001hey Brian hi Brian hi everyone all right did you see that it's recording yep okay okay well I have 701 so let's uh in the interest of time get started and uh people join us as we're going we'll try and catch them up so this is our first uh drop in Zoom with school committee members so thank you to those who are here um just going to introduce myself um I am Kathy Lewis I am a mashby obviously Mash resident and parent my daughter is in the ninth grade at the Middle High School um I grew up in mash um education and youth empowerment's kind of always been my passion so I um you know came on to school committee hoping that make a change to make sure our kids are getting quality educations and
002we have policies in place that help support that and a budget in place that supports that and a superintendent in place that supports that um I'm in my fourth year so the first year of my second term um and this year I am the chair of the school committee um I just want to pass it over to Brian who can do a quick little introduction if you don't already know him but Brian you want to introduce yourself sure uh wi con good evening everyone um Brian Weeden I am the vice chair of the school committee I am going into my final um year here of my three-year term um which is up in May um and it's really a pleasure to work for our students I'm also a member of the mashby tribe 2011 graduate
003of mashby high school um and started the human rights club and working with uh some of the teachers and things so it's really great to give back to this community um and I also serve as the chairman of the mashby Wu tribe as well so look forward to speaking with our community and hearing um you know how this goes and the feedback that we have I'm making sure that we can work together to make sure that we're providing all the best education that we can possibly for our students and families so thank you thanks Brian we also have superintendent dor on with us tonight she's going to be our uh technical uh Zoom our Zoom tech support here did you want to say anything before we no you know this is tied to the school
004committee's goals for this year uh doing these Zoom meetings uh with two members so it's not technically an official meeting and um as you can see there's three main topics for tonight as well as a Q&A and then on this first slide anyone who is and I know we have a small group here tonight but it is being recorded so that we can share it out with our families but there is the email address that goes to all five members so whenever anyone wants to reach out to the school committee that is a good um email to use they also have their individual emails which is their first letter last name in that same ending so I will advance this great thank you so as superintendent divorce said we have three topics tonight excuse me
005forgive me I have a bit of a cold setting in um but we're going to talk about the role of the school committee so basically what do school committees do in Massachusetts we're going to talk about the role of the superintendent we're going to go over the ction process just in case anybody was interested in that then we'll have some time for some Q&A so um yeah this just shows your terms so this is our current school committee um we've got school committees are five members typically um in Massachusetts um they can be a little bigger if they're Regional but in Mash we have a five member school committee um myself and Brian and then we also have Matt Davis who is our secretary this year he is also coming up on the end of
006his first term Don Myers who's our veteran member he's uh been on the school committee for 11 years um and then Dan Rodriguez who is in his first year of his first term he was newly elected this past May so um it's been a pleasure working with these gentlemen I have to say everybody's got quite interesting perspectives and brings a lot of different um experiences to the table and I think that's important because our students all come from different backgrounds so it's it's been very good um I think with this group to work together and uh kind of we all bring our own experiences and our own hopes for our children um to our work so that's kind of what I have to say about that Brian if at anytime you want to jump in
007and add on to anything feel free I don't want to do all the talking maybe you can do a couple slides when we get through um but feel free to jump in so um Pat if you want to go to the next slide yeah the only thing I was was going to add to this piece was that often just like we are with our students the diversity within each individual is not necessarily something that you know from looking at someone so these five individuals really do represent a diverse collection in uh in our students and families in many different ways more than you might think and I think like I said that's what makes it so great um next we have um so every school um just like good businesses we have a mission and
008we have a vision so the masy public school's mission is to ensure student centered comprehensive program of rigor scope and depth that prepares all students to be college career service and Civic ready and teachers respect and acceptance of others um that came about through our I think this was most recently revised when we came up with our um District Improvement plan if I'm not mistaken I feel like that got rewarded during that period yes and then um we also came up with a more concise and very specific vision of what we want to see MASH B students and what Master School District should be and our vision is that every student every day is safe respected and engaged to achieve academic and social growth in a personalized learning environment so that is kind of what
009we strive for at a as a school committee to make sure that we are working toward this Mission and toward this vision in collaboration with the superintendent so what our policies what our budget are we're trying to make sure they align to this Mission and this vision and then we you know charge the superintendent with you know putting it into practice so Brian do you want to add anything here no I just think that um the superintendent as well as the school committee does um you know take the mission and the vision into consideration in each and every decision um that that we do make um so these are definitely like our core values and uh make sure that we reiterate that um any time that we possibly can that's a great point we definitely
010do keep those in mind so this kind of ties into now so we've got our mission and we have our vision so now what does a school committee then really do um in Massachusetts we are a school committee um and you know that's some states call them school boards so you might hear people say school board but Massachusetts we definely call them School committees um we are all elected by voters of mash to serve three-year terms and there are three main things that a school committee does within Massachusetts we are to write and maintain policies that guide the district we approve and monitor the budget for the school system and then we hire and evaluate superintend the superintendent of the district so those are the three main things we don't really do anything operational um
