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And then, uh, the time is nearing for his time to go. I videoed with with Ken quite often, maybe like three or four times, but either the third or fourth time Kim, you know, we were talking and he noticed that there was something on my shoulder and I said, you know, you're ready to go. But we talk about socks. You see this? I'll always remember you wearing these. And he pulled them up. He pulled up his leg filled with white socks. I was like laugh and laugh and then he laughed and laughed but it's a wonderful memory lucky that it again. Thank you all so much for being here. Please join us for some refreshments to find your way to the high school activity center. And Joey, you got something? Joey here? Yeah. But the high school activity center, if you can't go the way you might norally want to go, you have to go out of theater and circle around to the right.

Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming to see this. Great to see everyone stakeholders in the room. Um I'm excited to be presenting to you my first uh budget all be here in this incredible city. [Music] Um I like to thank Eric M and uh the business team for helping us put all this together. Um there's a lot of historical context that I kind of learned the past nine or 10 months I was here. Sorry about that. A lot of feedback, a lot of historical context I had to learn uh for the city, things that have happened in the past with regard to funding and other things like that. Okay, I'll hold it. Um funding and stuff like that. So, so, uh, this presentation is something that, uh, we put together for you, uh, to talk about how this works, how the bud how the budget cycle works, how we came up with some of the the things that we put in this, um, in this budget for 2526, the importance of it, and why it's in here.

