MRSD School Committee Meeting 11/09/22

001okay thank you um so we're good um okay thanks um everybody I uh we're a little late on people tonight a lot of emergent situations um so we have a quorum so we're able to proceed with our November 9th regular school committee meeting um I just wanted to start uh in my comments um with a congratulations to Mara Haley on her historic whim she said it fast last night quote and I quote to every little girl and young lgbtq person out there I hope tonight shows you that you can be whatever or whoever you want to as the first female governor in Massachusetts in the first lgbtq governor ever elected this is the exact message we want to be sending to our students every one of them matter and when they can see themselves represented

002and in those in positions of power they can feel promised that they too have the choice or power to be whatever the it is they want to be so our goal as a district is to provide these safe spaces for all of our students so that they can see succeed however they want along those lines we have a bunch of fall athletes that are in the playoffs and I want to congratulate them all and wish them the best of luck I believe that it is um soccer that girls soccer that is tonight so hopefully we'll get an update at some point during the meeting that they went so those are all of my comments um anybody in the audience want to um so do you have a comment I think we're over there now Kathleen

003oh actually I wanted to get a sign up sheet hi everybody Catherine Mr Potter from Topsfield it's been a while um first of all I just want to add to um the school sports I'm sorry I came in late were you announcing some of the congratulating everybody for their runs in the playoffs and Publishing girls soccer that's what I thought yeah field hockey one nice okay the the chair team um got uh both the varsity and JV both made second and uh are moving on the varsity to Regionals excellent just wanted to have that thank you but um actually um I know that you I wanted to ask about something that you discussed at the last meeting I was not able to attend but uh the school lunches um I uh been talking with other

004parents that have had some concerns as well my own daughter came back recently um she had sent home a picture which he doesn't really do of uh the school lunch the chicken sandwich um and even in the picture it was quite clear that it was not cooked um we told her not to eat it during lunch time um she didn't about a week later she got to lunch late it was all that was left she hours later so um I don't think that uh we're the only family that's experiencing this um I don't know what the um next steps are but I had some questions about what's going on why we're still on I guess we're on the government funded um free meal plan and my understanding is that that's for the duration of the

005year and there's nothing we can do about it so my questions would be why um and what can we do in the meantime um I know that you again I know that you discussed this last week I don't I'm hoping that we'll hear something soon because I think that they should be high priority I mean our kids are getting these meals every day five days a week um and it can obviously affect their ability to continue with school day if they if they do feel sick afterwards so um I'd really like some kind of answers to that I know that there are some parents that have offered some ideas um volunteering to bring stuff in or open you know if there's an ability to reopen or have Java provide um more options I think that

006it was discussed last week I'd have to re-listen uh that there might be breakfast back to job at some some point or something along those lines so I think it would be very helpful for something to be put out the community at large as to what steps are being taken to rectify the situation in the meantime okay that's it thank you thank you and just so you know and I think you do that there's a community Forum meeting tomorrow and so part of the way that the community forums are going to be um operated again through the community relations subcommittee Is be discussing stuff that was on previous meetings so that for like the situation that you just had you would have a place to go and discuss it I did see thank you um

007thank you did you say your name by the way I did okay thank you um okay so moving along Kevin there's nobody else here uh we have our Sab report from Olivia Richards hi thank you for having me um some things have been going really well and everyone's getting like really set into the new schedule I've heard a lot of good things about like the M Block I know a lot of people really like that but one of the main things is just having the two same classes rotate in the morning which has been like tough because having the same two classes right in the morning it's like not you're not as awake for those classes every day um and then the 68 minute blocks sometimes feel really long especially on a Wednesday but everyone

008loves getting out early on Wednesday so I feel like they're fine if we still get out early um and then I also have heard a lot about the lunches from a lot of students um they not just like the actual lunch they get but also like the order like in the actual like where you're getting your lunch like there's not like a lot of like lines and it's kind of tough to get your lunch in there and if you get there late like you normally don't get the best lunch or like the warm ones so I know that's a big like worry about most of the students and um for student council we're getting ready for the pep rally for Thanksgiving and that's going really well so that's it basically if you have any questions

009for Olivia have you seen any change in the in the food over the course of the year because I know it was it was from what I heard it's much more complaining at the beginning of the year and it's improving have you seen that heard that um a little bit I don't normally buy lunch so like I don't see it like myself but like I feel like it has suddenly gotten better like but it's not the same as it was before covet obviously hey principal report there you go I see you nice to see all of you um I will speak just a little bit to um the order so I do meet with the exec board from the student council I meet once I read two to three weeks depending on what the schedule

010looks like during M walk and um I did challenge them to try to take some data and figure out they had some ideas for making a better order in the cafeteria so I had challenged them to maybe make a plan um and execute on it right um so we'll continue to work on trying to have sort of locations of items be a little bit more accessible not having to cross a line to get a salad and things like that so they did bring that to me and that was our conversation around that um for problem solving skills on their end since they're the ones traveling the cafeteria so that was sort of the idea so um but oh perfect time don't be sorry you can't you're right on time so um I'm gonna get started

011um so I'm gonna Focus you can come on up I'm gonna focus a little bit on just kind of brief tonight but sort of school culture and student engagement and I think overall I agree with Olivia the feedback is that we're off to a pretty good year it feels we're in a good Rhythm now with the schedule we're getting used to it and things like that so um that feels really great and so I thought I would start off with some um clubs we spent a little time trying to uh improve the way we bring new clubs um into the school and making sure we're following all the processes and we have a student here um and I'll let her introduce herself but just to introduce her fashion Club so this is up for a

012vote this is a new club proposal for the high school um and I will likely have three more in December um we're just I'm encouraging the students to meet once to really track um interest rather than just collect 10 names of kids who may never show up um and so um we're kind of having the meat kind of set the stage for what the year will look like and then they'll come and present so I do anticipate in December having uh three additional students present their clubs that were originally two and um now so we'll do one tonight maybe three in December we're all three getting voted on in December yep okay okay yeah so hi everyone um I'm Anika Zara and so um over the summer I came up with the idea of fashion

013club and although the name of it might sound a little striking and bold um the initiative of our club would be to upcycle clothing that students of Mass have donated to our club um so I had something written but I didn't exactly get to finish it but um so since the pandemic it's um it's felt like almost everyone's lost the importance of loving yourself and your body and it's been thrown under the rug and to bring something like that to mascot would be beneficial for all students who enjoy um so my initial idea is to have this be an opportunity to upcycle clothing extra fabric and really any materials we have laying around our homes that could potentially be made into clothing so this is going from like tablecloths to like curtains to literally anything

014that we could potentially rip up and upcycle into clothing um so our goal is that each month we'll focus on a different theme or a different era so we have like two thousands um we came up with one theme that was like um gowns which would be like we're upcycling gowns um that sort of thing and as our collection of clothing expands at the end of the year we're looking uh we're looking to put together one big fashion show at the end of the year and this will not by any by any means be like a competition um it'll be more like a reflection um on the accomplishments that you've made throughout the year um so fashion Club has been meeting once a week since like I proposed this idea to Dr C and so

015far we have 22 members without any advertisement of the club and everybody has been showing up everybody's been pitching in um and so we came up with a little idea of clothing that um has been donated to the club just by the members so we have this um pillowcase here and we thought that if we cut this end of the pillowcase and cut this in half and made it um made like a crop little tube top out of it and then sewed it so it's like a little cinch it would be like um like a shirt that you can wear and then with this extra fabric it's just like just a piece of fabric um we would cut this denim Jean up and turn this into a skirt and hem this onto the bottom of

016the skirt so it's like a it's like a skirt and tube top and it's made out of complete materials that one thing could be upcycle them to clothing again um so it's just all that sort of a thing and amazing um so it's to wear it you'll get like are you gonna fight over who gets to keep that cute little outfit right there well no so what what it would be is like at the beginning of every month we have bins and through those bins you pick and choose whatever you want and a lot of people have like proposed the idea of working in a pair or like working in two pairs um so it's like three to a group and then it's like one person has got a model so they're making one outfit

