001Okay, it looks like we're ready to go, Mr. LeFarrier. Thank you so much, Mr. Earl. Appreciate your time. Looks like we're ready to go, Mr. LeFarrier. I just heard an echo, Mr. Earl. I just shut it off. Oh, okay. Just making sure we're set to go. Thank you, Mr. Earl. Good evening. It's my pleasure to call to order the regular meeting of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School Committee. It is Wednesday, June 9th. It is now 7.02 p.m. We are meeting at the library of the Shepherd Hill Regional High School and also jointly remotely on Zoom video conferencing, which is being live streamed to the district's Vimeo site. Those members joining us in person are Mrs. Camignani, Ms. Costello, Mrs. Terry, and myself, Mr. LaFerriere. Those members joining us remotely this evening is Ms. Evans, Mrs. Kabbalah,
002and Mrs. O'Coyne. Per Governor Baker's executive order dated March 12, 2020, some provisions of the open meeting law have been suspended in order to allow public bodies to continue to conduct business. All votes will be taken by roll call as required by the Governor's executive order. At this time, we'll rise 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. As we begin another school committee meeting, like our students do, let us have a moment of silence after the Pledge of Allegiance to pause and reflect. Thank you. At this time, I'd entertain a motion for the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of Wednesday, May 26th, 2021.
003So moved. Is there a second? Second. Second. Motion made by Mrs. Cabala, seconded by Ms. Evans to approve the minutes of the meeting of May 26th. Discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. Mrs. Kamanyani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabbalah? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. I vote yes, unanimously approved. Next, I'd entertain a motion for the approval of the minutes of the executive session, also held Wednesday, May 26th. So moved. Second. Okay. Mrs. O'Coin made the motion, seconded by Mrs. Kabbalah. Discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Mrs. Kamanyani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Cabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. That's unanimously approved. Thank you. Approval of the warrants. The warrants continue to be signed electronically as usual. The process seems to be
004going well as far as I understand. Any questions, please reach out to Mr. Matthew and his financial team. Citizens Forum. Mr. Earl, is there anybody here that would like to speak with the school committee? I do not have any hands raised at this time. Thank you, Mr. Earl. Next, we'll move into communications. I have three communications to bring forward this evening. First, I just wanted to put on the record that the school committee received a communication from Mrs. Gerard, our district nurse coordinator regarding nursing staff support. And the administration was also on the email, and they are communicating and working on that email. Secondly, I received an email just this – what was the other email? I'm sorry. an email this evening from a Kim and Mark Stevens. It just came to me just before
005the meeting and so I have forwarded that out to the school committee so you all can read it at your leisure. It was just a thank you email from the family because their student came as school choice and they were thanking us for letting them in per se. So it was a very nice email and I did send that out momentarily a few minutes ago. I think that was it. Yes, I'm not missing any other communications. It was only two. Is there any other communications this evening? Oh, Ms. Evans, go ahead. Hi, yep. I just wanted to report that I received an email from Mrs. Mandy Bush, who's a parent in the district with questions about the Equity Committee. I've since passed her on to Dr. Ackerman and told her to continue to take interest.
006Thank you, Ms. Evans. No further communications. Okay. We're going to move into the superintendent's report. Mr. Lamarche. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and school committee. I have a couple of things to share this evening. I know it looks like a lengthy agenda, so I will be brief in my comments. First, as we look towards the end of the school year, I know that we've had some very hot days. I greatly appreciate everyone's effort to work through these current days at this time. It's also extremely important that we recognize that this continues to be the year of complexity and flexibility. And we just hope that everyone continues to work with us and we continue to work with others to make the best that we can through the remainder of this school year to have the smoothest transition
007to the summer. The Commissioner of Education sent out a reminder late Friday afternoon with some guidance on it. I did share that with the community on Saturday. So no further comment on that. I am pleased to announce, which was, I think was announced at graduation that our president class of 2021 class president Cutter Beck did receive a BBB, Better Business Bureau of Central New England Consumer Education Foundation, Barbara J. Sanat, Student of Integrity Scholarship. and he will be attending WPI next year. I do want to comment on graduation this past Sunday. I thought it was fantastic. It was amazing to be in the DCU Center, actually in the Center Arena, to be on the jumbotron as one of the, not the focal speakers for the ceremony, but being one of the speakers, I was certainly
008pleased that it was not an HD jumbotron to be able to. hide some of the imperfections of who I am as a superintendent. So I did appreciate that. But the graduation, the student speeches were incredible. You know, it's amazing how well the high school principal chaplain and his staff run graduation. Yourself, Mr. Chairman, you were a great speaker as well. I think Mr. Chapman. Chaplain, Chapman, Chaplain did an excellent job with his speech as well. And thank goodness I'm not on mute while I speak at this point in time. Certainly a nice giggle in his presentation. I know this evening is a very special evening for the school committee and for two of our principals. Before we get into that, Mr. Chairman, there was an excellent event, proud to be from Charlton Parade, that Ms.
009Pacheco and I think Ms. Lemansky put together a compilation of some videos and stuff for that. So I'll ask Mr. Earl to play that video for the audience at this point. Will do. I'm ready. So that concludes my report this evening. And I'm going to turn it over back to you, Mr. Chairman, because I know you have something to share. Thank you, Mr. Lamache. Thank you, Mrs. Pacheco, for the video. And thank you for those that put it together and everyone who put the parade together. It was good to see it tonight. And we want to take a few moments tonight to say thank you. and bid farewell to principals Pacheco and Pastore this evening and give the school committee an opportunity to say a few words and thank you for your years of service
010and dedication to the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. And we do have some gifts to present to you this evening. I open it up to the floor for those who would like to say a few words or just a simple farewell. Mrs. Caballa. I'll go first. I just want to thank you. You're always there through thick and thin. We've gone through good times and bad times. And the two of you just got the kids focused. Your whole life is focused on the kids. You did so many outstanding things. And not having an elementary school background, I'm a high school thing. I'm always amazed what elementary people can do. It's a whole different world and it's a wonderful world. And I wish you both the very best. And drop by anytime without a mask. We hope. We
011hope. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. O'Quinn, go ahead. I wish the best for you always, and we will miss you. And as Kathy did say, drop by anytime. Have a happy retirement. Mrs. Terry, I saw you, Ms. Camiani. We'll go to you next. I'm going to look at you instead of looking at the camera, but I hope you can hear me. Thank you both for the love that you've given to my children and all of my children's friends and all of the kids that have come through these doors. I think that it emanates from both of you. I think that you both recognize and know every child's name as they walk through the door and the comfort and the... love that you show them makes it easy for them to enter school at the earliest
012level and transition at a very young level to another grade and school. And I just am, I'm in awe of all that you have put together. I see how much your staff love you both and we're going to miss you. And I want to tell you how impressed I was with that parade and how much joy it brought back to these faces of the parents, of your staff and of those students. Thank you. I really mean that. We're going to miss you. Thank you. Mrs. Camignani, go ahead. I'm not sure I can top that one. No, I just wanted to thank you so much for all your service that you've had to Dudley Charlton. It's just, I don't know how we're, we certainly can never replace you. You know, the breadth of knowledge that you
013have is vast. And I really, I thank you for sharing it with all our students throughout the year. I mean, Laura is at graduation with you on Sunday. just watching you beam as you watch the kids walk across the stage and that you knew them when they were so small. And it's just nice to see how they grow and how you shaped them and both of you. It's just, thank you. Thank you so much. Ms. Evans, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, honestly, there's nothing to say that hasn't already been said, but you all are both so wonderful in what you've done for our students and our district and we deeply miss. And speaking as someone who went to college to teach secondary education, I don't know how you all do what you do. I'm incredibly
014inspired. Thank you. And I'll just close this evening by again. As was said, everything was, I'm in full agreement with what was said, and we're going to miss you both. We thank you for your continued dedication to the schools, and I know kids will always be at some point in your retirement, a part of your life, and in the short time I've gotten to know you both, I can tell the dedication and the spirit of students lives within you, and it's in your blood, and so it's certainly apparent how dedicated you have been. continue to be as you finish up your career here at Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. And so at this point, I'd like to present to you on behalf of the school committee some gifts and I have to juggle the headphones, so
015pardon me. I just want to put it here so they can see it. I just wanted the public to see the gifts that we're giving, and I know this is a little awkward on Zoom, but that way Mrs. Kabaler and Mrs. O'Quinn and Ms. Evans will be able to see the gifts we're presenting to both principals. I want to thank Mrs. Sullivan for your coordination in these gifts for our outgoing retiring principals. So again, thank you. And I certainly don't expect it, but I... happy to leave you both a few minutes if you'd like to say a few words, but you don't need to if you're going to be uncomfortable doing that. I'll go ahead and start. I came to Dudley Charlton about 20 years ago and had the pleasure of being the reading specialist
016at Charlton Elementary School under the tutelage of Mrs. Pacheco. And she is the one who inspired me to be a principal, gave me her support and her belief that it was something that I was meant to be. So I want to thank her for first inspiring me to that role and to thank the families of Dudley Charlton. It has been my honor. my privilege and the joy of my life to be the principal at Heritage School. The families and students that we serve are one of a kind. And I would say the staff and I've worked in a previous district and teachers are fabulous. But we have the most dedicated teaching staff, support staff that make our schools what they are. We know that financially we struggle every year trying to make ends meet. And
017I would say it's the human capital that makes the difference in Dudley Charlton. And I have been so blessed to work here. So thank you all so much for your support. We should pause for a round of applause for that before we move to Mrs. Pacheco. Mrs. Pacheco. And I just want to say that if my video, the video that Mrs. Lemanski put together doesn't say how I feel about this town, I don't know what else could. I have just loved my 15 years at Charlton Elementary School. And I think the biggest... The biggest compliment that I could say to Charlton Elementary is that if I had a grandchild that lived in this town, I could put them in any class in that school and be proud that they are being educated and that they
018would be loved and they would be cared for. And because I just think it's that the staff is just so dedicated. And recently, Mrs. Quilter, a parent from our district, had been corresponding with Mrs. Pastore and I. And she was asking us how we felt. And I was saying how I cry almost every day because I'm so emotional about leaving. And she said, she sent me a quote from Winnie the Pooh that said, how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. And that's how I truly feel. I just have loved my time in this district. And I just, and I thank you all for your support as well. Thank you once again for being here this evening. attending and we're glad that we could say a few words. I'm happy
019to move on, but I didn't want to cut folks off. Mr. Lamache, please. I just wanted to comment. One was that they are required to stay for the entire meeting tonight, correct, Mr. Chairman? Just to be clear. Okay. I was going to actually say they could go if they wanted to, but that's up to you, Mr. Lamache. That's very kind of you. My only comments are that obviously we've only worked together for a very short time and we've seen through COVID, we've seen us at our best and we've seen us at our struggles. I won't say worse because I think I only own that out of the two of you. So it's been very difficult. Certainly your experience here in Dudley Charlton paid dividends as we were working through all of the stuff that we
020had to work through in the last 15 months. And it will certainly and without doubt. without a doubt will be missed on the administrative team moving forward. So thank you both. And I certainly wish you the best. We, you know, we hope to recognize you a little bit more before you go, but I just wanted to say thank you and I wish you the best moving forward. Thank you. Thank you once again. And we have both of your gifts over here. And again, please obviously stay all night with us. But again, I don't. up to you if you want to leave because we understand this is a Dudley meeting. So if you need to leave, we understand, but again, best wishes to you both. So thank you. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. So thank you, Mrs.
021Terry. I could open the floor to see if any of Mrs. Pacheco and Mrs. Pastore's colleagues would like to say a few words before we move on in our agenda this evening. I certainly just wanted to open that up. Thank you, Mrs. Terry, for mentioning that. I can certainly, I mean, I can certainly, we have another two weeks, so we're going to be talking about them and with them a lot. But my whole five years here, they've been two unbelievable, talented, oozing with love for their school. So I can't really top anything else what anyone else has said here. And I've had, it's been a great privilege for me to kind of be teammates with them. It's been a real privilege. Well, thank you, Mr. Chaplin. Mr. Packard. First of all, I'm sorry for being
022a little tardy to the meeting, but more importantly, I want to say, well, Lori and Kathleen, you've been amazing people to work with on our team. You've been diehard friends, colleagues. You've always put the best interest of kids first in the community. You'll definitely be missed, but I know you're going to be going on to bigger and better things in your career. But more importantly, I want to say thank you on behalf of all the years I've had to work directly with both of you. You're outstanding people and outstanding leaders. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Packett. Dr. Ackerman, please. I just wanted to say thank you. You welcomed me into the district and working with you and having conversations with you. What's really come through is that you're passionate about your students and about your
023culture. You always welcomed me into your buildings and made me feel like part of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District. And I look forward to you having wonderful years going forward and know that you'll be missed across the district. Thank you, Dr. Ackerman. And thank you all. And thank you once again for this evening. And again, I think a round of applause is in order, right, to finish out our... I mean, Mrs. Oh, Mrs. Truth. I'm sorry. Thank you so much, Mrs. True. That's OK. I just wanted to say that they both made my first year here. I wouldn't have been able to have made it through without them. All of my ridiculous questions that I'm sure they never thought they would have to answer again. As principals, they saw me through it. And I always
024knew that I could ask. whatever I needed at any time. And they helped me a lot this year. So I feel very lucky to have come at least, if not for more years, at least the last year. Thank you, Principal True. And Principal Desto, Mrs. Desto, please. I would love to sit here and give more, but I can't. I'm too emotional. Okay. That was perfectly fitting, Mrs. Desto. Thank you all. And I do think I owe both principals a slight apology for putting them on the spot. So I hope it wasn't too emotional for you both. But thank you for being here and best wishes to you both. And Mr. Lamarche, that completed your report as well, correct? Correct. Do you want to just take two minutes in case they want to actually, in case
025you want to leave? Yeah, let's take a two-minute recess. So it doesn't look awkward? Yeah, let's take a two-minute recess and we'll be right back. Brianne, I believe it is Zimmer. If you can hear me, can you put your audio on? Great. My name is Rich Earl. I kind of sit in the technical director's seat during the meeting and control some things in the background. I have put on both yours and Caitlin Grant's access to share a screen. I understand that you may be need, will both of you need that tonight? I actually just, I will, I think. I definitely will, unless Caitlin has some, something she wants to share, but yeah, I definitely will. Okay. And there was, I also had a Rob Magliano. Is he attending tonight? I don't believe he is. He
026had another, he's, he, he's a part of our champions team, but he had a board meeting in his neighborhood that he had to go to. So he wasn't sure he was going to make it. So yeah, I don't believe he's going to make it. That's fine. So you should be good to go when, whenever. you're up if you just share your screen. You should be good to go with doing that. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Earl, just let me know when we can re-begin again. That didn't make any sense, but start again. Understood it. Yeah, we're all set. I paused the recording for a few seconds and now we're back up and going. So you can begin at will. All right, great. So let the record show we're going to start our
027meeting again at 7.32. Thank you for the patience for the brief recess, and we'll continue on with our business this evening. Our next, our new business item, first new business item, is report of the Director of Finance and Operations, report of the Budget and Finance Subcommittee, and the report of the Capital Outlay Safety Subcommittee Report. And so I assume we're going to start with Mr. Matthew. Yes, Mr. Matthew, please. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman Leferrier. A couple of items for the committee this evening. We'll go over donations, FY21 and general ledger software. Then I'll turn it over to Mrs. Caballo to talk about the budget and finance subcommittee for FY22. So first on donations, Charlton Elementary School, coincidentally enough, received a donation of $30.50 from Planet Aid. I recommend acceptance of this donation.