011that is on the superintendent however because we hire and evaluate the superintendent we're making sure that the superintendent is operating the schools in a way that aligns to the policies and is managing the budget that we set in a way that is um providing our students with all the best opportunities and the best environment to learn and grow and develop as young people so um again we're more policy and budget oriented than we are operational so you know if it's something staff related the school committee you know you can talk to a school Committee Member and say hey what's going on with this but we're ultimately probably going to go back to the superintendent and say you know we're hearing this about a staff member or we're hearing this about you know a class that's
012not being offered that stuff is the operational stuff we might have a policy in place that says something about you know what type of um curriculum is used but it's on the superintendent to do that operational piece so as a school committee we are AR really involved in that but we are involved in the policies that help guide those decisions for operations um we do have an online policy manual that you can look at we are we review it periodically and then sometimes we'll get um updates from the state um the state school committee Association masc Massachusetts Association of school committees where they might recommend updating a certain policy or let us know about any changes to legislation that requires us to update a policy such as harassment policies um for example um so sometimes
013that's how the policies happen and we might get into that a little bit in a minute here but we also have our schedule of meetings our agendas our minutes of past meetings our meeting recordings which are recorded by the wonderful people at Mash BTV um and then they put them on their YouTube channel so and we also then get a copy that we put on the school website as well and we also have the budget so all of that is on the school committee page of our website which the link is right there mpsp k12.org Brian did you want to add anything or does anyone have any questions you can pause for a second if anyone has questions okay I would just if it's okay just wanted to add just for those listening that although
014school committee is not involved in the dayt day day-to-day operations I work collaboratively with with them it's really a great group of leaders and make sure that they know everything sort of that's going on the best I can so I meet with the chair once a week we go over anything and sometimes it's Personnel conversations sometimes it's events that have happened in a particular school but I just want to make sure that everyone realizes that there is really a very close communication between the superintendent and the school committee on a day on a day-to-day basis as needed um and that we try to keep everybody sort of on the same page yes that was a very good point thank you yeah also to that point um it's also really helpful um if you are interested
015in the school committee um you know you can obviously um go to the YouTube page um and channel and uh look at some meetings go to the meeting minutes so on and so forth but um it is interesting the onboarding I will say that the school committee um does a phenomenal job with onboarding um as well as super deor um so if anyone's you know hesitant on applying or you know kind of getting into it um know that that support is there for you as well as um charting the course um which is a requirement that school committee members are required to fulfill I believe it's within your first year of your term um and it's kind of talking about open meeting law Robert's Rules of Order um how to evaluate the superintendent um so
016on and so forth um so you do have the resources also to be successful yeah that's a great Point Brian um you know and that ties into this member guide book we do have a member guide book which is a resource that we all as committee members have access to but so do you as the public if you were ever curious what we as a committee um you know have been trained in so to speak um you know we are a pretty collaborative group and I really am happy to be able to say that in Mash you know you hear I have heard some horror stories of other districts where there's School committees did not get along um but this guide book really does help set the the foundation um and in addition to that
017is Bri I mentioned charting the course that's run by the state again the State Association of school committees um and so that is something that really Dives deep into those three pillars of budget policy and superintendent hiring and evaluation so superintendent dor clicked on that link this is what our guide book looks like um it talks about pretty much everything that you might ever need to know about being on school committee it shares our mission and our vision it talks about our operating protocols um the organization of the committee any professional development you might find you want to go to how to represent in different places as a school Committee Member How to Be an Effective Committee Member um and then it Dives deeper into budget because sometimes um you know not everyone totally understands
018how schools are funded in terms of what comes from state aid versus what comes from the town um grants and all the different pieces of money that help run these schools that you know are providing our children with the education and opportunities that they do um there's a lot to it so this handbook is very helpful um and very important and again if there's questions you know I think I know myself I know Brian we kind of pride ourselves on being able to um have kind of that open policy of if you have a question ask it like somebody's going to answer it and we're going to be here and we try to make sure that the parents in our district know that too like we are here to answer and if we can answer
019we will and if we can't like superintendent D'Or said I'm pretty sure all of us have a pretty open communication line with her and if we hear things we do try to bring them to her um to look into so that's that get some great pictures of our students if you haven't seen the uh the pictures on Thursdays you're missing out they're like the highlight of my week so if you want to go to the next slide then I think yeah okay so we have the committee at large we talked kind of about our five member committee but then within that committee we have um the organization which are our officers but then we also have subcommittees Liaisons and working groups so we kind of went over the officers I'm chair Brian is vice chair