01h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to to facilitate facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of 3 minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record first up we have Amy bril hello my name is Amy brell my son is a student at will Canyon High School in the current SDC classroom I saw the meeting notes from last board meeting and that Willow Canyon SDC was moving to Shadow Ridge as parents we were not notified of these changes prior to it being voted on or we would have been at the last meeting the reasons listed for the change made no sense to us bullet point number one was bringing students back to their home schools but you are literally taking an entire classroom of more than 20 students and forcing them out of their home school while separating them from their siblings the second bullet point was to create more permanent locations which STC has been a fixture at Willow basically since it opened and bullet point 3 was the efficiency with Transportation but yet you are now transporting students much farther away from their home school and adding more kids to the bus route that would typically walk to school and not depend on Transportation I have a master's degree in special education I'm very familiar with L and fape and all the legalities that go along with special education so I dug and found the real reason was to save money to avoid alternative placements this new stc2 class could start at Shadow Ridge without disloc ating the current class to put this into perspective for those that might not understand the consequence of the current plan it would be the same if one day someone came and said you have to leave right now and we're going to drop you off in a foreign country with no house no job no family or friends and you are expected to thrive right away in the meantime someone else gets to move into your home have your career and friends and family and all the success that you built over the years this person deserves all those things but doesn't deserve to take them from you routine and consistency is a driving forc for kids like my son to find success even things such as a field trip take days for me to explain the change in routine so by taking away everything that these kids know will have severe consequences to their growth and development that the parents the staff and most importantly the children have fought so hard to achieve not all growth is gained just inside the confines of their STC classroom my son asked every day if he has to go to Shadow and his anxiety is building to where he doesn't even want to go to school do I tell him the truth that the district AED other kids and money as being more important than you and your classmates I invite you to look at any of these students in the eyes and tell them why as parents we have had to advocate for our kids their entire lives and will not stop now if it is money driven what happens if we all decide to remove our kids from the district I also was made aware that special education will no longer be able to participate in westm have you checked with your lawyers and how this is discriminating only against kids with disabilities throughout the district and no longer allowing them to participate in vocational training that they desperately need and to blame all this on the Aging bus fleet is a slap in the face to these kids and the intelligence of us as parents I know the bond didn't pass but do our specific kids have to suffer so that a new school can be built when there is availability in room in our current schools update security and new buses when the current buses are still available to run those items were what the bond covered not special education so why are our kids having to pay for the bond net thank [Music] you next up we have Sarah Corgan and I apologize if I say someone's name incorrect about that perfect testing okay Sarah Corgan uh I am the proud mother to Isabella Sloan a junior at Willow High School I stand here not just as a parent but as a voice for my child my autistic daughter who has been forced to face an unfair and disruptive change to her final year of high school this isn't just about a school switch it's about the stability fairness and well-being of a young woman who deserves better our daughter will be a senior in high school and for students this is a milestone a time to celebrate of finishing what they've started of preparing for the next chapter but for her it's more than that uh she's autistic and for years she's worked harder than most of us can even imagine to adapt to a world that doesn't always understand her her school her routine her teachers her familiar hallways has been her anchor this is where she builds trust where she's learned to navigate challenges where she's finally found a sense of belonging and now with one decision that's being ripped away and I'm being told that it through a voicemail message and being told the reason is due to buses whatever the reason it doesn't justify turning her world upside down in her senior year Isabella that thrives on consistency change isn't just hard it's devastating Studies have shown that disruption in routine for autistic individuals can lead to increased anxiety meltdowns and even regression in their skills that they have worked harder than anyone else to build Isabella already suffers from severe anxiety which interferes with her eating sleeping and digestive issues and yet we are here and expected just to accept this I've heard the excuses they will adjust it's just one year but let me ask you would you ever tell a marathon runner and to change their shoes at Mile 25 would you uproot a plant before it decides to bloom this isn't just one year it's her year her accumulation of everything that she's fought for Isabella is not a statistic a checkbox on one of your charts she's a person she's brilliant she's resilient and she's incredible who deserves her F to finish her final high school year where she started I'm here to appeal to your Humanity to imagine your child your niece your neighbor someone you love being told that their comfort their progress their pce just doesn't matter this is what it feels like we are not asking for special treatment but asking for fairness let them stay where they started [Music] thank you thank [Music] you next up we have Amy and Caitlyn oh' here good afternoon this is my Caitlyn this is my other daughter Madison who also graduated from Willow Canyon High sorry Amy O'Hare and Caitlyn O'Hare um just I'm going to be short about it the I also only got the voicemail um notifying us before this was even a question we got the voicemail saying that this was already a done deal uh I don't know about you guys but this felt very discriminatory towards my CH my child and the other children in her class why couldn't the the funds be allocated through several divisions or however you guys do it my point is is that you're picking on the most vulnerable class the most vulnerable vulnerable vulnerable group that is available that is within that school you're taking it away from them um my daughter is also a junior she has one year left and it would be nice to have her graduate from the same school that her sister did uh anyway that's my my point on it she wanted to say something I know it it's just bues and I get it I also I want to graduate from the school be because because I felt like like all home and and before I started um I thought thought that I felt wrong going to the to the school but um but I made a lot of new friends and I don't want to lose it and just to reiterate it'd be friends that she has outside of the class they make friends with other people who still go to school there so they have the group of best buddies and things of that and those kids aren't coming with them so I know I have 28 seconds left but um I graduated Willow Canyon 2024 2023 I was involved in theater I was involved in show choir I did all those all four years my sister deserves the same chance that I got to my sister has never felt as at home as she did then coming here I remember remember my last year having to say goodbye to my sister she deserves to thank you next up we have a Leo craft hello my name is Leo craft and Caitlyn craf is my daughter she is a special education student at Willow Canyon and we moved from Illinois about two and a half years ago and one of the big reasons was for Arizona programs for people with disabilities and I need to praise Miss Cook and all her staff for doing a tremendous job the last three years with Caitlin and if she starts over with someone else somewhere else I don't think she's going to have the same academic progress I hate to say it but she may regress and as far as Transportation currently she rides the mainstream bus 45 minutes to school 45 minutes home from school and as she goes another 10 miles down the street what's it going to be an hour each way that's crazy and one other thing I'm not sure I know you won't be able to answer but I don't understand the funding and I quote [Music] from the Independent posted September 27th it says about 90% comes from state and local 10% comes from federal money which can be used for specific purposes according to Grant requirements stipulated support for Pro programs such as special education services and the learning needs of students from lowincome families using title bond funds so the bond issue I don't understand how that works in with the federal funding for the special act and I I just want to say thank you again to Miss Cook and her staff thank you next up we have Donna craft hello board thank you very much for allowing us to speak I'm really fortunate to be here tonight to be able to do this it was unfortunate that we didn't know ahead of time before this vote went out in February but we're here to speak up um I'm Donna craf Caitlyn is our adopted daughter since newborn okay sitting right there with the ginger red hair she's our wild cat daughter so first of all I just want to start with I had I I'm a nurse I graduated from University of Iowa I go around the country to different hospice agencies hospice agencies perform end of life care for patients and families and I just want to say I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii this week where am I I'm right here with her the whole way and my husband and our DDD worker I again would have loved to been in Hawaii but instead I'm right here fighting for her again another fight our whole lives as Amy and all the rest of the parents you're hearing the same thing um so Nike has a um a saying just do it my saying and my mantra for my job when I'm out checking to make sure agencies are meeting the Medicare regulations is don't just do it do it right these are human beings that you're dealing with think about it okay diagnosis IQ and a third grade reader is a junior ready to graduate next year as a wildcat left-sided open lip skit andily a Genesis of the septum padum pituitary dwarfism septo optic pituitary dysplasia stroke and utero calcifications on the brain right sided Hemi pris P microa cerebral paly multiple surgeries selective dorsal Rotom of the spinal cord to release the spasticity and lower legs right foot reconstruction so she can walk and play please raise your hand if you can explain what each of these diagnosis are that you're making decisions for these specialed kids to not graduate from their home school no and my guess is you don't know what half of those things are we do so you are cutting a special ed program for from human beings that have been through many trials and tribul ations what do we have up here my husband I all of you people we have a driver's license we drive a car we have a house a condo and a livea ma'am your time's [Music] up next up we have Shannon moral can I move this or just pull it down Okay can everybody hear me okay all right my name is shanana Morel I am DDD care worker for Caitlyn as her mother just said um I know that she when she found out that she was going to have to go to a different school next year she's absolutely devastated devastated and I am have become very close with her since we've you know been working together and all that every day sorry I'm not used to this I'm really nervous but um I know she it's not always up to what we want I understand that um but she wants to graduate she's going to be a senior next year she doesn't want to leave her friends behind that aren't in her class um and she really is devastated and I know I'm not sure with how the funding goes anymore my kids are all grown um I don't even know any of that but my thoughts are there's always a way always whether you can jumble something around take away from you know some little bit from another program um you have fundraising you know anything that can help you monetarily get to where you need to be like I said I've and I've worked with disabled persons and children for almost 20 years now and I know how hard the setback is for them and how far it can set them back when something like this happens in their life so any anything I mean and I feel like the parent should have been told what was happening to begin with I I'm also a member of the community if anybody cares um but with the parents knowing that and knowing that there's this monetary need that needs to be happening to help keep these children in these programs and in these schools Reach Out reach out to your community you know reach out to other people because I promise you that there are so many people out there that would be willing to make donations or do fundraising or you know anything to help keep these kids where they're at so you have anything talk about attrition well I have 30 seconds so and that was an idea that some of the parents maybe had that if there is any way it could be considered that the children that are at school right now in Willow Canyon could possibly stay there until that last child graduates and all of the new children that are going to come in with disabilities in the special education program maybe they you can start them at this new school but like like I said you guys are going to do whatever you're going to do thank you thank you next up we have Ian Palmer good good evening members of the governing board families and fellow students my name is Ian Palmer and I am a graduating senior at Willow Canyon High School I am here tonight to express my concern about the upcoming changes in the STC program next year my concern is my friends and classmates moving to a different school and the emotional stress it can cause them as a student with disabilities having to adjust to different environment with different people in a different location is hard for students with disabilities I am hoping that the board will consider the hardship and negative effects that this will have on my friends with disabilities and come up with an alternate solution it breaks my heart to see my previous friends not have the same opportunities me and my former friends have had the past couple years being at the school has changed my life a lot the teachers back there have put wonderful impacts My Life as a Willow Canyon student and I want the same for my friends and I just really hope we find the right solution to do what's best for these people because these people deserve what they are in right now these people just can't be moved around these people aren't cargo these people are human beings this isn't fair for them we need what's right for them which is for them to stay at their home campus with the excellent support and the excellent teachers and the excellent programs throughout that school that school I guarantee that school will not be the same without this class and for the other school other people within the school will not get to come with them and I find that very heartbreaking I want what's best thank you very much thank you thank [Applause] you any more thank you next we have the student update we have a student update tonight yes we do okay um president members of the board Dr Crono uh we are very much uh excited here to have Amilia Escobar rejoining us tonight and uh she'll be updating us on what's happening with our student councils throughout the district good afternoon staff and board members I hope that everybody had a very relaxing spring break and I just wanted to talk about what we did at Freedom Academy this past month for the food bank we hosted an assembly over there where we played a bunch of games and we were able to honor them for their hard work with a plaque it was so fun and amazing to see all the spirit and all of the participation that we had at that school and um for DLC we hope to do it again next year um along with that we talked about the school handbook and our dress code and the changes for next year and we agreed that as a um as the students and representatives for each school they were very necessary changes and that they would be good for the students um we also um talked about our DLC conference which happens at the end of next month where it's just a chance that we get to talk about our student bodies Al together within all four high schools and what changes we can do next year and how to partner with different clubs and make our schools better as a whole and try to make daar better as a whole as well and lastly um our individual updates for each school is just finalizing our prom dances and hoping to involve all our students and have a great turnout thank you so much for having me today have a great night thank you next we have superintendent update Dr Coto thank you madam president um dier participated in the fourth annual essay contest with the our partners the city of Al Mirage and the City of Surprise and we've had a lot of winners so I'm going to take a few minutes to read some of these winners out and and give them a shout out and congratulations so our city of El Mirage ESS contest winners in grades 3 through five uh we had a first place Emanuel Mason from Elmer fourth grader from El Mirage in Miss sel's class uh second place um Eli rendes from also fourth grader El Mirage Miss sel's class and the third place is Alita or cherbo from El Mirage fourth grader from Miss Johan's class so congratulations to those winners 6 through eth Arya elraf uh Surprise Elementary seventh grader Miss peta's class second is Sophia estrea also seventh grader surprise and miss at his class and um we have a third place winner Camila spor from Thompson Ranch a seventh grader and Miss Beck class so congratulations to those winners our 9 through 12s um we have Kyla wall valy Vista 11th grader Miss Roosevelt's class and a second place winner Joseph Watts from 11th grader from Valley Vista also in Miss Roosevelt's class uh congratulations to them and then the city of surprise contest winners um grades three through five we have uh Joselyn Arnold uh Kingswood fourth grader in Miss Richard's class we have a winner in the sixth through eth category and Gavin uh Patria from sonor and Heights Middle School grade eight and Miss Dell principes class and our 9 through 12 winner in the city of surprise is Michelle Barb from Valley Vista 11th grader and Miss Roosevelt's class so congratulations to all those winners they are going to be recognized at a city council meeting um and all the first place Award winners they're going to get a gift card from diart Education Foundation so we're very proud of them and thank you for all their efforts um and one last piece uh Saturday evening the district was honored at the 16th annual celebration of accomplished teaching uh the celebration was in honor of all those receiving Andor renewing their national board certification so the district was recognized for their significant commitment uh to national board certification through our process of adding 5% to the base salaries for all board certified teachers in our district we've done that for many years uh additionally we had two teachers honored for achieving national board certified status uh Miss Amanda bradick the band teacher at Willow Canyon High School and Miss chrisa Russ who is a math coach at Kingswood Elementary so uh we received this nice plaque we have 59 board certified um employees which we are going to do a reception and about another month we're getting it all set up we're going to do a big reception before the board meeting and recognize all the hard work it is a very rigorous process um they are the Masters in their field and we just appreciate all the efforts so I would like the board to join me this is the plaque we got for district reignition we're going to take a picture up front and then um publish that and all that so if you join me up in the front of the steps Ryan will take a picture e and that is all I have this evening thank you Dr Coto next we have governing board update I'll go first um so over the last month I took my son to the stem night at simron Middle School it was a very cool night um he he loved the drones with the police officers uh it was interesting to see that uh City of Surprise uses the same company of drones that uh I bought for him for Christmas obviously the one I bought for him for Christmas is not as great but um it was pretty cool uh then took my daughter over to the Vista Arts day uh my daughter actually had a um some artwork on display this was our second year going um last year she wasn't uh able to submit art because fortunately Freedom did not have a uh art teacher last year but this year they did uh very cool day perfect weather I couldn't believe it because it was chilly and rainy the day before uh so I I really appreciated it I seen all the artwork and all the you know the choirs perform and the bands perform pretty cool events um one thing I I would recommend is uh we uh we make sure that the spring training people aren't parking in our parking lot because I saw that happen they were walking over to the game or we start charging them you know we can do one way or another um I did also partake in Reading Across America at Sunset Hills uh I do want to apologize to that school I I did mess up on um the timing that I was supposed to be there I missed an email so it's it's on me so I'm going to say it now I volunteering to do it again next year at Sunset Hills um it was really cool uh the lady who spoke or read the read her book before me was a um Librarian from um the White Tanks library library up there uh she did a phenomenal job um it was unfortunate she had to go before me so because I was like you got a librarian doing reading the kids but she did such a great job it was awesome um and I did want to make sure you guys all got your paintings from my daughter the cabinet members uh she really enjoyed doing them for you guys and uh that's one of her passions so um I appreciate it that's all I have um I attended put my glasses on attended the simmeron spring steam night also so I just want to say thank you to principal Richards and Miranda Virgil for allowing us to attend it was a great night um one of the interesting things that I I came across was the um the gifted program um the kids from the gifted program um they were actually learning about cars past and future and what they did which I thought was just phenomenal they invited a car club the one that's always up at Sam's Club they invited them to come and they brought their cars and they did a little brochure and I just thought it was phenomenal that they got the community involved to come so it was really neat to see that the kids were so excited um I grabbed one of their brochures and they just could not wait to tell me about it so it was just it was great I was I was so excited um so I just want to say thank you for allowing us to come I had a great time um I also attended a CIP visit at Ashton Ranch so thank you to principal Parini and Dr rero we had a great time um and then I also attended another CIP School VIs at Marley Park so thank you principal Felix and and Joe Martinez for a great time and then from there we went to Dart Heroes we we went to five different schools that was the highlight of my day um seeing the Expressions on their faces that they were nominated by their peers that they're a hero so that was great to see um that that's the first year I got to actually participate in it so it was nice so I just want to say thank you to daart for doing that and let's see that's all I have so thank you I also attended the um second year of the simron Springs Middle School it's the science technology engineering arts and Mathematics uh Stam night I met the principal uh Ginger Richards and many of the teachers and students who were at the exhibit tables of the police department was there demonstrating um the use of those Canan dogs for their work and the Luke Air Force based military uh some of them were there demonstrating how drones are made and I met uh math teacher art teacher science teacher and history teacher and they were working with their students demonstrating what they were learning it was a very interesting and educational night and then Tuesday March 11th uh Jenna Bowen and I went and each read a book to about I think it was about 50 kindergarten children at the Sunset Hills Elementary School the teachers and kids gave us a warm welcome and it was a lot of fun for us and the kids on Wednesday March 12th I attended a school visit at Marley Park Elementary School and I want to thank principal Jessica Felix and assistant principal Joseph Martinez for an informative morning we met with some parents teachers staff students and the administration who gave us great feedback about what they like about their school and recommendations for improvements for the school they all stress teamwork as very important and we also visited some of the classrooms thank you I also attended the festival the Festival of the Arts um also known as the da Marinelli show and had a fantastic time um my college kids actually came down from na just for the festival so that was really exciting that they're still um wanting to stay there all day I left a couple times because I needed a break but they stayed all day um also um joined Dr Coto u in celebrating our um nationally board certified teachers um miss bradrick and miss rust and just congratulations to all of them and um continued congratulations to everyone that's been part of this program um the last thing I have is I attended a training session with couting superintendent um bogs had a fantastic time that um just getting to know other board members across the county um and uh sharing best practices and that's all I have next up we have a consent agenda I move to approve consent agenda items as presented I second I vote Yes sorry I'm refreshing now motion carries okay next we have information uh G1 Dr croo thank you madam president uh tonight we're going to present to the board our information from our cell phone committee um that's been um meeting and discussing our cell phone uh procedures and uh Mr muy is going to introduce this item thank you uh Madam president members of the board Dr Coto uh tonight uh we're going to have uh uh our director of student services Kevin kashat who led that committee um and this started about six months ago in October uh where we we knew that we needed to bring a committee together of stakeholders and take a look at uh our cell phone and electronic device policy and uh you're going to hear about that work of that committee and he's going to walk you through that and uh what we're proposing moving forward uh of what that policy should look like thank you Mr M good evening uh members of the governing board uh superintendent Coto guests Madam president uh as Mr M just pointed out uh looking at the committee work uh tonight's objective is really kind of to look at that we're going to review the cell phone and the electronic device language within the parent and student handbook um we're going to Pro uh provide you with suggested revisions to the cell phone and electronic device policy and you have that in your in your packet this evening and then I want to talk a little bit at the very end about how do we enforce this or or become consistent with our our practice so we're really going to look at those uh three objectives as we go through this presentation I think it's important to point out that we did have a vast um members of community uh students parents High School assistant principles uh and principls K8 teachers support staff and parents all inv involved in this uh as our student representative shared earlier I do take a lot of things through them and discussing the handbook uh this is another uh thing that we did talk about with the students because the students had had a voice uh in this and so we did share that uh with them as well as and to hear their their opinions better okay sorry so we went through a timeline uh once again September 25th uh we did we had four meetings our first one September 25 5th we reviewed the uh purpose and goals of the committee once again the purpose was to review our current language that we had in the student in parent handbook uh and then discuss pros and cons of that language uh from there we did another meeting in October 23rd where we reviewed current trends and we looked at other District uh uh policies procedures regarding that and we reviewed what was going on nationally within that uh and then at that point we felt like it was an opportunity for us to to go out to our community uh by surveying the students the parents and staff to get their opinions uh with that so in November we uh discussed survey results and I will share those here in a few minutes with you we discussed possible changes to that language based off of those survey results and then in January we developed the final language that was then shared with cabinet for final review and we're presenting that to you here tonight what's exciting about the uh present ation is that uh we had a great uh participation in our survey we had almost 4,000 participants in that and what's exciting about this too is that 50% of those were parents and Guardians and we had 39% of those being from students so it it is tremendous to see that their their voice is heard within this and so when we look at the questions that we asked uh that the committee wanted to to get information on was a number of questions and I want to take you through through those those questions questions because I think it does help to show why the the cell phone procedure language that we have is shaped the way it is uh the cell phones are are are they a distraction and disruption in the learning process that's kind of the trends that we hear out there and so we wanted to look at that component uh and we had 55% agree and strongly agree our students probably pushed that the other way a little bit right uh we wanted to also look at it from a standpoint there was lots of discussions about should it be the same for uh K4 K5 um K8 or what does it look like as a high school should they should be they be the same um so they wanted to look at that and 83% of the uh those that participated in the survey said that it should be uh different for High School teaching that that idea of digital literacy with them uh cell phones should be allowed during specific times of the day before school after school and lunch so if it's allowed should it be allowed at certain times of the day uh 81% of those was surveyed said yes to that one the next one we looked at was do do our uh Community do they feel like we should not have cell phones should we do a complete ban of them uh and as you can see 92% of them said no to to having a complete band of them and then the last thing we wanted to look at is the when you look at the this this the trends that we're nationally there were uh parents and and students feeling safe with having a device on them made them feel safer and so we wanted to see what of our people what our community feel uh and so 89% of them did say that they do feel they feel safer knowing that their kids have a cellone them cell phone on them and their um and kids felt that way in case of an emergency or something like that be able to get a hold of their kid So based off of those uh survey results we did look at the the final language it is in your um packet there if you you want to take a look at the actual language but I wanted to draw attention to the four major points that we really uh emphasized with within that it does look different for k8s in high schools it um the k8s allow it on the campuses um it just needs to be turned off and in their bags in silent High School it does allow for um it to be on campus During certain times before school after school and we wanted to spend time defining what instructional time looked like and so when we do that it when you look at the language in there we Define instructional time as um during a class period so the idea of what our old policy talked about Bell tobell was that before the start of the school to the end of the day it really focused on the Bell to Bell uh component where this one is talking about class periods in a high school setting that would include and it's within the in the language that would include um being out of class in the hallways using a restroom or something like that that the that that is still during class time that is still during instructional time and therefore we wouldn't um have that be allowed okay so uh with this the committee did a fantastic job writing this language and putting this language together but now becomes the challenging part the the piece that we will work as a as a district is how do we enforce this right the ideas of we need to be a consistent across the district so what does that look like um we need to have conversations with our principles at coming meetings to start having those discussions defining that what does that look like on the campus to ensure that we're being consistent across our practice we need to do training just like we do trainings with safety components on campuses to create consistency we need to work with the trainings whether we're working with our assistant principles and principles on what this looks like how do we enforce that if a student uh is challenges a teacher what is that going to look like the idea that we're going to be working with those High School administrators and those K8 administrators on uh enforcing the practice consistently across the district and then at the start of the school year then then it's the work of our local administrators to have those discussions with their teachers and staff um at the start of the school year talking about the expectations not only for students but the expectations of them as as employees of the district and and through that process we will hopefully we will have consistency within in this policy uh and I also want to make sure I just pointed out to you that there is um some Arizona State legislation that is going through that is there's discussions regarding this and it's very broad but it does talk about the impacts of cell phones on instructional time and looking at that school districts need to uh work to to limit that so because if it is a distraction we want to make sure they do that and so there are discussions even at the state legislature regarding this as well and so we wanted just to make sure that you guys were aware of that as well and I leave it up to questions I have a question um first do we have time to be able to because I I see that the um the percentage of teachers is 7% which is roughly I would say was like 200 and some odd teachers uh participated in the cell phone survey do we have a do we have the option to take out their data to see where that landed compared to everyone else or can we do a separate survey internally for just staff and teach to see how that go coexists and I ask this because we talk about uh enforcing the policy so we want to make sure that we create a policy that they support as well um which I'm sure they you know cell phones I I think it's funny because my my daughter's 13 and she's been asking for a cell phone for a couple years she asked me when I said well when you can pay for one obviously I mean that's what happened when I was young but then again that was long long time ago um so every every parent's going to be different obviously uh when it comes to cell phone and their children every Situation's different um but I I want to see if we can get kind of a standard across with the teachers and the admin the administration and staff um I don't know if that's possible you don't have to answer now uh the other thing I was going to ask is the policy itself when I was looking at it um another thing looking at cell phones from my daughter is uh T-mobile offers the free uh wrist watch you know the watch thing that I never you know I don't I don't like it but and and an iPad but uh would the policy go on those as well because technically that watch is technically kind of a cell phone you could do all the same things to it yeah Madam president members of the governing board uh yes uh so when you look at this it is encompassing of cell phones and electronic devices so it would Encompass that and and on your first question uh the survey data is um I reported to you guys tonight overall but we could break it out because it is we do have it by teachers staff um students and parents so we can look at that data to see what that 7% I think or or 10% between those two groups uh what that shows yeah because I would like to see how bad that's that skewed some of those higher numbers of 83% and you know because they were such a smaller you know group within the survey um because that's one thing where we have they you know it's been stated that they want something different between K through 8 to high school you know is that the truth maybe we stay more consistent and we just have the same sell phone policy from K to 12 I you know I don't know but um I would just like to see a little bit more data behind it absolutely thank you I have a question um looking at the write up you have it says during instructional time when we're talking about the high schoolers cell phones and other electronic devices must be turned off or set to silent and stored out of sight in a backpack and then at the end of that it says phones are not to be used for texting calling social media gaming or other non-educational purpos during lessons why do we have that in there if they're not to have them uh Madam president member of the discovering board there would be times where a teacher may make a a educational decision uh within their class that they may say hey I need you to take a picture of this if you have a cell phone take a picture of it or if there was a situation where a student's Chromebook died or something like that then a teacher would make that decision obviously it's not a free-for-all but the there are times where a teacher would make that professional judgment decision um that that it would be a ask for permission first not just have your phone out and available and and on your desk it's stored away hey my Chromebook just died do I have another solution to that there may not be an extra charger and so a teacher may use that as an opportunity to do a workaround so my recommendation would be make that a separate bullet and say in instances so that it's aware because it kind of contradicts in the same paragraph absolutely I have a question about um the lunch break it says students may use their cell phones and other electronic devices during lunch either inside the cafeteria or in designated outdoor areas when we made um School visits with more of the um elementary schools the teacher said sometimes um when the kids were not allowed to have their cell phones during lunch or recess is it it allowed the kids to interact more with each other instead of you know just looking at their phones all the time during their off times or when they're not in class so I'm just concerned about what teachers might think about allowing the kids to have them during say maybe they could just have them part of the lunchtime or mad president I I'll answer this one the use is for high schoolers only Elementary will not be able to take their phones out of lunchtime Elementary is for the entire day so when that's referred to that's referred to high schoolers only okay so K8 will not be able to take them at lunch okay thank you um I I know that board members cavara asked about the the teacher perspective on this and I know you know we are limited to the data that's in front of us right now but generally speaking teachers do support something some sort of policy on this correct some limitation yes okay okay the other piece I wanted to mention I know that there are um medical exceptions uh maybe for a student that has a chronic health conditions such as diabetes that needs to monitor their blood sugar um do do we are we fairly confident that we have all of those students documented or do you think that there might be some that are not for for some some unknown reason uh Madam president members of the government board I would say that if there is a a health plan for for that then yes it would be documented for the um the hsas uh and nurses to be able to work with that plan uh and then also I know that when you're doing uh annual student updates and things like that if there's changes to any health or anything like that to communicate that with the school okay but if it was found out after the fact maybe it hadn't been reported yet if it was a change in health condition then we would make exceptions for that correct yes thank you yes need them on the path to documentation yes and I think that's the big thing is is asking that permission and getting with an Administration to say hey I have this situation and then it's administrative uh decision to allow for those exceptions when needed okay all right and in looking at the I mean in looking at the policy and no of the upcoming potential uh there's a Senate bill I think it's 1226 um but it seems to be in alignment with our policy I don't see anything that um that that concerns me with this policy so um as it is is something that I would support thank you thank you madam president if I could um I want to thank Mr Kat and the committee for their hard work on this this is not an easy topic iPic um as as everyone knows that goes to the school visits this is one of my U magic questions that I ask and um there is no right or wrong answer and it's 5050 split across the board on how people feel about cell phones whether they want to ban them um but I I believe this is in line with everything that we've discussed and I know I've had some board members join me at the visits um and I think this policy fits in line um without that committee knowing those questions that we as ask and the data we gathered I think it fits in line pretty well so I just want to say thank you to Mr Kat leading that committee and to their hard work um over the past few months so very much needed thank you okay up next we have item G2 Dr Coto thank you Madame President uh tonight we have an update for you on our bond override committee um and Mr mcy is going to take this item thank you uh Madam president members of the board Dr Coto uh I'm actually going to get some help as well from Miss medel uh I have the fortune of um uh working and facilitating uh this group and the with the bond override committee and we've been doing this uh we did this last year and again um we've just had this meeting recently but normally we have a spokesperson that's with us uh Patrick Campbell had volunteered to come tonight and to speak but he's busy coaching baseball this evening uh for Shadow Ridge so uh we're going to fill in and provide an update on what was covered in that last meeting uh and and really uh the information that was covered back on February 27th uh was a was a chance to summarize the work that had been done previously and then talk about what we're you know what we're looking at here again when it involves a bonded and override and coming forward to speak to the board so that's the intention of this uh if any decisions are made by the board to pursue either bonder and override so that that particular piece uh we did have we used the committee members that were in place last year uh because they had they had the history of it it was it was a committee that was made up of members of the entire Community um not all were able to attend but those that were able and willing to attend did come to the meeting uh those six months of work that we did last year uh we' walked through those pieces of what we did um in those meetings to really study and break down the needs of where the district's at and a lot of those are spent on the financial side which which uh Miss padel could could outline for you but we spent a lot of time looking at the elements of what our what our budgets look like and then it was specific needs uh related to that as we you know as we look at as a district um related to when we talk about both Bond and override you have to Define both those terms you know a bond is really dealing with capital and then when we saw override we're talking about an M Ando um and that's a very General uh summary of it but that's really what we discussed as well so um with that it was an opportunity also to summarize election history so we went all the way back to around 2006 5 six and talked about this the success and failures of bonds and overrides and the last Bond that passed for example was in 2006 believe that expires in 27 roughly 28 and and so we wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that as well so understand what the history was also overrides when the last override so that there was an understanding of what that meant as well um and how much money is attached to that so specifically with Bond I will tell you that um we did summarize those key areas again of what were those specific uh areas of discussion last year and that were studied and that was related to uh safety uh within the district um also talking about Maintenance and Facilities which obviously we talk about the the uh elements of what our buildings are at we spent time on transportation again obviously with buses um and and discussing where we're at with the fleet um talked about also the growth and some updates with growth as well within the community how that's still expanding um and also the you know when we say that you know that that need when it comes to a very sprawled District as well as what that would be for the needs for schools and some of those areas that are out there so we just T we we wanted to make sure the committee got that information again that's what they asked for um and that was the specific sides of the bond I'm going to turn it over to miss Mell she's going to talk a little bit about the override side to you madam president members of the board yes as Mr mcy mentioned we did um tackle both Pro both both areas both the bonds and the overrides and again as I mentioned just kind of discussed the differences and really um and I know we had a study session with the board at the beginning of February too just to kind of help reiterate what those two different funding sources do look like um so we went with the committee just explain to them again that we do currently have an M override in place and that covers the programs that's really what covers more people and programs and additional things that we would be able to support above and beyond what the state provides um we discussed again the duration that they are approved for a total of seven years and discussed where we are in the timeline here for daart um at last year's uh Bond and override committee the the consensus really from the group at the time was that they were going to really look at the um at the Bond as really just going out for the election to table the over override but to look at it again for the coming year and potentially make that recommendation to the board and so um that was discussed with them again because really we are going into next fiscal year of 2526 is the final full year of funding for the override um unless it is approved for continuation by the voters um beyond that it does start phasing out by a third every year um and really by fiscal year 20 um 28 29 it fully goes away and so uh we discussed the various programs again we reiterated what all those programs are that are currently funded um through the override um discussing the um the reading math U Music Arts Athletics additional programs um interventions uh full day kindergarten so just uh discussed those those pieces that are supported um the other thing that was helpful to them and we did it as well on the on the bond side compared what our other uh peer group our school districts that are in our operational peer groups as looked at by the Arizona auditor general what their outstanding bonds amounts were just to kind of get a little bit comparison and then we also looked at it for the override and really all the 10 peer group districts that um we are compared to by the auditor general all do have um overrides in place um eight of them are at the full 15% a couple are at the 133% and one is at a 10% and so um they're really all within um comparison or comparable to what we have in place um and then really we finalized the discussion on the override with just the the tax impact the estimated so we are still looking at at what the estimate would be but just initial initial estimates at this point in time until we get everything um finalized through assessed valuation is that it would be very um comparable to what we have in place currently with the override um and so those were um really the discussions and then we are meeting again this coming Thursday with them for another um committee update we are providing them um for their request they wanted to look at a couple different amounts of bonds and and just see what the tax rate impact would be at two different Bond sizes um so they can just have that conversation um they also wanted us to go back and revisit um knowing that our override had failed back in 2015 and we did have to phase out full day kindergarten for that year just kind of what has been the the student achievement impact um if we're seeing kind of the trickle down effect um up to this point in time and so those are some of the outstanding items that we have um that we'll be discussing at this coming um Thursday's committee um update so if any other information Mr M that that was perfect and and uh you know as as we facilitate this next meeting then uh Mr Campbell who is a spokesperson uh the intention is for for to provide another update to all of you on April 7th um and then any type of uh suggestions of recommendation would come from that committee it would come at uh a little bit later probably at the April 28th meeting as well so um they'll be able to and and their their job really they are charged with really looking at it and and making those decisions of what to bring forward to all of you and we will stand for any questions I have I have one question um you stated that they were looking at different Bond sizes are they or amounts are they Al also are they also looking at different um override amounts because we do have some that have 10 or 13% compared to the 15 at this time I I believe um Madam president um M Scara they had only really looked into that at the full 15% amount um we can provide a different kind of tax rate impacts on what those different percentages would be but at this point I haven't received any indication from the committee of looking at other other portions the one thing though that Miss padel did was she provided some some what was going on throughout the valley of of what districts had asked for ranging from you know anywhere from that 10 to 15% most districts are doing the you know go for 15 at that 15% Mark but that was presented to the committee so that they had they did understand that there was an option there okay so they were aware of it um I know it was mentioned that you were going over the effects of um when we lost the override and then we uh eliminated the all day kindergarten option I I just want to clarify I mean up It ultimately though it is up to the board if we were to go out for an override if the override then failed all hypothetical it's still up to the board on what we're cutting if if anything Madam president that is correct ultimately these are the programs that are supported through the override but ultimately that is the board decision on what programs um we'd be looking at to to get to that reduced funding amount okay um which really at the first year of funding for us we are at about $25.5 million of an override and so really we'd be looking about an8 and a half million dollar reduction in that first year following um a potential loss or non-continuation okay and to kind of piggy back off of what board members cavara mentioned um with a 133% or a different different amount other than 15 um I believe the 133% is in Poria unified um and I could be wrong but I believe that that was after multiple failed attempts at um getting that approved is why that was negotiated down um with the voters basically um so I I think it would be I think it would be more responsible to kind of go over some of those options just considering uh what we might be facing that was all I had anyone else okay moving to item H1 Dr CTO thank you madam president um tonight we are um bringing to you a recommendation to add two um board meetings to our schedule as you know we switched the morning or the board meetings to Mondays uh a few meetings ago and with that we switched out to one per month on the Mondays for the remain year of the year um we do have a lot of business building up in April and May so we are recommending that we add April 7th and May 5th to the governing board meeting to handle the business of the district they are also Mondays um and that'll enable us to uh spread out all the information that we have I motion to approve the revisions so the 2024 2025 governing board meeting schedule to reflect additional meetings as presented second e I vote Yes I don't know what's going on motion carries thank you all right is that item two thank you all right moving to item H2 Dr curo thank you madam president tonight we also bring you the board meeting for next school year the calendar for next school year all on Mondays uh we do and we did go through and anticipate some of the months where we will need two board meetings ahead of time this time so we don't have to keep bringing you to the revisions so um in that it reflects U two meetings in uh let's start in July October um and April of next year those a lot of those align with um timelines for budget and approval and things that we need to do by law so with that I'll stand for any questions or um recommend the governing board meeting schedule for the 25 26 school [Music] year I'm probably wrong but February 23rd of 26 that's not um president State correct no it's the 16th okay I'm good a motion to approve the 2025 2026 governing board meeting schedule as presented I second the motion motion carries now it's the fun stuff all right moving to item H3 Dr croo thank thank you madam president for the next six items we are going to welcome some new uh recommend some new and welcome new administrative appointments uh to our ranks and with that Mr mattingley will introduce the recommendations all right uh Madam president governing board members uh uh like Dr Coto said there's uh six proud announcements we're going to recommend to you tonight so I'll just take one at a time and so uh Mr Matthew Clark If I can invite you up to the podium please uh Mr Clark has been in education for 18 years um eight years of that was administrative experience and comes from wiinberg uh Unified School District we're proud to have him uh recommended as the assistant principal at Shadow Ridge High School so I will remind the board of our extensive um recruiting and uh interview process it's numerous stages I've always said this and I mean that I'm glad I do not have to go through that interview stage but we're proud announce Mr Clark is our candidate we're recommending for Shadow Ridge I move to approve the appointment of Matthew Clark as high school assistant principal May second hang in there Mr Clark motion carries congratulations congratulations yeah gotta lighten it up a little bit right so uh next uh I will request Kevin Ortiz Mr Kevin Ortiz to the podium uh again uh the extensive process and recruiting proc process uh an interview process I mean uh was extensive for all six of these victims I mean assistant principls uh so uh Mr Ortiz has seven years um in education six of those has been with daart working his way up uh in the classroom as well as Adena students helping out over at Valley Vista and he is being recommended as assistant principal for Valley Vista High School thank you all right I move to approve the appointment of Kevin Ortiz as high school assistant principal yes I vote Yes I vote Yes yes yes congratulations motion carries Madam president governing board members I would like now to request Mr John Jack Hastings to uh join the uh Podium here uh Mr hings uh has nine years in education uh nine of those years have been with us the entire time uh uh Mr Hy also has worked his way up and he was acting Dean and students uh at not the school he's recommended at but uh at West Point no West yeah I was right I was testing you I was testing you uh but uh he's been recommended for simron Springs assistant principal uh so Mr Hastings voice well I have have to make the motion [Laughter] first I move to approve the appointment I second of Jack Hastings I'm so sorry and now my computer's Frozen yeah it's okay I move to approve the appointment of John Hastings as Elementary assistant principal I second okay and I just want to say I'm so glad you finally applied for this do you want voice ahead I vote yes yes yes yes yes all right congratulations Mr Hastings congratulations Madame President governing board members I would now like to invite Miss Dana Thomas up to the podium Miss Thomas has been in education for approximately 13 years and out of those 13 years 10 years with the daart Unified School District uh and those 10 years have been uh progressively worked her way up from the classroom all the way up to a TLS position which is a it's not true what I apologize what are you doing dude I apologize um so she has been recommended for the assistant principal at Sunset Hills I do know that is correct so we're excited to ask the board to consider that as our recommendation thank you I move to approve the appointment of Dana Thomas as Elementary assistant principal I vote Yes yes [Music] yes came mine's not either way motion carries congratulations refresh and next uh Madam president governing board members uh Miranda Virgil if she could join us at the uh Podium here we're excited to share with you that she has 14 years uh in daart education all in daer UniFi school district and uh she did serve one year as a Dean as well working her way up prior to this recommendation tonight to the governing board as the assistant principal at Marley Park thank you very much I move to approve the appointment of Miranda Virgil as Elementary assistant principal second it's working motion carries congratulations congratulations yes and uh Madame President governing board members uh want to thank you for allowing me to bring these recommendations in front of you to put a face in a name that that is important the last uh recommendation was not able to be here tonight that is Rhonda coo uh cerman and she uh Miss cerman has been in education for 14 years all 14 years here in the daart Unified School District and so we will be recommending her to daart middle school as their assistant principal thank you for that I move to approve the appointment of Ronda cerman as Elementary assistant principal motion carries congratulations if she's watching [Applause] okay this time I'll move to item i1 request for future agenda items I would like to uh have a discussion topic on the future agenda of um how we select the Committees and if it's done randomly how do we track that is it any committee that you are looking for like are you looking for like cell phone or Bond or any of them any of okay anybody else okay at this time I move to convene to Executive session I second yeah motion carries we are convened e

