If you want to we can have that and I'll take any questions from the board at this time. So, why don't we just go one by one if there's a question or another suggestion possibly? Um an area that you would think you'd be able to potentially. So, um we'll go around and do that. Bernier, are you ready to go first or do you want me to start on the other side? You want me to Thank you. Go first. You want me to? No. Uh I can go first. That's fine. Thank you. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> So, I took a page out of other elected board officials and I did take notes and tallies during last night's meeting as well as tonight. And I want to thank um Dr. Grossman and the supportive team for placing putting this together, listening to the public, and providing us with something that it seems like we have been listening to the public's response.
So, then would it be possible that there would be periods of years, plural, that kids would not be reading novels? Well, they're reading full-length texts and they're reading a lot of really dense, rich text that's on grade level. So, um It feels like it replaces novels, basically. >> Yeah, and I think um English class isn't the only place where we where reading within our schools. So, I know some history teachers have that have novels as a part of their class. Our school librarian is very active in getting kids to do a lot of reading. So, I think they will still have opportunities to process through novels and to read that type of text, but not as a part of our kind of first year of implementation of Savvas. Okay. Um, and then will the teachers have enough time to familiarize themselves with the new curriculum over the summer?
This was just a change in the law, which is why it's being reflected here. Do you think well, I ISBE was talking about how they believe that this was excuse me that this was removed in error and that it's likely to be replaced put back like it's going to be remedied in some kind of government way that the state does it. Um Do you think I mean leave the language in if we're notifying parents already, if we're going to continue to notify parents or take it out cuz it's the law. I think we have the latitude to do either and honestly since we're doing it already, there's no harm in just leaving it in if the board would prefer that. I would like to know how the board feels about it. I just I as a parent, I want to know what's going on. I'm not necessarily going to say no, but you would I don't know if the district is going to I think it's probably best to continue to do it since it is a controversial or sense or sensitive subject matter.
And we don't want kids driving on ice cuz I've been around kids and they're not really good drivers. So, virtual days are what they are. Just we're not planning them on purpose. We're not making any money like calling virtual days. That's That's not the purpose. It's just weather's bad, the highway department doesn't want us out there, police department doesn't want us out there. So, just suck it up. We'll be okay. Thanks. Any Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion adopted. Okay, item eight, three, our wellness policy. This is the first reading adoption. Thank you. Uh before we proceed this evening for the first reading and consideration to adopt policy number 4200 our wellness policy, as you may recall last month we talked about this policy needing to be revamped and revised and updated. This kind of came quickly as a result of our state audit of our food service department.
Good one by Minnechaug to take the ball to the the cage to cut the Spartans lead down by four with 2:12 left to go in the fourth quarter. Spartans doing a good job trying to keep the momentum away from from Minnechaug. Don't want to really let them get any momentum cuz they can put up a bunch of goals quick. Spartans and Minnechaug both led the league in uh goals. I think Minnechaug had one more goal than East Longmeadow. This time McKechnie comes up with the ball. She's getting the ball over the restraining line. She's looking to as she's met by Kozik. She gets the ball over the restraining line and will set up the East Meadow offense. Gets the ball over to Marino. Now they're choosing to face guard Mac. Marino with the ball. She's going to go around. She can run for days. The draw control so crucial there.
So what we have is when students come in um and they need to meet with Jamie or have a check-in we have them check in at the front. This just gives a like a little snapshot of why they're going to see her. And you can see majority of them is because of some sort of social emotional issue um or behavior. Okay. Uh the other things are they're coming in for a check-in. They want to check in with her. Um they want to make, you know, let her know what's going on, get some advice. Um we have uh some other pie charts here too is um are they getting they also can get referred by myself, Bill or Kate as well as they can be referred by their own guidance counselor. We do have um the guidance office and they have three other adjustment counselors and the special ed office has two uh two adjustment counselors um but they are working in their work their client you know student load is beyond what it should be so Jamie has really helped she has become kind of like a triage so if a student goes to the nurse have an anxiety attack they don't have um an adjustment counselor assigned to them Jamie will then step in become their adjustment counselor.
Um there has been an overwhelming to administration and looking at central office / administration. My question to that is, I see technology is is here, but the only uh, positions, uh, eliminations are still coming from potentially outside of there. I'm just curious and I think the public would like to hear why central office and administrators can't really aren't looked at. Like, what is the catastrophicness of that? Where we can look at paras, we can look at teachers, we can look at secretaries. What would happen if we looked at central office for the administrators? >> So, the the two staff numbers, as I said, that that's going to have to be looked at. That's going to have to be looked at. The administrative team is going to have to look at across the district where we are relative to staff. That is something that we're going to have to look at.