028So moved. Second. Motion made by Mrs. Caballa, seconded by Mrs. Terry to accept the donations of $32.50 from Planet Aid for Charlton Elementary School. Discussion? Hearing none, Mrs. Kamanyani? Yes, thank you. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yeah. Mrs. Caballa? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved. Thank you, Mr. Matthew. Thank you. Secondly, an update on FY21. I sent out the update through this week for FY21. There certainly still remains journal entries to make payrolls to process accounts payable to pay, but it gives a fair representation of where we're at at the current moment. As I said in my memo to school committee, I do have concerns about where E&D will ultimately end up. We always do at this time of the year as we hope that we can get
029through to July 1st without anything major breaking, but there's never a guarantee there. Again, I think we're well poised to go into FY22 and beyond. having the ESSER II grant available for FY22 and the ESSER III grant available for FY23 and FY24. Those are substantial dollars that we will be able to tap into and expend over the next couple of years, but they have to be targeted and very specific. I'll continue to update the grant information and bring additional information forward to the next meeting. I don't know if there's any questions about FY21 at this point. Any questions for Mr. Matthew on fiscal year 21 budget? No, no, no. Can please continue, Mr. Matthew. Thank you. And lastly, for my little section of this big section, general ledger software, as the committee is aware, as
030some of the committee members are very well aware, because we've talked about it for a number of years, the district has been searching for a different solution to maintain its data and to act as general ledger software. I'm pleased to bring forward Infinite Visions as the recommended choice for the district. The annual cost of the subscription model is $44,475. We currently have $30,000 in the annual budget for software support. So this is an incremental increase. As I explained in my memo, with the option to purchase the software off of the table, It frees up that one time chunk of money to be used over the course of a number of years to help support this process or this new software. So the only change from my memo is where I say in FY22, I would
031expect to charge the school choice account $67,000 for training and the $14,475 annually once the software goes live. We would be in a position to start paying for the software services January 1, 2022. If we're in a position to go live for payroll at that point, we certainly will. If not, we'd be looking at July 1st, but that would be an additional cost of half of the annual cost, so roughly $22,000. I don't know if anybody has any questions at this point in time, but in having gone through a multi-year process on this, And again, just as a reminder, this was the position that we were at just before COVID hit last year, and everything was thrown into a state of madness or uncertainty. Substitute the two words as you feel appropriate. But I think
032it's time. I think just by having just the employee self-service portal where employees can look at their direct deposit slips and make... changes or get their benefit information, et cetera, et cetera. It's a huge step forward, not only for the business office, district office and the functions of the school district, but for employees as well. So my recommendation is that we pursue this as outlined and I ask for the committee support. Thank you, Mr. Matthew. I think we should get a motion on the floor. Then we can have some deliberation. So who'd like to make a motion to... accept the proposal by Mr. Matthew to go with infinite visions for our general ledger software program. Who wants to second that? I'll second. Yeah. Okay. Mrs. O'Quinn made the motion seconded by Mrs. Kabbalah. Now we're
033open for discussion. And Mrs. O'Quinn, you want to go first? Cause you made the motion. You don't need to. We've contemplated this for a few years, and I think it's a great idea to get this software. And I think our employees are very excited about it. Thank you, Mrs. O'Quinn. Any discussion, questions, concerns? Mrs. Capala, go ahead. I just wanted to say we discussed it. This was one of the two items we discussed yesterday at the budget meeting, and I think we're pretty much in favor. I think it started back in something like 2017. Is that about right, Mr. Matthew? Yeah, in that timeframe. We've been looking at it for a long time. We were looking at the original capital process. Things came up and it was pushed back. And I think it's come to
034the point we can't push it back anymore. There's a lot of redundancy up there. People are doing the same thing five different ways. This will be a centralized program. And I think they looked out, they went out and looked at different platforms and this is the one they really thought was the best. So we were in full agreement with it as a subcommittee. Thank you, Mrs. Cavallo. I have some questions, but I didn't want to. usurp the conversation um mr matthew so just for clarity the business model of the companies have changed correct it was supposed to be a purchase one-time purchase now it's an annual kind of a thing that's correct uh tyler changed their business model uh so last year if we had pursued it uh last march we would have been able
035to purchase the software in the time of the shutdown they've changed their business model so it's only subscription as a as a service uh software as a service rather So basically a subscription model. Understood. And I'm in full support of this. I just, I guess we have to rethink, and I know it's a minimal amount, but it's something we didn't plan on was that $15,000, $14,475 every year now we have to plan on, correct? Right. But where we avoid the cost of $90,000 upfront, that $14,000 will last for a couple of years from that $90,000 chunk. So that's why I say in here, it will cover that additional cost for four to six years when you factor in the additional going live $22,000 cost. So it's not quite as bad as a hit as it
036could have been. And again, it's the same model for the two Tyler products that we looked at. So there's no getting around that. Unfortunately, it is, you know, we don't control that. If we had pursued it last year, then yes, we would have been able to purchase it, but we don't have that option any longer. Understood. Nope. It's in, you know, maybe there's some positives here. Who knows? But I understand. And that's fine. And then the training would be a one that that's a one time 67,000, correct? Yes. And it's only it's pay as you go. So it's not a fixed $67,000 fee. If we need only $50,000 worth of training, then they're only in charge of $50,000. That was my next question. So thank you for answering that. I'm all set. Any other questions
037or discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote on it. Mrs. Kambanyani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabbalah? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Quinn? Pauline, are you muted? Yes. There you go. No problem. And I vote yes. That's unanimously approved for the general legislature software. And Mr. Matthew, we look forward to hearing the rollout when it happens. Thank you all very, very much. I know that this has been a long time in discussion. believe it or not some of the business office staff wasn't even sure it would uh go through even at this late moment so i will be very happy and uh to report to them uh the the school committee's level of support on this absolutely thank you very much wonderful news thank you and um that completes your report mr matthew yeah
038well we can go into the budget and finance subcommittee if mr caballo wants to speak to that sure The only other thing that was on our agenda yesterday was the FY22, just to reconfirm what we had voted on before for the cuts of about 550,000 so that the budget did pass at both towns. So in budget message number five that we got in our packet today, there's a list again of those cuts. I don't know if you want me to read them out loud. We're all set with them. If there's any need to repeat them, I think we've discussed them before. What's your pleasure? It doesn't matter to me. I mean, I think we all got Mr. Matthews' memo, but that's up. There's no change. Basically no changes. Through the chair. Mrs. Cabal, I think
039you should read them out loud because the public doesn't have it in front of them. Okay. This was the second round of cuts because the towns had asked us to reduce it once more. So Mr. Matthew, Mr. Lamasch had cuts of approximately 550,000. These would be some new positions were transferred to the ESSA grants for a total of $179,895. Transportation was reduced by 200,000. Health insurance was reduced by 183,505. Out-of-district tuition increases were moved to the ESSA grants, totaling 130,000. And salary line items at Shepherd Hill for teachers and Charlton Middle School were changes because we don't know who's replacing their salaries may not be the same. So basically that comes up to around 550,000, which was voted at the towns. Thank you, Mrs. Kabala. Questions? Nope. Okay. Carry on, Mrs. Kabala. That's the end.
040We only had those two topics. We did a little bit about capital. I think Mr. Math will touch on that. Yeah. Yeah. But I would ask school committee to, to vote the budget as presented. So a motion to with, for the reductions you're talking. Yeah. So I need, I would entertain a motion to approve the reductions in the budget of the approximately $550,000 that Mrs. Cabala laid out. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mrs. Comigliani. Motion made by Mrs. Caballa. Mrs. Caballa, you have the floor first. I think we're pretty much clear on that. Everybody's clear? Any questions on the motion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Mrs. Comigliani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Caballa? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved for those adjustments
041this evening. Thank you. And Mrs. Gvaldat, that completes your report, correct? Okay, great. We'll turn it back over to Mr. Matthew for a capital report. Thank you. So in the committee's online drive, we did update the capital report. and included the Shepherd Hill requests as well, detailed. We're not asking, at the capital committee, we discussed the next steps and the next steps really are to carefully consider the level of the first round of projects that we want to bring forward, the value that we want to see there, as well as what will make up those items. So we're not asking for motions tonight or really discussions unless there are questions. But the goal should be at either for the July school committee meeting or at the latest, the August school committee meeting. I'd ask school
042committee to take a look at what's spelled out there, what was included in prior memos as a list of priorities. and talk to the constituencies in both towns about the level of expenditure that we should be looking to bring forward in the first round. I think it goes without saying that the two middle school roofs are the absolute number one priority. The hope was, you know, originally that those would come in at less than $5 million so that we would be able to include other items in there and go forward with around the $5 million. project total it with those two projects alone costing 5.5 million that obviously is off of the table um but that said we this need is not going to go away until it's actually addressed so you know does the
043committee want to bring forward something along the lines of six and a half million or seven and a half million or even 10 million um in its first round uh you know in terms of addressing the priorities as they see them as you see them and as the community see them so I don't know if anybody has any specific questions or if any of the members of the capital committee subcommittee would like to talk about Friday's meeting. Questions, discussion? No. Mr. Lamache, did you have a question? Go ahead. I don't have a question. I just wanted to add what Mr. Matthews said. It is really incredible the amount of... work that's going into this capital improvement plan, safety committee plan moving forward. The number of years we're looking at really kind of presenting out what
044this would look like moving forward because it is needed. It has been needed here for the, not only for us as a internal organization, but also for you as a school committee and also for town leaders to see that there is a plan moving forward for this. for these types of expenditures not that there hasn't been any type of plan in the past but this is what i would consider a comprehensive plan moving forward for all of our schools and for the capital needs of the district moving forward and it really will hopefully create the opportunity for uh great discussions and um you know uh negotiations moving forward as to what what can be addressed what can't be addressed what can we put off what can't we put off um you know really those really
045rich dialogue um discussion points about capital improvements for the uh delhi cheltenham regional school district uh moving forward over uh the next uh five to ten years so i really appreciate the work of mr matthew but i appreciate the work of the capital um outlay sub and safety subcommittee uh moving forward too go ahead mrs terry I just appreciate that it's a really transparent process and it's going to provide the towns, the town folks with the information of the needs and why they're there and you're going to know what is to come, unless there's an emergency of some sort that we can't predict but it will outline for the folks in town, exactly why the needs are there, and what to anticipate in the years to come. And as a member of the subcommittee, I
046would also add to, I think it's great that we have a really, as Mr. Walsh put a comprehensive plan to present to our towns to really lay it out. I know the boards of selectmen were asking kind of our needs, future needs, so they could do their planning as far as budgeting for the future. So I think it's great that we have this. Mr. Matthews put together such a... Nice report, very laid out, very clear, easy to follow. And so I thank Mr. Matthew for all the work he's put into this. And like I said, I think the towns really need this so they can also plan and keep us in mind when they do their planning as well. So that's all the comment I had. Any questions, comment from any fellow school committee members?
047All right. Thank you, Mr. Matthew. We'll move on this evening. Thank you. New Business Item B, Sheppard Hill Regional High School Program of Studies. And I'll turn it over to Principal Chaplin. Thank you. So I have a very brief presentation. You have a copy of the program studies. Not much has changed over the past year since we've been in survival mode. But the three classes that we're introducing next year are they've already kind of been pre approved because we've talked about each of these programs in the trajectory of the courses that will be laid out. So the first one is the second in the. AP capstone diploma program that we implemented last year. So there are students in AP seminar right now and they will continue on into AP research next year with this new
048course being introduced and students will be eligible for an AP capstone diploma. We're really excited to continue with that and students seem to be responding well. I think it's going to be a great class next year and I'm looking forward to the oral defenses of some of these students in terms of the topics that they research out in terms of real world portfolio scholarly work. And then the second, the other two courses really are a continuation of our Project Lead the Way engineering program. It kind of got paused by Project Lead the Way this past year because they were updating the principles of engineering class. curriculum and supplies. So we're looking forward to implement that. Right now we offer intro to engineering and next year will be the final two classes that we'll introduce in
049the engineering pathway. It's really going to be essential, these two classes, because this year, like many things, the wind was taken out of our sail a little bit because we were really ready to highlight the fabrication lab and manufacturing lab that we created with the capital skills funds that we got a little over a year and a half ago, well over $320,000 to buy, update all the equipment. So that's really going to be a shining star next year in terms of showcasing what we can do and what our students can do within the engineering program. So that's all I'll have to report. People have questions, I'm happy to answer. Any questions for Principal Chaplin? Mrs. Cabala? I'm just curious, how many kids are involved in that AP research as a ballpark figure? Well, the AP
050research doesn't, it didn't happen yet. It's next year. No, but I mean, how many, how many, do you have an idea of how many kids would be into, into that? How many people will sign up? There's 20 plus that are in the AP seminar class right now. So I'm going to assume that those 20 plus are going to continue. And then we'll, we'll continue to build like that rotation. So AP seminar and AP research will run next year and we'll continue to kind of have that same rotation. So we're always planning, you know, at least one class. uh we out when we have to introduce two uh we'll be happy but uh right now we're happy with one okay good good thank you any other questions or thoughts hearing none all right thank you mr
051chaplain and we have to approve them do we have to approve those yeah do we need a vote on this um i we normally do a vote so i would you want to i'd entertain a motion to approve the courses laid out by principal chaplain Motion made by Mrs. Caballa, seconded by Ms. Evans. Mrs. Caballa, you're all set? Yes. Okay. Any other discussion? Mrs. Kamanyani. I think that we need to rephrase that. I don't think you want to approve the courses laid out. I think you want to approve the program of studies. Because are you talking about the three courses or are you talking about the program of studies in general? I think it's just the three courses. Isn't it? That's how we usually do it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question.
052I thought that these are the three new courses that we're approving. Is there something else? Please help me clarify. Seriously. Nope. I just didn't know if we had to approve the whole program of studies in general. That's all. I wasn't sure. Oh, no. Do we? And we currently have that in place, the program of studies. Correct, Mr. Chaplain? So if that's the only change, I think we should be fine then. Yeah, I mean, you're both right. I mean, Mrs. Camignani is correct. Normally it is approving the program studies next year that include the three new courses. So you're all saying the same thing. However you want to say it is fine. So I know that's thank you, Mr. Chaplin. So the motion will amend the motion as long as it's all right with Mrs. Kabbalah
053and is to approve the program of studies for 2021, 2022 and approve the three new courses being presented. Yes. That's okay. Mrs. Kabbalah. Any other discussion? Thank you, Mrs. Kamenyani. Hearing none, we'll vote. Mrs. Kamenyani. Yes. Ms. Costello. Yes. Ms. Evans. Yes. Mrs. Kabbalah? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved. Mr. Chaplin, thank you for your time this evening. New business item C, Dudley-Chelton Regional School District before and after school program being presented by Dr. Ackerman and Director Matthew. Dr. Ackerman starting first? Yes. Go ahead, Dr. Ackerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I know that over the last several months and, in fact, extending out into years, that one identified need area across our district has been before and after school care and having a more
054robust full set of openings for providers. I know that currently there are opportunities in place, but I know that survey data, both recent and from previous years, indicated a desire for a more comprehensive set of choices. So we had a district level and building level leadership team comprised of stakeholders from across the district, both sides of the district, as well as up and down the continuum of grade levels. We want to express a thank you of the YMCA of Central Massachusetts. Also an internal proposal from a DCRSD employee, Kelly Feneza. And finally, We wanted to thank Champions, a division of KinderCare Learning Centers. We have decided as a group to move forward and to bring for school committee consideration, recommendation to move forward with Champions. I will read a little bit from Champions website just
055so that folks are able to get some information. So Champions partners with teachers, principals, and parents to create more than 600 before and after school care and year-round learning environments that spark wonder in children. A member of the KinderCare education family of brands, Champions is backed by the resources and expertise of one of the world's largest education companies. KinderCare Education serves more than 186,000 children in 40 states, and Champions specifically serves more than 40,000 children in 21 states and Washington, D.C. With more than 25 years of experience, Champions is recognized for our leadership in delivering extended learning programs. that are tailored specifically to a school's needs and that provide busy working parents with a safe, convenient program where their child's potential is fostered through engaging and learning experiences. We, champions, were recently awarded the prestigious
056distinction of corporation accreditation by Advanced Ed, a global leader in advancing excellence in education through accreditation. To provide some further detail, Champions proposes to offer programs before and after school care at each elementary school beginning at 7 a.m. and with after school care running until 6 p.m. Depending on the interest level, Champions could also offer a middle school program through grade six that would run after school daily until 6 p.m. In addition to offering services on school days, there's also the opportunity to offer programs for half days, non-school weekdays, vacation weeks, and potentially even the summer. Champions is a turnkey program that will offer employment opportunities to Dudley Charlton Regional School District staff members and volunteer opportunities for Shepherd Hill students who have an interest in entering the educational field. The Champions program must obtain
057a childcare license to the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care and must meet the same standards as any other licensed childcare facility. Champions provides students with a strong supplemental curriculum, delivering instruction in reading, math, and STEAM concepts in a fun, imaginative way. Pricing is reasonable and offers caregivers layered options regarding dates and times. Caregivers can sign up for some or all days of the week or just before school or just after school care or some combination of those two. Reference checks that we've conducted with other superintendents have yielded very positive results. Champions was praised for being flexible, caring, and communicative with both families and staff. In one district, Champions even had created a program to allow the teaching staff to continue their duties during COVID shutdowns, eliminating the end for the need for staff
058to utilize available leaves and providing continuity for students while saving the district money. We actually have a couple of folks here from Champions tonight to talk directly about their programs, but we must say as a group that we all were very impressed with their presentation and proposal and look forward to hearing the school committee's feedback. Thank you. Okay, great. So I have a presentation that I just want to, that kind of provides an overview of Champions as well as our curriculum. I think it's really... I'm unmuted. Go ahead, you should be fine. I think it was echoing on our end, but go ahead. Oh, okay. But I have a presentation ready for you. And, you know, at the end, we can answer questions. But I just wanted to give you an idea of kind of
059the culture of Champions, as well as just our curriculum and kind of the operations and day to day what the program looks like. So it's a real, it's a pretty quick presentation. But let me share my screen. Okay, so today I have with me, Caitlin Grant. Caitlin is one of our area managers and she oversees several of our district programs in the greater Boston area and I just thought it would be really helpful for her to be here if you have questions on an operational day to day from that perspective. My name is Brian Zimmer. I am the partnership manager for champions and I have been working with your district. And I have to say, I've been really impressed just the couple of times that I've met with your team, just the involvement of the
060principals and just how dedicated everyone really was to finding the best possible program. You know, we work with a lot of districts, but I was very impressed with how committed everybody was to really learning everything they could and doing all they could to finding the best program for your your kiddos and families. So we we'd be honored to really support your families. I want to show you this video and I want to make sure that I play the sound. I thought I did that right, but let me see. I'll hit play and hopefully it'll... Here we go. Let me know if you can hear the sound. Okay. Yep, we can hear it. I just wanted to let you know, I think the sound broke up, but I just wanted, I think we got the gist
061of it. I just wanted you to know. Okay, great. Great. Let me see if I can move to the next slide here now. Perfect. So yeah, the Champions Program and Partnership is not like any other. And that's why I kind of wanted to show you the video because I think it gives you a good idea of really what our programs look like. And I wanted to show you again a day in the life of a champion. And as you can see, we will transform your space into an after school program like no other. Champions is a curriculum based program and each of our three curriculum guides fall, winter and spring are broken down into somatic units. The somatic units are two weeks long and depending upon the somatic unit, the. topics will trickle down into
062the five interest areas. So for instance, if we're working on pop art, as we are in unit five of the fall manual, maybe the kiddos would draw something in the creative arts interest area. So we do have five interest areas, and those are the little activity centers or the carts that you saw, the wooden carts. We have creative arts, we have library, math and construction, puzzles and games, and STEM. Now, all of the equipment that you see, we purchase about... $12,000 in equipment per building. So that's the investment that we make in your schools to bring all of this equipment to support our curriculum. We also continue to change and improve our curriculum throughout the year, just to kind of, you know, make sure that we're keeping up with what's going on in the world.