First, we are proud to recognize Lane Canvan from Crest View Middle School. Lane emerged victorious in the Huntington County Spelling Bee after an intense 10 rounds of competition. Lane's dedication and perseverance are remarkable, having won the schoolwide spelling B for four consecutive years in the countywide competition for the past three years. Congratulations, Lane, on this outstanding achievement. Lane was not here with us this evening. Next, we have Riverview Middle School Scholastic Art Award winners. Next, we celebrate the talented students from Murvy Middle School who earned recognition in the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Shyara Smith and Kaylee Gordon participated in the Memory Project Art Initiative, using their artistic talents to create heartfelt portraits for children worldwide, fostering intercultural understanding and kindness. Next, we have Jazelle Barton and Jamie Cooper. They also received honorable mention awards for their outstanding artwork. Also, we have Sophia Daniel earned a silver key for her exceptional artistic work.

Um, for all of us in the audience who are AOL parents, um, this is a big point of transition where we all go from joining our scouts at every meeting and event to dropping them off and saying, "Have a great time." And parents of younger scouts, in another couple years, that will be you, too. Um, and for those of us who have been involved in pack leadership or dead leadership, um, we get to not only see our own scouts move on, but a whole group of scouts that we have been responsible for move on. Uh, so it's a big moment. Um, I I just wanted to take a second um to say thank you to all of the scout leaders and all of the scouts here on stage and in the audience um, who have made this a really special experience for me. Um, uh, Ryan and I started scouting, um, even before we came to Ashland.

Friday at 6:00 a.m. Saturday at 8:00 a.m. and Sunday at 2: p.m. meeting will also be rebroadcast on DCTV channels 18 on the following days Monday and Saturday at 12:00 pm.

March 24th, uh, the first half of our meeting. Is it on? Hear me. All right. In accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 104 through6, adequate notification of this meeting has been provided advertising in the record. Please stand for the flag salute. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Stand for moment of silence. Thank you everyone. Miss D. Roll call. Mr. Mr. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Munos. Present. Mr. Focarino. Present. Mr. Gaba. Present. Dr. Pivorce. Present. Mr. Moleo. Present. Miss. Sanchez. Present. Mr. Keles. Present. Mr. Ramos. Present. And our student representative, Mr. Chong present. We have a quorum. All right. Uh at this time, I'd like to open up the order of superintendent. Yes, sir.

So last uh two weeks ago we had a preliminary meeting uh where preliminary budget where the board um through the administration has to approve what they call technical review. That means you have to put everything that you think you need in this budget so that the county could make sure uh that it meets certain standards uh etc with regard to referendum and other things tax levy and all of that. So with that preliminary review, you can't add anything after that, but you can cut. It gives the board more time to cut some of these things. So with that preliminary review last uh last meeting, our preliminary tax impact was 5.5%. Since that time, we scrubbed all the data a little bit. We we made some changes and we're we're bringing that down tonight a little bit with keeping some of these really important programs and definitely talking about personnel tonight.

e e e start governing board to order let the record reflect that all board members are present and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance iedge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all thank you our next item is recognitions and celebrations Dr croo thank you Madam president uh tonight we have an amazing choir uh here to perform for us and uh Mr mcy will introduce our guests thank you madam president members of the board Dr Coto and guests uh we're very fortunate tonight to have the simmeron Springs Middle School choir with us you can see it's a very large group and they're here to perform and uh we have uh Mr eron menol who is the director and he'll be leading us through this so welcome you up of [Music] May so [Music] [Applause] [Music] rer river river [Music] r shars [Music] and C river river i c River a river river a river [Music] river river [Music] incredible thank you so so much for next we have audience um with individuals this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to AR ARS 38-43 1.

Thank you Chris and Isaac for that. Mr. Allen is absent. Mr. Mlullen here. Mr. Meltchure here. Mr. Wall here. Mrs. time is absent. Mr. Carl, core values. This is always a special part of our board meetings where we recognize our core values and we welcome you tonight uh for this segment of tonight's Huntington County Community School Board meeting. This evening, we are honored to recognize the outstanding achievements of students and staff members who exemplify our district's core values. Please come to the front when your name is called. Friends and family, you are welcome to get out of your seat uh to take a photo once the individual or group is honored. First up, we have Lane Canvan, Cresby Middle School County Spelling Bee Champion. This is a three repeat. That sounds like Purdue. Well, not this year. Um just had to get that in there.

Sophia here. Next we have uh Anika Braun and Claire Alfred were awarded gold keys a significant achievement reflecting their dedication and talent. So Ana and Claire congratulations. Each of these students used the cionotype phonographic process to create their artwork create currently displayed at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art through April the 6th. Again, congratulations to Ruby Middle School Scholastic Art Award winners. Congratulations. Parents, feel free if you want to get up and take a picture as well. Feel free. Feel free to do that. Just push Kenny out of the way. It's all right. Get right up there and take a picture. Anybody else? Okay. Congratulations. Next up, we have Austin Collins, Huntington North Learning Center first place CNC competition. We now recognize Austin Collins, a senior capstone student in the precision machining program at Huntington North Learning Center. Austin earned first place in the CNC at the Indiana chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association competition.

poop and gold and pay tribute to scouting which is more than 100 years old. Now as we look all around us scouting in action we see when fun and adventure as bad and hell were meant it to be. Under the sky, striving for truth and spirituality. Each Cub Scout wants to show steadfast loyalty. Let us all join together through our program we go. Beginning beginning tonight, showing our sign, we will recite what we strive to show. Scouts. Scouts, please stand. Scout sign. Scouts in the audience, too. And we'll recite the scout oath. On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to honor my country. [Music] Thank you, SC. You can be seated. Um, so I'm going to pause for just a second. We honor our Arrow of Light Scouts tonight as they move on from their journey into Pub Scouting. Uh, but this is obviously also a big moment of transition for some of us adults, too.

And so coming to Ashland and having, uh, a group and a community of scouts to be able to join and be a part of and who welcomed us, uh, so much was really special. Um, and it speaks to the connectedness of of Cub Scouts and scouting families uh, all over the world. Um, but certainly here. Um, and it's been a wonderful group to be a part of. So, thank you. So, uh, good evening everybody. Um, so I've got a pretty serious farewell speech prepared, but anyone who's, uh, ever been on one of my hikes knows I really like mad libs. So, I'm going to just grab a handful of words from our scouts to help uh, lighten up what is otherwise a serious speech. So, um, Elias, uh, can I get a number? That's 200. Uh, Jace, can I get a plural noun? Scrambled eggs.

e for for okay [Music] good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting of the dmouth school committee to order for Monday March 24th 2025 would you please stand for the Pledge of 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 all please be seated well good evening everyone welcome to the March 24th edition of the Dartmouth school committee uh we're happy to have you here uh just a reminder that if you have any any kind of electronic devices cell phones uh iPads or anything else uh to please silence them we also like to remind you that this meeting is being video uh taped by our own Dartmouth High School media production team uh head headed by uh Mr parate and we always thank the uh Dartmouth High Media Club as well as Dartmouth Community television for their partnership and as a reminder uh the meetings are rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 on the following days Wednesday and Thursday at 5:00 p.m.