017but the three of them are gonna work together to upcycle for the month and then at the fashion show at the end of the year it would be like they all come up on the stage but only one person is wearing that outfit so it's like this clothing isn't necessarily going for them but it's going to be kept here to showcase at the end of the year for whenever we have our little fashion show and I love it yeah so that was my idea thank you guys for listening Grace would this be available too what grades this would be whoever wants to join okay um and as of right now we unfortunately don't have a lot of freshmen but we have about 10 seniors um a couple of Juniors and a lot of sophomores as

018well okay so it's just like a range of kids but sophomores don't really seem to be as intrigued to us the rest of the classes but you are you I'm a sophomore oh perfect okay yeah my daughter in eighth grade would want to be on that immediately so when she's a freshman next year I'm a junior so what you wish for that's all I have okay thank you I think we have a couple questions okay well I was just wondering who the classes who the advisor is going to be um it's Miss Smith she is the academic support advisor um and she she's amazing like she's all dressed up all the time and it's just like she's a perfect person to this Governor are you doing your creating and sewing here or are you taking

019the projects on like do you need sewing machine so we actually within the club when we all met um we got about three sewing machines that weren't being used at home so we got those and then I brought in a lot of sewing materials crocheting materials that um that were accessible at my home a lot of people from the club did so you have bins on bins of just materials that like we didn't even need to go and buy because it's just people picked up Hobbies over the pandemic and then they never came back after their pins so now it's just we have access to all this material and it's just like why waste it when you can put it to something so creative or wise Beyond being a sophomore great idea any other questions

020you know um well thank you I look forward to approving this at the next meeting thank you so much thank you thank you no problem um before you continue married yes I just want to say um back at the beginning of the school year I talked about going back to doing some stuff the way that we had done things in the past and um one of the things we used to have with sign-in sheets so okay I'm just gonna ask somebody to bring this to the um to the audience since we now have an audience before right so we just have been under financially thank you okay great um so it's always great to have students here and they find their passions and we do have a fashion design class as well um and so

021I think this is nice because again as we're learning um part of the I think the beauty of M block a little bit is that um students can start thinking about developing passions but rather than having to take a class that's going to fit into your schedule as perhaps a Singleton you can participate in the club after school most of our clubs I'll just say so I just threw a list up here of some of the clubs that we have students registering for and the majority of them are meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we have the late bus and that's by Design um and so I think as the year goes on we'll continue to think about how to explore m-block in some way shape or form uh we want to be careful about

022having clubs in M walk but you know as we think about our schedule I know um someone soon brought up the schedule uh we have a scheduled committee meeting next week Monday um I'm losing track of time a little bit and um we've collected a lot of data from students so we'll have a lot of information to use when we start thinking about and block the schedule Etc and how we want to use that time but um I feel like clubs are pretty a really highly successful here and oftentimes there isn't an official Club you know we have a group of students who are meeting and discussing a book in the library just as a informal club uh with the library the librarian and or the library age who are in here so again I

023think students are trying to get involved um and I think that you know we know that student engagement in school um produces better outcomes students who feel like they belong they're included in things here is it's just better outcomes for everybody so I'm always happy when they come uh and we kind of have a good system in place now for a new club proposal so it makes a little bit easier in executing on them correctly I love that they present because that in itself is an awesome skill for them yes and I mean I'm a huge High School Musical fan and like the thing I loved was that there was always a place for everybody and I think that that's you know I mean all these ones that we hear about I mean it's just

024amazing because they're all different areas I wouldn't necessarily have thought of so correct and I think the idea as you know we move into strategic planning and thinking about authentic learning opportunities like executing on a fashion show figuring out how to get through the cafeteria in a good way right these are all like skills and um problem solving for students and I think my understanding is there was a fashion show at one time here at Moscow um that was sort of a bigger to do that raised money or something um but I think you know we we can't actually put textiles in the trash anymore I believe in the state of Massachusetts right we can't recycle uh I understand it yeah mattresses anymore and we're not supposed to bring textiles into the trash so coming

025up with ways to upcycle them uh is not a bad idea and especially if that's how young people are are you know starting to think about uh being sustainable in the long term um so students are definitely engaged you know Club sign ups have started but kids are meeting all over the school there's been a lot of sort of um class activities in the sense of with M Block we've been able to do class assemblies um more efficiently not missing class time in order to do that so getting messaging out for seniors senior parents they've they're signing up for their caps and gowns we'll make sure everybody has one for graduation but trying to do some of those things has just become a little bit more um just easier within the school day and not

026losing class time most of the classes are ordering sweatshirts and t-shirts The Freshman Class just did their order and uh the class of 2026 we have a new advisor there new class advisor one of our new brand new teachers um she's a new teacher at amasco not a new teacher and she's been great working with our class of 2026 to get them going um we had homecoming dance which was really a big hit um you know a lot of students attended I think even the student council was surprised at how successful it really was I think they hoped it would be successful it was very successful we have the senior dance also a successful evening so sort of this idea of kicking back sort of doing some of the things that we uh you know

027lost and or to we did we didn't appreciate them when we had them and I think having lived for a few years without a lot of sexual stuff kids uh students are are getting engaged again we had our musical again uh highly successful musical lots of students involved one of the things that I'm not sure everybody is aware of is that there is sort of an Emmy um a high school kind of you know Emmy Awards that are given out at the end of each year and they have been paused because of covid and they will start back this year now unfortunately uh schools that had performances prior to November one are not officially able to participate because of them trying to get on things going but we did actually have a judge here who

028um adjudicated our our musical um and gave amazing amazing feedback about everything from makeup and costumes to dance uh to character development and it just really um was powerful I think for our students to hear and see the adjudicator that's what they're called spent time with them during intermission on the day that he was here uh giving them real-time feedback so I think as a drama program we've been talking we talked about this a lot last year but trying to grow that program and keep kids engaged and built a program out is really exciting so even though unfortunately this year just because it's on their end of getting the timing going had nothing to do other schools are similarly impacted I think just our our performers and our actors um having that opportunity to kind

029of live with someone here kind of assessing their work was really meaningful so we were excited that they were um that they were able to get here and appreciate that Mr P reached out to them and was able to to get them to come even though we weren't enough in the running this year um we've had a highly successful fall from an athletic perspective both from our you know freshman and JV teams again I you know wrote in my memo recently I use that a lot to sort of say like those are important teams kids that have passions their whole lives and maybe they haven't you know reached the level to plan a varsity team but whether it's growing our varsity teams and or just allowing a student to continue with a lifelong passion and

030a sport that they enjoy uh they're really important experiences and I want to thank all the coaches uh who support those athletes uh day in and day out and don't have sometimes the same recognition that some of our other teams get we do have our girls soccer team is playing right now I haven't seen the update our girls field hockey team did win this afternoon um so they'll continue on I think the last tweet I saw is they'll play Friday um our girls volleyball team will also play Friday they travel to Dartmouth um and our cross-country teams have races this weekend I think they originally scheduled for Saturday and because of the weather they've been moved to Friday so it's been a really highly successful fall both our football teams and our boys soccer team

031made it to the uh postseason play um both of them really fighting hard uh in their opening round games boys soccer team actually made it to the next second round of their tournament play but it's just been a highly successful season I think it just builds school spirit which again is sort of feeling a little bit more um normal I don't want to use that word I want I'm trying to move on but just it just feels like people want to say it just feels like a good school year and I'm just trying to describe why it feels good and I think it just feels good because this is what high school is about right it's about being on a field cheering on your friends you know that's what it's about and um being in

032clubs being on the stage and it just it has that feeling and it's a great feeling as a school I love that um we did have a speaker in so our class of 2026 we on the PSAT day when the majority of our school is involved in um PS you know PSAT testing our class of 2026 had a speaker in who talked about resiliency and sort of um really pushing yourself more than you think you can he had students on the stage doing certain push-ups and it was funny how many they could do even though you think you can only do so many and we try try five four or five more uh his dog night was really the hit of the day um it's like Asters to hit day in our building now but

033um it was just a really nice day we played Minute to Win It games so we had multiple kids coming on the stands playing many various rounds of Minute to Win It and again miss Estes ran that show for us and it was just amazing and fun and an opportunity for them to spend some time together and get to know one another which is really important um so again this idea that thinking about belonging and inclusivity and trying to build community and fostering that however we can and this was a great opportunity to do that and again lots of adults who supported that day and um Laura Greeley who introduced us to the speaker because she grew up with him and that just adds another element of it that the kids get to know her