063For instance, we created the rebuilding our learning communities curriculum to help kiddos just kind of help them to deal with the pandemic and to kind of cope with it. They, you know, with this, with this, unit they will begin that in 2022 in the fall and they will explore two-week projects that integrate social and emotional learning to help them make sense of change. The kickoff topics include establishing our new normal, creating connections, and building our champions community. And the inquiry-based projects help students to there are five different projects building optimism is one, revealing empathy, practicing problem solving. cultivating ingenuity and establishing a growth mindset. So those are the different projects that they'll go through in that two week period. But our social and emotional learning doesn't stop there. Social and emotional learning is embedded in
064every single activity, group activity that we have every day. And we make sure that, you know, they're learning the critical skills that they need to build resiliency and just to learn to make new friends. In the beginning of the school year, we also create program expectations. So that, you know, how do we treat one another in champions? And these are posted throughout the program. And I've got some photos here in a minute to show you what that looks like. But again, as a group, we come up with those and we, you know, we have expectations on how everybody treats each other. A couple other highlights are junior counselors for our older students or for students that are showing some leadership. We do have junior counselors. Those are, those can be as, as young or as
065old. There isn't a specific age. It's just kiddos that show leadership that are labeled junior counselors. They wear a little pin and they help the, they help the teachers and the site director with the program. I mentioned our STEM. We do project clubs. We do long-term projects and of course, self-directed learning. You know, our, our, Kind of our motto is voice and choice. We want students to be able to explore what interests them and, you know, try and try again and fail and try again and just, you know, really explore what it is that they want to do. And they have the freedom to do that within Champions. It's a structured program, but it's a program where they're able to kind of express themselves and do the fun things that interest them. And these are
066just some pictures of our kiddos in action. The top left is the little girl with the green hat. She's doing one of our getting to know you activities. The bottom left is a stem. It's a marshmallow stem activity there. She's building structures, marshmallow structures. The kiddo in the middle, he is doing an about me activity. And then on the right, that's just, you know, we obviously allow the kids to go outside and kind of do physical activity. We actually have group games. We have a whole curriculum guide that is just for physical activity, games, fun things to do together in groups. This picture on the top left is a Kibo activity. That's one of our STEM activities. So it's a robotics activity. Bottom left is looks like she's playing with sand. The middle, the middle,
067the middle picture is. part of our connects the connects building set that's part of the math and construction activity center the top right this looks like an art project these two kiddos did an art project and the bottom right is one of our stem so you see she's holding she's holding an ipad that's one of our stem activities So this is just kind of a close up of the activity center. So the top left, that is our puzzles and games activity center. The bottom left is the STEM center. So when you can see there's a little sign up sheet. So the kiddos would sign up for one of the activities and they actually, it's collaborative. So they would have to sign up as a group and there's a pilot, a co-pilot and an advisor. And
068the reason that we have a sign up is so we make sure that the same kiddo is not always the pilot because they always, you know, they always want to be in charge. So, again, it's very collaborative. Everything's inquiry based. You know, they can actually choose between coding, digital citizenship, engineering and even video and game design. Those are the different activities that we can do. And again, they have to work together as a team. And then last, one of the other things that I didn't mention about the curriculum that we develop is supporting our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. A couple of the examples that we, in addition to rebuilding our learning community, was we created a Black History Month activity. Actually, one of our schools did it in their morning program. The kiddos
069did a living museum and they picked a, you know, someone from from black history and they did a put it together a board they did research and they actually dressed up as the person and answered questions the teachers in the school walked around and ask them questions and so that was in a morning program so those are the types of, you know, project based things that we do long term projects, but again we're trying to make sure that we're always updating our curriculum. and supporting DEI in our curriculum. We also did a Disabilities Awareness Month project as well. I also wanted to show you our daily schedule. And this is just... just an idea of kind of how our program is structured. We can change this to meet the needs of your district, of your
070schools. Another thing I wanted to mention that I may not have mentioned already is that we want to be a partner with you in that if you have certain initiatives that you're doing in the school that we can carry into champions, we want to be able to do that. For instance, if you have some type of reading initiative at the elementary level or something like that, we want to bring that into our program to be a good partner and to kind of make you know, just create continuity between the school day, you know, into, into champions. And also, you know, holding ourselves to a higher standard. So not only do we have internal standards that we're always, you know, making sure the quality of our program is good. We also partnered with Cognia and we
071are, it's formerly advanced ed and we are accredited. And basically what that means is, you know, an outside program takes a look at every aspect of. you know, of our business and, you know, monitors the progress. They look at curriculum, they look at the learning environment, health and safety and quality. And this is a constant improvement. This is not like you get accredited. There's always benchmarks that we're always having to work towards. So this is a constant improvement. And another thing that we do is, you know, to hold ourselves to a higher standard. We created a DEI caucus and we also, and that's company wide. And we also partnered with Dr. Shirley Davis from the, she is from SDS Global Enterprises. And what she's doing is taking a look at every aspect of our business
072from a DEI lens to make sure what we're doing, that we're doing the right things. And she's helping us fill in any gaps when we're not. And from both an accreditation and the DEI caucus aspect. These are going to be continuous improvements. These are not things that are just going to, you know, we have this accreditation and we're done. Like these are things that are going to be ongoing. And as is the DEI caucus and Dr. Davis's involvement with champions in our program. And just, you know, I know Dr. Ackerman mentioned that we, you know, we encourage your staff to apply for our positions. We have a great people selection process and we actually developed that in partnership with Gallup. And what they did was they looked at all of our most successful programs throughout
073our fleet. and kind of took a snapshot of, you know, the site directors, the teachers, and kind of, you know, we based our interview process off of those most successful programs and what those people look like. You know, they didn't necessarily have to be teachers. It didn't necessarily have to be certain things. We were looking for more of a culture. Now, that said, there are certain qualifications that we are required for those folks to meet in that very state-by-state. But because we're licensed, we have to meet those. But we're, you know, we really are looking for a certain culture. And what that, you know, what that really is, is we want folks that contribute and can motivate students. They can build relationships with students and families. They need to be highly energized and also, you
074know, be able to implement the. curriculum that we have and be engaging and exciting about, you know, the STEM curriculum that we have and really want to get in and, you know, and get the kids excited about the different interest areas and the programs that we offer. And one of the other things we wanted to talk about was just family support and how we can support your families. You know, the way that our company is organized, there's an area manager. site directors and teachers and all of those folks are able to support your families. You know, the area manager will provide as well the site director phone numbers and everything that they can be reached at any time. But in addition to that, we have a family support team that is available. It's a 1-800
075number. If the parents are trying to, you know, register for the program and they have questions, they can just call that number after hours and they're there to help. That team can also help with subsidy. You know, because we are licensed, we will be able to accept subsidy. Families will have to apply for that. We can't do that for them. But once they apply, you know, we work with the subsidy, the subsidy to the organization to make, you know, get the billing and all of that set up. So once they're applied, once they applied and have been approved, we take it from there. We also offer discounts. But if there are families where, you know, they can't they can't accept or they don't qualify for subsidy and maybe the discount discounts aren't quite enough on
076a case by case basis, we will work with the principals and the families to see if we can provide scholarships. And the scholarships would be from 25 percent to 100 percent of the tuition. And the last thing I just wanted to mention are the open houses that we do. You know, we we will do an open house back to school event or if you have other events where you can plug us in to kind of get parents to ask questions, to really see what the program looks like, you know, meet the teachers, things like that. And any other event that you can plug us into. You know, we always say at Champions, we are successful when, you know, Dudley Charlton can't imagine their life without Champions. And that's how that's the culture we create. And
077that's how involved in your community we really want to be. So that's what we're able to offer your families and how we support them. And that is all that I have for my presentation. And I wanted to leave it open for questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll open the floor to questions. Mrs. Terry, go ahead. Thank you for the presentation. There's a significant need in Charlton. I'm sure you've probably heard this already, but there's only two after-school care centers in town, and one of them closed right before the pandemic. So there are families that reach out to me often with questions or concerns about what they have available to them. I know I'm going to get asked. what the cost, I know you didn't give me a direct cost, but I know you
078said it was reasonable. Can you give any more specifics to that? Where are you currently? Okay. I would like the public to be able to hear it. Also, where are you currently located? What other towns do you currently, this program run in? I guess this is just kind of a small question, but what happened, many of our elementary schools have events, programs, a dance group that comes in or whatever. And so the schools are utilized after hours, you know, after three, but before six, kind of how does that work with your program being present in the school? So as far as the pricing is concerned, I don't have it in front of me, but I can pull it up so we can we can discuss that. You know, we did take a look at the
079market and what what other areas were charging. And we always try to be mindful of a couple of different things. You know, after school, I have a you know, we sent my son to after school program. It's a small fortune. So we understand that. And so we try to keep it as affordable as we can. And, you know, that said there, you know, I can share that pricing with you and we'll also have discounts as well to be able to offer for military, for combined before and after programs as well. So I can pull that out. I don't know if that's how we want to do that or if you have, I don't know, Mr. Matthews, if you have it and you could share it. Yeah, Mr. Lamache has something to say. Hold on one
080second. Go ahead. Yeah, it's nothing to say. I just want to add what the cost is. In the proposal, the program tuition is for, and keep in mind the proposal talks about a program at all the elementary schools and the possibility of a program up through grade six at the middle schools, depending upon the interest. And the current proposed tuition is for before school, before care. And this would be from 7 a.m. to 8.50 a.m. at typical time at the elementary schools it's 45 for the week there is also a price break for the number of days they have a price break for one to two days would be 27 and three to five days would be the 45 per week somewhere in that neighborhood for the aftercare which is a extended period of time
081it's three hours in general for all of the elementary schools it's roughly 80 per week for the five full days and they also have a price break for that as well for part-time between one to two days and three to five days anywhere from $48 to $80. There are also discounts for school district employees anyone in the military if you're doing combined before and after care and if there's multi-children multi-child families there's 10% discounts across the board for all of them. That's the current proposal, but obviously a lot of this is based off of interest as well, which we do believe we have in our district, which is the work that's in front of us. So I'll turn it back over to Brianne to answer some of the other questions that Mrs. Terry had. Right.
082So I think your second question was around the districts that we're in. We have several, you know, in kind of the greater Boston area. And then we have we're not really in central mass too much, but we've got and then we also have some in in Western Mass. So just to name a couple Ashland public schools, we've been in that district for about 15 years. Dayton Rehoboth Regional School District. We've been there four years. East Hampton Public School. We've been there four years. Holbrook Public Schools, two years. Middleborough, just for one year. Norton Public Schools, we've been there 15 years. Plainville Public Schools for 15 years. And I know we also, we've got some Catholic school partnerships. If I missed any, if I missed any, Caitlin, please feel free to chime in. But we are,
083you know, we do have several partnerships throughout the state. And we're also, again, adding more schools for the fall. And a couple others we, you know, we signed on with before the pandemic, but didn't open. But they will be opening this fall. Thank you. And my last, like I said, my last question was a little bit more trivial, but it's still important to know there are a lot of activities that happen in our schools after hours and kind of how does that work and mesh together with your program? Great question. Great question. So whenever we license the program, we get several areas licensed, so to speak, just for that reason. So, you know, typically we operate out of a cafeteria because it works because there's tables for the kids to do homework and different things.