and Thursday at 3 pm could we have a roll call please miss kther Kathleen Amal here John no Nunes yep Mary Beck here best Coughlin here Chris Oliver here uh thank you very much uh we do have a public hearing scheduled for 6:05 this evening it was it was advertised correct Mr Kylie and Dr s McGuire uh so at 6:05 we will open the public hearing um in the meantime though uh what we'll do is if it's okay with the committee we'll take the approval of minutes uh out of order both the regular and executive session minutes of March 3rd 2025 chair will entertain a motion for the approval of the regular session minutes so moved second motion by Mr nun second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any further discussion J hearing none all in favor I I opposed abstentions one abstention motion passes four to zero with one exstension at this time chair will entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of March 3rd 2025 so move Mr chairman with the stipulation may be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed do I have a second second so I have a motion by Mr NES a second by Miss Beckwith on the motion any other discussion Jay Herring none all in favor I I opposed abstentions motion passes four to zero with one abstention noted thank you so leading up into the uh the public hearing for the FY uh 26 school budget um I will just ask that once we do open it in a minute um that if you wish if you wish to speak on the fy2 FY 26 budget to please approach the microphone here state your name um and we ask to please limit your comments to no longer than three or four minutes um in case there's a number of people that would like to um speak if you have comments outside of the FY 26 budget anything outside of the budget that's on tonight's agenda item it could be uh um the program of studies it could be anything else that's listed on the agenda that will fall under public comment so um and you can certainly um if you wanted to speak on both you could do that as well um but just know that uh anything outside of the the budget uh should follow under uh public comment did I miss anything all right I got about 20 seconds left just killing time and it is 605 uh I do I need a motion Mr Nunes I do J will entertain a motion to uh open the FY 26 uh budget hearing so moved sorry so we have a motion by Mr n Nunes second by Miss Amaral on the motion any further discussion all in favor I opposed the uh public hearing is now open for the FY 26 budget so at numerous occasions uh we've had the school committee has had an opportunity to um listen to the school Department's proposed FY 26 budget and now this is your opportunity um if you would like to speak on any uh anything regarding the FY 26 budget good evening uh Nathan Silva um and I I got to apologize to you guys because at the last time I came to to speak with you um I broke one of my own rules right I was a little distracted my family was was already at the girls basketball uh game I was anxious to get out there but I I always tell my teams uh never present a problem that isn't accompanied by a solution and I came up here and I told you all the reasons why I think you should vote against the draft budget uh that has been presented but I didn't tell you what I would like you to do instead so I'm going to use my time tonight uh to fix that mistake um but for all the reasons I've mentioned in in previous meetings or other Publications or whatever that you've you've seen me communicate in um I think you should vote against the draft budget that currently stands as presented uh and instead I'd like you to consider a budget that does three things um number one first and foremost and most importantly uh uh removes the funding of operating costs from the school choice Reserve fund um I think uh it it would be unwise of this committee to to spend another dime of that money until such time as as the town has a plan in place as to what we are going to do when that money runs out um I over the week weekend I read the article about what's happening in North Andover and I said a little prayer of thanks that our school administrators had the foresight uh to save that money when the S grants were coming in because if if they didn't have that Clarity of foresight at that time we would find oursel in the same exact position as North Andover finds themselves in today except it would have happened last year so so thank you for that foresight um but again I don't think it's wise to spend any more money until the town has a plan in place as to what we're going to do uh when that money runs out uh item number two and I don't want to PR pretend to be an educational professional but what I'd like you to consider is of the nine positions that are being cut on the teacher side uh evaluate whether or not it makes sense to for any of those positions to be converted to ESP positions or teachers assistants to help with the increasing class sizes that we saw from last year to this year and that we'll see again from this year to next year with that budget and then then finally uh what I'd like you to consider is a budget that also includes all of the requests that were made by the various schools uh which was um at one point it was going to be page 100 it was in response to miss Amaral's uh question at the draft budget presentation um but when I look at that list it's it's not it's not fluff that they're asking for it's not they're not asking for leatherbound books they're asking for the nuts and the bolts and the Hammers and the nails and pardon me I'm a construction guy but they're asking for the tools that they need to do the job that we've asked them to do and and I think it's important um that the budget that's presented to town meeting includes the cost necessary to truly provide level services not level funding because there's a difference there level services from one year to the next and I want to choose my words carefully here uh but I'm going to use the wrong words but I hope you will grant me the grace in my intentions in my words but but it is not this committee's job to prioritize the money of the town right we need you guys to tell the town what it's going to cost to run this school system um properly to educate our children and I think to to negotiate ourselves in consideration of the town's financial position is is not what we should be doing here we should let town meeting make that decision we should let the select board take their vote and the finance committee take their vote and ultimately let town meeting have that debate as to how we prioritize the funds in town but we need you guys to tell the town how much it's going to cost to run these schools properly so so that's my request I ask that you vote down the uh the the draft budget and include a budget that does those three things removes the school choice as a funding mechanism for operating costs considers additional teachers assistance to replace the teachers positions that we'd be losing and uh fully funds the requests of the various schools that were made over the course of the um budgeting process so thank you thank you Mr [Applause] Sila hi I'm jod paresi I'm co-president of the Dartmouth Educators Association um first of all we would like to just thank Dr sabba Maguire and Mr Kylie for being um having open lines of communication during the budget process um their transparency we really appreciate it um that being said we would be remiss if we were not here to voice our concerns in Mr Kylie's presentation he highlighted the population change over the past 10 years and the increase in key populations here in Dartmouth the high needs went from 29 to 43% low income from 17.5 to 30% and students with disabilities 12.5 to 21% in addition the student to teacher ratio in Dartmouth places us at 6 above the state average this means that we're doing worse than the state given these numbers we're concerned that the district response is to um cut classroom teaching positions and make classroom sizes um higher in the budget proposal for the 25 26 school year there are nine classroom teacher positions being cut the district has stated that there will not be a significant number of Staff losing their jobs due to the realignment of the positions and attrition while this makes it more palatable um since there won't be faces and names attached to all those positions we need it to be clear that these are positions that are being cut they're being lost in The Proposal for next year um I know I one of you asked about class sizes with those positions being cut and there was a slide that was presented that said that the average class side class size would be 21 um this average I'm assuming is determined by looking at the total number of students and then dividing them by the number of classroom teachers um it isn't that clearcut with the proposal for next year actual class sizes for grades 1 through 5 vary by school and grade level at dallo class sizes will range from 18 to 23 at Potter 20 to 24 and Quinn also would be at 20 to 24 students per class I didn't include kindergarten because that's an unknown at this point the last point I would like to make has to do with the internal Shuffle when Mr Kylie showed the slide of the cuts at Quinn and what it would look like next year it left me very unsettled The Proposal was for kindergarten to remain five classrooms first grade would drop to four second grade dropped to five third grade and fourth grade remain at six and fifth grade dropped to five that represents years of internal chaos as teachers will be moved between grade levels to accomodate the different class sizes as students move for their through their Elementary School years um I'm just going to kind of end it by trying to give a real life example of what it looks like at Quinn many years with this situation at Quinn we have a teacher who started several years ago as a kindergarten classroom teacher the following year she was involuntarily transferred to second grade the year after that she voluntarily returned to kindergarten um when a new class was added last year due to the cuts we needed to lose a kindergarten classroom and shift someone to fourth grade unfortunately when moving people you have to look at certifications a kindergarten teacher could not move up to the fourth grade therefore that same teacher was once again involuntarily transferred back to second grade and a 12-year veteran second grade teacher was involuntarily transferred to fourth grade our teachers and our students deserve better than this um the type of internal Shuffle that Quinn will be facing over the next several years makes it very difficult for a teacher to hone their craft especially with the new literacy program that the district is adopting for next year training for that program is occurring on our half days this school year teachers will be receiving training and planning sessions for their grade level in order to hit the ground running for next year some teachers will be planning for a grade level that they might not even be teaching next year so this is these are our concerns thank you hello Renee Vieira the other DEA co-president uh going to finish up where jod left off so the first thing I'd like to say is that other Town departments don't have to cut their staff that we are aware of anyway other Town departments don't fundraise school choice is like fundraising for our own District the after prom had a wonderful fundraiser this past weekend that myself and very few of my colleagues actually attended but those folks worked really really hard why to allow our students to have a wonderful experience here in D our music program has to continually fund itself as well as Athletics Etc in June of 24 um the DEA jod and I were promised um an understanding a better understanding of administrative positions with um specific responsibilities relative to the district school and grade levels um because we've been continually concerned that there are more admin positions that have been added to the district and more and more la classro positions being lost well we received a sort of a grid that had um you know it was a flowchart if you will of positions but we really don't understand who's responsible for doing what and though it it is not our direct experience when we speak to something we like to speak it with Clarity and with knowledge and not make mistakes so I will just like to remind you that when we opened the school a little over 23 years ago now I believe um we opened with around 1260 students our Max here is about 1,300 we began with one principal and two assistant principles and at that point in time one assistant principal was responsible for grades 9 and 10 as well as facilities the other principal assistant principal was responsible for grades 11 and 12 and for curriculum jumping ahead at this point in time now we recognize that students have more needs we know that we look at social media and that godforsaken thing called a cell phone and we look at what's happened with covid we have one principal we have an associate principal that's in charge of curriculum and we now have two assistant principles one responsible for facilities and the other one right now duties I know include clubs and I'm not sure if that's also um other other responsibilities that go along with that what I'd like to add is 20 years ago we had two social workers and then three now now we presently have four which we fully need we understand however our concern is that standards standards change Massachusetts adds things takes things away but those of us who are educated as we hold our licenses we know we have to know our we have to know our craft we know our standards previous superintendent prior to Anna Riley and around the same time as her we had a superintendent and assistant superintendent it's our understanding as well as our firstand experience that the assist assistant super attendent position at the time dealt with evaluations PDP stuff employee records such as graduate credits um Etc when um Miss Riley came to um be uh we lost uh Miss Clark as our assistant superintendent a couple years after and it was decided that there was going to be an additional um directorship position and that was the director of teaching and learning and at that point in time it was Miss Janna McKenry um Mrs Riley introduced coaches at that time coaches were a benefit at the elementary schools they helped with curriculum uh we had coaches at the middle school but we had department head and Lead teachers at the high school department heads and Lead teachers now run help us run our curriculum Bonnie gford comes along and we recognize that Bonnie gford was one of had one of the highest salaries in town then she retired and no disrespect to the person holding the position but now our new superintendent has even a higher salary than the previous one and right now we have the assistant superintendent of finance that over the last three years has earned a 22% increase in that position for their salary we're not begrudging folks their salaries ladies and gentlemen but it can't always be on the backs of the Educators and it can't should never be on the backs of the students and without the people fundraising that's what it is and shame on us as a town I can say that as a DEA president I I can say that as a teacher I can say that as a mom and I can say it as a taxpayer raise my damn taxes however school committee not off the hook stopped settling for one 4.1% that doesn't help that's not Cola trying to get rid of a bus and I get it it's a big town we need the buses but fincom hangs their hat in a darn bus good God we're not asking for enough to run the schools I want to see the department of Works beg for staff as soon as you shut down the water in this town for people oh they'll be you know what to pay sorry okay for the last few years we continue to lose classroom teachers but it's not terrible because it's through attrition no it is terrible because our classrooms get larger we're not replacing our retirees for the last two years years we've lost nine nine last year this nine this year we can't rely on teachers to do more and then begrudge us when we ask for a cola that our members deserve Dartmouth has one of the lowest paying um towns in terms of esps and secretaries we can't get nurses because the subway subay is so bad which the district did recognize and raise up apparently not enough because we still can't get nurse subs and we have students here with critical daily needs we have a sped position at Dorth high school that we can't fill we know that teaching is a is a it's a job that people are looking to go into as a second career but if you want to come to Dartmouth okay salary is not bad throw in the health care insurance throw in what it's going to look like as a retiree and you don't want to come here as a second career you can't afford to do it and newbies they're going elsewhere for better pay we're not going to be able to replace our teachers and the more we cut the harder it's going to be to get them back teachers need be need to be open and willing to want to come here that's what we need to do we need to invest that lastly increasing student needs are not going to be met by reducing reducing classroom teachers and increasing class sizes and if I may ask a question do we have a separate um public comment after the public hearing or is it all wrapped into one this is a separate public comment yes all right thank you I appreciate your [Applause] time reader stage of life um hello my name is Zach tars I'm a parent of three girls in the district uh I'm on the school council for Dello a town meeting member and was on the strategic planning committee for the schools this past summer I really care about the future of this town and um I don't love public speaking but I appreciate the for we've been given here I want to thank the school committee Dr Sab Maguire and especially Mr Kylie for supporting the public education system in an economically and socially challenging time darmouth has done an incredible job of doing a lot with a little the leaders in this room in this town our public servants our Educators all workers in the school district from maintenance Food Service trans Transportation have given everything they have in a world that gets more expensive by the hour our public servants keep us all going but we're headed for a wall put simply the projected what's projected for the school's budget annual increase does not keep Pace with actual costs it does not keep up with inflation it does not serve our students it does not leave room for growth anyone living in the world right now feels a similar squeeze macro pressures from the pandemic hiring and retention have put a strain on budgets across the state not is here at home costs are rising if we don't act now we risk driving away our most valuable assets our leaders our teachers our police to find greener grass elsewhere we can't take on more service reductions in our schools as residents we need to understand how the town defines the red line what's the minimum number of Staff per student that will allow the maximum number of students in the class the minimum spend per student right now we're 27 70th of 322 in spend per student it's 13 below 133% below State average it feels like we're already at that red line I'm here to keep pushing for our Green Line a level of service we aspire to achieve with added resources and Staffing pushing us towards the goals laid out in school's strategic plan I'm worried the B the budget currently proposed addresses only a quarter of the problems our schools currently face a 4% increase forces us to choose between Esser positions service reductions unfunded budget requests Staffing to meet State averages as a couple people have said tonight these are really all vital line items for example to match the state's average a pair of professionals per student darmouth would need to hire 35 new esps at an estimated cost of 94,000 it feels like we're under shooting here I know this might feel like pie in the sky to cover some of these shortfalls and I don't think we have a magic pill to make it all go away but to me it feels more Pie in the Sky to pretend these issues don't exist we have to work together to solve this very real issue I think there's a much larger desire to support public education and frankly to support an increase in town service funding for all departments than what has been anecdotally discussed what's good for the schools is good for everyone darta citizens know that and want a chance to prove it I implore the leaders in this community elected appointed hired social leaders coaches business owners to be Solutions focused cognizant of the reality of our economic envir environment and driven by accountability to lead to come together as neighbors and to support public education thank [Applause] you hi everyone I want to start with saying thank you so much for all that you do for our students of this community my name is Robin delente I have three fifth graders at Potter Elementary my happy place my husband and I moved here about 10 years ago with a gaggle of babies we moved to this town on purpose for the school system and we're feeling a little uneasy watching it Buckle right before our eyes our teachers are fighting for benefits that I feel like they shouldn't have to fight for and now they're fighting for jobs teachers in my world are my everything they're my Village they're big humongous parts of my Village and becoming my friends they're not just Educators in our community they're are community members they live here they have students uh children in as students in this community they go to the schools these are our people we've got to support our community I beg you to please fund our teachers protect their jobs thank [Music] [Applause] you oh I am tall enough I wasn't sure sitting over there thank you Mr chairman members of the committee um I appreciate the opportunity to share my perspective on the fiscal year 26 budget um and I also appreciate all of the hard work and dedication you put in serving our town um I stand here as a product of Dartmouth public schools um a taxpayer in town um a mom to a fifth grader at Dello school who happens to sit in a classroom I sat in 30 years ago and a classroom my mom sat in 60 years ago um which maybe is a bit of warm Nostalgia or perhaps really troubling but that's a conversation for another time um and I will admit the last school committee meeting I was in was quite a while ago um when I was the student representative to the school committee 20 some odd years ago um but I feel moved uh to be here today because I really think that um Dartmouth has a reputation for investing in public education it's a reason I moved my own family back here and boomeranged back um after getting my own higher education and I'm concerned that the budget before us does not reflect that priority um so I want to offer a word of encouragement uh to this committee and to the school department um the school department in particular to ask for what you actually need to do the work um I would hate to see our school department put ourselves on sale um and carry a burden that's not yours to carry Alone um I really think that the budget should reflect our Town's reputation our competitiveness and our future um and I think the budget before is again expects our students and Educators to disproportionately do more with less our Town's per student spending as you know uh is below State average across um every category and that's a fact that's onest face could seem like a good thing how efficient but to me it reflects a deprioritization of something that should be at the top of the list um I think a budget is a statement of our values I think that's true for our own personal budgets that we have to create to run our homes take care of our families maybe spend and save for the future that's also true for our Collective budget as a community and a budget that eliminates staff positions increases class class sizes and therefore reduces dedicated attention for each student and insufficiently funds what school leaders and Learners needs uh asks our children to shoulder a fiscal burden that is the responsibility of us the adults in the community to carry the fiscal cliff we're facing as a town um is clear and it's been thoughtfully articulated by this committee and others um what's less clear to me is the plan for how to close CL that Gap um and it can't be to fund our students less investing in our students and schools is not only the right thing to do it's the smart thing to do and as a parent and a person who is deeply invested in our town I hope that we'll support a budget that's sustainable fair and reflective of the high standards and high quality education our community expects and all of our kids deserve I hope you know that you have a lot of support in the Community our school department so please ask for what you need and school committee I hope that you will listen and do what's best for our town appreciate you very [Applause] much hi my name is Elizabeth kavanau Murphy I'm a lifelong resident of Dartmouth graduate of the schools and a parent of a recent grad and a current senior I only have two months left with kids in this school district but that does not mean it's time to stop caring about what happens in our schools and this is an important message for everyone in the town I'm speaking up tonight in support of the next generation of families and students who are rallying behind this cause our school system simply cannot maintain the quality we've come to expect without a long-term Funding Solution we need to move away from onetime funding sources like school choice to cover annual operating costs I know you know this and we need to stop cutting what the district knows it needs before the budget goes before the select board and town meeting I urge the school committee to continue fighting for the best interests of our students which is undeniably what is best for the town's future as a whole we can't keep cutting staff only in the school department and we need to pay people what they're worth and that includes a reasonable benefit package that makes them take the job in the first place lots of people in the room tonight as I'm sure you're all aware are others like me who grew up here and came back to raise their families here we can joke about the fact that people don't leave it's true but there's a reason for it people like living here we all want a community that we want to return to Let's fund our schools so the next gener generation doesn't flee this place I urge you to listen to what all of those who are much more knowledgeable about the details than I am who have spoken tonight and vote down this draft budget and help us send a message to all Town departments and residents that our schools must be fully funded 4% is not enough we can pay more taxes thank you [Applause] anyone else wishing to speak on budget going once going twice time is now 6:33 and I am closing the public budget hearing Mr chairman motion to close the public hearing second motion by Mr noon second by Mrs am on the motion any other discussion J hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all for your comments uh they certainly mean something to us or at least to me um I have no doubt to my colleagues as well and um we look forward I look forward to a uh discussion continuing so next up on uh tonight's agenda under um the public hearing is public comment uh anyone wishing to speak on any of tonight's agenda items um you may do so just the same idea approach the podium um if you would like to we really have uh commented on the uh the budget this evening but there's something that you know outside of it that you may have missed please feel free to step forward uh introduce yourself and you have two to three minutes there we go hello Rene again um I would just like to um comment on the fact that we're going to be looking at the program of studies this evening and for the last few years um we've pointed this out to um Dr sabba Maguire that there have been some changes uh to the program of studies regarding um expectations for each of the graduating years so senior class so many credits Junior sophomores freshman um so the concern we have is um that we have had is that there's some confusion as to you know what students might need at each grade level but more so when we look at budgetary constraints potentially and looking at Pathways um just what I don't know what's being presented this evening um but let uh just to try to keep in mind that we want to be able to offer students Pathways that are attainable that or and sustainable so that they're able to actually begin something freshman year and be able to carry that out through senior year um we know at the high school our class sizes are a bit different than the middle or the elementary schools because of the electives that we are offer so that might cause a particular class to run at 14 which pushes others at 30 or 32 um but you know the school has done a very good job um trying to offer as many electives as possible but when we look at Pathways and we look at electives and then we look at classroom sizes um with the staff that we have it's um it's just a little bit scary so I just wanted to put that out there for folks so thank you thank you [Applause] anyone else all right seeing noakers we're going to continue on the agenda uh at this time uh happy to introduce our new student rep to the school committee believe her name is Haley so welcome haly and if you would like to introduce yourself tell us a little bit about uh yourself and what's going on at darmouth high school yeah good evening everyone so I'm Haley um as he stated I have been um a member of this for throughout the year but I've unfortunately been busy with sports and extracurriculars so this is actually my first time sitting here um I want to start by saying thank you to the committee for having us do this again um it's been a great opportunity for us to sit and listen in and then get a perspective and get talk about it um with each other and I want to say thank you to the speakers again for just being able to speak out for the community and for us because while I do have a seat here not everybody does so it's good for it takes a lot of guts and we appreciate what you guys do um just an update we're halfway through March and closing in on quarter three for the next few weeks uh spring Sports have started which is excited to see all our um athletes come back and compete as well as new incoming freshmen um congratulations to Charlotte French for taking home dma's finest uh we had a total of 15 contestants compete and it was a great show very diverse and congratulations to all the uh people involved uh last week we celebrated World Language week Our World Language Department hosted different activities throughout the week and each day had a theme there was announced winners over the um morning announcements it's a great way to bring our school Community together to celebrate different cultures uh the New England Association of schools and colleges visited Dartmouth High School last week we want to thank Dartmouth High School staff for their hard work on making it a successful visit as well as all of the student Representatives that were asked to um speak to them as well uh two weeks ago members of the tedx presented their projects focused on keys to unlocking A New Perspective so want to shout out to all of them as well as uh Miss Souza and Miss true for organizing this again um AP art students had their show at the Dartmouth Cultural Center DHS hosted a blood drive last week with Miss Cohen and the students um from the health club so we want to thank them um they were all very successful events so thank you to everybody and and just a rem that uh dartmouth's theater company is hosting comedy Bingo fundraiser on March 29th uh so tickets are still bful for that uh via parent Square to purchase thank you for taking the time to recognize me and again thank you for all the comments to you teachers thank you for the presentation hilly any questions for our student rep thank you no you as always you're more than welcome to stick around but we understand if you need to leave thank you so much next up we have a uh Spotlight on kids best part of the meeting uh Dartmouth middle school I'm going to turn it over to Dr Saba Maguire and I am promptly going to turn it right over to principal Rossy who I see I know is this so exciting yeah we're looking forward to your presentation well good evening everyone and uh thanks for the opportunity to uh put the spotlight on our Unified sports program under the direction of Bill garer and with the help of many many others we've expanded Beyond basketball to now include unified botch and unified cheerleading uh Temple Mitchell one of our coaches has prepared a short video to show our programs in action and and after we view that I promise that I'm going to get out of the way and you can hear from our players and our coaches and get a better understanding of the positive impact this program has had on DMS and uh it's just a program we are incredibly proud of but before we do that I do want to put a plug in for Once Upon a mattress that will be uh performing April 11th and 12th at the Dartmouth middle school so please come on out Mr bernado and the cast have been working very very hard to give us a good show first [Music] let's get fire up keep high up [Music] we could uh maybe have Bill Garcia our head coach come on [Applause] up good evening I'm Bill Garcia I'm the social worker at Dartmouth Middle School I was hired there four years ago and I'm excited to come back to my community uh and what we're doing a lot of special happenings at Dartmouth Middle School we couldn't do it without the students it's really about the students and building an inclusive community well you know what I I let me say that it's about the community because it's not just the students we also want to Spotlight our amazing staff that have helped and really supported the program from day one I wish uh Temple Mitchell was here because she's one of the backbones of this program together four years ago we sort of reunited if we were high school friends and now we're working together with an opportunity that's rather special and we get to share our time with the wonderful group of students really promoting the word of inclusion it's uh something that we take very seriously and it's it's passion and we talked to the kids about being passionate and uh we couldn't ask for a better young group of students who really commit a lot of their time and effort to being part of this program uh without them you know we just uh wouldn't be able to grow like we're growing uh a lot what we do is about promoting involvement through Sports building those friendships a lot of my friends I remember I met them on the baseball fields over at Creo or playing the football at uh bwood Park but that's where a lot of those relationships are built and then these students have gone beyond and above and beyond and they really live the message of inclusion and without them you know uh just helps they help push the the message forward and it's not just about sports we've included the program to go beyond that and it's working into the hallways it's in the classrooms uh just this past week we had our first unified basketball game against Westport and uh you know we have 13 14 students on the basketball team we've expanded we I tried to put together cheerleading squad last year and it's more than tripled this year and uh from day one in September every time I ran into Olivia in the hallways she'd ask me when are we cheering when when are we doing chering again so she helped drive to make sure that it was bigger and better than it was last year so they definitely contribute to to driving this bus um so it we have 13 14 students on the basketball team 17 cheerleaders we've increased we've had more staff involved this year than ever before uh we've had staff members volunteering to monitor cheerleading help move that forward we had staff members volunteer to help make posters it uh after school one of the after school activities arts and crafts they took a handful of posters so that the students in that activity can kind of help make the posters it gave them exposure to what it was for they became attached to the to the game uh at the game on Friday we had over 300 students in the stands uh and it just keeps building from year to year this is our fourth time holding uh a unified basketball game on the courts of dmouth Middle School four years ago Mr Rossi said you know what Mr Garcia that's the first time that that gym has held a competition since uh the high school closed so we're we're opening up the community we're involved with other agencies other schools uh the clip there showed unified bot which we hope hosted a special event against the dmouth police department uh in every year the unified Bachi wraps up with uh actually all our UniFi Seasons end with the staff participating in each year list and list of Staff members that get involved keeps growing they've been the backbone of helping us kind of support this this initiative we have some uh we haven't really done any external fundraisers we kind the staff have kind of helped financially support the program through different initiatives they showed some clips there we call it the half day cafe where on uh half days as a group we kind of do our own Uber Eats where we put together the order go to local businesses and they kind of help us financially and that's kind of helped support the program we've done a fundraiser there called puzzle pooer and that's something that the staff look forward to that Mr Rossy and Mrs deas every September say when's puzzle paloa when's puzzle paloa they're the two time defending champs that's that should be noted so they get excited about that and it's just building that community and the excitement and it's it's not just Sports it's about just being part of something big uh this past week we had a Spirit Week where we did a Green Green Day initiative it was the first time that Mr C's pal Pal's program was able to set up a spirit shop where they sold green items the week before they took orders they packed them and then they delivered them as an uh vocational opportunity for the students and it was in it was a break even monetarily but the knowledge and the experience for the kids was tremendous uh it was the first time that they were able to interact know they do a great job on Wednesdays serving coffee at the kindness Cafe but this was the first time that they could interact with other students and offer you know this the spirit shop and offer the interactions there and beyond that Mr C if you want to pass around the work samples absolutely and it goes into the classroom so we're bringing it into the classroom this is a work sample that uh the students who in the pals program broke down the sales they were able to count up how many items we started with how many we sold what we sold them at what the profit margins were so it was a nice practical vocational experience for the students as well so you know those are some of the things that we are doing and I could talk for the next 20 minutes but I want to actually open it up to the students because like I said they are the heart and soul uh and they really help drive this so with us we have Victor morenzi we have Michael Seamus Manny Pavo um Olivia senson and Addison ly we also have Bennett Ross but Bennett might be a little camera shy but uh but usually but usually wherever victor goes we know that Bennett's not going to be too far behind because Bennett and Victor have formed a really nice friendship and it it's apparent not only on the basketball court but in the hallways as well so with that I'm going to turn it over to the students if there's anyone that wants to join the mic or if there's question right thereis got it I did have my paper but on here thank you um hi I'm Addison lry and I helped in the learning partners program and I'm on the unified basketball team I think that activities and programs like these really do unify our school for instance I believe on March 15th our first game was against the wild Westport Wild Wild Cats the bleachers were full students decked out in all green and all showing support it was really heartwarming to see so many so many students cheering on our unified team and our cheerleaders of course in the Learning Partner program I went to bened sim class and this ended in trimester 