034a little bit more based on her friendship with Patrick so he was also featured on Chronicle um shortly after he came to speak to us you mentioned Esther did you want to um just explain for those people who don't know who else yeah I should have put a picture of Astro I'm sorry so Astor is a member of the Topsfield police department and he is a trained therapy dog Comfort dog um sorry she I'm sorry I know she's a she because she likes she comes and visits me in my office which is fantastic but she is here whenever um Brendan gehagen from the Topsfield Police Department our SRO is here so Astra was here for two days last week in the building and you know our first assessment or feedback that we received at the

035end of those two days is there were a lot of students who otherwise would have just walked by the SRO or not engaged with the SRO who were very quick to engage with the SRO as a result of faster um she's very cute she likes to come get water in my office which I appreciate um and I just think it I don't know there's just something about having her around it creates a sense of calm um and so we're lucky to have her and we're lucky that she's a member of the Topsfield police department and some of our students brought her a mask go their ear it's like an earmuffs they were earmuffs but like a wrap around and they gave it to Astro and so she was wearing that all day so she has

036like if you follow canine Aster on Instagram um they Astra had our Mass go kind of headband on so it was kind of cute so two students went to the school store and got One faster so it was kind of nice so yes so she'll be here in the building whenever um Brendan Gahagan rsro is in the building he spent her time with him so we have a lot of going on um again in sort of this vein of what's going on in the building related to school culture so we have spirit week and Hall decorating come up coming up um starting not next probably late next week into the following week so the student student council this is always sort of an October event uh is my understanding and it has been moved to

037back up to the pep rally that then will culminate in our Thanksgiving Day football game which has not happened in a while um and it will be home this year against Bishop Fenwick and then we will travel next year to Bishop and Mike for that game so um we've entered into sort of a two-year commitment with them to sort of bring this back um and so the students wanted to improve the hall decorating the pep rally the spirit week kind of all the culminating week uh in the building so I believe it starts Thursday of um this upcoming week future Athletics have started so if you're at home watching and you have students who are winter athletes get online sign them up um if you are a wrestler there is a different registration form because

038we are uh we are a Cooperative team with Essex Tech and because they are actually the home team uh we have to register through them so that's all online it was in my memos if you want winter Athletics sign on up um we have an opportunity to send six students to an ideas conference so ideas um some of the diversity equity and inclusivity work that I believe this school committee did uh I know the administrative team did and now we have teachers doing this work um in cohorts throughout this year one group is doing it right now and the rest of the teachers will um cycle through but they are hosting a student conference which I believe they have hosted historically in the past it didn't happen during um that time that I will mention

039um and they're looking to bring it back I don't believe we have participated in it before so it will be the first time uh that Masco will send students there and I had as of now three students have signed up we're trying to solicit a couple more to round out the group and they will really spend a day just sort of talking about identity and racism and tolerance and how we talk about it in schools and how we address issues if they come up and sort of trying to build a culture in the building of understanding acceptance um and inclusivity is it open to any student or specific oh so it was in no it was in my memo so it's um they would like it's 10th to 12th graders so um ninth graders were

040not eligible to ten that's sort of their end and they would like sort of a mix of students uh racially ethnically gender identity sort of um Range but it was in my memo and I made it open to all students we do have an ace club that sort of focuses on issues of um accepting and appreciating cultures and difference and so I did um just make sure that the exec Board of that club was aware um that it was going out but it was open it was in my memo the application was in my memo open to all students so any student could apply excellent so I've kind of put a little plug out to some of the counselors and some others of maybe a few more students just because we can bring six we're

041gonna have a bus uh we might as well bring six students um and it's I believe it's December 8th but I might be confusing it with another conference we're going to it's in December is the one we're going to but it's in December all right uh National Honor Society induction we actually pushed it back a little bit but that'll be happening uh in November and then of course in December we have all of our winter concerts bands uh chorus Jazz Etc so we have kind of a busy time coming up it's actually my favorite time of the school year to be honest this is my favorite time of the school year um some of the other things we have related to teaching and learning you know this is sort of uh what schools do um

042the idea of having some authentic learning opportunities whether they be field trips or speakers coming in uh whether they're speakers who come into an individual classroom and or in the case of Patrick Hogan who spoke to a whole class trips are starting up again so all the Flyers are out for all the various trips there's the band trip there's a trip to Costa Rica there's a trip to Quebec so those those uh you know allowing students or having students travel and sort of be in a place that might be uncomfortable for them those are starting up again so it sounds great um our curriculum work we're sort of in it earnestly in our PD on Wednesdays part of that pilot um schedule has allowed us to really dig into the arts department and the PE

043Department I believe the computer science department is really digging into that work right now and then every department will have an opportunity to do that work um sort of in thirds fall winter spring is sort of how I think about it and so a lot of that work is really sort of generating curriculum work around what we do now um instead of being aspirational and then we'll have that in place when we start doing our strategic planning work that we can then try to see where do they align where does it not align what do we need to do differently so getting what we do down is a really important step in being able to sort of do any Vision work or aspirational work um and that curriculum work is a lot about what content

044are we teaching what skills are we teaching um and what do our assessments look like so there have been no midterms in this building um for quite a while um do that thing and um last year they were planned you remember there was a little like little push about the schedule for midterms last year and um they we ended up not having them as a result of um just the sort of peak of covid that we had last winter we will not be running a midterm schedule this year that we know Special schedule uh no stoppage of learning no stop to review teachers can end quarter one this excuse me Quarter Two semester one the same way they ended four to one right they can do a large exam and a lot we have a

045longer block now we have a almost a 70 minute block uh they can give a longer exam they can do a project they can do a single essay they can do a chapter test um and so there's sort of no stoppage of learning in order to just stop and create a midterm schedule so for students there really shouldn't be all that much of a difference to the way they went into sort of the end of quarter one that's sort of where we at we're at uh regarding sort of end of semester assessments and thinking about summer assessments a little differently excuse me June assessments a little differently when there may be an opportunity to actually use the assessments to sort of inform instruction for the following year and that's just really hard to do in

046January when you're in the middle of teaching stopping looking at assessments Etc and so the idea would be to be thinking about what we want our end of year assessments to look like so that's sort of where we're at yeah um so on that topic um has there been any reaction from fact not yet okay but it really hasn't um I've given I have a I have faculty meeting time with the high school that I've given to the high school teachers that they'll learn about in their department meetings to work on assessments and think about what they want to do so if they're a group of three teachers all teaching the same thing they can have a similar experience you know what I've sort of stress is if there's a culminating experience for a particular

047class that is really that important then maybe the three sections of that class should be doing that culminating experience so allowing teachers and opportunity whatever it is it could be a one-page essay right um but so allowing some teachers time to think about what they want to do um and think about what they've done for the last three years because for the last three years they've had they've done something um and so that would be sort of my challenge to them at this point I think it's yeah yeah so is your intent to move away from midterms for the foreseeable future I think so I think we haven't had them in so long and they actually create this huge amount of stress they um we lose teaching time you lose almost two weeks because you

048lose the whole week of the exam period and the whole week before um and so and I think with the long block some of the things teachers want to accomplish by having sort of a like a midterm exam they can actually do in the long walk so I think the idea again with strategic planning is what is it we want it to look like here what do we want the experiences to look like and if if if one of those experiences having a midterm exam experience then we can rethink it and crack um it's really funny I tend not to think think of things of like I'm I don't want midterms versus we haven't had them students have been okay um and why do we do it and if we're also feeling we're losing instructional

049time here's a way we actually make up like four or five percent of the instructional time that we're a lot that we lost in sort of our pilot schedule by not having a midterm schedule so the interesting part is it is the topic of my next um our Athletic Conference principles me that's sort of how principals meet uh through the same schools that are in your Athletic Conference and it is actually the topic of our next um uh meeting because schools are trying to move away from assessments like this I would just point out that I mean in college I've had a midterm for every single class since I've been there so I don't want our students to be ill-prepared for what they're going to face when they leave here and learning to study for

050an exam such as a midterm or a final that's kind of a key piece of learning in my mind so I just put that out there right which is why I've sort of left open sort of the June end of year experience as a possibility because then teachers also can do something with that exam right that the issue that I always have is who's the exam for and what do we do with that information so my best work when I was first starting out as a teacher was when I would give these end of the year exams and then sit with the data and say why did my students not do well here and you know Dr Harvey students did really well what am I doing right like why are my students not performing the