084But, you know, we understand that the cafeteria might be used on, you know, on a given evening. So we also get the gym licensed and then we might get the library licensed or a couple classrooms licensed. So just for that purpose. so that we know when you have events, we can just move as needed throughout the building. But that's a great question. And we need to make sure that we, within each building, that we license enough spaces to operate in those instances. Thank you. I really appreciate the information. And I've been asked while we're talking a question, will there be a cap for enrollment? Are you only able to take so many students? And is this looking to be rolled out in the fall if it moves forward? You want me to take the capacity,
085Brian? So since we're licensed to the state of Massachusetts, the Department of Early Education and Care, we will license to, well, first of all, what the district needs are, but also what the space allows for. So according to the state of Massachusetts, each child needs 35 square feet of space. which sounds like, oh my gosh, that's so much room, but I can have a cafeteria with like 75, 80 kids in it. And that's enough room. And then you're talking about gyms and you're talking about libraries and possible classrooms. So it just depends on what your schools need. We are a one to 13 ratio. So we usually do our licenses in. you know, stages of 13 kids. So we're licensed for 26, we're licensed for 39, we're licensed for 52. So depending on what your
086district needs, we would reach out to the state and ask for those spaces. And then as far as beginning in the fall, you know, we we are a little bit late in the in the summer. But that said, we, you know, are we work with a licensing advisor and we have a lot of great relationships with license for licensing folks in Massachusetts. So, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility. I think you all start on the 31st of August. So, you know, I also know that, you know, that you don't have a we're not licensing for a pre-K program. And that kind of takes a lot longer than just doing school age K and up. um so you know i think you know i definitely think if we can't open on the
087first day we may need an extra week but um we'll do our best to open on day one of school for sure thank you very much for coming in tonight and for your time thank you for having us thank you mrs terry mrs kamanani um i just wanted to point out a couple things and maybe you guys can help me describe them too but um just so that the public hears them is that you had um a non-school full day option of $50 a day. So that, that would be something like if we had, you know, is that, is that like a school vacation? Yes. So if you had, if it was, um, like if you were closed for election day and you wanted us to be there, or if it was, you know, one
088of your Christmas breaks or some type of break, we, that, that's what that, that's what that day is for. And that typically goes from 7am to 6pm. So that's a full day of care. Okay. And also for like a early release day, you have that option as well. Yes. So that is if you get out at noon for some reason and you want us to, you know, to operate from 12 till 6. That's just an additional fee that we add for the kiddos that are already registered. That's an additional $10 to $15. I can't remember what the fee is exactly that we add to that to cover those additional hours. Great. And I guess my only other question is, you know, I definitely miss Terry and I both have small children and, you know, after
089coming home after work after a long day. The last thing they have the ability to do is probably a little more homework. So. Is that something that you are definitely doing with the kids in the program so that if they come at 6 o'clock, we're not also worrying about that as then? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I apologize if I didn't highlight that. Yes. So homework is one of the things we get done kind of before we start with the interest areas and the voice and choice thing, you know, because we know that's important. But in addition, if they come in the morning, there's also a little time we leave in the morning program for, you know, homework to get finished. But yes, we make sure that the kiddos get their homework done first. And then, you
090know, so that by the time you come and get them at six, that's done. I can add on to that, that we actually have every parent that has a child in program, especially in the afternoon, fill out what's called our homework agreement. So it literally goes through and. you are able as a parent to check off your expectations of what homework is. So there are, there are the parent out there that wants to do it at home. I don't, not me. My kid doesn't get champions. I will tell you that much, but I, they are allowed to go through and you can choose what you'd like. If you want your child to do all of their homework at champions, as much as they can handle at champions. You know, I don't want my child's homework
091at all at champions and you can go through and you can fill that homework agreement out. the parent signs it, we sign it, and the child signs it. So a week later when that little friend is saying, I don't want to do my homework, I just pull out their contract. And I'm like, sorry, friend, I have a signed contract. See your name? And we just get to work and we get it done so that we can move on with our day. Great. My final question, I guess, would be, you know, I'm sure that we have a lot of students that may utilize the program that may have. special needs or EL, like English as a second language concerns, how is your program able to help those students? Do you want me to take that one
092again, Brian? So we have an amazing inclusions department. And if I can just quickly tell like a very quick story about our inclusion department. Back when our COO, Tom Wyatt, came on board, our inclusion services department was located in our legal department. And that kind of made everybody kind of think and stop for a second. And very quickly after he jumped on board, they moved our inclusion services department to our education team. And now we understand at Champions that. If we are putting all the pieces in place that are important for a child that has a special need, then they're going to be successful in our program. I've been with Champions since 2012. There have been two children that we have not been able, in my market at least, that I have not been able
093to have remain in our program over the course of eight years. We just really work with families. We really work with our departments and we really work with your school district to make sure that we are putting every single plan in place to make children successful. They go so far as to send us special reading materials, you know, the stop signs that we can put on the door so children know they need to stop at that line, the cozy corner so we know how they can. calm their bodies down we have our break box which is just filled to capacity with things that will help them to calm themselves you know if it's a weighted lap pad if it is something that they can sit on and wiggle if it's a one of our you
094know sheets that they can wrap their body in all these different things are included in every one of our site deliveries and it comes with every single one of the programs that you would have in your construction just one And then we obviously partner with you guys. So we ask our families to fill out a consent to. you know, exchange information form. That way, at that point, we can now talk to their teacher. We can now talk to the adjustment counselor. And what's working in the classroom can now go right into the school and into after school. And the nice thing about that is that they're already in the school. So they're seeing and knowing the continuity of what's expected in my classroom rolls right into what's expected at Champions. I was just going to
095say the inclusions department, you know, is there for teachers to call all the, you know, whenever they need support. But it's also for students. We want every student to be successful. So it's for students with maybe, you know, different learning needs, but it's also for students whose parents are getting divorced. And then the teacher can just tell that they're having trouble or their dad or mom has been deployed or, you know, something like that. So that's really how comprehensive this department is. Sorry, yeah, go ahead, Mrs. Cabala, I see you. And then Mrs. O'Quinn, I see your hand, I'll get to you. Hold on, Mrs. Cabala, go ahead. Kind of basic. When the building opens at seven, who's actually in charge of the building? Is the principal of the building coming in early or do
096you have an administrator that more or less oversees everything until the actual school day starts for the regular ed? You know, it says it starts at seven. Who's in charge of the building at seven o'clock? We're in charge of our program at seven. Does the principal have to be on duty? No. No. I'm asking the superintendent. They still work their regular school hours. Okay. Right. As long as we can get into, correct me if I'm wrong, Caitlin, but as long as we can get into the building, we are a turnkey program. We operate our own program. So we pull everything out and it's like we're operating it. Absolutely. So our site director would always be on staff or our staff would be there to either, usually in 99% of cases, the custodians are always the
097first ones in the building. Usually an hour before anybody else would ever show up to our program, the custodians are already there working hard. So they're usually in the building and most school districts do give champions just a key pass to get into their schools. And then we're able to let ourselves in and we set up our program and we are, we handle it all. Like you guys aren't answering doors. You guys aren't answering phone calls. You guys aren't answering any of the things. It's champions takes over at that point. Okay, good. Another question. It says you can, you may employ faculty members from the region, from the district. Who sets their pay scale? How would you pay? It says in your proposal, there are employment opportunities for staff members. So they would just, oh,
098go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. So they would still go through an interview just like any other teacher I would interview for a position. They would come through with me and pay would be decided based on experience and what works for us and also works for the candidate. So there's always room for negotiation there. It's not a flat rate for any one position or the school district. And what about... Snow days, you don't cover snow days? I noticed that wasn't there. Do you have any kind of snow camp that some schools have? That's a great question. Usually it's up to you guys what you want us to do. So if the school is closed for snow, most of my districts say we are also closed because they don't want people in the building for
099safety. So if that's the case, we usually, what happens is you guys build usually five days of snow into your budgets. We also build five days of snow into our budgets. What would happen is... The parents would still pay for that day during the winter. And then at the end of the school year, those additional days would be at no cost to the parents. I have another financial, is there any financial obligation on our part for this program? But I noticed you say there is a facility fee that you'd negotiate with the district. That would be if you were interested, that would be something we would pay to rent the space. Okay. There's no fee. The only thing we ask is that you give us the space and then we may need access to your
100licensing and inspection things, but you don't have to pay us anything. But you may pay us something, a facility fee, like a rental fee? Yes. That can be negotiated, yes. It's not a set fee, you negotiate that with us? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Mr. Matthew, Mrs. O'Quinn has to go first. Hold on, Mr. Matthew. Mrs. O'Quinn, go ahead. Okay. In fact, I had the same questions as Catherine did, but there's one other question. Liability. Who holds the insurance? Do you have the insurance for any liability if anything happens? We do. We have it on your watch. Yes. Yes. We have a certificate of insurance and I can send, that's typically outlined in the contract. You know, all of that will be specified, but yes, our programs are insured. Thank you. Let me,
101before we, I want to just get a motion on the floor to accept and then we'll keep deliberating. So I would entertain a motion to approve the Champions Program be brought into the Dudley-Chapman Regional School District beginning the next school year, if possible. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Motion made by Mrs. Kamanyani, seconded by Mrs. Terry, to approve the Champions Program to come to the Dudley-Chapman Regional School District starting in the 2021-2022 school year. Now we're on deliberations. Mr. Matthew, did you want to say a few comments now that we've got a motion on the floor? Go ahead, Mr. Matthew. Thank you very much. To address Mrs. Cabala's question about contract and fees and all of those things, the way I envisioned this was the first year would be kind of proof of
102concept. I think it's fairly well understood that we have a need in the district, in both towns, for this type of service. It's been talked about. for a number of years in various forms. I was pleased to join the group that got together to look at this. Champions was actually a company that was brought forward from an MASC conference a few years ago by Mrs. Rabbit when she was on the committee. So when I started looking at different private sector solutions, I did remember that. So the way I envision it is the first year would be kind of, again, proof of concept. When we get to the December, January timeframe and we see that there's clearly interest, that it's working well, then what we want to do is do a request for proposal and open
103it up. And that's when we cut the contractual terms in terms of facility rental fees and all of those sorts of things. Thank you, Mr. Matthew. And I just wanted to ask a question. So to just maybe clarify some of this. provide some direct overview. The champions program is completely independent. You're just in the building, but everything else is on you, correct? It's a turnkey program. So we take care of everything from the equipment to the hiring, to the billing, to the everything. We just need the space, you know, but yeah. And to be clear, it is zero out of pocket for the district. Correct. Zero out of pocket for the district. Understood. I just wanted to put that out there. The only reason I think sometimes we get confused is because it's in our
104buildings. Zero out of pocket. Zero out of pocket. Understood. And there'll be facility fees to be discussed for the lights and the water and that kind of stuff. Understood. Mr. Lamache has his hand up. Mr. Lamache. Mr. Chairman of the school committee, I just want to... I feel it's important to recognize too that this is not a partnership that doesn't have a relationship. We will be working closely with Champions or moving forward with this particular program and it's an investment of time and energy because this is a service we're providing to our families and to the children and we want the best out of it. So we will have a relationship with this organization. We're making it sound like they're just going to come into their own environment and our paths will cross, which will
105happen some days, but most days, the principal isn't required to be there at 7 a.m., but the principal will obviously check in with the program and say how things are going, how are the kids, and there'll be a real good, strong relationship built there as well. The other thing, too, is I'm not sure if it was mentioned, but the group, Mr. Matthew and Dr. Ackerman, they also did a reference check on champions as well. included in the report tonight. And from superintendent to superintendent, they all said the champions was an excellent program and a great fit for the district. So that is part of this as well. Thank you, Mr. Lamache. And I certainly didn't mean to imply there wouldn't be a relationship. I was just looking at it from the financial perspective that they
106self-run themselves, but understood. And Mrs. Terry, go ahead. Sorry, I have a couple more. Sorry, dude. All right, I have a couple of questions. You talked about how, like, let's go back to that homework contract or whatever. If there's families that decide that their child really needs focus on friendships and building relationships and such like that, is there that option that they can come and decompress and play sports and build blocks? do that instead of the education piece that maybe some of us parents would like to occur. But, you know, I think that there may be some kids that need to fall into that type of category, at least for the coming year. Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, other than the group activity that we do together is like a welcoming activity,
107which is part of the curriculum. After that, they're free to, you know, do their homework if that's part of the contract that the parent wants. And then they can pretty much voice and choice run interest areas. They can read all the whole time if they want. Grab a friend and play a game. you know, draw pictures. We also have a journal activity where every kid gets a journal and they can do their journal activity. So, you know, it's other than that welcome activity that's like, you know, 15 minute and then, you know, Caitlin can probably expand on that. That's really the only kind of structured piece of it. Pretty much the rest is voice and choice and exploring your interests and just, you know, having fun in a structured and more curriculum education environment, I
108guess. Okay. Yeah, I could add that. It's definitely a choice-based program. Those carts that you saw, the interest areas are always out and ready for them to engage in, and they can do that. you know, independently, but we definitely encourage them to be social. They need it after this year. They just need some social interaction. And we really, you know, we have best of intentions when coming in that this is going to be our schedule. But I'm sure there's educators on here that know that you need to get to know your kids before your schedule is set in stone. So if I have that little group of friends. that unequivocally needs to go outside or maybe be in the gym and spend 15 minutes just jumping or running or getting that energy out of their
109body before they can even begin to think about homework, my site director, my teachers, my staff are going to recognize that and make sure they're setting their children up for success by getting to know them and knowing what they need at that time. Okay, thank you. My next question is food. Do you utilize our cafeterias for storage? And like, you know, is there a part of the fridge that gets sectioned off that's just for your program? Do you bring your own food? Is it families pack their food? So we We supply snack every day. It's included in curriculum, in the tuition, sorry. It's included in the tuition. We bring our own fridge. It is in a storage spot wherever you guys have a little bit of storage for us. And we have U.S. Foods delivers
110us, us, it right to us and we put it away. We keep it. safe. We keep all of our dry goods in, you know, plastic totes to make sure that no little friends are getting in there, not just kids, but furry friends, because that's the problem in schools, as you all know. So we make sure that things are kept clean and neat. And we are pretty self-contained. We take out the trash at the end of the night. We wipe down all the tables in the cafeteria or whatever space that we're in. I will say that we are a peanut-free program. During full day programs, we do ask the parents pack the lunch. We will supply breakfast. Thank you. I think this question is more for Mr. Matthew. What kind of commitment would parents expect from
111out of the gate? Are we expecting that? I heard you say it, but I don't know if I understood it all the way. Is this one year and we're going to see how it goes or this is expected to be the way people can plan? As I said, I think the first year needs to be proof of concept. We need to make sure that there's an interest level that's willing to pay for the service. Again, I think it's there, but until you actually pull the trigger, all it is is a talk and surveys. Once we do that, again, we'd produce a request for proposal. Champions would then provide a proposal going forward as could other groups as well. But I think once we introduce this to the communities, it's not going to be going away.
112That's fair. And I wrote down RFP, which is my next part of this, and you kind of answered it. So other businesses, other business models could come forward and put in a proposal. Can you school me again on RFP? Does that mean we have to take the lowest fitter? That means we can go with who we think is the best fit. Our request for proposal would require us setting our criteria and then choosing the company that we thought was the best fit for that criteria. Thank you. That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure. I'm good now. Sorry, Gene. No problem. Go ahead, Ms. Costello. Sorry, I just want to circle back to what Mrs. Carbagnani asked earlier about students with special needs IEPs. And one of the things you mentioned was that
113your licensure, I believe, was set for 1 to 13 kids. And most of those with IEPs that I know are all in ILCs here at the Intensive Learning Centers. And usually that ratio is 1 to 3. Yep, and I will tell you that is something that we have seen as a challenge in the past. Sometimes those children that do have a hard time during the school day are very successful in our program simply because it's a choice-based program where they're allowed to. kind of do what they need to do. And we meet kids where they are. If that child comes to program and we understand that, you know, the whole group is sitting on the carpet waiting to hear what the day is and that child simply can't, they're going to be able to have
114that flexibility to maybe they're at the table, maybe they have their coloring sheet, maybe whatever they need to keep themselves okay in that moment is what happens. The other thing I will say is if A child is a true, you know, a one to three or a one to one during the school day. And I'm not sure what goes on with your district and how you set those things up. But in other programs in my market, and I don't know if Brianne has any more information on this, but if we are finding that this child simply just needs a one on one in program, what we would ask is that the parent does supply that one on one. And then that child would come to Champions as a guest. There will be no tuition for
115that child. They are there simply for the interaction, the socialization, and the parent is supplying the one person to be with them in program. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Just to be clear, the motion on the floor is to move forward with the proposal with Champions. That includes the proof of concept language Mr. Matthew was mentioning. And this would be for the 2021-2022 school year for the Dudley-Trympton Regional School District. So that's the motion on the floor. Before we vote, any further comment? Mrs. Cabala. Just a quick question, Mr. Matthew. You said we might have to go out for a request for proposal. So what happens to the vote we take tonight? What if someone came in with a better program and we voted this tonight? How does that work? I'm unclear. So
116the vote for tonight would be to establish the champions program for the next school year. And we'd go up for an RFP for the following school year. Okay. So there's only a one year commitment right now. Okay. All right. Thanks. No problem. Good question. Any other questions? All right. We'll take the vote. Mrs. Kamenyani. Yes. Ms. Costello. Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. It's unanimously approved, and we look forward to more details and working with champions. Thank you so much. We're so excited. I'd like to add that just watching your video today and I'm like super, I'm a crier and I don't even know your staff and I was all teared up. Be prepared. That's what I said every school committee meeting I joined
117you guys for because I was like in tears I don't even know you guys. Ms. Grant, you're going to realize you're coming to a very special district. So be prepared. Seems like it. Absolutely. And we're honored. Thank you. We're glad to have you. We're looking forward to it. And thank you for the presentation tonight. And thank you for joining us. And as I've shared earlier, you're welcome to stay for the rest of our meeting. But no offense if you want to sign off. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next item on the agenda this evening is new business item D, report of the assistant superintendent in the curriculum and learning. Uh-oh, someone's echoing. That's summer programming and professional development. And we'll turn it over to Dr. Ackerman to start. Dr. Ackerman, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
118members of the committee. If it's okay with my co-committee members for teaching and learning, if I were to read my report first and we would start with that, does that work for everybody? Dr. Ackerman, what's your report? I'm sorry, what part of the report do you want to read? I was going to read my report on teaching and learning for the district. That also has linkage to our conversation from our meeting yesterday. So I would start just kind of with the aggregate, and then if we wanted to have a further discussion on any of those components, we could jump off from there. Would that be okay? I suppose. Mrs. Cominata, is that okay with you? Yes, that's fine with me. So for the teaching and learning update, I'm pleased to report that we have a
119number of program offerings this summer. While many districts are struggling to find teachers for summer programs across the Commonwealth, Dudley-Charlton Regional Schools is fortunate to have numerous educators that are still deeply invested in helping seeing students learn and achieve. Thus, we're able to offer a wide range of options for our students. I want to say thank you to all of our staff that have signed up to support our deserving students. It is important to note that Director Allen and myself are collaborating on sub projects and building a district level compendium of offerings. So the substance of what is below doesn't capture ESY and Director Allen will bring that information forward to the committee in a subsequent meeting. So during the summer at our elementary level, the DCRSD was awarded a sizable grant from DESE to
120provide an afterschool or out of school time offering. And it's commonly referred to as ASOST. This program is targeted towards students having elevated needs in the areas of math and English language arts. Additionally, the ASOST program will have a social-emotional learning component, along with a UA and PE segment. This program will run at Charlton Elementary School for incoming grade 1 students and at Heritage Elementary School for incoming students in grades 2, 3, and 4. Program participants will have daily math, ELA, UA, and PE instruction within a relaxed atmosphere. We'll continue to follow all of the health guidance issued from the state and from DESE. And we are excited to offer something that's going to help bridge the gap that our students have experienced surrounding the last 16 months. In our middle school, again, through funds
121made available through the DCEF and Webster V, we will have multiple math ramp-up programs with offerings both in person and via remote learning. We'll also have a small robotics enrichment program at both Dudley Middle and at Charlton Middle School. At the high school level, there will be a algebra ramp-up session to prepare students for the rigor of high school math. As we conclude this academic year, we have one final opportunity for professional development on Monday, June 21st. We're going to offer a range of programming options. So all staff will rejoin Dr. Akins from the leading equity center to consolidate teaching and learning from an equity perspective. Educator, excuse me, elementary educators that teach reading will have an introduction to CKLA. Elementary teachers that primarily or exclusively instruct math or science will have the opportunity to
122connect with Project Lead the Way. As Dudley Charlton is expanding Project Lead the Way into a small subset of elementary schools next fall. All staff will also receive presentations provided by DCRSD employees on social and emotional learning for this year with subsequent breakout lessons to reflect and discuss upon the lessons this year and how to apply what we've learned going forward. During this upcoming summer, we're fully implementing CKLA in the fall. Elementary educators will have two opportunities for professional development with CKLA providers in August, one on August 17th and 18th, the other on August 24th and 25th. These sessions will form the foundation for CKLA implementations. Follow-up sessions for CKLA will commence in September. October, January, and either in March or May, depending upon need. The Dudley Charlton Regional School District will have robust CKLA
123rollout with numerous check-ins and opportunities for teachers to share knowledge and experience. We're currently shaping the PV roadmap for middle and secondary educators for the 2021-2020 school year, and an update on our progress in this area will be forthcoming in the near future. Thank you, Dr. Ackerman. Did you, oh, go ahead, Mrs. Terry. Dr. Ackerman, you're all set. I don't want to cut you off. Yes, I am. I just want to mute so that people don't get the repeating on my microphone. Sure. Good. Okay. Tonight, I would like to make a motion to place the rollout of the CKLA program on pause. Motion's on the floor. Is there a second? Second. Deliberation? I would just say, No, no, I understand you're going to deliberate, but we're going to talk. I get you. But this is
124a huge change. I think we need to have wait until the next agenda because we need to post that to give families and the community time to respond because we shouldn't be just pulling the rug out from under this. because we should post it. Your rule is that the person who makes the motion can speak first. Understood. I'm just talking about open meeting law that we didn't post this item on the agenda. I'm just saying that we shouldn't bring something up. It's part of our agenda through the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee. Okay. Understood. So I wrote down my thoughts so that I could get them out here in a professional manner. I'd like to start this discussion by saying that I am 100% in agreement that our elementary schools would benefit from an updated reading
125program, which is one of the reasons that I had requested a teaching and learning subcommittee, a curriculum subcommittee as part of the school committee. We as a district. have had a set, sorry, we as a district have had a set review process that we have followed, which allows our educators input into such an important decision that they will be in charge of implementing. Dr. Ackerman has straightened, strengthened this review process for a reading program review by creating a committee, which I, which looks at the benefits of brain-based research driven programs. This committee of experienced educators were not afforded the opportunity to opportunity to review the CKLA program prior to being to it being moved forward. Typically our reading team leads and our reading specialists would review any program to be considered and would pilot this
126program for several months reporting back to the group on the exciting aspects of what the program has to offer and the pitfalls that may have been witnessed. Additionally, our district has always met with or at least discussed with other districts who use the product under review to assure that the program aligns with the needs of our district and the needs of our learners. Our experienced team should be afforded their opportunity to perform this thorough evaluation. To date, our team has performed a small pilot of 2.5 months of the knowledge strand of CKLA. This group has not had the opportunity to review the skill strand in any form. This skill strand is an extremely critical component of this program. This pause will merely allow for the thorough review that has always taken place and will afford
127those educators on the reading team ample time to make an informed evaluation of all that this program has to offer. I have been contacted directly by many educators in our district. Some of the most seasoned educators in our district with reading specific backgrounds have raised some strong concerns regarding some of the aspects of the program. I have chosen tonight not to raise the detailed concerns here at this meeting in hopes that a pause will afford the educators most experienced with implementation of reading programs to follow the process that we have always outlined above. the normal process we have always followed and will provide a thorough review of the full product. We need to respect the process that was long established for review of such a large part of our earliest learner's foundation of reading. I
128have a second reason that I have made this motion for the pause. This reason is of equal importance in my eyes. We are on the heels of coming out of a pandemic and back into what I am very hopeful will look like a normal year. And coming back in the fall, the focus will really need to be on reestablishing a stable classroom. We need to put every effort into creating this stability for students. If you think about our students in these elementary levels, we have upcoming second graders who are currently first graders who have yet to experience a full year of uninterrupted normal schooling. We have upcoming first graders, currently kindergartners, who have never experienced any portion of a normal school year, and incoming kindergartners, who much like the current kindergartners, have never experienced a
129normal school year. That encompasses three of the five grades to be covered under this program. Our focus for these students needs to be wholeheartedly on acclimating them to the education, classroom, and relationships. We need to do what we have been stating we will do all year and put social-emotional health at the forefront of our efforts. In this transition back into schools, we also have two new school leaders entering these buildings to lead. They should be afforded the time to establish relationships with their staff and help provide the stability for the classrooms. This is just not the right time to roll out a new reading program. The focus of our staff should not need to be split between reestablishing the environment needed to promote learning in the classroom and implementing a brand new reading program. Please
130hear me out. Please listen to my concerns. Please know that I do not want to come up here and speak about the concerns our staff brought forth to me regarding what they've experienced in this program. I believe a pause is warranted. I believe a pause is fiscally responsible. I believe... We need this to assure this product really does offer what we need. I believe all educators will have a critical focus coming out of this pandemic on evaluating student needs and reestablishing their learning environments. The timing is just not right for this coming school year. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Mrs. Terry. Comments? It's open to the floor now for deliberation, discussion, or if administration wants to speak. Dr. Rappaport? I just want to follow up. Sorry. Sorry, Mrs. Kabala. Are you sure? Okay.