2 for me a fall memory of learning Partners I think that really makes a difference um is when I went to the fitness room with Mr Leen our adapted gym coach and Bennett he showed me all his cool workouts and house strong he is or like when I got to see his Mini Ninja Warrior course that he crushed I can't believe they bring I mean I I believe they bring our whole school together and I hope we continue to support and grow these [Applause] programs if no one wants to speak maybe we could open up to some questions thank you Mr Rie so first of all thank you uh for the wonderful presentation the great video by Temple um what a fabulous wonderful program the Unified sports and it seems like every time we hear about it it's just continuing to grow and it's it's continuing to gather steam in the the fact that you're able to now you're bringing this into the classroom and doing some of these skills vocational skills it it it's just phenomenal it sounds like are you is everyone enjoying themselves when they're out there and and playing these games ah we have a visitor all right um so hats off to to you to everyone that's involved in the program and especially to you the my the students so great great job and it's just it's so nice to hear the positive things that are happening at Dartmouth middle school for sure so I I'll turn it over to any of my colleagues uh Mrs Amaral okay and I do this without tears hi B so handsome um I guess I'll start so I I was like a broken record I have a child uh with a disability um who who wasn't did not participate in unified but I am so impressed with the programming and um just we are very lucky to have support in the leadership at the middle school as well as just having Mr Garcia here um Mr Garcia even before working for the town was a champion um each year the special ed parent advisory Council would host a very large um resource fair and I became quite a rivalry in the high school level with the unified Dartmouth High School basketball team playing against the RO the unnamed rival each year uh during that event which really brought the community in um and I just want to say to all of you um you know there's a phrase in the disability Community more alike than different um and um I just want you to know the difference that you make in breaking a barrier because not everybody is comfortable figuring out how to communicate with a classmate that might not be able to speak might use augmentative device might have some trouble running as fast as you um but by being a leader and stepping into the roles that you've stepped into all of you you're learning from one another uh you're breaking barriers for other students to recognize that all students are more alike than different uh you're making a difference to those siblings I've got two of them at home who might not have joined the unified but boy do you bring Pride to them to know that you care about someone who's like their brother or sister sister at home um so I hope you continue I hope you join the high school continue with the middle school with all of the amazing programs that are happening with unified that you continue um because it's all about I made myself a little notes and of course it disappears you know it starts off with just having fun it becomes something that's familiar you get to know one another um and then all of a sudden you realize that you have something in common um and the goal here is you know education the goal of education is to prepare us uh to live out in society as a community um and when we can do that uh by seeing ourselves and other people that may be different or have different needs than us uh will set you up for Success throughout School throughout College trades jobs Church everything that um you will encounter you're better off for having participated in such an activity and learning that you're all more alike than different so I applaud you um and I appreciate your time tonight and I look forward to everything that has to come in the near you know in the future thank you sorry and I'm supposed to follow that passionate no problem nice job uh congratulations to everyone uh uh I've watched on DCTV uh when the high school has had certain events uh with Unified sports and they're always enjoyable to uh not only to watch you know the students but the helpers uh perform and play and help them out and such so I say thank you for taking time out of your everybody's got busy schedules but what you do to help make everyone else's life just a little bit better says a lot and I congratulate and I thank you for that and I don't know if I could add much to my colleagues to my right um who said it so well other than I think um you you've had this opportunity to do two things uh learn about teamwork and learn about leadership and those are two really important important life skills and I think as Mrs Amaral said I think you've learned that fun often turns into something more meaningful and so I applaud you for looking for those meaningful things to do and I hope you will continue to do that as you progress through um your school years with us I'm very proud of um of you all um and proud to be a member of this community um so thank you very much and I really can't say it better than my colleagues so I won't belabor it but I am also proud of you and proud of your your role modeling and um inclusive community thank you for sharing how about a big round of applause [Applause] for just want to thank Mr Rossy and Dr middle school thank you very much thank you everyone thank you thank you thank you thank you I don't if they want to take the their data you have some data oh yeah Mr Rossy some important data about sales thank you sir awesome thank you what a fabulous presentation uh next up under uh presentations uh DHS program of studies Dr Sab Maguire yep and I see Mr Shay and Mr Silver making their way to the podium um I know they've prepared a presentation for you this evening and um I hope that it clearly uh demonstrates what the expectations are are here at Dartmouth High School for our students who are um I would say I would say something that H that I think became clear when the mcast test went away as a graduation requirement as a CD and it's that Dartmouth High School's program of studies is one that the state actually holds up as an Exemplar exemplary programming path so with that we'll hear from um Mr Shay and Mr Silva yeah talk about falling The Beatles right or like Taylor Swift eror I'm not as engaging as that I apologize to start um so this is our program of studies um we're very very proud of this document that we've presented to you um I I do have to thank Bridget for all of the hard work that she's put into it's een hours een revisions I I I don't even know the number of revisions we've at so um and it's it's count countless meetings with lead teachers and and going back and and really taking in the ear of the commun of of our own Community within about what what is best for the students at Dartmouth so I just want to say thank you um just so you know um it was designed with the Strategic plan in mind and we want to be mindful of that and and we really are proud of the Strategic plan and we're trying to do everything with that in in as we move forward um just a quick overview um there's been adjust it's really been to make it user friendly you'll notice at the end there is a subsection for our incoming freshman it takes all of the documents and makes it very succinct for our just our freshmen um we really want to support that transition you're going to hear a lot about supporting the transition of our freshman throughout but really that whole subsection is really just to take out all of the other verbiage that might our students might get lost that really don't understand what a program of studies is as opposed to you're taking this class next year or you're taking this class in next year when we when we start putting in choice and and which is great in student voice that's phenomenal but sometimes our freshmen we really want to support them so the last pages are are really designed for our our freshman as they as they transition into us um and it really it is it's designed to be user friendly whether this is your first child or your fourth child you should be able to be able to access this at the same level of understanding um we do want to highlight some documents some stuff that is in the document though that is has not changed but we really want you to understand why we put it in there in the reasoning behind it um academic probation is different at the high school than it is in any other grade level we are credit-based right you need the credits to move forward and we talk about what those credits mean and how you you transition forward and again with our freshmen what we know is is for every every class that you fail you're that much likely to be a Dropout so we want to really support our students as as they go through this and and we really want to make sure they understand that we want to stay on track for graduation and and that is our main goal we want to get to 24 credits and a maximum of 27 credits that is our goal all of the line and we want to keep you on thata trajectory as well um the other big thing is is the course level change we really want to understand that um students that have they do have options to change levels but it is really a short window and and and that is really one week after the term one report card after that you're too deep into the into the course to really take in a new class right you can't join a class like 20 70% in or 20 5% in because you you have that Foundation that you don't have underneath you so um those are two big important parts of it as well as recognizing some other parts of of the document is is our serial of biliteracy um Ross two month a month ago talked about the confidency determination and the impact of that there is still an understanding that students have to take mcast right the ballot initiative was designed so students could um not have the graduation requirement but we are still mandated that all students take um mcast starting tomorrow tomorrow morning our 10th graders you will be taking mcast um in ela and the the that's great it's great for us Hold Us accountability we make decision making off of that but also there are important parts of that is that if you want to get our seala biliteracy that's a really really great recognition on your diploma that you are now you're biliterate and that shows that you've you've done well in the ELA component of it as well as the foreign language component of it so we really want to recognize that also the John and Abigail Adams scholarship is another big component of that we recognize our students at a a breakfast for that that is a still part of it so taking the assessment is really important because you can earn credit towards that um one of the other big things is is I don't know area high school that can compete with our AP offerings we offer 27 AP classes so and we encourage our students then grade nine if you to really start that process right and you start that with like even just the AP not just I I apologize that but taking AP Computer Science principles that is designed for freshmen we really want our students to start really working towards those AP credits and and working that but 27 AP offerings and literally everything from music theory to AP Cal and ab and if you have a student that has taken Cal AB or BC you understand those differences and the difficulty it is but um we offer so many offerings for our students and that is when people people talk about why I come to dmouth high you can't compete with that you cannot compete with the offerings that we offer and and and that goes from everything from our UA every department has it our UA department has it just as much as our English Department our math and our science and we're very fortunate to have such a a vast AP offering um also um in in that same way we have our AP Capstone um which is a really nice um which is a really really nice um way to stand out in the application process for colleges if if that works for you that's taking seven AP classes that's an abundance of AP classes but you get understandings of research you get the understandings of statistical analysis you also get those like those comp and literature understandings as well it's a really rigorous pathway but it's a nice Pathway to offer for our students and again it makes you stand out and that makes that Dartmouth diploma that's already in my mind up here it just Rises a little bit more so you're talking about students that might have a seal of by literacy on their diploma and a Capstone you you in in a dmouth high diploma and and we're very fortunate that we are we can brag about how valuable our diploma is and what our students offer with that um some other things is is we do have a pathway of certification that's our Early Childhood Program we're very very fortunate that with um um paully Gilbo in her program our students get to go out every day on onto real life experiences in in child care and working towards it um I've talked to students who have graduated and um and when they go to college they have the opportunity to make like $35 an hour instead of minimum wage because they have the certification they also get college credits as as well in that pathway too so just having this little piece of diplom this little piece in your back pocket is really something that's really special for our students um we just updated our music theory um computer lab so our AP music theory it's a mini lab now um that's a big help through donors choose and Mr parate and in supporting that Pro program but we have a um it was actually spotlighted in neas one of the people said I can't wait to bring this back to my school and really work towards that so that was really nice and then the last thing is is our co-curricular activities um our schedule does get tight we have seven offerings five classes a day sometimes our students don't have all the offerings that they can they can make make into their schedule so we do offer some of our students the ability to take um when they take co-curricular marching band or concer band or orchestra and all of those they do have an opportunity to opt out of that PE class we encourage PE first and we really believe that as as a variety but if you cannot make it into your schedule this is an offering for our students that tries to make their schedules that are very very log very very Jam tight which is great we're really proud of that our students want more classes they want more and they beg us for more and and and again I believe in someone that had a dad who was a PE teacher I believe in PE so it's not it's not putting down PE but our students who March every day and work in that parking lot through all of the winter and in the spring in the fall in the summer they really are working in getting that that physical activity in as well so we really want to make sure that we understand that there is a difference that's really for our Juniors and seniors okay uh she was going to kick me because if I didn't say Juniors and seniors only I had to make sure I got that um so some of the High um and then our internship in dual enrollment program and then again Bridget really really focused on this year doing that freshman supplement that really focuses just for the Freshman so they don't have to weed through what does this mean what does that mean what is a prere what is all of that this is just for our freshman so we're really proud of that section as well of it okay so there are changes in the document though that we really want to talk about um one of the the changes is is that we noticed that the um update in the um school committee approved um handbook was when we switched over from block scheduling to our seven period scheduling there was transition one of the things that it didn't include is the bit program that we have added so that's our business information and technology that amazing program that Mr parate runs and we're really lucky to have that offering so we really needed to make sure that we included that as an updated version of that so this is the TR and Mr rier said like yes there is we we've really worked towards figuring out what that looks like and how that looks and we've really found a system that we think we're really proud of and and it allows us to get those computer science credits that we really we really believe in that mass core believes in that is essential to student growth but also allowing for students to take stuff like um take some of the business classes that we offer whether it's marketing accounting or any of those other offerings that we offer in that well and this still gives them some choice of um electives as well we still have three and a half credits of electives that's really nice so we follow the mass core standards and we really we really try to follow that but we still want options for our students we believe in voice and choice and again when we go back to designing this towards the Strategic plan student voice and choice is a big part of that and we want to be able to make sure we have that offering for our students in voice and choice um so departmentally we change made some changes um freshman year um all we've piloted for the last two years preap English our first year of the pilot um after that we came back to the table and said you know what we piloted preap 1 and we said you know what that's not riger enough for our dharm High student we need to start at preap 2 so all freshmen it'll be heterogeneous it'll be at an honors weight so if students transition in every student will be taking uh preap English 9 next year they'll come in with that it'll be at an honors weight for our students so there's no differentiation a student comes in two years later and they took an honors class they're not our students aren't penalized by a student's transcript that transitions in that's why it's at an honors weight um we are adding electives they will be run at a sufficient number we're not so these are offerings that we're going to offer if we have a significant interest or sufficient interest we will run it if not we don't we do this every year so some classes that our English Department really decided that they wanted to run year this year was Contemporary American Poetry at a CCR level feminist literature at a CCR Level Sports reading and writing that's really important one of the conversations we have with our English Department and Mr Higgins a lot is really getting our young young men reading and getting them in engaged in Reading we know that a lot of our our females are way more engaged in Reading than our young males so this is an opportunity and not saying Sports as a male dominated field there is a I'm a Yukon girls basketball I'm sad I'm not watching them right now at 8 o' so I want to be very clear on that but it is we are trying to Target to getting um some of our young males in there um Shakespeare in the art of Being human CCR and then dystopia CCR again they'll run at a significant number if we can run it we will not run it if we cannot get enough interested it um our bit Department we've added two honors levels um so broadcast production honors and programming gaming development honors you're going to hear this common theme as I talk that students don't choose CL classes sometimes because there's not an honors weight to it and and that's unfortunately sad but they understand the competitive nature of what they're at so they understand the competitive college process they understand the competitive of scholarships they understand all of that so we want to add some honors weight to some of our classes and you're going to see that on the next slide as well um so our desci our science um Department we're adding the preap pilot this year so as we piloted the English and we realized we needed to ramp it up we want to Pilot it before we push it Forward again so we're going to run pilot sections of our prap bio and then um in our engineering architectural design and Robotics we're adding sections for 1 two and three that are at the honors weight engineering is one of the most popular college majors and I can't tell you how many times students say I've applied for an engineering major I've never taken an engineering class at dmouth high because I I didn't want to have I didn't have the competitive it wouldn't have been a competitive transcript so we really thought it was really important to add those honor sections to it um this is just a um this is just a verbiage thing that we added so as you know the state has added a Civics requirement for every um high school so if you walk around the high school you're going to see posters everywhere about um talking about school lunches talking about um air conditioning talking about different things before Mr Kylie has been interviewed a number of times by students about the Civics project it's a really great thing because it teaches students to have really um like intense dialogues with adults and and really professional conversation so we added the verbiage that us2 is where that lives and um they're in the middle of that right now so it it's really fun you'll see surveys throughout our building you'll see QR codes on on the walls um for our our students to really gain surveys and information and and take that data and then and really put together like a report based off of that and that's actually a group of students working on that um and then um in the UA the only thing we added was that um we learned that um if you want to be an architecture major you really need to take um drawing too and we've that's feedback from our past graduates that are in those areas so we really want to say to students that if you're going to be an architecture major you really not only have to have some of those math Sciences you really got to have those art classes as well so we added that verbiage into the document as well um in our Wellness Department we piloted again this year um what we call ref reps it's an MIA sponsored I swear I didn't realize this that I was wearing an Mia shirt but um the Mia has really sponsored it they funded this for us this year for the number of licenses um there is a critical need for officials in sports right now um and there's it's unfortunate that there's not enough we if you notice sometimes we have to play on Thursday night for football games because there's not enough officials so you can play a Thursday night we have now by weeks in sports because of that there are not enough officials so this is a designed to get um officials this is actually a paint and Manning backed um Pro program as well um but it's really designed that they can do any subv Varsity so you can do JV and Below you could do Dysa you could do dyaa um it's really getting you the certifications you get about three certifications it's student driven and um it's a really great offering for our students as well and again it's in partnership with the Mia um Dr Baldin was in our school about a month ago we do what we call the car wash if anyone knows ESPN um you have the car wash where you go to different um things so he did a podcast he did the TV studio he really got he did a newspaper interview so we we really um had him in talking about it and he really highlighted the the impact of this and really it helps our students understand that transition of perspective of what it's like to be official and and you can see that and it really helps build that sportsmanship as well for our students so we really want to promote that even more um we kind of stole the model from Taunton as well and in their first year their students made over $11,000 officiating so we've we stole that model from them and and really trying to support that I know I speak fast I apologize every time but um I'm here for questions I'm here to discuss discuss any questions you have on this um I do want to give again Bridget a big shout out this is a lot of work that she does to put this together I get to speak and she does all the hard work so and she can answer your questions too thank you very much Mr sh that was a great presentation um before I offer my my thoughts over here um yeah impressive uh very impressive um I can't believe all the uh opportunities you offer the students one thing I was confused about was um uh the graduation requirements it seems like from year to year there's a little bit of change and a little bit of back and forth and can you explain why that is yeah so um when I came on we at right when I came on was when we added the bit department so we were trying to figure out how to add that really that computer science requirement that we want to have that is essential to like Mass computer science standards as well as trying to give students options and voice and choice and we've kind of played with the credits to tr try to figure it out so moving forward with 29 and Beyond this is where we we found that is like our comfortable zone of uh that one credit of computer science is not the only credit that you're you can take you can take more than that but we really had to figure out how to how to include this without taking away choices from our students and giving them options so we really wanted to make sure but we also didn't want to take away from the business side of things because business is one of the top majors as well in college and we wanted to make sure our students had those offerings as well okay and I I also love that you're doing the the student ref refs so the students will have an opportunity to make money or right out of school and even while they're in school and also with early childhood education I think that's terrific offerings and internships and yeah it's an impressive program we can do is get money in our students Pockets right it's gonna have to happen M be um just one question can you tell us a little bit about how dual enrollment worked I'm going to have Bridget slide in on this one so dual enrollment is available to any student that has at least a 2.0 GPA in the school we like to have the students take the courses on a college campus traditionally after the school day the reason after the school day is so that the students are able to work with our rotation of schedules and we can't have them missing a class here in order to go sit on a college campus we also have a requirement that if the Stu if the class is offered here in the building let's go English 12 as an example they cannot take that as a dual enrollment class because that would be taking seats away from our teachers here within the building so any course that we offer here at Dartmouth High School they are not allowed to take out a college campus and about how many students a year um do dual enrollment so it fluctuates from year to year depending on what students approximately right now for the spring semester we have about five students taking courses in the fall um there was a transition period with Bristol Community College and that transition was very Rocky um and because students fund dual enrollment courses so families are responsible to pay for those courses as well as books any types of fees on the college campus it is a cost to them so we have had since covid less students taking dual enrollment courses understood thank you thank you to clarify Community College is free for students with a uh with a high school diploma it's not free for dual enrollment students so that's the difference and the transition she's talking about is is I think bristell Community College found out mid August that every tuition was free so that's kind of the transition period we were talking about Mr Nunes before we hop over to you I do have a question over here from our student rep if that's okay hi so um from the students perspective I just want to make some comments um postgraduate feedback that's really great uh we really appreciate that because there's a lot of college kids now that give us advice they're like wow we should have done this in high school so to have like sports officiating or those classes offered is a really great opportunity um to also comment on that Sports officiating I've had really good feedback from that so um that's been great uh a question I have is is so for me I'm a senior um my freshman year our requirments were uh one credit of Art and one credit of computer science and I know that's changed with the program but I was wondering this might be a question for guidance but is there a place in guidance where they're going to like recommend years that we're supposed to be like taking those courses because I know when I sat down in guidance they said hey like this is how to efficiently get those credits over with or here's how to plan out your four years and not try to cram those credits in because I know a lot of students have that problem senior and I know that's a problem for you guys with the overabundance of kids in classes in these electives because they haven't taken it till their senior year so I was just wondering with those two credits that I had and now this 0.5 credit is there going to be some sort of pathway that you guys are recommending to these freshmen on when they should be taking these courses thanks hay so each guidance counselor should be meeting yearly with every single student so when course selection comes out not only do you do your course selection with you as the student your family your hearing from your teachers the guidance counselors should also be meeting with students and each individual student should have a four-year plan so if a student comes in in grade n and says I already know what I want to do I want to go to college I want to be an engineering major they start writing that information and then when they meet with them a sophomore year they follow up are your plans still the same looks like you're doing well and also during those times they'll advise ads two levels so if they see you're doing really well and you're only in CCR courses they might recommend you for an honors they might recommend you for an advanced placement course and to challenge yourself but through that all they're also going to be trying to manage the type of case load of courses you're having because not only is academics a priority but outside of Life of Dartmouth High School is a priority and social emotional well-being we have seen a substantial impact in regards to anxiety and it impacts students with course selection case load homework you name it it can continue to go on um so the guidance council is based on each grade level will be advising you right now it looks like you have a lot of electives why don't we add in your UA course your unified Arts why don't we you know take out the second sence elective and potentially add in your computer science requirements so that way when it comes to senior year you're not bogged down with nothing but requirements and you're able to have some choice and enjoy the last few months of your senior year I appreciate it thank you thanks Hy the one other thing I want to add to is um we offer PSATs for our sophomores and our Juniors and the reason why we offer it for our sophomores is to really get that AP potential list building so we can really see are are you are you a student that might not realize that you might have an AP offering or you might not you might not even realize that in yourself and we have the data to say I think you should you should push yourself and you should really work towards it um the the last thing I don't want to see is a student their senior year taking 5 AP classes because I feel like they that Avalanche is always behind them their senior year right as they're trying to build up those those AP courses so we want to spread those out as for our students as much as possible Mr Nunes thank you thank you Mr chairman uh couple of couple of questions uh you were talking about the English the additional English right Reading Writing classes type of deal you know do you have an idea how many you need how many students you need to run or is that been thought about I mean do you get five do you need five do you need 10 five would not be the number um no that's what I'm saying I I I don't like putting a number on something in a sense of like I don't want to be like held like you said 14 or whatever and we run it cuz we might have have an offering at 14 or we might not it really comes down to what the schedule can build and and and is there availability for it um we we we really play with it but we we do want to see o over a a decent percentage of our students in in a comfortable side we don't want our schedule to be loged in because we're running a class at 5: if we have to yeah go ahead and we also will look at the core content graduation requirements so English n English 10 the advanced placement courses and we will look at those courses first as the priority and how many sections do we need what's the amount of students because if we have as an example AP Literature and we have 35 students wanting the course we are going to run two sections of that so that might result in us not being able to offer electives so again the core content graduation requirements are our first priority and then if there are spots we look at the electives okay good uh thank you for the number of the AP classes I know I always enjoy listening to you know the discussion on it do we know how many of our students are taking AP classes offand I don't but I can get you the number I know um Ross has done uh Dr TBO I apologize has done a lot of work to build those numbers up for our students um I I don't want to give you the percentage I think I have number in my head but I don't but I will get you that number I promise so um but it is a significant percentage of our poity population enjoy looking at you know as a scholarship chairman for a different organization enjoy looking at all the transcripts and seeing you know Johnny and suszie you know got 15 30 credit you know blown out a semester and then some the beautiful thing about our offering is is it it we we try to hit all of the modalities of learning right so we have the AP is one side we have the AP Computer Science we have the AP maths and we have the AP like those those social sciences you know so we really tried to hit all of those different types of Learners um which offers which does expand our potential of students that can have it right I could have never tooken AP Art Studio but I definitely took AP chem when I was back here so yeah that's it and the last uh nice to see the uh Sports officials and and such you know yeah I agree it's getting harder and harder to get officials and you know tough job but is that done here or the students going out and when is is it is it like an after school thing type no we have two sections U Miss seus runs it um it's part online part in action so they'll do some of the online work that's like the the quote unquote ref reps program that we use and the other side is actually living it so you might like um you might watch a soccer match or you might watch something from the lens of a a um an official yeah do they like when the boys you know if they were studying to be basketball officials would they per say be at a a practice to you know take an idea as to what it looks like you know almost like real time it's more in the PE classes that they use it for um they use that time because it's it is during the school day I love that idea and I might kind of help support that I'm I'm sure either coach Jaber or coach Simonetti would actually love that extra support on their courts as well too so I I definitely think there's some offerings there okay thank you no I'm good Mr chairman thank you thank you Mr much appreciated Sam Mor I don't know the benefit or the curse of going last is that every question is answered Haley so eloquently uh tapped into my question Rel that you responded to related to course selection and um academic planning so thank you for that um and then I I guess I just have a a I just appre one thing I will say that I just appreciate is that we do have a a uh pathway for students to um take a World Language every year that they're here um i' love to expand that list I know we've had other languages and that comes with its own its own uh difficulties um but I do appreciate that there is a pathway for that for all four years so I don't have any other questions thank you thank you I'll just add a great presentation what I really appreciate um from you and your team Mr Shay is the the student piece right the student that you're you're listening you mentioned I don't know if it was you or Bridget that mentioned that you're you're listening to students that have gone through Dartmouth High School graduated and coming back they're in college now and they're saying hey wait a minute you should be I think it was art too right for for architectural students that this is something that really should be offered at the high school level um so to me I think that's huge the the students voice I think is huge and and I'm glad to see that uh you and your team are are listening to that and listening to that piece because I think it'll go a long way um to uh growing our our Pathways not just the pathways program but growing our um you know all of our programs especially it's it's amazing to me the AP offerings for sure my my daughter is actually hoping to graduate a semester early even though she only had six six or nine credits I think she was able to transfer those in and that's she's a couple of summer classes and she'll be able to graduate a semester early because of those Z classes that she took here at Dartmouth High School so um no um I'm I'm very happy with with the uh momentum uh that's going on here at Dartmouth High School and I think uh I speak for my colleagues when I say well done um and I think right now all we need at this point is a vote uh for the um not so much the program of studies but for the graduation requirements questions on that no good all right whenever you're ready okay nope that's fine I rolls off your tongue rolls off your tongue yes it is I was just going to say yeah okay make a make a motion we approve the uh graduation requirements as presented uh for the u under the program of studies second than you motion by Mr n second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any discussion J hering none all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimous ly thank you both for your presentation I do want to say thank you to our lead teachers as well um Bridget meets with each one of them individually and and really they they you talk about the feedback they get the feedback from the staff they get the feedback from the students that's where it all begins and it's it's it's a real true collaborative process and Bridget's got a really great system that works for this so um it's it's it's a labor of love for a lot of people and I appreciate all everyone that helped put this together I just get to talk about it everyone else gets to do all the hard work on it so thank you everyone for the vote and I appreciate every that worked on this document thank you thank you [Applause] both U moving right along next up under old business proposed FY 26 budget some further discussion um not sure if I should should I turn it right over to I think I I'll just Dr s magu yes that would be great thank you so much first I just want to say thank you to everybody who came out tonight um and spoke about the budget I mean these are real issues that we as a community a school Community certainly but a community at large are facing and we're facing it together and having folks come out and make the statements that you're making are not only true and in support of the work that we do every day but very much appreciated and so I want to start out by just saying thanks for coming out because it really is a lousy night out there and so uh we appreciate you showing up so multiple perspectives on the town's budget and our shared Financial challenge and we all heard about that this evening School costs do in do um continue to rise and we have acknowledge that that this puts pressure on our Town's resources however I think we should be really clear the issue is not that our spending is out of line the issue is that our costs are increasing and that is due to factors that are truly beyond our control Rising special education expenses State mandates increasing Transportation costs and the competitive need to retain yes retain our quality Educators our are driving our budget pressures these are not discretionary