if they had seventh and eth I either took that out or I found um or i' only looked at towns that had just third to sixth there are some that were really tiny a lot of towns that fall into durg sea the reason that they fall into dur sea is because they're similar to us right canton's a small town Bethany's a small town so when you get really really small your data gets really really small and sometimes they can't publicly share that so they are some towns that are in Dury that are just not reflected on here because I couldn't get access to their data but this is third to sixth data this is how we were doing in 2019 we were right on the average for math we were at 66% the average was 66% this is how we were doing in 2024 we're at the top of dur sea we're at 74% um and the average is 62 so you'll note that the average went down and we went up and if we're at the top of it by the way that means we are the ones pulling the average up same thing for ELA so we were at 72% just a little bit above that average in um and then in 2024 we have eclipsed um durg SE and we're the ones who are pulling that um average up for dur SE so I I'll just do that as a once over again that's a really nice graph to look at um and I think that if you really look at it the other thing that I think is really important in here and I said it earlier but if you look at the higher end where where towns were in 2019 right before the pandemic a lot of them were above that percentage right and what they found is that there's a lot of challenges that are still there for kids that were growing up with a significant percentage of their lives that were affected by a global pandemic by having to sit in rows and columns by having to have a mask by having to worry about whether or not your friends were going to get you sick that has all I mean it has Ripple effects for us has huge Ripple effects for kids I think what's impressive is that we've really negated those Ripple effects and we've Ed that we've not just and I think this is what affects our data is not just to focus on kids and their academic growth because that's really important right we want them to be successful but if they're not happy if they're not well adjusted if they don't have social skills if they can't interact right then they don't have the bandwidth to actually show up for instruction and so that's another really important factor that we have for our kids is that yeah are we taking academics seriously of course we are but we're also thinking about a child as a child as a person and ensuring that they're really successful that way um okay so I know that this has been a conversation um in several different meetings um and in several different circles and I thought well I'll lean into it and I'll see what is the actual number because I think numbers and and data are actually important and so I took a look at our historical nine-year Trends um so I think I said 15 I apologize we've only taken it um nine times so looking at our Trends um for math across all four grades and what we've seen and what I've shared with you is that we have that third and fourth grade right and then we see a drop off in fifth and sixth grade um so what I did was I take a look at I took a look at how have we done historically how did we do um at the beginning right before the pandemic and now so our 9-year average third and fourth was at 69 and 70% strong strong growth overall fifth and sixth was at 60 and 62 there's our drop off that's our historical drop off it's right there first year that we took it it's really exacerbated right so in 2015 that was the first year that we have um data from smarter bals big gap huge drop off right 80 to 39 right in 2019 before the pandemic hit right that last time before the pandemic we'd really started to shrink them we'd really started to to to eliminate some of that Gap by 2024 we've eliminated it entirely and eclipsed it so I think this is really important to consider when we hear you know concerns about what are we doing in Summit math are our kids prepared are they learning what they need to are are they ready I would argue yes and I would argue far more now than they ever have been especially compared to our third and fourth um and so I think this is an overall really strong Trend and I think that's due in part to the hard work that people have put in I think the ways in which we're really trying to talk across grades and think about how we're delivering instruction and I think it's also really to how we've tried to make sure that we're emphasizing the importance of math instruction if we want our math numbers to be strong then we have to actually put the value into the amount of time that we're giving that math instruction so uh yeah yeah t of other considerations of data so tonight we've really talked about the smarter B balance assessment but we don't just look at that assessment um we consider lots of different pieces of academic data so we really use our I ready um assessment that's uh taken three times a year um we do Dibbles um the DSA Pat core those are all reading assessments um interim assessment benchmarks those are those there are little assessments that we might do in between um our SBA so there are like little practice tests uh fact fluency which is our math data um unit quizzes tests projects classes assign and assignments putting too much weight into one thing doesn't give you a full picture of really our school and a student's success so we like to consider all things and then just some takeaways from the data all achievement levels are the highest we've scored so the highest that we've ever scored if Tom has not said that enough tonight um they are the highest that we've ever scored so we