051way his students are so I think I am wide open to having conversations about the role of assessment both from instructional point of view and the benefit to students um there is research kind of out there that doesn't necessarily suggest that schools that have midterms that the students necessarily are perform better in colleges if they have midterms because we have to teach students how to prepare for a midterm as well so if we if we're just giving a midterm then that's not helpful if we're doing the learning part uh if we are going to decide that we want to give midterms because we want students to learn that skill then for me then like okay then can they just take it and maybe the grade doesn't matter I mean this has been yeah something we've

052been discussing since so I recall and frankly it's something that certainly myself and I I think you know most of the members of of the committee are very happy with that we're we're we're not just assessing because we've done it that way all along I mean I can I can you know hardly think of any topic where just because we did something some way in the past that's a reason to keep doing it in the future um so let's be sure that you know the assessments whatever they look like are are are good for the students um um while they're here and and Beyond and it certainly seems to me that uh you're open to kind of whatever that answer looks like you know if the answer is yeah maybe we do need to do

053some kind of midterm or maybe there's something better we can do with that time for for the student's sake while they're here and and for their future performance and college edit life correct and I should say like our AP classes will absolutely be giving a 70-minute exam right so in my old school I didn't have a 90-minute block to give my AP Bio exam and I can guarantee you that your AP teachers will be giving uh you know instead of 60 Questions in 90 minutes the students will be getting whatever the math is I can't do it off the top of my head but the 52 questions in the 70 minutes right um the other nice part is most of the 60 Minute 68 minute blocks a butt mascal block so if a student had

054extra time it it actually wouldn't impact their ability to get to their next class or anything so so I agree with you that I think the classes that are using it to prepare for the exam will still have those that 70 minute exam so it might be multiple choice which is what I did in my old school one day and essays the next um but that's sort of what I'm thinking and and and having good discussion around the purpose of them and not and continuing to you know not just do them to do them I get more calls about not doing midterm exams then I like I get more questions about like hey you got you didn't do midterms last year how you know than I do about why are you going to go back

055and have midterms so I think there's a push for lots of reasons of trying to not spend two weeks of the school year focused on this very highly stressful anxiety provoking thing um it may be coming to a place that it's it it shifts based on the year you are in school right and so the closer you are to getting Beyond here uh you know will have different exams but I I think the research is not there's not research there necessarily that supports this idea that students who attend a comprehensive high school that has midterms in the more traditional way that we may think of them desks and rows you know multiple choice or essay exams that those students when they get to College necessarily perform better in college on set exams I I've um

056at least my limited experience with a couple colleges feel like they're also trying to get away from it and to do more project-based learning um stuff you know like projects make this meaningful for the student that assessments necessarily are aren't necessarily I don't know okay so last just some of the things that are on our mind we are planning a grade eight High School open house um so this would be inviting 8th graders both Who currently attend Mass economic middle school and trying to use the TTU to get to some of the other families who are not currently at Masco to come in and spend a night here at the high school so the idea is that we'll have sort of an auditorium kind of students present about their experience sort of our you know

057an academic you know highlighting academics Athletics and the Arts and then we would do um you would then rotate through and have time to tour the building highlighting all the areas of our school that make us unique and special and then you would have an opportunity to go to sort of a workshop class that would be given by a teacher so um you know curse lab might be doing I'm just picking him because I was in his class he might be doing some Physics class demonstrating what you might do if you took physics with him uh we may have a health teacher we might have you know um our Mr perianos in our health Wellness Department doing something about ENT so the idea is you could make your way through the building and learn about

058some of the experiences that really do make mastronomic unique um and as a way to highlight them in order to keep students here uh in our building and and hopefully get students to come back to our building as a result of that so this is a very common thing at lots of schools and we're just you know we're going to have it in January we're still within the stage that the students might not have made decisions and then our hope next year will be to move it to November so it would happen probably around this time of the year next year we um those of us who've been here for a few years or more um have been asking for this um because you know the drop-off of students that go to private school in

059ninth grade is historically the same right like we always drop like 10 or whatever that go to private schools and they always have these open houses where they reel them and I mean we even have one for the tech here correct you know but if we can have what makes Master as you said demonstrated I just love all of this yeah and so having been at one of those schools um I have about I also have a sense of some of the opportunities that we have here that do make us unique that make fun it that may encourage you to stay and so I think it I think the more people we can get involved on my invite-in faculty to have multiple roles even if it's just being present to answer questions and direct people

060around the building and start conversation so I'm excited about that uh we're trying to get peer tutoring up and running so we have leaders student leaders who are running the peer tutoring for the various disciplines and we are currently trying to reactively recruit tutors um to this work and these would be peer tutors who are are matched up with students and they would meet during Masco Block in the small cafeteria so there'd be supervision and it would be one-on-one tutoring between a high school student and another high school student and so we have some high school leaders who are sort of taking this on it was all really started by a student who started it in the world languages she got us rolling we used her roll out as a model and now we're trying

061to roll it out to math science we have an English person a math person a science person we have a music person and a World Language person a student leader sort of run these programs so I will sort of manage the attendance and sort of keep track of students but they're sort of taking the lead and talking to different shares again right having sort of building on their own skill set so we're excited about that um and maybe next week when the portal opens again there may be more of an opportunity to identify students with the help of teachers who could use this and again using basketball in school time students just have to go to the small calf it makes it a lot easier to do that they're also looking to do it on

062Wednesdays at 1 15 so if students are hanging around and that would take place in here which is one place in the building we have more supervision the last thing that's been on my mind John delanis and I started talking and Brad Denton actually started talking about this last year um you know Unified sports are happening if you've on Twitter at all and you follow some of the other high schools they have a Unified sports program and I was at the gymnastics championship state championship that they won and there was this huge Banner on the school you know unified Champion school and I started digging around like what does it mean to be a unified Champion school and it means really that we have programs we have social programs athletic programs and academic programs in

063which we take some of our students with challenges and have them in spaces with students without significant challenges and they play sports together they do social things together and they learn together and we already have components of this we already have Masco buddies we already have academic classes that look like this I think we can do a little work um on um based on the talk we had earlier in the year that I think CPAC in Triton council did for us I think we kind of have some work about what those that looks like in practice um so John delanis and I are in very early conversations with the Special Olympics of of trying to get a Unified sports program off the ground which we would start very small with sort of a winter fitness

064program so they have the sports defined it's like basketball track and they have the seasons all defined in from January to February they have this very short season of fitness and so uh the idea is we are trying to get that off the ground so that's on my mind I know it would come here I think there's like an initiative so I'm just putting it out there it's not an initiative yet but it is something that age initiative um and so that is we're a little further along than one may think um and we also I think there's somebody who would be really good at running this program who is already a unified instructor for uh weight weightlifting I think so um no it's not it no it's not her but um so I think

065we can I think we can make it work you know preliminated discussions about having buses you know to get um some of our students home I think we can make that work so again I think um it's we're gaining a little bit of Attraction and I think once we can get Beyond this little tournament thing we might even be able to do if we're not officially part of Special Olympics next this winter we can at least create something of our own to then try to grow at it I'm a little bit about that figure that out by now um and so that's kind of on my mind as well and again we already have pieces and it would be awesome if we can get all these pieces then we could get a really nice Banner

066that would hang in our gym uh recognizing uh our work to be a more inclusive School and really you know all sales students feel they belong and that this is their school so the last thing is just a pitch if you want to be on the school council I am looking for parent volunteers so if you're at home you can just put your phone up and that bring it right to the Forum uh to sign up we were originally meeting on Thursdays but based on the people who are now doing it we've moved it to Mondays when you hit the form it will tell you exact dates for meeting and what time we're meeting if it works in your schedule and we invite we're looking for a minimum of two people to join us um

067and I think that's it for me Mary Jo I'm not sure if you like could see from like my googly eyes like oh my God like I'm loving everything that comes out of your mouth tonight but I like thank you so much for I I said this when I first met you and heard like your first um talk to us I'd love that you've come here and you have adapted the way Masco is and then also tried to push it to be better and like everything that you're doing like I I feel like I'm like bobblehead here like just like oh it's just it's so great like you're just getting to the heart of what a high school should be so thank you fine right other questions America well we're one minute behind schedule oh