choices they are necessary investments in our students and the required obligations under state and federal law every school district in Massachusetts right now is facing the same challenges we recognize that funding is limited and we remain committed to working collaboratively with the town to find responsible and Sustainable Solutions but we also must ensure Dartmouth students receive the education that they deserve and that's what we've heard other folks come up and speak about this evening this underfunding our schools has long-term consequences not just for our students but for this entire Community including property values and including economic growth this is not just a school department problem it is a townwide discussion about priorities and how we invest in dness future we welcome open dialogue as we did this evening and collaboration as we work together toward a solution and I know tonight Mr Kylie is going to present and talk about um some of the uh challenges and also sort of the collaboration that we have on an ongoing basis here in town thank you Dr sa Maguire um while Mr gashaw puts up um what I'm going to talk about I I think in um your comments tonight I think one common thread was to try and figure out a way that um we could have a sustainable um budget pattern moving forward one one thing came up on uh at the March 6th finance committee meeting that um was interesting um we in our budget process have talked about the idea of trying to gradually lessen Reliance on um reserves and particularly our school choice reserves which we're really using to to balance our budget um but that night at the finance committee um a finance committee member brought up that topic and um made a statement about potentially finding a way to to do that so in the spirit of that um I created this scenario in which we essentially string out school choice reserves but that it would require the town to commit an additional amount of money to us um over the next 5 years so in order to find a way to match school choice expenditures with school choice revenues we would need the town to commit to fund our our school budget an additional $245,000 a year for the next five years so each year over and above our regular operat budget we would need $245,000 additional that would result and I know the it's kind of hard to see on the screen but excuse me Mr gashaw could we maybe zoom in on that slide a little bit I I see a lot of squinting eyes even my own but what it shows is that after the years all of the additional costs over and above $700,000 would have been reincorporated into the Dartmouth Public Schools operating budget and then um after that five years the approximate level of expenditure in the school choice program would be somewhere around $700,000 which is um consistent with our Revenue in that program so by by thinking about an increase of $245,000 which is about 24% of the town's overall budget we could solve the salary situation and the summer and after school program situation in which we are funding uh using one-time resources in school choice um it doesn't mean that it's going to solve all our problems it does mean that if this were considered uh by the town it would solve one problem one pretty big problem which was created by the Esser Cliff um that's resulting in other communities laying off staff right now um some of our other South Coast communities and throughout the state there communities that are laying off staff because there isn't a source of funding anymore that can support them um the positions that they added know we were fortunate that we had some school choice reserves and were able to do that you know thoughtfully and spend those but um obviously we know that that's not sustainable long term unless the town we willing to try and solve a problem um so the only other Sol way that I can figure out solving this problem is either via an override or cutting staff so for a 0.24% budget increase budget um increase for the town it would seem that it would be logical to at least have this conversation as a possible solution um so that's that was this was shared with the finance committee member who um who brought it up um and I've also shared it with interim Town Administrator Gary Carrero um and I think that uh there's been an interest in hearing what the school committee thinks about this idea uh as a potential solution um and then there may be some further consideration at the Town level for this so well thank you for bringing this to to our attention Mr Kylie and for uh the finance committee member for bringing this up and sharing it and taking the initiative so C certainly appreciate uh just just a couple of thoughts of my own and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues first of all I do want to recognize uh those of you who spoke this evening uh in regards to um class sizes and class sizes especially at the elementary level uh you know you know increasing uh up towards that 24 uh Mark uh I agree um I'm only from I'm only speaking um on my behalf I'm not speaking uh for anyone else in the committee but I think that uh class sizes at the elementary level of 24 is too high um I really do um I I I would love to see average class sizes of TW of 18 to 20 especially depending on those grade levels um there's no doubt about it um however the financial reality is I don't know how we would come up with um the money to you know get those class sizes to where they need to be across the district because while we're reducing some some FTE and some schools um to really what we're doing is where correct me if I'm wrong anyone we're we're averaging out across the district for Equitable P for equality purposes that all that all of our elementary schools are averaging the same numbers because in my opinion it's certainly not fair to have one school in one end of the town have more an average class size that's higher than schools at the other end of the town but if it if I could have it my way I would have 18 to 20 um you know depending on the uh the grade level for sure so so I certainly uh I hear I hear those comments I respect those comments I wish I really really wish we could do something with that um I do know based on where we are in um ESP spending in the district we are 1.1 or 1.2 uh below the state average on what we're um hiring for FTE for esps um that's a problem I think we could be doing more to support our classroom teachers absolutely um it's just where is the money going to come from we we know that smaller class sizes and that extra class support through these um ESP educational support professionals makes a difference but it comes down to what does this community want and if we want to get together and if we want to do an override at some point um I think I think that that's where we may have to go but I think the solution that Mr Kylie uh has put forward at least uh helps with the deficit and not relying so much really takes us takes our our Reliance off of school choice over the next through you know uh fy3 will ultimately be off of it because when I voted in school choice 10 years ago now or whenever it was I Envision school choice being that mechanism to fund those after school buses at the elementary level level that we still don't have to fund all the extra things that the school department can't get into to its operating budget and I never intentioned school choice to be providing 11 right now 11 FTE worth of salaries so I'm hoping through Progressive dialogue with Town Leaders with elected Leaders with appointed officials that we can make some Headway but I think moving forward would we need an override at the end of the day um but I do like I do like this solution I think a gradual um pullback from school choice is probably the right way to go um and if we can get the support of the finance committee um in the select board um you know and if Gary our interim Town Administrator can make it work I I think that would certainly be the way to go I will also say that um after thinking about it and running the numbers and looking at the comps I personally um based on all of the the cuts that we're looking to make I cannot support a um $120,000 human resource position director at this time this District certainly needs one I have there's no doubt about that I do know that the town is um bringing someone on soon I did have a conversation uh with Mrs Heidi Brooks um and you know I'm not uh in the operations I'm only in policy and budget but I'd love to see some kind of collaboration between this school department and uh the town with an HR position at this time though um it's certainly needed uh we're very fortunate to have who we have uh doing what we doing what they do in uh Human Resources but I cannot I cannot conscious consciously uh approve that kind of salary when we're cutting FTE so I'll turn it over to my colleagues anyone that wants to go want me to start I I just I I don't disagree with you I actually agree with everything you said I think this is is one mechanism to sort of Nar down I my computer died and so I note to self use Google and I can open my phone and use my Google but I was working on a Word document tallying up all the wonderful quotes and really important messages that folks said during the public hearing um you know one in particular was that school choice you know is the closest thing to be that that um rainy day fund or to you know and it certainly um getting away from funding those staff positions is important it's really critical um you know over and over my head you know we're here because of students we're here to make decisions um based on what's important to us in our community um and thinking about you know makes me think about the larger Community needs to really sit with what kind of a community do we want in the future do we want one that uh supports and values education less um I certainly don't want that to be the my community in the future I certainly am here for all students um and I do appreciate Mr Kylie for taking um I didn't mean to point anyone out in the crowd but uh one good good idea um to make this work and to to um get ourselves to a point where we're not relling on that on those funds and that they can be used for uh some other uh important initiatives that have you know been put on the back burner as a result so um that's my that's all I have to say right now thank you thank you Mrs saml Mr NOS thank you Mr chairman uh yeah I had a conversation with uh Mr Kylie about this when he showed it to me and I you know wholeheartedly support it you know when you think about it it's uh 459 almost 1 point to you know over the next five years type of deal when it rolls up uh um it takes the pressure uh off the school choice and not uh you know exhausted type of deal again we all know that you know this this is something that runs every year school choice it's a vote every year so it it you know it could be here today and gone tomorrow and then we'd really be in trouble but uh I mean the other thing too it's you know and in this I know I've said this before and the kind you know take something from the state I mean we're $9 million less than uh State average type of deal I mean God if you took a third of that okay be $3 million and all of these wonderful little issues that we have are gone type of deal uh you know I had a discussion with a a state senator a while back and you know his comment to me was well there's nothing I can do about it you need to talk to this rep this state senator type of deal so it's like okay fine I haven't seen that person to to talk to him but when I catch him I will bend his ear I assure you of that but I think this my only concern my only concern with this and I think this is great and thinking about it and everything else is you know are we putting a Band-Aid on the problem okay are we just okay stick you know it's a fair point just my just my thoughts as I put my governmental and accounting background hat on type of deal and unfortunately to disagree with you I think we need the HR person that's all I have at the moment thank you democracy thank you yes Mary Mrs Beckman you can say Mary I mean I think this is I think we should look at this as a start and um and also what we're willing to do as a school department for the town and then ask the town what they're willing to do um but I I do think this is a start um um I I am one of the big supporters of an HR person I think it protects everyone employees um the district I think it lowers risk um but I think I'm going to agree with um Mr chair and um say maybe we look at that again next year scof thank you um so I love this idea um no it doesn't solve all our problems um but it makes them smaller it makes the cliff smaller when we get there um but in listening to comments earlier tonight I agree with most of them you know class size um you know getting rid of teachers whether it's bi attrition or what it's not good um I agree our benefits packet isn't that great I do disagree about Administration costs rising and that being at odds with everything else I our Administration costs are 33% lower than average so yes people have gotten raises but we're still way below average um I do believe that we have all kinds of requests that are unmet that are actually needs um but I feel that it would be irresponsible to put those items in our current budget because right now the town cannot afford it they can afford this I believe and I hope that they see that they can afford this um but in order to budget for the requests that we can't meet I think a and to to keep the teacher student ratio at a healthy level to keep class sizes smaller we will need an override but we can't put those items in our budget until the town has the money so if we have as a town believe that small class sizes are important if we as a town believe that um our teachers and um other school staff deserve better benefits other Town employees deserve better benefits um we need to First Tax ourselves more and when I first came on the school board all I heard was this town will not pass an override so I think everyone has been very timid about it um but since I've been here I have heard from the people who think the town will pass an override so um to wrap all that up I hope that the town will incorporate this into our budget um I think that because of where are where we are financially we should put off getting an HR person um I think it's a responsible budget that we are putting forward thank you everyone for the uh wellth thought out uh discussion I guess my question to Dr s Maguire Mr Kylie is um next STS if this is something that sounds like the committee um would be willing to entertain approving a budget uh with the reduction with the $245,000 reduction out of school choice and uh with that money going into the operating budget I guess uh a little caveat with that and this is just me um spitballing here is I'm going to go back to the fact that school choice is was for ex originally for extras for our rainy day fund I don't want to see a scenario next year that we desperately need a one-on-one ESP or we desperately need fa uh staff to help our students whether that's you know we have a student that comes into the district that was unexpected that that has needs and and you know we're we're putting off uh hiring an an educational support professional or one-on-one because of money I don't want to hear that especially when we have this money in school choice I would rather us spend the money in school choice right at the time it's needed than to defer a position that is desperately needed at the classroom level and you you understand I guess what I'm what I'm saying is that the money is available there um especially if we can get the $245,000 a of school choice please please please if the money is available in a position is desperately needed that's what the money's there for support I want to make sure that and I have no doubt we're not I don't but I want to make sure we are supporting our classroom teachers and supporting our educators first and foremost um so and if we have to do that you know and use it out of school choice in 26 then the 27 budget we roll that into the budget because we have that issue and say Here's why we have to have that agreed I guess from my perspective I just want the administration to know that I I think that I'm I'm speaking for myself and correct me if I'm wrong from anyone else that that money is there if you you need it use it to support students understood so next steps Mr Kylie well I think that um the interim Town Administrator would really as I said did want to hear from the school committee and what um you know what the plan was from us so I think I'll communicate that tomorrow morning okay and um ask that um there's consideration from finance committee select board to support this we normally would vote our budget school committee would vote our budget at the next school committee meeting so there's not a lot of time between now and then now technically we could make a change or vote we could make a change to our budget right up at until town meeting um obviously we want the correct ideally the correct number to be on the schedule a and in the in the town meeting warrant so there's some timing issues there but I but I think it all starts with having a conversation tomorrow and trying to move this forward and seeing um you know how that works out so okay Mr chairman yes Mr new would it help if there was a motion that we accepted this revision and he when he makes the presentation to uh Mr Carrero and it gets funneled down they can say this is right it would per se vers it being a consensus it was a vote but we haven't approved the initial budget right no no no no no this schedu the the use of school choice okay y the the the adjustment the adjustment on the school choice do you think that would that would sure can't hurt yeah they can't hurt at all Mr chairman make a motion that uh we approve the uh adjustments to school choice um as presented by Mr Kylie uh using $245,000 rolled up the next six years as presented second motion by Mr noon second by Mrs Amaral do we have that motion we all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you for that no problem and and I think uh just to close up here I think that we do need an override I think we need to look at what we truly need in this District maybe it's coming together with a group um I'm not sure what the answer is uh that's something I can talk about with the administration but I think ultimately we do need an override in this town and it sounds like there's growing support for it so thank you all I should have all right next up superintendent update Dr to saber Maguire so um I just wanted to share with the committee that I had the opportunity to attend the 2025 aasa National Conference which is a conference that brings together uh superintendant and school leaders really from across the country and I find that to be really validating in that with the issues that and the challenges we're facing here in Massachusetts I would say that uh there are similar challenges going on across the entire country and just having that opportunity to talk with colleagues at that level has been is really important for me and when I think about you know what do you go to conferences for will you go to connect your work to the work of your school district and some of the things that I was able to spend time in um learn about and attend sessions on were connected to health and wellness student well-being um there was a session that I think is really important for us as we have these kind of discussions and it's about um one session on restoring Trust restoring public trust and education and so those conversations are happening across the country and those are the kinds of sessions that I along with um other colleagues were able to attend there was quite a bit of focus on AI um really interesting in the way that superintendents and school districts and teachers are using AI in a way that's productive and actually helping them in their work um there was a session on strategic planning that myself and my team were going to meet with a group to talk about not that we haven't already obviously engaged in strategic planning but one of the things we're looking toward is how are we going to be able to articulate clear clearly to the committee and to the community what our progress is toward meeting the uh goals and objectives in a way that's really clear for folks who are interested in our progression of the initiatives that we've identified there was a session on just building stakeholder buyin again really timely for the kinds of conversations that we're having here this evening um so if we enter if the community enters into dialogue around uh an eventual override there is going to need to be a a real effort around how you organize around um buying uh buying stakeholder put to to make sure that you're you have a plan in place in order to do that um so next I'm going to invite uh Dr tbolt up because he's going to talk to you about there's so much going on he had given me a list of talking points for what's happening at the 612 level and I invited him up to have this discussion with the committee himself thank you Dr Sabre Maguire and sure absolutely so I just have to say that Haley stole quite a bit of what I was planning to talk about so thank you hay but while I was standing back there with Mr Rossy he did say he you know gets a kick out of how young people use their phones to give updates which I never do but I haven't had a chance to print this so I will today as well so um the first piece I just wanted to share was um our high school math pilot is continuing on March 6 and 7th uh Carnegie um coach was here uh and engaged in a lesson study protocol with uh several of our Math teachers where they came in and on the Thursday they co-planned together and on the Friday they co-taught the lesson the the teacher and the math coach from Carnegie um also met with our lead teacher Mr laow and uh that plan um that professional development and support is just part of the plan to support this pilot it will continue in a couple of weeks when the coach returns once again um and also we'll be um having uh some teams visit districts that are a little bit further ahead in implementation of Carnegie math um and the idea there is hopefully to provide teachers opportunities to talk with other teachers who have lived this experience and can kind of hear you know what um you know the struggles that they went through and how they came through the other side and how it is working uh for them so that's that's ongoing work um haey mentioned the tedex DHS event which was phenomenal hopefully uh everyone got to see some of it but it really that's a tremendous event that every year uh Mrs Souza and Mrs true um organize and do a tremendous amount of work and they certainly deserve um you know a shout out um but also want to highlight the partnership between the dhsv media production program that you know streams the event live and also DCTV that partnership is invaluable to our school provides tremendous opportunities for our secondary students as well the nas collaborative visit took place uh over March 13th and 14th and afterwards they debriefed with Mrs Larsson who served as the chair of the nas collaborative uh visit um in the self-study process and again a lot of credit to her she was tremendous in organizing uh and leading all of the work also um you know a lot of credit to our faculty most folks don't understand all of the work that goes into a nask visit and it's done by the Educators who are in the building who um collect evidence they review it they review the standards for Nas and they they produce a self-study report the collaborative visiting team was made up of six Educators from across the Commonwealth they came in and um pretty much validated the work that the d uh darmouth High School faculty had had done um and they did um share before they left and there'll be a formal report but they shared with Mr Shay uh Mrs lson and um the rest of the administrative team here at the high school they shared some strengths and they included things like our students um the team interacted with our students in a number of ways both through formal interviews as well as through student Le Tours when they were here over the two-day um visit and they could not stop talking enough about how impressive our students were how courteous they were how informative they were um and so that uh that's always nice to hear um high quality instruction that takes place in the building was cited as uh strength as well so again that's credit to our to our teachers and our educators um another strength was structures that support that high quality instruction including things like common planning time built into the master schedule as well as the pace period um were highlighted um they also highlighted building infrastructure and funding for for the uh in infrastructure improvements um they specifically noted the um recently redesigned and revamped LMC um also they cited as a strength that TV media Studio talking about how it was you know professional uh quality um and again provides our students with a tremendous experience they also cited as you heard from Mr Shay and Mrs D Silva today uh as a strength the V the variety of offerings that we have not just for the 27 AP programs but again the the clubs and activities that we have after school the Athletics the music programs our Atlas program was cited as a strength um as well as our unified program so really you know I think that the visit from the nas team was um and should be viewed as very validating they also identified before they left some uh recommended areas for us to focus on as we continue to improve our our school in our school community that included things like um you know utilizing the dmouth high school student handbook to facilitate clear expectations and transparent communication around expectations for students um they recommended that continue to um work around curriculum development and revision and to ensure alignment to the newly developed portrait of a learner um finally uh developing they recommended developing a common grading practice um with clear cost Expectations by Department um so that departments have consistent um grading practices um and then finally um they recommended to revisit and revise the comprehensive Emergency Management plan to ensure it's a document that's user friendly and consistently updated and so I share these because again even with the recommended areas for growth I find it validating because a number of those things are highlighted in our strategic plan as well as the school Improvement plan that Mr Shay presented a few meetings ago that was approved so I think it just validates the work that's ongoing and that's already in process and I think that that will be helpful as we continue to drive uh Improvement efforts at the high school level um another update I want to provide was Dartmouth Middle School just had an author visit last week it was tremendous um the author was Dusty bowling who's an award-winning bestselling author of insignificant events in the life of a cactus momentous momentous events in the life of a cactus um 24 hours in nowhere and several other uh books as well but it was great to visit um Dr Sabre Maguire uh was with me when we visited um just to see the energy the author presented to each grade level sixth 7th and eth separately but she also met in small groups with uh students who had the opportunity to purchase one of her books one or more of her books and and have autographs and really to talk to the author beyond that the just the message of perseverance was one that should really resonate with our students as she talked about how many times she was um rejected for a book idea over I think she said over a hundred times it was 100 times before she was finally uh approved for book so the final piece um again a shout out to Mrs Souza uh our world language Lead Teacher we have um upcoming World Language PD um Regional uh it's a regional PD event for uh Portuguese teachers um finding content specific professional development is always a challenge particularly in roal language um but this is the third year now in a row where we'll host dmouth High School Host uh PD re Al for Portuguese um teachers from from across the Commonwealth and again Mrs soua Works closely with the Portuguese consulate to make that um available at no cost to our to our Educators so um we're tremendously proud of that as well I think that's it thank you Dr T I told you we had a lot to share yes we've been very busy um so just moving on to budget Capital Improvement in HR I think that we've um we've talked enough about budget for this evening and we can put Capital Improvement for our next meeting but I did want to mention to you as far as in our HR world uh the interviews for assistant principles at the Potter and the Quinn and the assoc interviews for the associate principles at the middle and the high school are ongoing as a matter of fact I think the first rounds are all done as of this afternoon um I can't again I I can't thank folks enough because this has been a lot of hard work and our educators are part of the process and I thank them for giving up their time um certainly uh Katie and Ross along with Peter Rossy Ryan Shay audre Thomas Melissa McKenry all of them are part of this process but also we have a good number of teachers who have been part of this first round and so we're looking forward to hopefully completing um some of the final interviews by the end of this week and should be ready to share some candidates or some of the um folks that have been selected for the positions really within the next week and you know I'm always going to give this Shameless plug for monitor substitute teachers esps I don't think we need any custodians right now fully the first yes so that's pretty amazing we're we're excited about that um I'm going to Echo what Haley talked about as far as family under family and Community engagement and just talk about dartmouth's finest competition uh which was really an incredible Showcase of student Talent school spirit and Community engagement because there's the community engagement piece um Beyond just our students the place was truly packed and I'll tell you the crowd was really into the performances um I don't know if you've gotten a chance to see it if you were there um wonderful if not you should maybe um check it out on DCTV because I did watch some of the clips because I had to share some of that with uh some of my colleagues who weren't able to attend and it was really incredibly fun I mean we saw music we heard music saw dance and there was a wrestling match and it was a very realistic wrestling match to the point where as a superintendent I was sitting in the audience enjoying it and at the same time dreading it and wishing that it was over I mean um there was a performance of uh Greenman group so for those of you who are familiar with Blue Man Group we had students who performed and they were incredibly believable and I have a feeling if the uh producers of of Blue Man Group saw our students they might actually recruit them to perform it was just hysterical um but really the level of talent was extraordinary kids from just all different um you know different backgrounds up there on stage and when you hear them share with you what the importance of that experience was in bringing together folks that they might not normally interact with it was pretty powerful uh so I I loved it um I thought it was just it was so much fun and so if you haven't watched it yet please go ahead and take a look at DCTV it's worth your time u under safe and supportive schools I just uh highlight the work being done being led by Kim redlon she has reestablished the district and in turn what will be school-based crisis teams uh we're looking forward to really putting those teams in place in a way that we can see that there are consistent uh they just consistent Pro processes and procedures in place and she has been bringing groups together uh to get to put that work into place and she'll be sharing some of the outcomes of her work at some uh upcoming meetings M Dr TBO already talked about Nas but I will say I did have the opportunity to talk to a couple of the interview interviewers and they really did highlight our students and just uh folks one person who's been I think he said at over a hundred neas visits I don't know how many he said but it was close to that and he said that he uh this he had never uh met a group of kids kids who were just so incredibly engaging and that he was incredibly impressed by what the their display of school pride and their respect for one another and just the overall atmosphere here at dth high school so that was pretty impressive to hear um and we look forward to getting the report final report and sharing it with the committee great so thank you busy couple of weeks thank you Dr sah so next up report of the chair just have a couple of things I have a letter here dated March 17th from uh superintendent Michael Watson of the be uh Vocational School uh letting us know that uh dartmouth's reps uh Dr Cindy Marlin uh her term is up May 1st of 2025 and she is uh seeking uh reappointment so I would just ask that this get put on to the next uh school committee agenda for consideration and I believe correct me if I'm wrong uh Mr Nunes that this is a is this a joint appointment or this this is it's it's the the chairman of the school committee chairman of the board of Selectmen and the town moderator perfect so I'm I don't see I don't see a CC on this that it was cc to the other two individuals um but I will certainly uh reach out to the select board and our town moderator um but I I I know typically this committee will take a vote um has been past practice and not just the school committee chair saying yes yes or it's a vote of per se each one and you know then the chair and the three get together and hopefully it's all perfect perfect so if we could just add this to the next school committee agenda miss gner that would be great and I will reach out um to find out or just put uh the select board and the town moderator on notice if they hadn't received this um I would also like to see I don't think we've had our our annual meeting with our reps and uh Mr Watson from new Beford voke I'm very curious about the admission policy uh the updated admission policy at new Beford voke um it is my understanding that it's really just a complete lottery now um and that it's all three communities uh New Bedford Fair Haven and Dartmouth um that just get put in and it's a complete lottery my thing is is that there should be a certain amount of slots allotted to dmouth students there should be a certain amount of slots allotted to for Haven students because New Bedford is quite large compared to the the towns of fa Haven and Dartmouth so my concern is that Dartmouth students are not going to have a fair share at getting admitted education at a vocational education when you have when you just put them into one pot and you have I don't know tens of 10,000 students that are uh currently enrolled in your Bedford public schools and how many of those are eighth graders that want to go to new be voke so I just think think it creates an unfair Advantage so I would love to hear from them yeah so I don't know if we can reach out to our um our new beit voke reps and see if we can get them on the schedule uh for one of our next meetings and that's all I have this is Amaral well I have some good news we love good news um well it's good news to me and good news for the community um so I as everyone knows probably sick of hearing I have had the fortune um of each year being voted in and chairing the Dartmouth special ed parent advisory Council since I think 1962 no uh uh since 2012 I wasn't going to say anything and uh it has been a pleasure it aligned really nicely uh with my um most of that time with my professional role that at one point had more flexibility than I have now um and I have a a three children in my child that brought me to work in the field and also um sign up for this role uh is aging out of the school system uh he will um2 January uh he will be turning 22 which is for students who do need that entitlement until then uh we we call it a cliff it's another Cliff um I'm preparing for it for years won't talk about the federal updates of the government but um neither here nor there I received an email out of the blue early March from someone who thought perhaps they wanted more information about stepping into the role uh that I resigned preco um but remained in because I am passionate about the work um and so I am happy to uh so I reviewed our bylaws and talked with our special ed uh leadership and this person who poor thing I've already connected her to my Statewide contacts I have her on a list serve so I don't know if she realizes what she signed up for uh but I'm here to share this can be found I think on the backpack that on April 10th the um meeting notice has gone out that I April 10th 6:00 at Quinn in the community room we will have a um a meeting um specifically I reviewed the bylaws because there's somebody interested in the vacancy get it while the getting's good um uh this person there will be a vote for this person um who then will be able to run with it work with the school department update the bylaws and then I would assume in late spring hold a larger sort of um election for all of the seats um Deb August she's a Treasurer she's been a Treasurer she's been part of this as long as I have and um so reinstalling her or and anyone else who's interested and and it's a great opportunity for parents to learn um collaborate with the school department um learn about special education so I'll be doing a little presentation on uh I need readers to uh the purpose and the role of a CPAC as it's written in Mass General law um and then we'll have uh networking opportunity um Refreshments some welcome remarks from our our special ed leadership and uh then a nomination and a vote to fill that board chair vacancy um and then a meeting close so April 10th 6:00 Quinn school be there or B Square thank you thank you Mrs Mr NES yeah thank you Mr chairman uh funny you were talking about the be voke and I had it as one of I I can't remember the last time we saw minutes so can we again you know I'm not trying to hop on a dead beat a dead horse but it would be nice to you know see the minutes from uh greater newed voke type of deal so absolutely standard times is starting to and or it has been representing uh student athletes for fall Sports and such and uh our boy soccer player was uh the super superstar of the year so congratulations there congrats and I don't normally mention names but congrats to uh cat cheeseboro for uh her over 2,000 points that she's sced I was lucky enough to be here both for uh that game and and some of the other ones Unfortunately they they lost that night to Whitman Hansen uh but also twoo for winning the Dave cowens award as the outstanding female player so that's that was good there uh this coming week this coming Saturday our color guide both uh JV and vity competing up in Salem for uh the nesba finals uh our colag guard leaves uh next Tuesday uh febru uh April 1st uh for Dayton for WGI F long trip uh the percussion leaves on the 9th and uh the nesba finals for percussion is uh the uh next not this coming Saturday but the following Saturday uh here at the high school uh starting at 1:00 and uh dth is on at 6:30 and the awards are done at 7:30 so that's what's going on in music and everything else right now thank you very much for your update Mr news anyone else that is all I have next regular scheduled meeting of the Dartmouth school committee is scheduled for Monday April 14th at 6: PM in the Dartmouth High School library media center which is right here at this time chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into to Executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 30A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position Dartmouth administrators Association and Dartmouth Educators Association in addition pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position not to reconvene into Open session so moved second motion by Mr nun second by Miss Beckwith on the motion forther discussion roll call please Kathleen ameral yes John nun yes Mary beckwood yes best Coughlin yes Chris Oliver yes meeting is adjourned have a wonderful night everyone [Music] s

Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming to see this. Great to see everyone stakeholders in the room. Um I'm excited to be presenting to you my first uh budget all be here in this incredible city. [Music] Um I like to thank Eric M and uh the business team for helping us put all this together. Um there's a lot of historical context that I kind of learned the past nine or 10 months I was here. Sorry about that. A lot of feedback, a lot of historical context I had to learn uh for the city, things that have happened in the past with regard to funding and other things like that. Okay, I'll hold it. Um funding and stuff like that. So, so, uh, this presentation is something that, uh, we put together for you, uh, to talk about how this works, how the bud how the budget cycle works, how we came up with some of the the things that we put in this, um, in this budget for 2526, the importance of it, and why it's in here.

uh which is really important and I'm very excited about um because originally before before we had the um the word from the governor of where that um new aid would be, we were told or at least I was told that Garfield would be the other way minus 3%. Which is very dangerous, right? Because you know last year we we were very lucky uh in getting a nice a nice bunch of aid uh which helped out uh to get us out of a financial bind. though. So, if you could start here. Okay. So, basically when you put a budget together, it's a process, right? Things come together. You look at historical context where you want to be in a strategic plan. The board had a strategic plan that expires this year or last year. A lot of the a lot of the parts of that plan were not met for different reasons.

First, we are proud to recognize Lane Canvan from Crest View Middle School. Lane emerged victorious in the Huntington County Spelling Bee after an intense 10 rounds of competition. Lane's dedication and perseverance are remarkable, having won the schoolwide spelling B for four consecutive years in the countywide competition for the past three years. Congratulations, Lane, on this outstanding achievement. Lane was not here with us this evening. Next, we have Riverview Middle School Scholastic Art Award winners. Next, we celebrate the talented students from Murvy Middle School who earned recognition in the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Shyara Smith and Kaylee Gordon participated in the Memory Project Art Initiative, using their artistic talents to create heartfelt portraits for children worldwide, fostering intercultural understanding and kindness. Next, we have Jazelle Barton and Jamie Cooper. They also received honorable mention awards for their outstanding artwork. Also, we have Sophia Daniel earned a silver key for her exceptional artistic work.