are extremely proud of all of the people involved and all you know we get to stand here and and talk on their behalf but really it it it's the it's the work of a lot of people a lot of people here in our community um Ela data continues to show strong um results in both achievement and growth um same thing for math um surpassing pre pandemic levels math and Ela results are in contrast to the state Trends so um as you saw kind of through that that um Durk data um it's the same thing for the state so we have count uh counteracted the previous trend of math score drop off as Tom said in fifth and sixth our subgroup data just gives us a good um place for our Focus um compared to our dur and boa Town peers Bethany's results showed the positive impacts of all the work done by our staff during in since the pandemic and just some next steps for us so as we think about what we're going to do moving forward um we're going to continue to focus on programs and procedures that support positive growth and achievement so our srbi process which um really targets those students that need that extra support and what are we do for each of those children um we have our after school boost Academy um which also targets those students that need that extra support we meet um daily for data teams grade levels are meeting weekly but we're there daily student case reviews um are held four times a year and that's when a a larger team will come together to talk about those students that need some extra support um we're going to continue to identify those students who meet who met or exceeded in previous grade but did not meet in their most recent assessment so continuing to kind of track um taking those extra data points and thinking about our students continuing that growth um we also take a look at attendance so average number of absences for uh 11 students that didn't show growth in fifth and sixth was 10 about 10 days so people take vacations people get sick all of these things happen but if students are not in school then we cannot have a large impact on them so it's just it's just something that we always take into account um continue to have staff implement the uh IAB assessments those intrum assessments and then continue to focus on not only student achievement but that social emotional well-being of students so um really taking into account the whole the whole child so something that we noticed had an impact um on that growth in fifth and sixth was an increased time for instruction um so continuing to focus on that increased time for fifth and sixth grade um developing a comprehensive multi-tiered system of support So supporting those students that um just need a little extra help um that you know we want to make sure we give them that boost we have a new reading program it is called ckla um so implementing that and really thinking about that as a whole staff how we're doing um how we're doing best practices with that steering committee is taking a deep dive into that program to ensure quality instruction is delivered continuing professional development um we have someone who come in here name is Robin Moore um she helps our staff in the area of math um for fourth fifth and sixth grade um continue professional development literacy how so we have a focus on the science of reading which is aligned with our reading program um ckla and then implementing a responsive teacher growth cycle plan so that's really our new evaluation plan that we have here at BCS so implementing that and it's all about really growing our teachers and our staff so um so we'll start with the sad news then we'll get to the good news uh sad news is we couldn't put the badge up there for the school of Distinction uh the good news is the only reason that we didn't is on on a on a I'll call it a one student technicality so like I said before in science you live by the sword so I lived by that sword with the 81% we died by the sword on participation in fifth grade science participation so no matter how good we do we could have 100% of the kids that take the assessments nail it fours across the board if we have 94.9% of our students in fifth grade taking the Science assessment by 0.1% we would not be a school of Distinction last year we were a school of Distinction we were at 82.2% of the possible points on our like report card from the state we actually eclipsed that we're at 84.4 we did better but we had four kids who did not take the Science assessment in fifth grade and when you have a really small cohort that puts it us at 93.7% to which I thought to myself I know math I'm going to fight City Hall I did and I lost um I tried to look at it a bunch of different ways uh and so when I spoke with a Jeep who is the guy he is the the as I like to say the head math geek right I was a stem coach uh so so we geeked out on on data and I was like what about if we looked at it this way and he was like no I was like what about this way and no he knew what I was getting at um so ultimately on this um we did a really good job on this and you can see compared to both our boa partners and the state of Connecticut in terms of the total percentage of the points that we could earn um and I'll go through what some of those are but because of that just for our participation rate on um our Science assessment um we did not get that um notification uh as a school of Distinction um we'll keep at it here's what I do want to share though this so this is our report all the things that I can highlight are all of the things on there that we improved so when we look at that accountability for our Ela performance index of all students we improved our Ela index of high need students improved math performance index of all students