068I'm sorry I I talked nose here we go um thanks for keeping tracks there bill I just noticedirection um okay so superintendent for it okay first up uh strategic planning uh report uh update so earlier this week I confirmed the participation of the 20 members of our strategic plan working group uh this group which is made up of Faculty School leadership uh and community members will serve as the organizers data collectors authors and co-leaders of this work uh they'll explore and craft strategic objectives and initiatives find consensus and make recommendations for planning Communications leadership and resources uh the group will hold its initial meeting next week and for more information for people in the public to check out the mass economic website and there's a link to sign up for updates on a strategic planning

069uh middle and high school uh pilot schedule review uh so in late October early November our scheduled Review Committee administered surveys regarding the 2223 pilot school schedule uh We've collected launches from 95 faculty members which is about 50 percent uh and 1134 students which is about 73 percent uh and the committee will be meeting early next week to take a look at the responses and consider any possible changes to the schedule for both the short and long terms uh next one up is uh covet test kit distribution so uh the department of Elementary and secondary education has announced that they will make covid test kits available to all students and staff in Massachusetts schools uh for use over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays so uh one test kit will be distributed during the week of

070November 21st and the second during the week of December 19th uh each test kit will contain two coveted tests until building principles will be developing distribution plans uh in their individual schools and they'll be communicating those uh plans uh next week uh Echo our um comments on our fall Athletics uh we've had a really successful fall season so kind of go through them all fall our field hockey team and girls soccer teams both played their round of 16 games tonight uh field hockey won uh and they will play again on November 11th uh girls soccer is playing as we speak uh volleyball will play its round of eight game on Friday uh November 11th at Dartmouth uh girls cross country took third place overall and boys cross country came in in fifth place at the

071NEC uh League meet uh both cross-country teams will be competing in the state championship meet on Friday November 11th and Wrentham uh cheerleading won the NEC championship this past weekend and we'll move on to the Northeast Regional competition and unfortunately has heard boys soccer and football lost their tournament games this past week but uh definitely a soccer game last night was a heartbreaker uh it was they lost on a one to nothing on a goal that was scored with about two minutes to go it was really and it wasn't it was actually one that was wasn't really apparent to everybody it was a the linesman actually called the ball over the line but the goalie that I made it safe so it was it was a tough way to lose um but we really want

072to congratulate all of our student athletes and their coaches on these really successful fall Seasons so uh just a couple of upcoming events um as we all know so uh this Friday as Veterans Day and so there'll be no school and then we'll be uh dismissing on uh November 23rd uh at 10 30 a.m to start our Thanksgiving recess so it is excellent thank you any questions for Mike we're now having a sense that we don't mess up the schedule all right and thank you for pointing it out to bill because he needs to um know that we're ahead of time now um give me a sec I get it um you're on again yeah Jeff's obviously not here tonight so I gotta log into them and try and put try not to blow us

073out with feedback are you kidding me it's gonna install on up tape do you want to skip to the next one and let that happen and then we can do our up our Maps conference report sure please yes sorry about that okay no no problem I like it always happens at the website so um Mike Carolyn Billy and I we're at the mass conference in Hyannis last week from Wednesday through Friday and um very inspiring to be there I would say um it's uh yeah and this was specific particularly inspiring um week the theme was diversity equity and inclusion um and a lot of their talks I don't know what you call them breakout sessions um but not everything um so you know the way we've done this in years before we just basically all

074pick and then if we're all picking the same thing to go to because typically there's like 10 or something things a time that you would go to um then we try and break out so we're hearing different things um one of the I guess overall things that I heard um that really was meaningful to me in terms of the work with you know making sure that all our students feel included and represented is that it's not a checklist that can be done you can't just say like hey I got this dirt you know um a director of Dei or I've done this or I've done that it's more of a lens that you look at through everything um I kind of was thinking of the rose-colored glasses metaphor but that's just the way you look

075at it and so you know I hope as we go forward that we're always having that kind of a lens to make sure that all kids feel included um they also talked that it's you know much more of a marathon than a Sprint and that typical work and I don't know what the end point was that they're counting but it was a 10-year process so I'm not sure until what um I can't imagine it's ever a perfect situation but um once you've started the work until the end or whatever that end means is it um is a 10 years process so it's definitely a journey um uh zilly met in one of the talks um man who works with safe schools initiatives um who when he heard that we were from Moscow shared um story

076about um Ray Johnson Corey Johnson who um came out to his football team at the recommendation of Coach Pugh for um when he was a Junior a senior he was a captain on the football team and he's now here at mascot here at Moscow and um he is now a New York city councilman um it was really an amazing story and Jeff this man that we met um shared with us a um little documentary a little snippet that ESPN had done on him um that was in 1999. and all right there's they just did a new one they just did it 20 years later that was no he came out in 1990 oh yeah sorry this yeah 20 years later so was a few years ago done um and it was it was nice to

077see that um and and you know people who were on the team with him who are still local so [Music] um we have the video if anybody wants to see it happy to share do you have any anything else to share yeah one well maybe more than one but the one that I wanted to make sure was uh you said that not everything was on the theme the of the conference of one of the other shops I went to that Mike went to that one too was um this class Consortium for Innovative education assessment tools for increasing educational equity and I wish Mary Jo was still in here because what she was kind of talking about they um the fair and effective accountability system that offers a more Dynamic picture of student learning quality than

078a single standardized test so um since we might have some follow-up Mike and I made a contact there with someone that's going to be following up with Mike um and then I'm just going to peek and see if I highlighted anything else that I wanted to bring back I circled Chef perrotti's name so you already said that one sorry okay even though he you met him first I mean there's three days of programs but there's a lot there's a lot of learning I could brag a little that the reset the school recycling showcase had these pictures that were basically our cafeteria but the Ipswich ones that copied us literally like they used the signs that Masco created we shared it with them and that's the picture that the masses uh deps like was showcasing us

079how how it should look so I just wanted to brag about that um yeah and then this is a really good one that was just it talked a little bit about for a committee to work well together how and consensus is often more is more important than like individual choice and so they did some activities to kind of demonstrate that and since we're ahead of schedule I'll just share that what it the one of them was um you had uh simulated pretend plane crash and you're left with these 10 items and you got in teams and you had two order them and the which the most important item to prioritize keeping from the wreckage of the plane crash and then uh and then come together as a team and come up with your list of

080you know one to ten and then um he tells you the answers and you score based on how far off you were from the correct answer and out of this room of about 30 people only one person's individual responses were scored better than the team responses so it was just a nice little exercise but often you come up with better outcomes when together it was a good it was a good conference to kind of remind you how to how to be part of this kind of work there was a lot of stuff about working together or working a difficult situations do you have anything specific that you want no I think you covered pretty much all of it it's a lot in three days it is it's definitely exhausted coming home I think I highly

081recommend um people think about going next year and the years to follow I think it's a thousand years to get there for the first time um but I definitely recommend it so okay all right we're ready yeah that's a pretty quick update okay so back to the enrollment so we have uh in the packets our uh enrollment District enrollment report so um year uh by the end of October we are required to report to this department of Elementary and secondary education our enrollment and they always use October 1st as the the date that you need to to report on and so you can see here up on the first screen I have is the uh the great report by grade level um that shows us as having 600 students from Boxford uh 528 students from

082Middleton uh 467 students from tossfield and that subtotals to our resident enrollment of 1595 students uh you can also see there in this form we also have three faculty or others and then 12 Choice students so you can see their grade nine there are five students admitted to the ninth grade this year for the school choice program so when you look at those others that are not non-residents we have a total of 1610 students all in in the district and just for comparison's sake we actually also provide the the enrollment from the tri-town part of this is also we send our enrollment information to the New England School Development Council nestec and they do demographic analysis for us so this is the basis of those reports and that's used to or one of the uses

083of it is to predict what the project what the enrollment will be in the future in historical back and then they also look forward as well um so the the next uh form I have in the packet there is total again Total distribution total enrollment distribution by grade um it's on this one um so you can see there we're looking at um you know grades 7 through 12 and then we have uh students that are Beyond grade 12 and those are our students in special needs programming that are eligible until 22 correct so um so you can see there's eight down there looking at the October 22 column uh and that number as well then you can tie it out to that 1610 total students um again the uh tri-town numbers are also uh there