Yeah, we have we have a scheduled training on the the second institute day. So, we have all day with them >> Okay. to uh we'll work with the trainers different trainers to go through here's how to plan with Savvas cuz it will be different for our staff. Yeah. And then um one of the assistant principals and I have like a support plan of time cuz one of the things that in our other implementations that teachers said was the most valuable was time with their team. So that's something that I've worked with Joanne and Bob Dietz and Haley Nikolaou, the assistant principal overseeing the English department and really like that's our mission is to find time for the teams to meet and process through this because that's what our teachers have said in our other pilots is like the most important thing for them is time with their teams to kind of work through the challenges of this.
You're going to want to know if your kid comes home talking about stuff. Right. That that's what they're talking about and it's in a safe way and it's curriculum and they're not just hearing about it, you know, on the bus or something. That's how I'm kind of looking at it. Um also giving parents that option um to object. Yeah, I mean, truly we do anyway, so there's no harm in keeping it. I mean, that's the beauty of getting to tailor our policies that we can we can leave that in. It doesn't say we can't have it in. Right. It's just because of the way the law was changed it was taken out. I would just like to hear I don't know how the rest of the board feels about about it. No, I mean, I'll support leaving it in. Yeah. Why would they take out the word grooming when they have it in the title?
So, we worked with IASB on this policy. This comes from the DOE. It was a sample policy and we filled in some of the blanks. It's a good policy. However, um and it was posted online for the public to be to see and comment if necessary. Had Had some input from a community member, a teacher actually, and I was wondering the same thing. Um in front of you this evening I gave you page five of the wellness policy and you see that I've highlighted under article 11, um letter A, number two. Um if approved, I would like to strike that paragraph completely. I've been waiting for clarification and learned today actually um that this is a local decision. I was scratching my head a little bit. I talked to Mr. Wagner. He was doing the same. We saw no statutes that had come through or statute change that said that we weren't supposed to be using waivers anymore for physical education.
It's great for the Spartans to get that. >> Yes. >> Now they have the possession, so last minute 40, we'll see what they can do. Marino still running with the ball. Marino still with the ball. Gets the ball over to Pellegrino. Pellegrino should kick this back out and hit Ooh. >> [crying] >> Get one up in the face. I'd like to see Pellegrino get that back out to Marino. And this is where you wonder if all that time the Spartans had them under pressure in the third, if that's starting to play into a little bit of fatigue here for the for Minnechaug. Absolutely. Ball's thrown away. Looks like that should be offsides. Lucky for the Spartans, one of the Minnechaug players was offsides, stepping over the restraining line. McKechnie with the ball. She should See if she how long she can hold on to the ball for.
She will work with them for a couple weeks. Um she does a lot of shortterm interventions with students and anything that is becomes long-term um will then be placed with one of the adjustment counselors either in special ed if they're a special ed student or within the guidance department. Um so and we get referrals from nurses sometimes from teachers saying this student I think really needs a check-in. They'll meet with the guidance counselor. guns council will say yes. So, as we've said a million times tonight, Jamie has been such a big addition to our uh department and to our safe team. Um because we do also have security, we'll find a student crying in the bathroom, they'll bring them to Jamie. Um you know, if they're having an outburst in class and we can't get them, you know, to calm down like Bill was talking about, we'll send them to Jamie.
So, that is on the table. So, there is two full-time staff members that are making about $26,000 a year. As I said, it could be reducing a position from 1.0 to 0.5. It could just because some of the employees could be hourly. Okay. Um, and then I think you for making the comment on pausing the district staff laptops if they're if they need to be repaired, they'll be repaired. How many for this budget season are up for um, lease renewal? It's like 57,000. How many you think it is? Yeah, 30 30 units. 30 out of out of out of how many? Well, if the total was 57,000, okay. And 30 were up for replacement. 30 are up for replacement. Okay, and what is the typical cycle of a lease? >> 5 years. 5 years. So, we'd be extending that to 6 years. Okay. Um I also want to say that I'm very very happy to hear that the administration is looking at Chromebooks in Cherry Brook um and that there will be no purchase of new Chromebooks for seventh graders, thus fourth grade.