improved math performance index for high need students improved uh academic growth for ELA all students improved academic growth for high need students improved academic growth for math all students improved there's a theme uh academic growth for high need students in math improved uh progress towards uh English proficiency so all of our students who receive MLL support um in literacy that improved our physical fitness assessment that Mr Duca gives improved this is the number though these two I think are the most important so the state says look we know that that high needs subgroup has factors that are working against kids kids who are having challenges with learning they've got an identified learning disability they're learning English as an MLL student their family Maybe having some Financial struggles those are all factors that are really challenging for kids to come in and do their absolute best and Achieve at the same level of students who don't have those factors against them do we use it as an excuse of course not what we do is we look at those kids as humans and say what can we do to ensure that we care and work to do our best for those kids so the state says how are you doing and what they say is you can't just go and live by the kids who are in your regular sub group you're non-high needs they say if you're not caring about the kids in the the high needs group then you're out of luck and so they create what's called an achievement Gap so they want to make sure that you're within that achievement Gap and they set that Gap at 17.3 percentile points so you got to be within that to qualify last year I thought we really did well for ELA we were 8.4 that was our Gap in terms of their achievement Gap this year We Shrunk that to 2.8 last year for math we were at 122 again that was a number I was really proud of actually we brought it down to 6.9 so not only so when we look at it if you think all the way back to that that slide with the blue and the blue line when we talk about those students that needed in Richmond we're focusing on those kids because we want to make sure that if they're threes we're growing them to Fours but we're also thinking about those students who have factors that we know can be presenting challenges to them and thinking about how we can remove those barriers and work with them and we've cut one by a fourth almost and we've cut the other in half um Sue gazy almost fell out of her chair when I presented this to the staff and rightly so like that's a I cannot express like that's the data on here that I'm absolutely most proud of because it means that we're not just sitting on students that we can get to right away or who might have come in having all the support and the success ready for them but all the kids regardless of what might be a barrier for them and caring about those kids to get them across the Finish Line too so um that's what we got uh we didn't get a badge but I'm darn proud of our not badge this year um because we're doing the best that we have on that index um and so we're going to do our absolute best to make sure uh that we don't get beat up on a technicality next year so that's what we got oh there's no more slides usually I have a question yeah I'm curious with the the number of students there like if it was like absences things like that was there attempts to get them to do the makeups or was it a for that number of students was it just a refusal to take it it was families who reached out and respectfully said I don't want my child to take this assessment and so in that we can't force a child to sit for the assessment right and not for nothing like I'm just going to be ask I know the way to cook the books and we're not going to do it the way to cook the books is you go hey Jackie I know your folks didn't want you take you something can you just sit down we're going to start the test start kid doesn't take the test we go end and that kid counts as a participant I'm not going to do that that's inappropriate right so if they say we don't want our child taking that TK we're not going to do that right how many of those par uh gosh uh I don't want to speak out of turn five in fifth grade um we had five that did not take it in fifth grade I believe we had eight overall I could be wrong on that but yeah huh why parental preference parents uh typically don't give us um much some one or two have said that they don't because they're worried about um test anxiety and how it would impact their kids mental health well-being and so they didn't want them to sit for it um others uh would have just reached out and said Dear Mr reedale I am informing you that I do not want my child to take the smarter balance assessment this spring thank you so very much and yeah and so then I just you know we have a list and we're and so when they when we sit for that ass we just have a different space for those kiddos some work for them to do either in the office or the library um and then when those test sessions are over they just rejoin their class yep so good question the other thing I think I find it I don't know if I'm insulted the the the idea that just because a kid is on a du lunch program is considered a special needs kid M I think that's kind of I don't know that just kind of strikes me as wrong yeah I I think what when when the state looks at it I think what they do is they look at the overall trend to look and say if you have a family that's having Financial challenges that there's a lot of things that might be opportunities that aren't available for them that other families or students have and so that can be a limiting factor to their overall it's a barrier and so when we look at it right so we look and we say um I mean the