084for comparison and they have uh 1941 total in the tri-town right now uh there's also the the letters that are sent uh with this information to um the towns which then gets us to the the final sort of spreadsheet in this packet uh which is where we take the resident enrollment and we use it to determine um the distribution of our um but assessment that is over uh the net schools the minimum school required School spending numbers um so if you look at the assessment percentages by town for FY 23. put some notes on this one so those FY 23 is 37.01 for Boxford 34 for Middleton and 28.99 for Topsfield uh that is that represents a three-year average uh remember we changed the regional agreement and so we're moving rolling up every a year

085until we get to a five-year rolling average right now the the last three years uh average which you know the idea is to smooth out those bumps um that come from different from those swings and enrollment right there is yeah they're always there's always changes no it looks like it's much more smooth yeah like there's nothing that's saying like three five percent higher whatever yeah if with you know by the time it all gets rolled in I don't think any town will be up or down more than 0.3 or 0.4 whereas before it was as high as 1.2 and then it would drop dramatically and created problems all around I went back and looked at the one-year number so it just said what if it what would have been and uh so Boxford would have

086been 37.61 uh Middleton would have been 33.1 and Topsfield would have been 29.27 . thanks [Laughter] right like that's a lesson a point yeah that's a small change for top sealed recently okay and it's been a tough couple years so yeah there's some interesting numbers you know here that I'd like to kind of point out you know when Mary Jo was you know talking about trying to keep students last year the eighth grade was 321. and this year the ninth grade is 265. that is a dramatically different you know lowering than the past would indicate you know boxford's you know 93 is what would have been expected Middleton's expected number would have been 106 and it's actually 95 and topsfield's expected 83 actually 77. so something dramatically changed especially with Middleton students I don't know

087what that is and if it's just a one-year outlier or the beginning of of a trend or what it contributed to uh it I don't know if there is a way to contact the families of the missing students to find out why you know it you know what happened uh the other thing you know we have you know 15.95 you know resident students that one through six in the elementary is 1673. and since we always lose in the from 8th to ninth to me kind of indicates that the district you know and enrollment will kind of stabilize in the mid 1500s most of the Elementary grades are of similar size to the grade here that they would be replacing except for you know the fourth grade which will be replacing the current 10th grade down

088the road that's a big difference you know our 10th grade is 210 the fourth grade is 276. the others are you know a fairly close and uh the enrollment uh percentages that you know Mike talked about you know is one of the uh factors that helps determine the assessment for each town and if you recall when we approved the budget uh Jeff had done a projection for the fy24 budget I've worked that in and made some more adjustments so if anybody wants to hear about any of that I'm glad to share the information I don't have any comments for Michael for Costa no I I guess the the um great didn't surprise me because it was a normal number it wasn't yeah I mean it was about the norm in the 19th yeah I mean

089there's 51 but there were a couple years where it was 47. but that class also had three and 21 kids so it's smaller yeah percentage percentage yeah in years past you know 17 of Boxford 8th graders and that's what it was this year 13 of Middleton 8th graders this line was a lot different and 10 of Topsfield 8th graders a little different but not like the big difference was in Middle Schools got it so it was nice to see you know if doing these open houses if that has any effect of it and people are often surprised um you know and they see what we have okay don't forget about that so we are as everyone knows at our last meeting on October um we had a first read and about on policies J A

090through jhd inclusive um and there was a request for me to make it clean um so what I did was attached to the agenda anything that's redlined is just something that we're not accepting and then I made everything else it's cleaned up we are required to have a second vote um on these policies to approve so this is the consent agenda for jhd which is the second read okay I'm looking at the wrong ones right now all the red okay um can I make a motion too so I'll move to approve all this is Ja through jh for a second okay I make can I ask to pull JB and which one maybe as in boy yes education opportunities that's in this first consent agenda yes okay can we pull one without pulling them all

091yeah then you would vote on the rest it's like any other consent agenda that you would somebody would need to move to approve the past of the agenda to prove other policies in those consent agenda with the exception of the one that Trevor is pulling Maybe all in favor any posts uh any of symptoms that passes unanimously um okay so JB yeah so um um looking at the policy uh this the policy subcommittee reviewed this before I was on the policy subcommittee so I have a couple um amendments to it that I'd like to make in different motions can I explain it what I'm gonna have to explain why we have this here as well so why this policy is this policy so after you okay so go ahead oh okay I mean should you

092explain first or explain she should explain first before he goes through each one of his things this policy was specifically amended as part of a couple of things um last spring we amended policy AC non-discrimination um in light of a civil rights audit that was done with the school and through our Council and we had to make this fit in with Massachusetts a state and federal law so this includes all of the requirements in all the legal references so it's titled um I can't do Roman numerals right now because my brain isn't working um there's a legal reference in here so this policy is required by law so I'm just going to leave that there it's been approved by Council um and it was amended based on changes to these statutes including Title IX okay

093so this is safe and federal yep okay so I just want that's why I asked you thank you um so my first motion I'm looking to amend the first paragraph and insert um after it says ethnic background in the last sentence I'd like to also add political affiliation um based off my time here I and going through this school for six years um that's an amendment that I think should be protected for all students as they enter through the classroom and through the various activities um that they go through here so that's my first one I'd like to vote on that one before I get the next one with that it's fine I'm not sure that we can vote because that's not a protected class it's not I mean I'm wondering and just just to

094throw this out there I mean is is I mean you know your points are are valid I'm just wondering to what extent they're better suited for the policy subcommittee to vet first before you know we do this um because if if our attorneys have signed off on the policy as that is written um I'm hesitant to make some some serious changes to it right now so ask our attorney about it I don't know I I mean I don't know offhand why it should be a problem to add per se but I'm not a policy expert yeah and I presume you've got a list of things that you know concerns that you have about this so this is just the first of several so I mean I you know I I think this discussion is going

095to be inconclusive I perhaps the subcommittee can you know devote some some time to it with you know input from the attorney if that's necessary and then bring it back with whatever I would suggest that we throw it to our attorney first and then discuss it after they would give the a or nay and if it's no problem to add some commitment can discuss it and that sounds useful or something um Okay so you take the notes I'm taking notes so I guess I would throw my motion and wait for legal counsel to okay get back from that and then I also wanted to take a look at the third paragraph uh when it talks about um athletic activities and equal opportunities in athletic activities I think I just want to know what this policy

096is who it's geared to give equal opportunities to um because for school every student at our school and how would that play out if we had a transgender female who's looking to participate in FEMA Athletics they can participate based on their Mia regulations and and Desi industry and I just I'm here on behalf of Middleton Middleton voted for me uh overwhelmingly and Middleton didn't agree with that issue so as long as that paragraph is in there I cannot support this and I think it does a disservice to biological women who work their whole lives to compete at a high caliber of sports to be demoted uh based on a biological difference not sure why they'd be demoted yeah because my I have a three people in my family three females in my family played Collegiate

097uh Sports all of them very highly successful and I just can't see my sister who's five five competing against someone who has a different biological nature as her okay and I'm going to make a statement because this is a little bit outrageous this is a law to protect our students the protected classes are the students who are the most vulnerable the ones that we need to protect I hear yelling about mental illness and this is what laws like this are intended to protect I don't think anyone transitions or has a different gender identity than their biological and identity to to replace a female in sports that's just not the reality and I I would not recommend any changes so that's based on the conversations that we've had with council with the Equal Rights and education

098um that's that to me that's just a bunch of malarkey and I don't want to entertain any discussion on transgender um and then taking spots from biological women in in sports I'm ending that like the reason we're obviously they have a conversation we're elected to have a car also you cannot just end the conversation I get to end this conversation but right now I'm gonna just say something so thank you what you say Melissa and I I appreciate what you said and I agree that transgender students in general have like a 40 suicide rate so I would like to protect them as well however none of this is actually for us to discuss because it is a state law and so we don't as a school committee get to say we are not going to

099follow a state law like that's not and we're not you disagree with the state law like when people disagreed with segregation you think people should have followed that yeah and you can go to your state and decide it but as a school committee like you can go speak to your state however you want and say that you you know go run for State office or however you want but us as a school committee we're here to follow the rules that are set aside for us so we follow deci we follow the mass MIAA whatever that's Intercollegiate whatever inter Athletics I mean he knows what MIAA stands for but but that's what we're here so we don't really get a choice so it's really not something to be debated here and I hope that all our