131Go ahead, Dr. Ackerman. I want to start by saying that I very much respect Mrs. Terry's concerns and what she's brought forward. And I hope I can provide some additional layers of context and understanding with kind of where we have been. We have in the Dudley Charlton Regional School District for the better part of the last five or six years tried to pilot multiple reading programs. I say, and I think that everybody's best effort was put forward, but unfortunately we were unable to land and to make a decision. So this process is a continuation of a longstanding district goal. Additionally, because of the pandemic and because of lost instructional time, it's really paramount now more than ever that we bring forward a reading program that really we support staff from day one, we support students
132from day one, we roll it out immediately with the most robust PD for folks that the district has seen at the elementary level. Currently, the plan is to have multiple days over the summer for professional development with checkpoints to circle back for understanding in September, either October or November, again in March, and then again in May. So understanding that teachers will need time to assimilate, very valid point, very reasonable point. We will do everything longitudinally to make sure that teachers get the very best PD, the most extensive PD, and are supported every step of the way. We have an opportunity in front of us to bring forward a guaranteed viable research-based set of instructional materials that has met the platinum standard by Ed Reports and Curate. which are peer reviewed educator sites that review all
133instructional materials. No other program offered rates higher than CKLA. Additionally, CKLA is built upon the foundation from which we've been doing our early grades literacy grant work from September. I will say just in the interest of being completely transparent, If we were not to go through with CKLA, we would be at great risk of not being awarded the early grades literacy grant for year two, because contingent upon that grant is the implementation of high and research-based materials. So if we put a pause and we don't move in that direction, that six-figure grant would have a... significantly weakened application. Additionally, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just want to get clarity on that because I did, I, it was very, very methodical about what I tried to put down on paper, as I hope you can see
134from the difference in our meeting yesterday for how I approach this tonight. But I did not say I think we need to take this program off the table. I said I think we need to give it its due review by the educators that are going to use it and make sure they can see all sides of it. And so I would argue back to the grant opportunity that you're talking about, that it's not off the table. It just needs to go through the review process that we currently have in place. I completely understand, but the grant process embedded within that language is utilizing high quality research-based instructional materials. One of the reasons we were able to secure the grant for year one was because we were willing to dip our toe in and have an
135early adopter unit with CKLA. Otherwise, it's an exclusionary factor. of the grant application if you don't have that as a known entity in your application. I do have more. I mean, I understand there's going to be other people that want to talk, but I guess I want a response to that in particular because I feel that the way that the reason that that trigger has not been pulled in the three to four years that I have been working on this, and I know it was also worked on a couple years before I came onto this committee. So I appreciate that this has been a very long process. However, the reason that the trigger hasn't been pulled is because we have educators that are dedicated to making sure we have the right product moving forward. And
136some of the products that we have in place, you and I have spoken about this, but some of the products that we have in place right now are successful. Hagerty, Project Read, BK through 2, which is the Boston-based reading program for the youngest grades, I think our kindergartners use that. I get that we're going to try to move forward here with a reading program, but our educators have always come forward saying, we don't want to jump into something without knowing this is right, because we only have one shot at this. And I feel that we have not evaluated one whole half. of this program. So our educators can't tell you that this is going to be what's in our best interest of our students. And I am saddened to hear that the grant may not
137be an opportunity for us if that's the way that we go. But I also feel that we need to make sure the choices we put forth are in the best interest of our students. And I chose very purposefully not to bring forward the negative feedback that I have received, even though it's... I have received far more negative feedback than I have positive because I don't think that is respectful to the process of letting our educators do the review. And so I don't want to sit here and go toe to toe tonight about the negative things that I've heard about the program. I've shared them with you. I know other people have shared them with you. They can't go unnoticed. They have to be heard. And I'm very fearful to move forward with something that so
138many of our educators have seen concerns with. And I guess if we're going to talk money, I have a question that I wrote down that I was only going to get to if we got to this point, but the professional development for the summer of bringing educators in for two days has a cost associated with it. What's that cost? And where are we coming up with the funds for it? So my understanding of that cost, it's roughly, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Matthew, it's roughly all told about $20,000, which will likely come from Title II or other grant. Did you have more comment, Dr. Eckman, or I didn't want to cut you off either? I don't want to, I want to be able to be respectful of the process and I want to
139be able to allow other folks, you know, an opportunity to offer feedback, but certainly, yes. Okay. So hold up one there. I know Mrs. Kabbalah had her hand up, so I want to give her a chance. Mrs. Kabbalah? I had two questions. Is this being piloted right now by anybody in the system? So Mrs. Kabbalah, we had a group of early adopters. It was a group of roughly 15 folks or so, maybe 20 that did a unit. And then with that group, I visited nearly all of those classrooms and had conversations with nearly all of those teachers. Additionally, once everyone had finished their early adopter unit, We had what's called a tuning protocol where a few principals and we met and outlined strengths of the program, had conversations about the efficacy of the program, and
140also gave folks an ability to bring forward questions. So from those meetings, I have a list of, I'd say about 10 to 15 questions from early adopters as to what they would like answered prior to PD over the summer. Because again, we're really trying to build a bridge where folks are going to be supported from the very beginning with the most robust PD that we've seen in Dudley-Charlton, at least in the elementary level. Did they pilot any other program or just that particular program? This year, it's just that program. In previous years, there have been a number of piloted programs. But, you know, again, to reiterate, despite everyone's best intentions and dedication, we haven't been able to land on a program thus far over a five or six year period. So those 15 or 20
141that piloted, what was the, if you had to rate it, was it more than 50% liked it? Was there a lot of controversy? How did the results come out? So my interpretation of that was there was a high level of engagement and discussion about the vocabulary piece. There were extensions of conversations that went through just not only in the classroom, but out in the playground. I think there were some challenges. One had to do with the shift. So, for example, in K-2, there is more auditory language because young children process information more readily through an auditory channel than through print. So through those guided read-alouds, there was more verbiage than some of our elementary students were used to. So that was an area of concern. Part of really the discussion will be providing folks, you
142know, why is that done? Why is the knowledge strand vocabulary based? And it's vocabulary based because students need to interact with vocabulary across multiple contexts. And if they do that and establish a knowledge base, it actually benefits their ability to decode and understand print language later on. So my final question on that, when you finished piloting, did you take a vote of the committee if that was their choice? We did not take a vote. We had, you know, we had discussions about it. We talked in detail about the pros and we had certainly had some conversations about some of the drawbacks, but we did not vote. So who made the final decision? That really came from me. Okay. Kenny? Can I respond to any of those things from the feedback that I had? Yeah, we
143have to go through everybody who wants to speak per Robert's rules, and then we can come back. I just wanted to respond to the question. Mrs. O'Quinn wants to speak, so we have to let her. So, Mrs. O'Quinn, go ahead. Okay. Before we chose the series, did we have a committee? And who was on that committee? So we had a early grades literacy grant research group of roughly 25 to 30 folks. So this group was part of the grant that we received from DESE. Part of the expectations of the grant were to pilot at least one unit of guaranteed viable research-based instructional materials. So there was a group that was formed. It just wasn't under the traditional umbrella that we have here for curriculum review. It fell under. I'm sorry to interrupt, but did we
144have our educators and administrators on this committee? So the grant team was composed of educators and administrators. Yes, the grant team was. composed of that. We did not. But choosing the series, did we have the committee in place, our educators, our administrators, and so on? No, a group of us chose CKLA as the pilot unit because it met all the criteria of ed reports and CKLA, excuse me, and because again, to kind of talk about the point, going forward, it's going to be difficult to try and implement any set of instructional materials that don't receive all green ratings on either Ed Reports or Curate. Thank you. Anybody else that hasn't spoken yet would like to speak? And then I know Mrs. Terry would like to speak. So I just, Mrs. Kamenyany. I do have a
145couple concerns and I was at the meeting yesterday so I did address a lot of concerns that I had heard from teachers. One of them first and foremost is that we've pretty much violated our own contract with our union members by not providing them a voice. in this process and that's very concerning to me. We have specific educators that are, this is what they do and they do it every day and they should have the ability to voice, have a voice in this selection process and that's why it's even in our contract. One of the things I'm looking at, you know, we talk about curate and when I look at curate, you know, in grades two, in grades K to two, it does meet expectations in three out of four categories, but the one that
146it partially meets it at is the accessibility for students. And that I think is key. If we're truly worried about our students with disabilities and with EL students that it's not gonna meet that, that's concerning to me. And in grades three to five, we're getting partially meets expectations in three out of four categories. So it doesn't seem to me that it's the best one according to Curate. If I could, with both Curate and Ed Reports, the aggregate rating is meets expectations. There are a couple of sub areas that have a partially meet, but in terms of the aggregate rating, those programs meet expectations. So I just want to be clear and to address the concerns of accessibility. You know, we certainly, and I read the other article that you provided for me, and this is
147where we will use the creativity, the dynamic nature of our teacher teams and our design teams here. to adapt and to modify and to work across district to increase the accessibility for all kids, especially those that may struggle with reading. Again, to come back to that point, because CKLA is so robust in verbal language and verbal language is so essential and pivotal to... the growth of vocabulary and contributes to reading fluency, CKLA in the big picture is an excellent fit for struggling readers. Go ahead, Mrs. Kamanyani. I guess my biggest concern is that when we first voted on this in February, I feel like it was brought under the assumption that it was a committee that had fully vetted this program. And that's honestly why I agreed to it. But what I'm hearing now that
148our teachers are not fully vetted with this program, this is a quarter of a million dollar decision. And I really think that it's an important one for our educators to be involved in. Thank you. Mr. Lamache. Mr. Chairman of the school community, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this matter. I'm hearing a lot about process, and I know I'm young in the tooth here in Dudley-Charlton Regional School District, but it's deja vu for me. We wrote a letter to staff on November 6, 2019, putting a stop to a pilot program because staff indicated that they were not ready for it and they did not support it. We started Project 500 because of the fact. That's in its almost fifth year of trying to find a reading program. That was Toten Mifflin. And Mrs. Terry,
149I know I attended the meetings you attended where half our district, our district was completely split and said that they don't want that program, Toten Mifflin. We're in this cycle of putting a stop, putting a stop. I tried to find a process as to how we got into Houghton Mifflin. I couldn't find a process. I didn't find a direct line of this committee and that committee. So that's, again, that's why we started Project 500. And Project 500 led to us applying for the Early Literacy Grant, which led us to the next step, CKLA. But, you know, I understand I'm a process-oriented person. But my review of all this and hearing all of this is, you know, our letter clearly said that we appreciate and applaud your efforts over the last few years. But we knew
150that people were not implementing the pilot. We knew that we attended those meetings where people were very frustrated and voiced a lot of anger. And quite honestly, our district was split right down the middle on that implementation. And so I just think we're in this cycle of delaying and delaying and it's gone on for, if this gets delayed again, we'll be in our seventh year of a delay on looking for instructional materials around literacy. And I just need to make sure that you understand that. And that's, again, we completely threw out a whole Mifflin program pilot last year, completely threw it out. And I didn't hear any questions about process or how we got into it. I just heard we didn't want it. So I don't, I don't, I'm at a loss as a superintendent
151for this district on how we move forward with instructional materials and literacy that are not only adequate, brain-based, research-based. And even with a delay, is a delay to say that we still want CKLA or is delay to say that we want to see if there's something else out there, because we've tried Mifflin, National Geographic, we could name every, we keep rolling into these, let's try this, let's try that. And we never fall on what we're actually going to do. And again, I've only been here for two years and this is a repeat of last year, a repeat. Thank you. Now it's Mrs. Terry's turn. Sorry, Mrs. Terry. Thank you. I mean, Ms. Lamarche, there was a process in place for Houghton Mifflin, and you came in to some of those meetings and we sat together
152at them. You heard the same, you heard the voices of our district. The difference right now is our voices of our district, of our educators. don't seem to be heard and they've had to come to school committee for it to be heard and that's really not where I that's not the direction that I'm comfortable with this going. I don't want to come here and sit here and tell you all the negative things. I don't think that's productive, but I will give you some very brief high level overview. The content many many educators have brought forward to me that they believe that some of the content is too. is not appropriate for the age level. And we talked about this at length, Brian. The only part of the program that they've been able to look at,
153I think that it's huge that they've only seen one side of it. There's no other way that I can tell you. There hasn't been any text for them to see yet because the text comes with the skillset side and not the knowledge side. So the side that they have of knowledge, there's no books with the reading program. And I've heard it's not engaging. I've heard students have flat out disconnected while they've been in those pilot programs. Again, I don't want to sit here and bash the program because that skill set side may be fantastic. Ms. Lamarche, you asked. where we go from this and what the pause is to accomplish. To me, the pause is to accomplish giving our educators the entire product in their hands to make an educated decision on it. And we
154don't have that right now. And they deserve that ability to look through this entire program that costs a quarter of a million dollars for this district. And I had one other thing. I take pause with the word early adopter because I think that that assumes that 15 people that piloted this program are ready to adopt it. That is not an accurate case. I would call it the educators in our district that have piloted this program because some of them have flat out said that they don't believe this is the right program to go with. And I know that they have brought that information forward to you. And I feel like that's an important piece of this to discuss. If I could, when we had our meetings with the piloting group, we shared positive feedback, we
155shared negative feedback, but there was never discussion of we should table this, we shouldn't move forward with this. So the questions that were raised in terms of, because the read aloud program, it's a completely legitimate question and it does represent a huge shift. We had students, even though the pilot program took place in March or April, Kids developmentally, because of all of the changes, really were at an October level of stamina. So some degree of shift in the way instruction was delivered, coupled with a shift in the environment because of the pandemic, it absolutely did create a more difficult touch point for kids at first. I can also say I was in other rooms and where There was high levels of engagement and kids were interacting, talking to one another in purposeful collaborations using high
156level vocabulary, extending story. So I certainly take everything you say your word and no program is perfect. I will say that up front. But I, in those classrooms, went and sought out teacher responses and just larger conversations. I always offered in communication, if you want to have further conversation, dialogue, you want to talk it through. I was ready then and I'm more than open now to having any of those conversations because I think it is helpful. And I think the more folks see the why, I think some people who may be on the fence. would shift, but also I would say my communication with people was mostly warm in that there were a number of folks across buildings that said, wow, this is great. Thank you. Thank you. So I take you completely at your
157word. I just wanted to provide for the full context that were also a large number of folks that did have very positive feedback on it. The only thing that I will offer to that is you should give my husband a call and ask him how much time I have put into this topic for school committee over the past couple of weeks, because I have received more calls on this than I have on anything else in our district with the exception of COVID. Kenny? Kenny? I'm coming. Hi, Mrs. O'Quinn. Go ahead. Okay. Back in February, I did vote for the reading program. But I don't know if I made a mistake, but I was led to believe that there was a committee and there were educators on this committee and they chose this series. I just,
158my philosophy is I don't think we should ever go with any series that educators are not involved in choosing. They're using the series. And if Mrs. Terry has gotten all these calls, then this leads me to believe that they're not satisfied with the series. So I just wanted to explain my vote. I voted because I thought. And I think Mrs. Terry, you did ask that question if there was a committee and were there educators on the committee. And that's why I voted yes, because I thought there was the committee. Thank you. Mrs. O'Quinn, I asked the question if the committee had reviewed it and piloted it, because I knew there was a committee. Oh, thank you. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Terry, I really respectfully, I don't want to go back and forth, but those meetings we
159went to were not committee work. They were trainings. And it was all it really did was provide a plethora of consternation amongst those that were anti-pilot and anti-Holton Mifflin. It was not a, should we decide, do we like this? Do we not like this? Those were not those meetings. This was before I even started as superintendent here, that we had those meetings with Dr. Nash. They were trainings. The actual whole Mifflin was actually coming in and providing the training for staff to implement the pilots for that year. And what we learned with Project 500 by November 6th is we had pretty much half our district not piloting those. I don't know if you're asking me to. respond i was part of that response to to to to you again i don't want to go back