Is there Sorry, is there crossover between like the middle school English [snorts] curriculum and the high school English curriculum? Like is this going to bump into anything? There might be a few little bumps like that. We haven't because the middle school did a mid-year implementation, we haven't seen like the full effects of that. Yeah, so we're working through those those pieces. Okay. So next year the middle school will be doing a very similar process to the high school which would be their first full year of implementation, but they jumped in with both feet mid-year and did that implementation. And again, it's a really tough process to implement a brand new curriculum. We have teachers who have been teaching for 25 years and they said I feel like a first-year teacher, right? Like this is very different for them, but we're seeing the the rigor level and the benefits to students really coming through.
I think just because grooming it could be any behavior. Grooming is one type of behavior, but any behavior that would lead to the outcome of it being grooming is I think what they were trying to get at. So, we'll put that in section seven, but we'll keep number four on page two. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. Uh the next one's an exhibit 5:20, resolution to prohibit sexual harassment. Again, no change to that one. The next one is uh 5:30. This is a policy hiring process and criteria. The uh only changes really, I'm not sure why they kept it in here, but they um the only changes really are on the legal references. The policy is unchanged. But the legal references that are changed, a couple of them are in the body of the policy, which is why I think they put it on our list as opposed to just the legal references at the end.
So it is a local decision and we would like to continue to exercise what we've currently been doing with waivers. So we would like to remove that from the wellness policy all together. Interestingly enough, I think we're all aware that that the diploma requirements are kind of moving targets for us right now. I could be coming back to you in 6 months with a whole other proposal because of what the state decided. I don't know how Mr. Wagner keeps track of it, but he does. It's amazing. So that that is one change that I would like to ask you to consider as we move forward with this first reading and then also consideration to approve the policy without that number two. Does that make sense? Um so I ask I do I need to remove that first or do I just strike it there? I think you could do a motion to to approve the first reading and the policy with the deletion of item number two on this one.
Let's see if they can hold on to the ball for 30 seconds. McKechnie does. She goes around, waiting. Minnechaug I I They got like an all out pressure here. >> know why you're not pre- At this point, this is when you almost got to take your goalie out >> like in hockey. Yep. And you know, you have to give up You have to give up a goal in trying to get back to the the circle. It doesn't matter if you lose 10 to 7 or 10 to 6. I mean, you got to get some goals here, but And it looks like the looks like the Spartans are going to hold off as the last 20 seconds are left in the in the game. And the Spartans should come away victorious. Last little push, but Yep. >> just not enough time. And it looks like the East Longmeadow Spartans will hold on to the victory once again for the Spartans 3 years in a row.
um they get caught smoking marijuana or tobacco um and we're trying to figure out why they are doing this. This definitely typically isn't the first time why they decide to do it in school. We have them meet with Jamie. Um they think they might be having a peer conflict, they meet with Jamie or a conflict with a teacher, they meet with Jamie. So it's been really really helpful. So uh thank you to allowing us to add that to our team because she is a big a big part. Um, she also has a bunch of different resources our department as well as guidance. We have support services and programs that we offer to our students. We have a lot of our students that do inschool counseling which is great because they can get it right while they're at school. We also have a um a uh report with uh cartwheel.
Um my question is for the third grade and we're state mandated to have um computers in the schools for them to be able to take the smarter balance test in third grade. But, we're not mandated We're just mandated to have the computer there so that they can take the test, right? Okay, and and prep for the test. But, outside of that, we're not mandated to have Chromebooks or screening I don't unless there's an IEP or something like that outside of that. Okay, I just wanted that to be clear. What is a switch? So, what John Yeah, it's it's um it's a network device that allows there to be connectivity between multiple devices. Uh okay. So, all right. So, like a router. Okay, so like a router. Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you. I didn't know what that was. And then um my last comment Oh goodness.
Okay, thank you. Yeah. Um Dr. Newkirk, could you talk through the process of how we'll evaluate if this is being successful, the timeline, and what that process looks like? >> Yeah, part of the the curriculum resources and assessment suite that comes with that as well. So it's great to look at MAP scores and to look at the ACT test and the pre-ACT. Those just don't happen often enough for us to get a good read on this. So they do have assessments that go along with each of the units. So, we'll be monitoring each unit together. We'll be looking at those results, seeing what are kind of the benefits and the drawbacks of that. Um we probably won't do that for the first unit because we're still getting our feet under us, but for that the other units that they'll be teaching, uh we would do that to see like the format of assessments to track our progress.