100students feel comfortable with who they are at our school and that they feel accepted here so and if you want to read the statute it's 76. I've already read it thank you chapter 5 and the Mia regulations I think it's Fourth section 43. okay so with that if you have anything else that you wanted to talk about on that nope that's it for JB so we are now going to table it to have Council review any issues with putting political affiliation is that the only were those the only things you wanted okay I got it okay Okay so we've tabled that until next time now we're gonna go to our first reads okay and there was um there's been an error so um it's sections ji through j i e and um with the exclusion

101of j i c k wasn't part of this because the subcommittee looked at it separately and I just forgot about it until tonight um until I Was preparing earlier today so um do you want me to go through them one by one like I did the last time so you did a good job with that yeah I think it just helps so explain it all in section j i the committee's recommendation subcommittee's recommendation um is to keep it is there was actually no difference between our policy and um the the recommended Mass policy so there's no need to make anything no recommendations to make changes from mask sure while we were away and I think starting this Monday There's a new rule about suspension does that affect anything in here the rate of to process

102with perspective so ji is the recommendation is to keep it as is that's why the oops deleted wouldn't mean deleted it's all nice and pretty there yeah yeah it doesn't look as pretty um jib the subchimedes recommendation is a student involvement in decision making I'm sorry there was Jia came next and that one's all um okay Jia the recommendation was to delete um this particular section and replace it with um section j i h I think it is that's not what it is but I'm sorry that's okay take your time so the recommendation is to delete Jia because it's addressed later on in um the uh the section due process yeah so we're going to combine day IB dance okay do you have any notes Trevor I for which one again I know we're deleting

103it and we're replacing it with the um yeah due process provision in here okay and I can't find it right now so I'll get it I actually printed at this time so I'll come back and address this one and later on in my notes um jib um that is the one that we're keeping Mass goes student involvement in decision making yep um there was another version by mask but we really liked ours and I think Mary Jo actually exemplified some of the semi it's really nice um and then the next section j-i-b-a we thought it best to combine j i b a and j i b b it involves student government and also discusses the role of the student Advisory Board within the um within their role here [Applause] so we are combining jida and

104j i b b cinnamon version of jic and using it using the mask version and combining um to more explicitly follow state law so that's jic that's jic so the rjicic was called student behavior in the jic from Mass version is J is in discipline and includes everything that's required including all the new suspensions actually that's the section of the suspension does follow the new state statute that went into effect Monday under student debt dress code subcommittee recommends the mass version as it's more generalized and we had a detailed discussion um about what should be in a student handbook and what should be in a policy and the the ultimate decision was that it should be more General in a policy and then more detailed in a student handbook um I'm on jicb um then

105this section and um the next one jicc also reside in section e which deals with um property and um we were trying to get rid of repetitiveness as you might have noticed in the last review so we are deleting jicv vandalism and student mjicc student conduct on school buses and just having them reside in each section um student Publications j-i-c-e we are keeping this one with additional language highlighted below that what's required um for student publication statements that basically a disclaimer that it's not the exercise of the school or the expression of school policy okay j-i-c-s is um gang activity and secret societies um and it was our recommendation to keep the policy delete um statement about in-service training to identify gangs and gain activity and delete any language about secret societies as well as

106language um regarding expulsion because we are not allowed to have that why just why just curious why to get rid of Fitness service training it was for um practice like we don't do that so okay so don't start or get it out of the policy yeah it's a procedure policy okay prohibition of phasing um so the the Masco version that we had in there is just basically took the law and repeated it so it just copied statute so we are adopting The Mask version or recommending adoption of the Mask version um with some changes that we also removed reference to expulsion and stated that um consent shall not be available as a defense day so basically hazing has zero tolerance okay so j i c f b was actually adopted in April on April 6

1072022 um it's in there but this is the one that we it's anti-bullying it's one that we approved last spring so it's included as part of ours but get mixed up on first reads and then as a subcommittee we agreed to remove basically all plans and procedures and forms so we are recommending the uh rescission of jicfb-r and then the dash I can get F Dash e which is the form find the oh the plants yeah and those shall lie in the procedural stuff yes but yeah yesterday it's not a school committee policy it's a more of a procedure and then um the recommendation is to delete the next two sections on um tobacco and weapons and adopt the mask version which covers it all and it was a little bit more concise um and

108then we authorize the Masco version authorized breathalyzers during school sponsored events um as an acceptable deterrent so we recommend keeping that in um and then weapons in school we recommend adopting jici there's a lot of bullying things to get through to where we are at okay yeah there was a lot of bowling so that was that was like 16 pages okay of the plan through it okay um we recommend adoption of the weapon of jici um but deleting the definitions um actually yeah sorry as the spinning beach ball of death for a minute there and we took reference to bus stops because so your jic-i and then a i e pregnant students we are just deleting the last paragraph which deals just states that pregnant students are encouraged to provide a physician statement when they

109cannot attend school they don't need to do that yes and I just found it I can't stop scrolling I know I know there's so many in the section of course when it's printed out I think yes but I can't also make notes on it I'm sorry to make a correction before the student due process that we deleted is actually replaced by um the whole section one student discipline okay so that combined both of them sorry I didn't have that and I just realized that that was which two combined um the first one that we talked about that j i a which was on due process due process yeah so that that section basically is covered under um discipline jic because I apologize I had mine um I think that this is all really confusing and

110then you guys do a ton of work so stop apologizing um anybody have any questions sure are members of that subcommittee I have a question not on these policies yes section B yes sends out the whole thing and didn't do anything for a while then we talked about a pulled some are the ones that we pull what's the status of those gonna bring them back it's just finding the time to do it we were Jay was a as you can see a big section because we still have a whole other secretary of you too many policies that's why we deleted a lot of them so we have to go back and look at that and um just pull the ones that get them we pulled out because I think you had a Costa had a

111particular interest in a few of them yep I just curious the whole process that you're going through this with masc is that helpful yeah it helps you think about things and just really why there's so many words like a lawyer did it or something I don't know I don't know anymore but they're wordy um so yeah it helps you refresh things and sort of realize where they come from although there was a couple of them and they all had the same adoption date and we're all like why did they put those in right and nobody knows but right it was even before Costa was on the board I know yeah you've been it on that same law no costing Carolyn World okay yeah it was even before passing Carolyn around the board uh yeah so

112a consent agenda to um ex to accept them all for the first read as presented as a whole Billy is making the motion to move second Trevor's seconding all in favor say aye aye any opposed any extensions okay so that first reading we'll come back at our next one yes I'll clean it up like I did last time okay and just as a FYI like also to give you guys a little bit of slack we were only supposed to do the first thing today but to make more time on our next meeting we push this over kind of last minute not last minute excited to do this like a week ago so that um since they were basically prepared already but not you know there so um just to try and create some room next

113time we'll have a presentation um okay so that was the end of that doesn't matter policy excellent 9 15. how are we doing um any reports um community relations as people know um was canceled last week due to a family emergency of the member um so I'll ask ability to kind of report on next steps for that even though I've already said something when we realized that that one had to be that our chair had to take some time um we also realized that we might not have a quorum for next Wednesday which was when we were going to be meeting so we scrambled on Monday and realized we could all meet tomorrow so it's short notice but um and we did already post it and everything um they'll be and it's just the agenda

114that Patty had lined up just changed to a date different date is that in person silly I think it's an it was going to be impressive yeah let's post it as in person here I believe it's here I should check I literally just took her agenda changed the date and so um if it was here in the library it's 6 30. very Nicole I thank you all for scrambling like that and making the changes in to the community I'm sorry if it's changed we didn't want to insta lay it further correct because we didn't know when on the next state championships are getting in the way um that wasn't one of them um okay budget we don't have anti-racism Bill yes uh we had our kickoff meeting uh Monday evening uh Dominic Chris uh and

115I were able to schedule some time on Monday we were um joined by uh By Carolyn Miller um who sent me a text that she was going to come to the meeting didn't tell me why or you know once or you know what that was all about it turned out to be wonderful because the uh what she shared with us was uh much of the stuff that she had experienced and you described earlier at the uh the masc conference uh so that was actually which you know from her perspective it was definitely one of the the I guess major themes of of the conference uh diversity equity and inclusion got this from her point it said major it did said that okay sorry she didn't provide visuals so I didn't I didn't have that that