160and forth but you said that that was a committee working on it that was not a committee working on it those are trainings no no i'm telling you there has been reading leads that have worked on this for the past five years of all of the different programs that have been looked at and additionally i'm the one that requested because of that holton whistlin scenario to have a teaching and learning subcommittee as part of this sub from the second I stepped on this committee, this has been something I've been invested in is this reading program in our district for early elementary. And so we do have a committee set up. We do have a process set up so that we don't get to the stage we're at right now. Yeah. Principal True, I see your
161hand up. Principal True. Thank you. So this has definitely taken me by surprise. And so if I'm not as well thought out, I apologize because this is coming off the cuff. But I do have several things to say, one of which being that curriculum and specifically ELA curriculum is legitimately my expertise. I feel like part of the reason that I was hired as the principal at DES was because of the problems that we've had in the choosing a reading program over the last five years. It's something that they talked about at my interview. I was definitely a big part of writing the early grades literacy grant. And for anybody who's on the school committee, excuse me, or who's watching, who might not understand the science of reading and the most recent brain science on reading,
162the way that the grant is set up and the way that the CKLA program set up literally mirror each other with the skills block and the language comprehension block. So the program mirrors what the state is saying we are all moving towards as a state within the next five years. I am part of several consortiums through the state that talk about high quality curriculum materials in ELA. Houghton Mifflin, the program that had been piloted previous to me coming here, was one of the, there's not a whole lot of curriculum that received the highest ratings on Ed Reports and in Curate. And they're few and far between, but Houghton Mifflin is also one of them. So if we piloted Houghton Mifflin and decided we didn't like it or didn't go with that one, and now we're
163saying that CKA LA isn't a match either, there's not a whole lot out there that do meet that high standard. There's also no problem. program that is one size fits all. So to expect that a program would meet everybody's needs in terms of special needs, in terms of EL services, in terms of any kind of disability that kids might have, that is literally the job of our teachers to accommodate. And with any program, whether it be the next thing that comes down the line, that would have to be done regardless. I have heard tonight, too, that we have programs that are working. And, you know, Hagerty was mentioned. Hagerty is not a curriculum. Hagerty is a supplement. It's a phonemic awareness supplement. It's one tiny little piece of an ELA curriculum. We also use Project
164Read, which is also not a whole curriculum. It's a phonics piece. So now we're piecemealing Hagerty for phonemic awareness. We're piecemealing Project Read to have the phonics. We don't have a curriculum for comprehension. We don't have. a curriculum, a full-scale curriculum. So teachers are literally pulling things from anywhere and everywhere to put together curriculum, and it's not consistent across the district at all. So in a district where we keep talking about since I've been here, coming together and bringing the two sides of the district together to have a cohesive curriculum that offers a common language that holds the same high expectations for all learners, all of that is out the window if we don't have... something that's cohesive. This program for people who might not have read about the latest research in science and brain
165science, which I wouldn't blame them because we have so much on our plates right now, especially teachers. It's not always easy to keep up with everything that comes out in the latest research on science. But I will tell you, it's going to feel uncomfortable for teachers because this is not how they've taught in the past. And that feels very uncomfortable at first, even though the research and the science backs it as the best way that kids learn. And so like the push for listening comprehension key to two, that's backed by science because we haven't been doing enough of that. And our kids are showing the lack of progress with vocabulary, with listening comprehension, with the. focus on reading comprehension too early in the K to two. There's so much science and so much research and
166so much actual reading. You know, I am a reading specialist. I was a classroom teacher. I understand, you know, it seems like the process, which I can't really speak to because. I haven't been there long enough, but it doesn't seem like it is the process in writing anywhere. Do we actually have a curriculum adoption process in writing that we're supposed to follow? I'm a little unsure on that. And then I also feel like when this was brought forward, there were monies from the COVID relief fund that were being used before the end of June that were paying for a portion of this, which was another push to get that taken care of. I could be making that up, but I feel like that has weighed into it too. But I really strongly feel like if
167this is about the program, it's going to feel uncomfortable for teachers. If it's about the process, I would hate to think that the process is going to slow us down from making forward progress with students. Ms. LaFerria, can I respond? Ms. Shrew, thank you for that perspective. My take is, yes, the process was not followed, which means our educators' voice has not been heard. However, My other concern, and I would imagine you would feel it too, for your teachers and educators, we have only seen half of this program. How can we sink our teeth in and say this is what the right move is if we don't know what the other half of the program is? And then my other perspective is I had my entire second half of what I wrote down here as
168a motion speaks directly to coming off the other side of a pandemic and how what we need to do is stabilize our classrooms. And I have to believe that you and I see eye to eye on that because these are the same age children of my kids that are going into your school and your kids that you see every day. We need to provide this stable classroom back to these kids. And I feel strongly that asking our teachers to take on a new program that's going to feel and look different to them while they're trying to reestablish their classroom. And two Charlton schools are trying to establish having a new principal in that spot. is just not the right timing. I'm not saying this is the wrong program because I'm not the educator that you
169are. I'm not the reading specialist that you are. But I've talked to reading specialists in our district who have concerns about this program. And so I value your opinion. I also value their opinion. And I think that these are all things that it makes sense to have a pause here. I was purposeful with what I brought forth tonight that was not a slam. at a program at all. It was specifically to say, I think we need to make sure this is right timing-wise and that this is the right program. I also just want to input that I would be very surprised if, and I could be wrong and I will bite my own tongue to say it, but I'd be very surprised if... My staff had reached out to you with negative comments about the
170adoption because the only thing that I have heard, and people don't always come to school committee with positive comments, but the staff in my building could not be happier that we are adopting something district wide. Their biggest concern is that it's district wide. They are like thrilled. They can't wait to do it. They've already signed up for. the trainings over the summer, they're happy that they have something that is going to address the new science that they're learning about through the grant and that they're going to be using the program. So I think that, you know, there's people that are disappointed before we're adopting it, but I can tell you that my staff will be devastated if we don't. Mrs. Kamenyati? Thank you. And thank you, Mrs. True, for... for speaking off the cuff. That
171was pretty eloquent. I just want to, you know, I think we're just going round and round. And I think there's so many things up, like there's so many things to think about with this decision. We have, we have the backing, like we have to figure out what to do by June 30th, because we have to know if we're going to use it with the grant. You know, we're kind of pressured with that. But I think. you know, could we possibly table this until the next meeting and ask that our reading specialists all come together to go through this program? Maybe Mrs. True can go through the program with them and, you know, and really get that feedback so that we can have, we can have some, just some indication that, yes, we are all aligned
172with the reading specialists, those people that are truly the specialists of reading. You know, I, I'm just trying to think of some way to move forward. It looks like you're asking me and I know I'm the one that made the motion. I guess my perspective on it is, is there a possibility of getting the other skill side? Dr. Ackerman, I'm looking at you. Is there a possibility of getting the information for the skill side so that our educators can have that in their hands? They have not been able to look at any aspect of skill side and strand, I think it's called, I'm sorry, skill strand. And I think that that is a huge missing gaping hole in this process. And I think we should... We have a motion on the table and I think
173we should bring it to a vote, but I will back off if you don't agree. Yeah, I know. Hold on, Ms. Dr. Ackerman, just one minute. Ms. Evans, I see your hand up. So did you want to go first and then we'll let Dr. Ackerman respond? Yeah, mine was just more of a brief question that Dr. Ackerman can maybe address for us. But my understanding of CKLA is that as cutting edge and useful of a module as it is, it also tends to suffer from issues of inequity. centers, racial and gender stereotypes. I'm wondering if this is something we're going to have to actively work on as members of the equity committee as well and trying to make the district more equitable. And is this the best course of action? Are we giving ourselves more
174work by following through on this? So I'll start by saying from an equity perspective, the best thing we can do for equity is afford all of our folks. the highest quality research-based instructional materials that have been vetted because if we have that tier one instructional methodology and we're adopting it consistently across the district, we can ensure that students in all four of our elementary schools are getting a viable guaranteed program that's been peer reviewed. So I would start with that. So in my opinion, moving forward with this from an equity standpoint, would absolutely comport with our equity committee goals. I just, if I could, because I wanted to answer Mrs. Terry's question about the skills module. So the materials from Amplify have been ordered and shipped. So all of the materials are on their way.
175So they should be here any day. And for the moment they get here, they will all, and I've been checking on the order going back to last week. As soon as they get here, we're going to have all hands on deck to get folks everything they need the day it gets here. Can I ask a question? Oh, was I interrupting you? I was just going to ask you if you thought that was honestly enough time for them to evaluate. And I know where you stand on it. So please answer my question. So if we get the materials in June, and I know there's been a request from some folks, and I know Kathy had asked me the question the other day. Will folks have a chance to get those materials before they leave for school?
176Because I know there's a group that want to be able to look and pour it over. I'm going to say the answer is yes. The timeline for delivery is sometime next week. And the first priority will be to get those materials in folks' hands. On the 21st, we're going to have an opening complimentary PD. It will be a question and answer session, a light session, so that folks can kind of get their feet wet. And then people will have a full eight weeks at their leisure because I know it's summer and everybody needs a break to look through and look over everything. So any classroom teacher or any special educator or co-teacher who's responsible for instruction will have eight to nine weeks to go through it at their leisure prior to the PD we want
177to offer in August. So I think. I think from a review standpoint, I think that's a reasonable amount of time to look at look things over. But as a follow-up to that, if they look it over and they don't agree that this is the right move forward, there's not time for that. I think if we take the opportunity after they've looked it over and we continue to work on creating a list of questions, a list of concerns, a list of high action items, we can prepare in August for those PD sessions so we can meet any of those challenges head on. Then we give folks roughly four to six weeks of implementation time to practice kind of dipping the toe in the pool. Then we circle back with the folks from Amplify to provide coaching
178and PD in September so that people have had a chance to get the materials, review them, implement. Gradually. Like we don't expect perfection from anyone from the beginning. We recognize it's a change process. We recognize it's going to take time. There is no expectation from any of our folks that it's going to be perfect from the beginning. And then we circle back and we'll continue to have that feedback loop of PD, practice, more PD. and allow folks to come together to continue to hash out issues and to discuss any challenges that arise. So I don't think I'm being clear in what I'm asking you. So I feel that... The staff members will not have an ability to tell you that this is not the program that they see as appropriate or the right fit, if
179that's what they feel. And so I hear you saying, we can make it work. We can hear their challenges. We can try to work around them. That's not what I'm asking. I'm saying, because there wasn't the process that they were able to be involved in to see both sides of this, they have not been able to vet it. the way that any program should work is that you get your champions of it, if you will, not to use the word we've used earlier in this meeting, but you get your pilot people that start a program, love it, fall in love with it, can't talk about it enough, go back to their schools and get to tell it on to their other teachers. And there's excitement built around it. It sounds like Mrs. True feels like
180that's what's happened in her school. That's not what's happened in all of our schools. And that's where my... hesitation right now is we're not giving that process, the other side of a program, the process to work through. Mr. Chairman, I feel bad because there is another piece of information and it's financial that we haven't shared with you because we knew that this was going to potentially come up as a rich dialogue from yesterday's meeting. But there is a financial consequence for not moving forward with this particular program. And I would respectfully ask Dr. Ackerman to share that with the committee. I just wanted to put out for full disclosure, you know, that we have placed orders and that I did reread the purchase agreement and that purchases are considered non-refundable unless the product is physically
181defective. It is important to note that there is an appeals process in that under what they call a special circumstance. And speaking with Amplify today, I'm not sure that we qualify for that, but if that's the decision of the committee, I'll pursue it. Irrespective of that outcome, we would be responsible for a 30% restocking and shipping fee as a cost. And in totality, that cost would be just under $90,000. Dr. Ackerman, thank you for sharing that. So basically, just from my understanding, if the motion that's on the floor to delay, to let staff give feedback, if they say they don't like it, it's not the one to do, we're out $90,000 to return it. If we return it, that would be the minimum known cost to the district. I understand. Thank you. And what about
182also the grant piece? If I know that that if we delay and maybe it gets adopted because everybody has time, I understand that point. We lose the grant. I don't like this. I want to be clear. I understand it's hard to predict, but I don't know. Just to clarify that point. So we can't predict what the grant process would do. I know that in building a resume towards successful acquisition of a grant, you need to have high quality research-based instructional materials in place for at least one unit of study, as we currently do not have those in Dudley Charlton because Hegarty and Project Read have not gone through that process. We would still, of course, put the grant forward, but we would be missing a significant component for acceptance. So we would weaken our position
183in the overall process. And that grant was how much? Just over $100,000. Thank you. Mr. Lamache. Oh, hold on. I think other, do you, okay. Mr. Lamache, and then we'll get back to you, Gene, and then we'll get back to somebody else, I think, raise their hand. Go ahead, Mr. Lamache. So, Mr. Chairman of the School Committee, what I would like to do is take full responsibility for process issues here. I thought the establishment, because the contract talks about, the language in the contract is really, is not. It's not a process. It's saying that people have to be involved. And it really says that we need to take the feedback and consider it in decisions. It doesn't say that it is the ultimate decision. So I'll take full responsibility because there again. I'm only in
184my second year here. I've never seen a process for adopting instructional materials like this. In my own experience, starting in 2019, working through the Houghton Mifflin pilot and then Project 500, you know, there was never really, nobody handed me a paper and said, this is what we do for instructional materials. And that was meetings with administrators, principals. Nobody said, this is how we do it here. um so i'll take full responsibility for it i in essence i thought when we received the grant that we shared last summer over a hundred thousand dollars and we were bringing all these people together that that was the work of that group coming together to look, because that's why they got $100,000 grant. It included PD, it included research. And we asked the principals, who would you like on
185this committee? Who would like to be part of this? That wasn't some random act. And then from there, then we asked principals who would pilot it, identify people who want to pilot CKLA. That feels like process to me, but I guess I don't. i i'm still at a loss as to what the exact descriptive process is and i'll take full responsibility for the superintendent full responsibility for it um but again we didn't want to share the financial impact of this because we again we felt there was going to be a rich discussion about this this evening and we didn't want to have that be a barrier of the rich discussion happening this evening Sorry. So Mrs. Kabbalah, go ahead. And then next will be Jean after Mrs. Kabbalah. Oh, Jean can go first. Jean, go
186first. You're welcome. My cool thing is, since this is so debatable, would it be bad to call for a special meeting next Wednesday and have this ironed out by then? We're under the gun. The next meeting after that is the 23rd, which time people are on vacation. So I was wondering, Mrs. Terry, would you like to pause it until next week and have a special, get out, feedback from the various people? What's your feeling on that, the committee? So Mrs. Kameniani, go ahead. I just want to ask, next week, it would be a meeting after the election. So do you have to do the reorganization at that first meeting? Or because it's a special meeting, you'd be okay not to do it until the next regular meeting? I don't want to put you guys in
187a position that you have to do something. Because it's actually the policy because the policy is being adopted tonight. It's it's the organization after the it's the it's for us regularly scheduled meeting. The policy is regularly scheduled so we could get by that technicality. OK, thanks. And I have a question, though, Mrs. Kabbalah, I hear your point, but but it's. I guess I'm at a loss because we know it's going to cost us $90,000 to cancel it, if that's the ultimate decision. And we're going to lose possibly, I'm not saying definitely, possibly $100,000 on the grant. So we already know that information. That's not going to change between now, next week, and the next meeting. But people are saying there's so much good points to it. I'd like to see the pros and cons of
188the list before I made my decision. Understood, understood. Yeah, I get you. And I guess my other comment too, I just wanted to say first, just my own opinion. It seems like there's some people that want it. So I think I agree. We've got to listen to that too, because there might be people that want it that would be upset that if we got rid of it. So that's, that's what I was, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, that's what I mean. We should see both sides of it. Oh, I agree. But should we just put that on the agenda for the next regular meeting? I don't know why we have to meet next week. Because school's out by that time and we haven't got the time to. Oh, I see. School's out.