tough part that is we can't like we don't know um you know it's it that's confidential information for us but I think what we look to say is we want to make sure that anything that is here kids have an opportunity to participate in if you're a kid and you want to be an Invention Convention and you're one of our top kids that goes to Invention Convention we go hey it might be you know a couple of bucks to go we cover that cost so that a family doesn't have to say hey I can't send my kid CU I don't have the money or if there's the snowflake shop they don't feel left out which can be an impact on just their overall sense of being we go hey we can find some snowflake shop Bucks the pto's amazing with that so we try and eliminate money and access as a barrier to kids right we can think just overall if we make sure that that's not a barrier to kids we make sure that things like that at least within the four walls of the school are not a factor for our kids and we feel like that as a way to make sure that that we're treating kids with kindness and respect and eliminating that as a barrier so so thanks guys appreciate [Music] good job and and um for everybody you know say good job I I you know can't speak for everybody but I know that not just a good job in the presentation but the fact that the numbers are clearly trending up and I know it's something some people have been on the board for a long time some of us for on and off a couple times and and that's been one of the things that um has been a focus here for a while of trying to get that Improvement and trying different things and it seems like maybe we have the formula finally for how to do it so kudos to you guys kudos to the staff and the teachers kudos to the teachers anybody got any more questions for Tom or what's the matter any questions all right again thank you guys um and I have to agree with what Angelo said you know for 10 years I've been wanting to know why the math sores is always in the toilet and it looks like they're finally starting to climb out all right um public comment policy I'm not going to waste my time uh approval of minutes we might have one she's already talked I mean she's more than welcome to get up and talk but I didn't think you were coming back for seconds or do we have anybody online we have to do uh we're not online are we we're not live are we are live we're streaming we're streaming oh we don't have any we have five people streaming currently that's it and there's no public comment from we have five people yes I could say something but I won't how many parents do we have maybe they forgot like I did yesterday how many how many parents do we have December's a tough month very tough Christmas I understand that on we go all right moving right along I'll I'll take that under advisement all right go back and watch later what's that it's recorded they can go back and watch later enjoy your CBDs nobody's going back and watch you later um move the uh anybody's got uh any comments about the uh last November 13th meeting minutes Jesus jumped on that one didn't we did all in favor I commit reports curriculum uh curriculum committee we met and we had a preview of the presentation that we just saw um and that was our update okay it's a good update I think uh as you said we're finally starting to put the round peg in a round hole okay um Finance Amy okay have finance committee met last night uh you'll see in your packet there's a copy of the operating budget uh for November of 2024 under general education salaries projections are now selling a surplus of $813 18 due to an additional adjustment for a teacher that's currently out on leave benefits is now showing a savings of $60,000 due to an adjustment to the health insurance projection many of our new staff either did not take the insance insurance or they took the single plan Services is status quo the latest information regarding our insurance claim is that after a a review of the equipment it was determined that it was wear and tear that caused the issue because the equipment is 7 years old we are hoping to still receive a reimbursement but it appears it will be much less than we had previously expected likely around 10 to $12,000 which would cover the cost of the server and some smaller items supplies and are both status quo from last month general education ends the month of November with a surplus of 13,47 if you look down under special education salaries is showing a surplus of $3,657 this is due to an adjustment for an additional special education teacher that's out on leave benefits line is status quo Services is now showing a deficit of $2,679 this is due to an adjustment made to our professional Education Services line to account for the cost of two special education substitutes who will be with us through the end of this school year still under special education under supplies and other they currently in status quo from last month and special education now ends the month of November with a surplus of $978 under operations and over head line item projections currently remaining status quo and we can note that as of November 30th the overall budget is showing a surplus of $14,455 however after the New Year we're going to take a look at the general education sub costs and likely make an adjustment adjustment to that projection since sub costs are currently coming in higher than anticipated due to teacher absences from illness down below at the bottom you'll see prek account has a balance as of November 30th of $ 7,721 7 and you will see that our 10 248a account has a balance of $422,400 our budget on the 2526 budget as we communicated the last meeting our budget for 2025 2026 started with a status quo at a 7.22% increase