116information so one so um uh one of the as sort of kicking off for the for the year um with the with the late start due to the some some commute uh Committee Member changes um we talked about where we ended things last year where uh where at that point we had a agreed to uh try to engage uh Community organizations across the three towns uh in this effort so that uh so given the uh the solution to issues around diversity equity and inclusion um are not going to be found just in the school but we found in the community overall that that that we should be part of of a of a community-wide effort to make that happen and I shared with them that I had reached out to uh both uh the houses

117of worship as well as other community organizations on this topic and and um last spring and that the response was was very very positive and that we wanted to continue doing that but additionally um whereas yes this needs to be a community effort but but it also still needs to have um a place here in the school because we know that uh the you know the Administration has gone through the ideas training and faculty are going through it now um and that uh you know the school committee established a policy on this topic um and and quite honestly one of the things that we need as a as a school committee needs to ensure that uh that the work continues to progress on on actually making that that putting that policy into action that it

118just doesn't become stale words on a page um so certainly supporting the administration in that effort as well as engaging students wherever possible um um is a is a is a strong reason for there to be this two-pronged approach that yes we're going to engage Community organizations to try to uh a long-term basis effects affect some change and to work in this area but that we do need to keep a lens on what's going on inside the school as well um so where we ended was [Music] um we're trying to meet over hopefully over the next several weeks um not on Thanksgiving or the day after uh but but hopefully over the next several weeks we could you know find another hour where we can we can meet again and at that time I will

119uh share with them you know the beginnings of a plan of how this community engagement what might actually take place um as well as a proposed goal um as we were asked by the school committee um to add to the the school committee schools as well as some possible changes to the name of the subcommittee uh which um our newest member was was most uh vocal about that but it was it was it was a great conversation um um I frankly I was shocked we didn't actually change the name on the spot but the uh but at the end of the day we decided let's you know let's let's table let's think about this a little bit longer and and come up with um something better because even as we acknowledge as as the work

120of that that subcommittee went on and even the policies that that it's it's it isn't just anti-racism and and that name um doesn't adequate adequately communicate to what we're trying to achieve yeah we did discuss that like right in the beginnings of the subcommittee and then kind of came up with anti-racism actually does does incorporate all the other protected classes as well however I fully support as I did back then changing it to be a more inclusive name I think we tried yeah I think we actually came up with new energy on that I think subject so somehow shot because of ideas but I feel like we had policy that came into the diversity equity and anti-racy right right so um we'll keep you posted wait what was that one part we were reading the

121policy to be inclusion diversity equity and anti-racism and that way it didn't risk re-centering whiteness because the original Paul the whole thing came out of resolutions that were being passed across the street state that were anti-racism specific and so we understood that in our community it's you know diversity Equity inclusion diversity is not just reflected in race and in Mascot I mean a lot of the meaningful exposures and lessons in empathy can be learned in all these other ways too but initially the pushback was to not remove the word anti-racism because what we would do in that case at that moment in history would be recenter whiteness and defeat the whole purpose so the policy ends up having all the words to try to cover all the bases so we will um hopefully agree to

122a uh do time for the next meeting shortly um and we'll not only post it um uh in the usual places but um I'm not sure that this meeting got added to the Facebook thing where we we typically you know post these things so I want to be sure that we do that it's whatever whatever new meeting time it'll be we'll be sure to let people know through that Avenue as well so that's a good point I was going to say um that we need to kind of remember our procedural things which would be um we typically once the agenda is established send it to Jackie and ask for posting and for her to post it and at that time it would be good just to include the entire school committee and not just the

123subcommittee so the entire school committee knows and then we can remind whomever is chairing the community relations at the moment and at the moment zilly is stepping in to that chair um see uh temporarily um to post whatever whatever um subcommittee meeting so I think that that once it goes to Jackie for posting I think that should trigger community relations to post it on Facebook and um and in that way all are they on the Facebook page right okay sorry so so just since I'm filling in for now I do the right thing so does you come talk to Patty about posting all the subcommittee meetings on Facebook as well as regular yeah I think that you guys as a subcommittee can talk about tomorrow that's great that's a nice part of it but I

124want that to get lost because you guys haven't as a subcommittee figured out what your procedural stuff will be but I think my opinion I'm totally yeah cool with that I just want to know is that that that everything all of our subcommittee meetings um should be posted out there um consistently and and all of our members should know about all of our subcommittee meetings as soon as they're posted consistently which none of us have done so I'm just kind of using this as an example because you you've said said that triggered me so yes I learned the committee members but there was absolutely a couple of days lag um if we yeah no I and honestly I it now that I think about it I think the the only things only meetings that have

125been posted in Facebook the Facebook page have been either school committee meetings full school committee meetings or community relations but not the other subcommittees I don't I haven't seen policy show up there or announced there but it but it occurred to me over the last couple of days that gee it probably would have been good if this had been you know like why not okay at all yep so um I'm totally happy to do that I think initially and you guys can push back if you want no we'll talk about it tomorrow right because it's just to capacity yep no we're not paid employees like when Jackie's posting the official things we asked Jackie to do it she makes sure it's done she's on the clock sometimes for us it's like a yeah sure of

126course totally get that let's talk about tomorrow night but I think it's a great idea I just want to make sure everybody feels like I'm concerned about being able to pass the Baton on the communications yeah I have been ineffective because so far twice I've done it and twice that person has resigned from the committee so I don't know about the best no causality how do you picked it up good job um so hopefully that'll come back but anyway and I've been talking about like making sure we'll talk about it tomorrow night um but you did remind me of something related to what I should have said earlier which is also if other one of the things we're going to talk about tomorrow night is thinking about having themes around the discussion sessions slash listening

127sessions if Patty had a new wave titling that I have to look for the words she used but anyway the community relations the part where there's engagement um so if members have a theme or something that you're going to be talking about that you would like to have a community relations subcommittee focus on send those our way so that we can because my hope is tomorrow night we can start to kind of build almost a calendar for the year so that the community knows and this is based on like kind of some things that yeah a couple conversations helpful yeah yes but unfortunately that group hasn't been able to meet to kind of to gel it together and get it going so thank you for helping lead the way tomorrow and thank you guys all

128for being so flexible um good good tell your your that's it um let's see turf um we're meeting next Wednesday and we have a um like I think we would meet in your office but to can we have a like something to present on if there is okay that's it okay um yeah so um Turks up we're going to kind of hear from them um they've been kind of doing their own little analysis um on what many of us feel are um and a report left so we're kind of hoping to hear some more from them and then we will um be working on uh presenting what they've found and what we've discussed at our next regular school committee meeting anything else thank you skip policy yeah yep we are meeting on December 2nd 11

12930. I think I probably have to send a Defender next week now you know it a couple ways you knew the proper way now totally enhanced way uh any other liaisoning anybody um I did set up so last time I mentioned to you guys that the select board in Topsfield is doing listening sessions once a month on Saturdays and they liked the idea of us piggybacking on that so I've arranged it with the library and with Town Hall and they already the town hall has some a marketing person that even asked if we had headshots I was like posters up around town but anyway so those will be the first ones November 19th from 10 a.m to 11 30 and then it's going to be always posted on the tops up site um once a

130month um the dates through January and then seeing depending how it's going we could continue from there and the elementary school committee might join but they're not sure if they're ready to join just yet in the midst as everybody knows of some negotiations and since Middleton I don't know if boxerness and nothing from I don't have an update for elementary having some I think they're in mediation they've made it to mediation that's they were ahead in that direction okay um okay consent agenda um approval of the October 26th meeting minutes and warrants for 1 million 148 864.24 which is a total of nine signed warrants since October 26th because anybody need to pull either of those out um okay so do I have emotional approved if you cross them move second move zilly's seconding all

131in favor say aye aye any opposed extensions no okay thank you um so with that I'm gonna make a motion to enter into executive session to conduct strategy relative to bargaining with non-union purpose Harvey executive session purpose number two I've determined that holding this discussion in Open Session may have a detrimental impact on the district's bargaining position the committee will not return to open session until after the conclusion we will not after the conclusion of executive session so um second okay and roll call Zoe yes Costa yes Dominic yes Melissa yes uh Trevor yes Chris yes Bill yes me yes okay thank you all right she messed me up I'm 30.