189It'd be bad to have it to settle before people go off. I understand. Yeah. Go ahead. Mrs. O'Quinn, Jean wants to speak too. So we want to let her get in here. I'm just going to say something about Ms. Terry. she made the motion to just pause it. She didn't make the motion to get rid of the program. She wants it on pause. No, I understand that. I understand that. But there is a sense of the conversation that it's on pause to see if the educators will buy into it. So there is an option for them. Like they could say, no, I don't want it. So then that could be a part of the process that it gets canceled. So we have to take that into consideration that. $90,000 goes out the window if it
190gets canceled. That's my point. I understand your point about the pause. We know about that. So I don't think, why should we have a special meeting? Oh, I see your point. I see. I understand. This is okay. Now, because we do understand $90,000, uh, we are going to lose that. That's it. I agree. That's my reason for saying, I don't know why, what the purpose is because we're, we know we're going to lose 90. If it, if people, if it moves down the path of the educators won't support it. Now, now my point was, my point was the process was wrong in the first place. That's it. That was my point. I understand. Okay, Jean. Yeah, now Jean's turn. Thank you, Pauline. Jean, go ahead. Sorry, you have no idea how patient I've been waiting,
191trying to be nice. But, okay. And I totally appreciate what Principal True said. I feel that the same way. And mine's going to be off the cuff, too. And all I can say is by sitting here listening to this debate that has now gone on for, what, 50 minutes? I'm upset. And I really am. You know, because having a pause point doesn't make sense now. You know, the pause point would have been in February, March, April, something, any other time. Even thinking, well, it's COVID right now. Let's get through COVID. We'll keep on this, see about that. We'll look at it later when the pandemic's over. But you made the choice to go through it. And I guess now as part of the collective body, I've made that choice to go through it. And since
192I've moved back to this town in Charlton, put my kids in the district, it's been four years. Four years of really disjointed reading programs. And I feel that as a frustrated parent with the other parents that I know that are frustrated about their children's reading ability, about what's different in this elementary school versus that elementary school, or the different changes of like, you know, K through, you know, for even Charlton Elementary and Charlton Heritage. Out of everything I've heard over all the Zooms and some of the reading material that Dr. Ackerman's been sending me on CKLA, You know, it's not perfect and it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be the perfect puzzle piece to fit every possible student person at all, you know. But it's our best shot right now. We've
193already invested so much effort and time and this district desperately needs some consistency. And what could be better than bringing in elementary students and they're all learning the same program as their friends down the hall, the next room. You know, having that tie in and having, you know, having new people come into work, new principals coming into Charlton L and Charlton Heritage while you're implementing a new system isn't a bad thing. Sometimes, you know, change is scary and it's very fearful at times, but it can be good. You know, all I can hear right now is over the past 40 minutes of people talking about us doing, as a school committee, as a school, as a district, doing the same thing we've done year after year, which is we think about it, we do something,
194and we pause. Ms. Lamarcia said that for the past two years. Other people have said it for the past four or five. And putting a pause on it right now is just wrong. And I'm just going to leave it at that. One thing I want to comment on, too, just to jog my memory about Ms. Costello's comments, is I also think personally just some high-level overview of this, because I understand that out of the four elementary schools, there's different programs between the four and I think it would really be so good to get the four on the same page and give the educators a chance to collaborate so the kindergarten in Dudley and kindergarten in Charlton can collaborate, can learn from each other, work together, same thing first grade, you know, and all the way
195up. So I think that's a huge benefit to provide equity across this district because we are one district. Dudley-Separate-Charlton, it's Dudley-Charlton. We're one district. So that's my piece of it. And I agree. I do not think this is the answer to pause. And additionally, my other comment I want to bring up there, we have, in my opinion, we have a responsibility to the taxpayer. to put a grant at risk that's possibly a $100,000 loss to the taxpayer is a problem. I don't mean that to say that I don't care about our educators. I'm just saying that that's another lens that we need to look at as far as the financial impact of a decision here that could jeopardize those monies. So again, just my thoughts. Mrs. Kabbalah, go ahead. My last comment. I think, Ms.
196Costello is right. If this were going on in February, we wouldn't have this issue. We're under the gun. I don't see how we can possibly pause it at this stage. You're right, Ms. Silfari, that's a lot of money. I think we have to, I hate to say, but bite the bullet because we made the commitment in February, whether we did it right or not, we did it. And now I think it's too late to backtrack. I don't think we can do it. I know there's some staff unhappy. That's why I said there must be some that are happy. Mrs. Chu said her building is. So I'm just saying, I think it's too late. Yeah, I agree. I would just say. That, you know, similar to Mr. LaMarche, if there were areas of process that I
197know I could have done better, let me just publicly put that out there. I want to take full accountability as well for this. There was a lot of co-mingling of grant versus formalized previously used processes. So if there were elements that were imperfect in my process, I want to publicly and. demonstrably say, I apologize. My intent was never to offend or to put anybody off with this. I would just kind of close my point in saying, if we know that we have something that's guaranteed viable and research-based where we're coming off a pandemic and our students need reliable, predictable instruction more than ever, because unfortunately we do know that COVID and the loss of instruction has created some gaps. Now is the most opportune time to begin a new program because we know that this
198program addresses the most fundamental needs of students across the district. And I promise you, as your assistant superintendent, I'll continue to work to get better with process. I'll work with and collaborate with our teams to get better with these processes. and look forward to when we have the next opportunity to really solidify the way in which we do this so that there's no ambiguity for folks. And I apologize if I contributed to that in any way. Mr. Lamarche. Mr. Chairman, I also know that school committee is potentially entering into contract negotiations with DCTA next year. So I would respectfully ask that the language around this to be looked at because again, it is not process oriented. It is just saying that there will be a work on consensus, which would be considered for purchases. But
199I would recommend that the committee take a look at the language in the DCTA collective bargaining agreement for negotiations next year. So where do we stand? Does Mrs. Carminiani and Mrs. Terry want to withdraw? What do you want to do, the two of you? Withdraw the motion or do you want to vote on it? I will tell you that I would be voting. Can you say what your motion was again, just so I understand it? I would like to make a motion to place the rollout of CKLA on pause. Yeah, I mean, at this point, I'd be voting no on that. So, but I don't want to give people. We've been talking over 40 minutes on this. I think people have the right to vote on it. Agreed. That's fine. We're going to vote. Is
200everybody ready to vote? We're done with deliberation. We're ready to vote? Okay. Mrs. Carmagnani? No. Ms. Costello? No. Ms. Evans? No. Mrs. Cabala? No. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Pauline, I think you're muted. Yes. And I vote no. Motion fails. One, two, three, four, five, two. Motion fails. We'll move on in our business this evening. Oh, I'm sorry. Mrs. Terry? I'm sorry. Mrs. Terry. I can appreciate how long this conversation went on and that that was upsetting. I felt like it was necessary to go on because there were that many people that reached out to me. And that's part of the role that I have as a school committee member. And I would like, Kenny, for the record. Go ahead. The reason for my vote was I maintain that it was the wrong process to
201choose the series. We had the wrong process. Nothing against the series, the wrong process. Thank you, Mrs. O'Quinn. Any other comment? I didn't mean to cut you off, Mrs. Terry. Any other comment before we move on this evening? All right, we'll move on this evening. The next item on the agenda is new business item E, Shepherd Hill Regional High School Statement of Interest 2021 with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. And I'll turn it over to Mr. LaMarche. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and School Committee, and I know your first response is here we go again. That's true. We are applying a statement of interest for the core program. In the notes that I shared with you prior to the meeting, we have discussed, even in capital, we discussed applying for the accelerated repair program for the
202roofs at the two middle schools. But in continuing to look at and researching MSBA, they are really funding the roofs that are 25 years of age. and it is a strong belief that they will have a number of applications this year because some districts may use their ESSER money for capital improvements as well moving forward. So I believe that the 25-year age rule would have stood, which would have eliminated the possibility for us to be invited into the accelerated repair program because the age of our roofs are 21 years of age. But that doesn't change our filing for an SOU. Excuse me, SOI, Statement of Interest for the Shepherd Hill Regional High School. Again, to be clear, we went through a very thorough review of this last year. Principal Chaplin and myself and Mr. Matthew,
203we updated it because of based off of some of the review that MSBA gave us and timing of it. The only thing, one point to be clear is that we are with this SOI, we are checking off that this would be a renovation project. Even though we are checking that off, they would still require us as part of their program to go through all of the phases to look at whether it would be a renovation or a raise in new. But again, our recommendation, which has been standing for this since I've been here, is that we would look at a renovation because the envelope of the building is in excellent condition. the Shepparton Regional High School. Then the only other thing that I changed or added to this was that some of the work, they
204do ask for major repairs within the district. We didn't have any major repairs, but I did want to bring attention to on page nine that we did invest in optimizing the functionality of classroom unit events. And as a result, it was determined that replacement motors and parts were very difficult to find as they are outdated and do not fit. through an extensive test and measurements evaluation, several classrooms were determined to have very low or troubling air exchange rates, therefore requiring the purchase of portable air purifies for the health and safety of staff and students. That was a requirement of ours. So that was the only thing that I really added, but we went through this again, Mr. Matthew, a principal chaplain and myself last year. And as you're aware, we. We were not invited in
205this past year, but we felt like we were very close based off of the meta messaging of MSBA. So therefore, I recommend that the school committee to pass the SOI for submission, which is due at the end of this month on June 25th, I believe. And there's very specific language, which is in my notes for you as a school committee for somebody to make the motion. All the language. Yeah, I need that language. Is it in this packet, Mr. LaMache? Oh, in your notes. Got it. Yep. Yep. Got it. My apologies. All right. So to make this a little simpler, I can read it. I can read it. So I would entertain a motion to approve the SOI and I'll read the following language. The SOI for Sheppardville Regional High School renovations. The language is
206resolved. Having convened in an open meeting on June 9, 2021, prior to the SOI submission closing date of June 25, 2021, the Regional School Committee of the Communities of Dudley and Charlton, in accordance with its charter, has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts School Building Authority the statement of interest form dated June 4, 2021 for the Shepherd Hill Regional High School located at 68 Dudley-Oxford Road, Dudley, Massachusetts 01571, which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. And number five, replacement, renovation, or modernization of the school facility systems, such as roofs, windows, boilers, heating, and ventilation systems, to increase energy conservation and decrease energy-related costs in the facility. And number seven, replacement of or addition to
207obsolete buildings in order to to provide a full range of programs consistent with state and approved local requirements and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting this statement of interest form the Massachusetts School Building Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application, the awarding of a grant, or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts School Building Authority or commits the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Second. Motion made by Mrs. Kabala, seconded by Mrs. Terry. As read, to approve the submission of the SOI for Shepparton Regional High School. Discussion? Mrs. Kabala, you have first go. I'm fine. You're fine. Great. I have questions, comments. I just want, for the record, if you know
208offhand, how many years in a row will this be? Do we know the number? I believe it's 14. Yeah, 14, but it could be 13. 13 is unlucky, so we'll say 14. It should be. It is unlucky. We didn't get it. I think this is like the 15th year, maybe. It's been going forever. I think it's 14 to 15, don't you? Yeah, I think so. I think this will be the 15th. Okay. Well, I was just curious. That's fine. No other discussion? Hearing none, Mrs. Carminiani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. Belcoin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved for the submission of the SOI. Thank you very much. No further comment, Mr. Lamache? You're set? Okay, great. All right, that's done on that agenda item. We'll
209move to new business item F, proposed job descriptions, director of public buildings and special education clerk. Is it back to you, Mr. Lamache? Yeah, back to you. I'll start off, but I'm sure others will jump in. This was part of the budget process this year. The first one, we'll start with the director of public buildings. I did receive some feedback from yesterday's meeting, and I did try to make some edits. It's digitally in there. It's not in the printed copy. So as we worked on our FY22 budget, we did work with the town of Charlton to look and see if this was something that we could possibly support them in some way. some uh means uh for the director of public buildings uh so there were some if you read the original one there was
210lots of references to the town administrator right now the town administrator is really in the opening description the building maintenance custodian and town administrator while performing essential functions of the job, which is just kind of a general description. Then the only other place that the town administrator is now listed within this particular job description, just for your... This is compliance with standards. There is a reference to in consultation with the town administrator versus or the town administrator. Otherwise, it really does fall under the director of finance and operations. But what we've really learned over the past year is the amount of work required for for facilities within our particular district. that coupled with our comprehensive capital improvement plan moving forward will require a lot of oversight and support. It's just for this year and it
211is recommended as a grant, it is a grant funded position is what it is. And this is something that I respectfully am asking the school committee to consider and adopt this evening. I wasn't sure if Mr. Matthew had anything else to add to that. Thank you. No, I think it's, you know, the job description itself is extremely thorough. And again, you know, the concept of, you know, starting the budget season with seeing if we could make this a shared position and then reaching the ultimate compromise that we did. I think it makes sense. And, you know, I hope the committee can support this particular description. I'll make a motion to accept it. motion made to accept you're doing both job descriptions mrs caballa no just the director okay so you're making a motion to direct
212to accept the director of public buildings job description is there a second second mrs terry made the second now there's discussion deliberation mrs caballa you go first yeah the first thing is why did we change the title from facilities director because that's how we refer to it throughout the budget season is there a reason for the other way As we reviewed the job descriptions that are available out there, it felt like because this is a, because we're public buildings and that we would also, again, part of our budget resolution with the town of Charleston was that we would support them with their facilities as well, is that we thought it was more public oriented public buildings. It wasn't for things beyond that. But again, as always, if the school committee would prefer the director of
213facilities. We could certainly take a look at, take a look at. I personally like the word facilities better. That's how we refer to it throughout the whole budget season. Then all of a sudden we changed the title and the job description. While I'm on my questions, I mentioned that to Mr. Matthew yesterday, didn't like the fact that the town administrator was given equal, according to the first subscription, it sounded like the town administrator had as equal power as we did. In fact, we're paying for this money out of a grant and we should be getting more being for a buck than the town administrator. I also, in our budget meeting a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Matthew mentioned that Charlton had asked for help, and Mrs. Comrie and I thought, and Mrs. O'Coin, what about
214Dudley? I think the offer should have been made to Dudley also. So when you say town administrator, I think it should be plural. I don't think we should be favoring one over the other. And I would have suggested, I didn't get that newest copy that you sent, Mr. Matthew. That must have come later today. I didn't get it with the changes. So I would take out the word town administrator every place and just put a sentence. something to the effect, depending on the availability and approval from the director of finance, the facilities director may be allowed to work with the two town administrators as needed. I think we have to make it clear. This is our position. It's coming from a grant for the school, not from the town. And I don't think they, the
215way this is worded, it looks like they have as much right to this person as we do. I don't think we should have that. I don't know what the rest of the committee feels about that. Thank you, Mrs. Caballo. Are you done with your thoughts for now? Yep, that's my thoughts. Okay, no, no, no, that's fine. Now we open it up to discussion on the floor. Discussion, questions, comments. Mrs. Terry? I just have a question. What happens if the grant money goes away? One of two things. One, the position goes away or it gets folded into the operating budget if it's available to do that. based off the school committee. Mrs. Terry, we were told that this grant would be for three years. So Mr. Matthews said after three years, we could reevaluate if we
216did the position, then we would absorb it into the operating budget. For now, though, we're covered for three years, starting with the coming school year. Correct, Mr. Matthew? Oh, that is correct. Thank you. I think that was important to know. I'm glad you asked that. For my question to Mr. Lamarge and Mr. Matthew, and the rest of the committee, I don't think we should be having the town administrative written that way. any questions my point do you understand the point i understand your point um i i understand you mrs kamaniani go ahead um catherine would it be appropriate if we just because i also think we need to be specific because it was charlton not dudley i didn't know if you need to say in charlton town administrator when appropriate i don't know i mean
217i i know we had discussed on the budget meeting a couple meetings ago and i thought our feeling was If we're giving the chance to child, then since it is a school grant, Dudley should be given equal opportunity to use the person if they so chose. Mr. Matthews said, Mr. Matthews said, they never asked, Dudley never asked, but that doesn't mean they don't like it. They just didn't think to ask. That's only my feeling. Thank you. Yeah, based on those discussions at the budget and finance subcommittee meetings, we did reach out to the town of Dudley and make sure that they understood that they would have access to this person as well. Go ahead, Mr. Lamache. I completely support and understand Mrs. Cabala's points. And I certainly find it very appropriate to remove town administrator