departments presented their budgets some revisions are made and that brought us up to a 10.34 but Mrs Bird and Mrs and Miss richardi worked with Miss Kel to identify budgetary offsets happy to say that these offsets brought us to now an increase of a 4% range however Mrs bird is confident they will have a budget increase in the threes once all is said and done but there are still a lot of moving Parts I don't know how much she may speak to that tonight but I know that she will present to the board uh as a whole in January and have a more definitive almost definite number that's all I have thanks Amy anybody any questions we can ask them now or we can wait until okay gives a full presentation in January I want to 1048a account yeah are we going to have a budget with that account showing the activity so that there's well the only activity that's coming out of that is the north stair that's the only thing that's going to come out of that everything else is going to get uh we're uh we're going to bond the Great if I'm wrong when we take out of that that's something that goes to the board it's not they don't pull from that and they tell us about it after it's more of a before like large yes scale so we wouldn't there's not a report because we would be voting on it to determine if we're going to let them take it okay so there's a vote somewhere along the way it's not going to be in the budget we already did we already we already discussed this um in a number of meetings that what we were going to do was handle the north stair um David Stein uh um is is right now uh preparing the contract documents put out the bid and we'll pay for it out of the 10 248a account that's already been decided okay you don't need to vote then no we we well we already approved it we already approved it right I think what you might be asking is once we know what that final number is going to be it will be it'll come back before the board and then it will be reflected in the finance report you'll what comes from that account okay I'm just trying to find out the approval process yeah it has to it has to be accounted for we don't have an accurate number now we allocated 170 it could be 135 it could be 182 who knows but at some point that will be accounted for you know you don't have to run a budget the same way we normally do okay so the 170 is going to come out of the 10 that's correct well whatever the number is whatever the number is and that will come back the 170 go into whatever this general fund is and then there will be some type of blind item yes in it'll be reflected in their Finance report yeah you have to have some kind of there there has to be some kind of a balance sheet yes it'll be reflected in the finance yeah I'm just trying to figure out where and it will come back because once we find a new number and once we get all the particulars it's got to come back to the board okay I had one other question and I I assume you've already pursued this if it's possible there's no way to appeal that insurance decision no we tried they did a forensic audit of the entire system that's what they came back with that they're leaning more towards because it was older equipment that was probably more likely due to wear and tear than all the other weather related issues we didn't love the answer but that's where we are but we're still going to receive something so it's something's better than nothing Pokey ey with a sharp stick in the world of technology technology that's an old piece of equipment unless you're wor for the IRS and then it's a new piece of equipment um any other well I see if any more questions any move to approve the oh I I was going to ask everybody any more questions all right go ahead jump on a CH can I I'd like to move to approve the fin do I hear second second second all in favor I all opposed carries thank you policy sue your onor so the committee met yesterday evening January willing policies to the agenda changes dur2 we have some recisions five Chang last okay um unfinished business approved for first reading at the boa regular meeting on November 13 we have a number of policies hold the phone these were the policies we did for first reading M so um want me to RW them again uh can we just read the numbers do we have to read the entire just read the numbers policy 401 Title 9 sex discrimination harassment prohibition policy 5145 44 Title 9 sex discrimination of harassment provision number two recommended retirement policy 5145 53 transgender and gender non-conforming youth item three recommended revisions policy 5141 point2 211 sunscreen application in school item uh poliy uh 61 46.2 Statewide proficiency Mastery exams technical revision policy 5133 so private technology devices by students no revisions policy 6000 concepted roles and instruction policy 6114 emergency and disaster preparedness policy 6115 C ceremonies and observances policy 6141 312 migrant students policy 61 61.2 care of instructional materials all right do we need a motion on that so we'll need a motion to each it section pardon you have to have a there's a recommend motion for each of the sections okay recommended motion section A Move the Bethany Board of Education approve the m rision to FY policies presented policy 4000.1 and policy 51 second all in favor I I okay no opposed move that the Bethany Board of Education approve the recommended retirement of the following policy is presented policy 53 motion to approve make a motion second all in favor I so move three move that the Bethany Board of Education approve the recommended revisions to the following policies as presented policy 51 41.

thank you so much stickers for everyone [Music]

thank you so much stickers for everyone [Music]