His dedication and hard work resulted in the highest score in both the written test and programming categories, earning him a scholarship to Vincen University and a professional machinist toolbox. Congratulations, Austin. Next we have Adri Guyger, Huntington North High School Varsity Gymnastics. Uh as we honor uh Adri Hun North Varsity Gymnastics for her remarkable achievement for breaking the school record in the floor exercise. On February the 10th, Adri scored 9.625, surpassing the previous record set in the 199899 season. She broke her own record with an astounding astound astonishing 9.80 on February the 24th. Adri's excellence has also earned her a place at the IHSAA regional and recognition as a base gymnast at the state meet. Congratulations, Adri. Next, we'd like to celebrate Candace Kohlhoffer for breaking the Huntington North school record in the 50 free style with a time of 25.25 seconds at the NEA Girls Swimming Championships on January the 18th.

Um, for all of us in the audience who are AOL parents, um, this is a big point of transition where we all go from joining our scouts at every meeting and event to dropping them off and saying, "Have a great time." And parents of younger scouts, in another couple years, that will be you, too. Um, and for those of us who have been involved in pack leadership or dead leadership, um, we get to not only see our own scouts move on, but a whole group of scouts that we have been responsible for move on. Uh, so it's a big moment. Um, I I just wanted to take a second um to say thank you to all of the scout leaders and all of the scouts here on stage and in the audience um, who have made this a really special experience for me. Um, uh, Ryan and I started scouting, um, even before we came to Ashland.

All right. Uh, William, can I get a verb? Sneeze. Sneeze. All right. Um, Jacob, can I get a household item? Toaster. Toaster. All right. Um, and then Tommy, uh, just a living thing. the penguins. All right. Right. And then this is the one that always kind of makes me a little nervous at these things. Um, Andrew, can I get a body part, left earlo, good job, bud? All right. All right. So, those words again are 200, scrambled eggs, sneeze, toaster, uh, penguins, and left earlo. All right. So, well, first of all, uh it's kind of surreal having our scouts up here after celebrating uh so many years of crossovers. Um our turn across the bridge always seemed uh so far away. And just like that, uh here we are. Um the journey started as Lions in the fall of 2019, a mere 200 years ago.

Friday at 6:00 a.m. Saturday at 8:00 a.m. and Sunday at 2: p.m. meeting will also be rebroadcast on DCTV channels 18 on the following days Monday and Saturday at 12:00 pm.

So last uh two weeks ago we had a preliminary meeting uh where preliminary budget where the board um through the administration has to approve what they call technical review. That means you have to put everything that you think you need in this budget so that the county could make sure uh that it meets certain standards uh etc with regard to referendum and other things tax levy and all of that. So with that preliminary review, you can't add anything after that, but you can cut. It gives the board more time to cut some of these things. So with that preliminary review last uh last meeting, our preliminary tax impact was 5.5%. Since that time, we scrubbed all the data a little bit. We we made some changes and we're we're bringing that down tonight a little bit with keeping some of these really important programs and definitely talking about personnel tonight.

Okay? No fault of anyone except for the fact that uh things just didn't happen whether it's past administrations or things that happened because of COVID etc. Uh some of those things didn't didn't come to fruition. We need to make sure that those things in that strategic plan are met because I'm going to go over a few things tonight that are really important that some of you might not be aware of uh which is causing some of this budget. So the process is sort of I know you can't see this. This will be posted tomorrow uh online or tonight maybe online so you can see it if you want to you want to view it and learn a little bit more but the process basically starts in July rolls all the way around meet with stakeholder groups meaning uh principles what their needs are. I met with all the principles again the last two weeks before the budget just to go over what make sure these needs were correct and some of these numbers.

Sophia here. Next we have uh Anika Braun and Claire Alfred were awarded gold keys a significant achievement reflecting their dedication and talent. So Ana and Claire congratulations. Each of these students used the cionotype phonographic process to create their artwork create currently displayed at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art through April the 6th. Again, congratulations to Ruby Middle School Scholastic Art Award winners. Congratulations. Parents, feel free if you want to get up and take a picture as well. Feel free. Feel free to do that. Just push Kenny out of the way. It's all right. Get right up there and take a picture. Anybody else? Okay. Congratulations. Next up, we have Austin Collins, Huntington North Learning Center first place CNC competition. We now recognize Austin Collins, a senior capstone student in the precision machining program at Huntington North Learning Center. Austin earned first place in the CNC at the Indiana chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association competition.

Her determination and commitment to excellence are truly commendable. Congratulations, Candace. parents, do we get photos, too? Are we good? So, Candace, just stay right there, Candace, because the next award, Stay right there. The Huntington North 400 free relay team. We're proud to recognize them tonight, consisting of Candace Kohhoffer, Anna Kohhoffer, Anika Carpenter, and Laya Kowalsski for setting a new school record with a time of 3 minutes 48 seconds on February the 10th. Their teamwork and dedication led them to surpass the previous record set in 2007. Congratulations, ladies. Awesome job. Sorry. Okay. We good parents? Stay put. Smile. Fuzzy pickles. Congratulations, ladies. Lastly, we'd like to recognize Carrie Neil and Crystal Streer for their advocacy and impactful testimony at Senator Jean Leasing's Indiana Rural Caucus meeting. Their support for the IDOE and Indiana Roboc grant has been invaluable, furthering opportunities for special needs students in the areas of phonics and numeracy.

And so coming to Ashland and having, uh, a group and a community of scouts to be able to join and be a part of and who welcomed us, uh, so much was really special. Um, and it speaks to the connectedness of of Cub Scouts and scouting families uh, all over the world. Um, but certainly here. Um, and it's been a wonderful group to be a part of. So, thank you. So, uh, good evening everybody. Um, so I've got a pretty serious farewell speech prepared, but anyone who's, uh, ever been on one of my hikes knows I really like mad libs. So, I'm going to just grab a handful of words from our scouts to help uh, lighten up what is otherwise a serious speech. So, um, Elias, uh, can I get a number? That's 200. Uh, Jace, can I get a plural noun? Scrambled eggs.

That very first pack meeting at Faith Community Church was the first time in a real long time for me uh that I had seen the scout sign raised to get everybody's attention. Um, and once the pack recited the oath and law, all those words came rushing back, as did all the memories of my own scouting days. Uh, which got me super excited to introduce my son, Andrew, to this experience. Um, there were certainly some bumps at the outset. First, we had to plan events around uh those triple E uh mosquito restrictions. Uh, then soon after that, of course, the pandemic forced us to hold den, pack, and even committee meetings over Zoom. Um, even the Pinewood Derby was fully remote. Um, we had a crew of socially distanced den leaders racing our handmade scrambled eggs live on YouTube. Um, the challenges we endured together were all above and beyond the typical demands of scouting, but we prevailed.

uh which is really important and I'm very excited about um because originally before before we had the um the word from the governor of where that um new aid would be, we were told or at least I was told that Garfield would be the other way minus 3%. Which is very dangerous, right? Because you know last year we we were very lucky uh in getting a nice a nice bunch of aid uh which helped out uh to get us out of a financial bind. though. So, if you could start here. Okay. So, basically when you put a budget together, it's a process, right? Things come together. You look at historical context where you want to be in a strategic plan. The board had a strategic plan that expires this year or last year. A lot of the a lot of the parts of that plan were not met for different reasons.

Uh so we'll talk about some of those things. Um and then obviously the tenative budget and now we're here tonight um for this final final vote. Hopefully uh the board supports this. I want to appreciate the board and meeting in the uh the uh meetings that we had the financial meetings and and stuff like that. So, let's talk about enrollment because I know preschool's been a a a big thing that uh we've been talking about for the last uh nine months I've been here. There is a decrease there is a decrease in in preschool enrollment. Um these are the true numbers that you're seeing here. We'll go over some of it um a little later. You'll see a little bit more direct stuff. So, around 50 students plus or minus. That's nothing more than in the past because Garfield had a preschool early on. There were there were students from a lot of towns, a lot of people moved here.