218completely and have a statement of working together with that. I would just respectfully ask not to put Charlton in because that's for being very specific. And you could be, you know, the whole goal here was to start something around public buildings or facilities within our communities. and see if we could either work together on it maybe Charlton will say in two years uh we'll fund 50 percent of it to keep it because we want some of it more with our building and Dudley may say you know we wanted to for you we just needed to overlook the um the ask me building within our town that we're buying is a public building and so we just want this person to overlook that so I just I wouldn't be restrictive in it but I do like
219that the Mrs. Cabal's recommendation for our clause to say that with time of with availability based as determined by the director of finance and operations the director of facilities will certainly be made available to our local communities or something of that nature to our town administrators. You don't have to put their names in. Just say the town administrators. Put a plural in case Dudley does want it. Yeah, I think that sounds good. I mean, I have no problem with it. I don't know if anybody else, everybody okay? If there's no more discussion, we'll vote and they're going to make those changes. Mrs. Cavalli, you're fine with that? Yeah, that's what I would like. We'll take it out and just put that clause, that sentence saying that they would be able to them, but we're footing
220the bill and we have the first crack, so to speak. Understood. If there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote. So the motion is to approve the director of public buildings job description with the changes as far as adding town administrators, plural, and getting the statement in there that it's a position that's flexible and based on the needs of the director of finance and operations and to see if both towns could use some support. I would change the title to facilities director, leave it director of public buildings. I like the title as is, but again, that's up to everybody else. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Matthew, please. I hate to be radical, but could I make the suggestion that we call it the director of public facilities? I do like the concept of including the word
221public in there. That way it's clear it's not a private facility. And there is a certain level of expertise that comes with municipal work. Is that, that's fine with me? Mrs. Cabala, this is your motion. Yeah, that's the director of public facility. Sounds good. Yeah, because that's your motion. You're okay with that? Yes, I am. Yes. Okay. And the second, Mrs. Terry's fine with it? Great. No other discussion? All right. We'll do the vote. Mrs. Carminiani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Cabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. That's unanimously approved with those updates and changes. Next, I'd entertain a motion just to get the deliberation on the floor of accepting the job description for the special education clerk. I'll move. Is there a second? Second. Motion made
222by Mrs. Cavallo, seconded by Mrs. Terry. I know Mr. Lamache is going to explain it, but Mrs. Cavallo, you want to speak after he explains, correct? Yep. Very good. Mr. Lamache. Mr. Chairman of the school committee, number one, I do appreciate the feedback on this. So those corrections were made this afternoon and it was put into the file. Some of those corrections were more, let's call them grammatical. John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, But the content of this did not change. John Gerstle PB, Basically, the reason why this is coming forward is because when the district moved to John Gerstle PB, Go from seven team chairpersons one per building to four coordinators. What it did is it compounded the amount of clerical work of those coordinators to complete. I don't know if that was, you
223know, not seen at the time, but it's emerged at this point in time. And I think part of that is probably because of the increased amount of paperwork on all educators of special education moving forward. My understanding also is that there were previous years, this has been a kind of a back and forth thing. There were previous years where I think where there were ARRA funds were dedicated towards adding some clerks, special education clerks for support for the team chairs. So this has not been, this is not a new. completely new request but we believe that this special education clerk will do an incredible amount of work for our special education coordinators in the district now that we have four of them at this point in time this will be grant funded as well and
224it's highly recommended by Ms. Allen, who is the Director of Personnel Services and unfortunately couldn't be here this evening, but it's also highly recommended by myself working with the coordinators and Ms. Allen and by central office administrators. Thank you, Mr. Lamache. Mrs. Cabal, you have first crack. Yeah, I have a question for Mr. Lamache. When I've been up there a couple of times the last couple of weeks, we have a person comes in half time to help out right now. Is this person going to be expanded or is there another person besides that half time person? So the recommendation is that that limited support that's already in place would be eliminated and this would be folded into this person's position. Okay. And is it a full year or school year? I'm sorry. It could be,
225it's a school year, 10 month position. Okay. According to the wage and benefits document, it should say 10 month position in there. Okay. And it could be, it could end up just, just to be clear, it could end up being the same person, but we're not going to, we're not going to run both positions simultaneous. Technically it'd be only half a salary increase, right? Because half is already being paid to that person. Probably. Yeah. Pretty close. Yes. About, about. All right. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Any other, now we're open for deliberation, discussion. Hearing none, we'll vote on that. The motion is to accept the job description for the special education clerk with those changes that have already been made. Mrs. Kamanyani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Cabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs.
226O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. That's unanimously approved. We're done. That's great. Thank you. Next is the report of the policy subcommittee. And Mrs. Cabala, Ms. Evans, and I met, or Ms. Evans couldn't make it. I'm sorry, but we did catch her up. There wasn't much that she missed. And the first policy this evening. So first, I would entertain a motion to waive the reading of policy BBAA, purpose and role of school committee for the second read. So moved. Second. Second motion to be made by Mrs. Cavallo, seconded by Mrs. Terry, to waive the reading of BBAA. Discussion? Hearing none, Mrs. Kameniani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. DelCoin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved to waive the reading. Now I would entertain a motion for
227the second read and adoption of policy BBAA purpose and role of the school committee. So moved. Mrs. Kabala made the motion. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mrs. Kamanyani. Discussion, Mrs. Kabala? It's exactly the same as the last first read. Did you make any changes on this one from the first read? I don't believe. I agree. Yeah, no, I don't think there was any changes. So that no changes. Any other discussion questions? Hearing none. Mrs. Comignani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. That's unanimously approved and it's adopted as of today. The next policy, I would entertain a motion to waive the reading for policy BDA, school committee organizational meeting. Second read. So moved. Second. Motion has been made by Mrs.
228Kabala, seconded by Mrs. O'Coin to waive the reading for policy BDA. Discussion? Hearing none, Mrs. Kamenani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Quinn? Yes. I vote yes. It's unanimous that we're waiving the reading of Policy BDA. Now I'd entertain a motion for the second read and adoption of Policy BDA School Committee Organizational Meeting. So moved. Second. Motion made by Mrs. Caballa, seconded by Mrs. O'Coin for the second read and adoption of policy BDA, school committee organizational meeting discussion. Mrs. Caballa. We made a couple of changes. We took out the word treasurer being appointed because by law, Mr. Lamarche said we do not do that. The treasurer is a paid position that we have. So it's out of our hands. So we took out the word treasurer. We
229are in charge of the assistant treasurer, but not the treasurer. And the other move, Mrs. Kamenyany had asked us about pro temps we put in until a new chair was elected. We added that after the word pro temps until a new chair was elected. I think those are the only changes. Yes. And to clarify your point, Mrs. Kabala, by law, the treasurer cannot be a school committee member. That's why we took it out. So just for further clarification. Any other discussion, comment? Hearing none, we'll vote on the second read for policy BDA. Mrs. Kamenyany. Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Caballa? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes, unanimously approved for the second read and adoption as of today for policy BDA school committee organizational meeting. So those are
230those policies. Those are all set. Next item is new business item H, update, superintendent's evaluation. Mr. Lamarche, I've asked him to present dates for his evaluation as was requested by the committee to delay till July, August. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Lamarche. Mr. Chairman, the school committee, it's actually quite simple. Whatever date the July meeting is set for, the school committee meeting, I will present a self-evaluation to the school committee, and I will also present evidence in support of my self-evaluation and the evaluation. And then at the August meeting, again, whatever date is set, school committee will complete the evaluation of the superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Lamache. So I would entertain a motion that the school committee would accept the proposed timeline for the superintendent's evaluation for school year 2020-2021. Is there a
231second? A motion, I mean. It's for this school year, current school year. Is there a motion to accept the timeline? All motion. Motion. Ms. Evans made the motion. Is there a second? Second. Second. Now we're in deliberation. Ms. Evans, you get to go first since you made the motion. I will hold off for a moment and see what other people have to say. Understood. Fine. So just to be clear, this is the timeline for the evaluation for the current school year we're in because we delayed it. And as I shared on an email to the school committee, I would recommend that we start goals and start the whole thing for the next school year starting in September. So I know it's going to be July, August, and then September, but that's just the way the
232time worked out. So I would recommend we, at the September meeting, we would propose, we would request the superintendent to set goals and indicators, and then we would approve those, you know, accept or approve that template in September. for the year. So then we're ready to, so we have it in September and then we can have a nice timeline for the whole year with the goal of completing the evaluation process by the last meeting in April. That way it doesn't affect any of the town elections. So I just wanted to put that out there. Discussion, questions, concerns? If not, we'll vote. All right. Hearing none, Mrs. Kameniani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Caballa? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes. That's approved unanimously for the superintendent evaluation timeline.
233All right, moving right along here. New business item I, school committee remote participation in accordance with 940 CMR 2910. And you'll see it in your packets, the information about that. This was on the agenda last meeting to discuss remote participation. As I shared from the information I received from MASC, the governor has extended the use of Zoom and these remote meetings until September. So we can continue as we are. It depends on the wish of the committee. If we want to all return in person, it's up to what you guys want to do. We can continue to Zoom by law because the governor has extended it. We can also approve use of telephone for, I'm talking school committee members, to call into the meeting if they can't come. Again, I open it up to the
234floor for discussion. Mrs. Kabbalah. I think it would be nice, starting with the new reorganization and so forth, that we go back to the usual routine where we just have it done by Mr. Earle, but have the option of speakerphone calling that the selectmen already do in both towns, I believe. And that's allowed by law, too. That's been allowed a long time ago, but we never adopted it. Yes, it is allowed by law regardless of the pandemic, but the local board or committee has to vote to allow it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the difference. But the Zoom piece can continue only until September. I haven't heard any further update. Mr. Lamache, you haven't received any further update on that? No. So again, that's all I know at this time. Any other? I agree
235with Kathy. I think we should all go back. And if someone is out to call in. Call in by telephone. If they wish. By telephone. If they wish. Understood. Any thoughts? Do we want to motion on the floor? What do people want to do? What would the motion have to be? To have the phone in or just to go back to regular meetings? I think we have to, no, we would, well, I don't, the regular meeting doesn't need a vote, but to go back, I think it's just a motion to allow the elected school committee members to call into the meeting and still be able to participate. And in that scenario, all votes must be taken by roll call, just as an FYI. I'll make that motion that we allow the call in. I think,
236isn't it supposed to be for some specific reason? You can't just do it because you don't feel like going? I don't think it's a specific reason. I think in the past it had to be like if you were sick or out of work, out of business, a trip or something. Yeah, I don't recall the language. I think it's if you can't be there in person. Oh, you got it, Jamie? Go ahead, Mrs. Terry. Mrs. Cabala made a motion, so we just want to put a second on that. We need a second. And to get it on the floor. I'll second it. You seconded that, Ms. Evans. Great. So motion's made to allow the elected officials to call in by telephone for meetings. And Ms. Evans seconded it. We're in deliberation. Mrs. Cabala, you don't need
237to go first, correct? No, because Mrs. Terry's looking it up. I just wanted to make sure because you made the motion. Now, Mrs. Terry. Yeah, it's 940 CMR 2910, remote participation. And there's, it's long. The numbers one through nine. And so adoption of remote participation, remote, that's number, this is number two. Remote participation in meetings of public bodies is not permitted unless the practice has been adopted as follows. A, local public bodies, the chief executive officer. must authorize or by a simple majority vote to allow remote participation in accordance with the requirements of 940 CMR 2910 with the authorization or vote applying to all subsequent meetings of all local public bodies in that municipality. Does that mean? Let's see. Oh, school districts. I'm sorry. I was going to read it all, but yeah, okay. The
238regional school district. The regional school district committee must by a simple majority vote to allow remote participation in accordance with the requirements of 940 CMR 2910 with that vote applying to all subsequent meetings to that public body and its committees. I suppose that's all we need to read for that. I guess there's no stipulation. You can call me. You want me to read it? Do you want to just read it? I'll just read it. Okay, so then following through. Under 2910 subsection 5 is permissible reason for remote participation. If remote participation has been adopted in accordance with 940 CMR 29.10.2, a member of public body shall be permitted to participate remotely in a meeting in accordance with the procedures as described in 940 CMR 29.10.7, only if physical attendance would be unreasonably difficult. And that
239is the only reason. Unreasonably difficult, but how would you know, like technically? Okay, well, if it's August and it timed and I already had my trip planned before I was school committee, it would be really hard for me to be here if I'm in Michigan. That would be unreasonably difficult. It's vague on purpose. Any further discussion of the motion on the floor to allow for elected members to call into meetings to continue to participate? Oh, Mr. Lamache, please. Mr. Chairman, it goes to 2910 subsection seven goes on for procedures for remote participation. And it basically states that any member of public body who wishes to participate remotely shall as soon as reasonably possible prior to a meeting notify the chair or the chairs or in the chair's absence, the person chairing the meeting of his
240or her desire to do so. And the reason for in fact supporting his or her request be. At the start of the meeting, the chair shall announce the name of any member who will be participating remotely. This information shall also be recorded in the meeting minutes. C, all votes taken during any meeting in which a member participates remotely shall be a roll call vote. D, a member participating remotely may participate in an executive session, but shall state at the start of any such session that no other person is present and or able to hear the discussion at the remote location unless presence of that person is approved by a simple majority vote of the public body. e. When feasible, the chair or the chairs in the chair's absence, the person chairing the meeting, shall distribute
241to remote participants in advance of the meeting copies of any documents or exhibits that he or she reasonably anticipates will be used during the meeting. If used during the meeting, such documents shall be part of the official record of the meeting and shall be listed in the meeting minutes and retained in accordance with MGLC 30A, subsection 22. Thank you very much, Mr. Lamache. Any further discussion? Kenny, I think we should take a vote to go back to our regular meetings and then take a vote on the telephone because some people may vote against that part. Okay, so the motions on the floor, we should vote for us, the telephone part? Or just going back to our meeting without Zooming and then take up the telephone part. Okay, Mrs. O'Brien. I made a motion. What did
242my motion say? Right now, the motion is for the telephone. Do you want to put that aside for a moment? No, right now, my motion, I think, was... You put it together, Kathy. Put the two together. Yeah. We'll separate them, okay? Well, I think if you separate it, a person might want the remote parts, but we'll know to come back. I would put it all as one motion. I would, what my motion said, we could turn to in-person meetings with the option of 940-CMR-2910 for remote call-ins. That's my motion because I think it goes together. So that's the motion on the floor. We'll just vote on it. And I think Ms. Evans seconded that, didn't she? Yes, Ms. Evans seconded it. And is there any other discussion before we vote? Hearing none, the motion is
243to allow remote participation by telephone and to return to in-person meetings as a full committee. Mrs. Kamanyani? Yes. Ms. Costello? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mrs. Kabala? Yes. Mrs. Terry? Yes. Mrs. O'Coin? Yes. And I vote yes, that's unanimously approved. Thank you very much. and we'll be back next meeting in person unless someone needs to call. That completes our new business this evening. Our next meeting dates, school committee meeting, regular meeting, Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 at 7 p.m. That will be at Charlton Middle School and we'll be back in person. Budget and finance subcommittee date. Do we have a date, Mrs. Cabala, or is it to be determined? It's to be determined because as of next week, the committee disbands because all subcommittees have to be reappointed after the reorganization. So we couldn't make a date.
244We don't even know who would be on the committee. So we put it on hold. Understood. That's fine. Not a problem. And then policy review. Some of these dates have been set. Obviously, they can be changed because we're reorganizing. But the policy review meeting was set for Friday, July 9th at 9 a.m. Curriculum Subcommittee for Teaching and Learning was to be determined. That's correct, Mrs. Terry and Mrs. Comigliani and Dr. Ackerman. Yes. Okay. And Capital Outlay Safety Committee Subcommittee, the date set Friday, July 16th at 11 a.m. But Mrs. Caballa's point is valid. And again, if those need to be changed, they can be changed. Future agenda items, school committee reorganization, that'll be the next meeting. Update specialized programming, Dudley-Chatton Regional School District strategic plan progress report, superintendent's evaluations coming up as discussed, school committee
245summer workshop, we have to book dates for that in July and July end or August. Approval of the Dudley-Chatton Regional School District student handbooks in August. Are there any other future agenda items that folks want to add? All right, hearing none, very good. So at this time, we will enter into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective by-