020Matt's our secretary and then we have two members at large Don and Dan and then our subc committies those require um two people to kind of work work on specific items so again if you look at the subcommittees they kind of get more back to those pillars so curriculum negotiations policy and superintendent evaluation policy and superintendent evaluation those are two very clearly defined pillars of the school committee purview but then curriculum and negotiations those can sometimes impact a couple different ways whether it's budget whether it's um mostly budget for those two but also making sure that we're we're getting our student growth um the liaison positions those are members of the committee who um if needed um and if they would like to are able to attend these various meetings the select board the collaborative
021finance committee just kind of our interaction with other um Regulatory and advisory committees within the town as well as the tribe and then finally our working groups those are a little less formal they don't necessarily require a posted meeting they're still open to the public public if you wanted to but they're not necessarily hybrid none of these are really hybrid meetings so to speak um excuse me but you know the public is able to to send questions to ask about it um the meetings for subcommittees are posted they legally have to be working groups do not need to be posted so you might not see those meetings posted but the subcommittees you will um and for working groups we have Finance Outreach and engagement school committee efficiency and Effectiveness and the plan for Success working
022group legislative representative that's just the person that um when we go to um either anything that might be happening on the state H at the State House level or at the state school committee level like this next week we have our our big state conference and we have a representative who goes and kind of helps with any resolutions that might need voting on that's what the legislation legislative representative is um this sheet lives on the website of as well so if you were ever like hm I I want to know you know what um I want to know if somebody can revise the policy on I don't know headphones let's say just because it's poed into my head they could go on here find out who's on the policy subcommittee and maybe send them an
023email to talk about it um liaison you know that's again if if something came up and you need to talk about it you can go and find this list and it will help you understand who is your best um person to contact in addition to this subcommittees liaison and working group list you can also find our meeting schedule online which is also very helpful we try to set our meeting schedule about a year in advance so that everybody knows and it's pretty much on the calendar typically we meet the third Wednesday of the month um there are a few exceptions uh due to holidays plus budget season so like in January we do meet that first Wednesday in January but that's because we're in budget season and we need to approve the budget that the
024superintendent presents um and then in June we do meet right after the election as well so we can do a reorganization if we need to um and get everything in place for the next year um and then this year we have a new meeting of school committee student advisory committee the uh Massachusetts has a law that allows for students to have an advisory committee and have a nonvoting representative at all school committee meetings so took us about a year to get this in place but we have it we have a great student rep who's a senior at Mash P high and he and his four other uh fellow students they basically are like school committee they understand they're going to learn about the policies they're going to learn about the budget they're able to deliberate
025with us and provide that student input um in terms of not just at the high school though they're supposed to be covering from posnet you know from s school to to the high school so um it's really a great opportunity but that's where our meetings are typically they at 5:30 at the quet library unless otherwise noted um Brian did you want to add anything on any of this before we move on no I would say that um some of these are um definitely important um if you don't stay up to date on some of the things that happen at our school committee meetings uh we understand um The Mask policy was a big issue um you know in the middle of the pandemic um as well as changing uh public Comon um we used to
026traditionally have public comment twice um once in the beginning and once um after we had um gotten through all the other additional items on the agenda um we've updated that policy recently um and was trying to get feedback from the community so um if there are things that come out through the superintendent um weekly updates um or school committee agendas or items like that please don't hesitate um like the chair said Kathy um to reach out to us on those particular subcommittees so we can give you a little bit of a better understanding on you know why we made those decisions um moving forward and the only thing I was going to add to as well to the to the chart with the subcommittees and liaison is a lot that's a place for sort of
027a lot of the nitty-gritty work to get done so that then the members can report out to the remaining members of the committee and potentially have a more efficient use of time at the regular meeting so definitely the subcommittee's curriculum negotiations policy and my evaluation we sort of work through a lot of things that then a summarized version goes to all the members and then the working group they actually do a lot of the work that allows for a lot of questioning um I'm going to pick Finance working group so when we work on the budget and we're into fy2 has been submitted already but working through line item by line item and asking those kind of questions which doesn't always lend itself to the bigger school committee meeting but as long as we make
028sure that the two members are comfortable and can speak about all of those items then it makes it better for the bigger committee and more efficient meeting thank you for pointing that out Patty because a lot of times those conversations might not make it to our big meeting on that third Wednesday but that doesn't mean the discussions haven't happened um you know and and in the Spirit of full transparency you know we do really dig in like you know she talked about finance and and I've sat on those meetings and the questions get asked and we do scrutinize and make sure you know that where the money is going is where it's truly needed um and making sure that you know people are funded the way they need to be funded that the principles have
029the budgets for their buildings that the different athletic teams the different extracurricular activities that the Food Services all of those different pieces you know like it it is very it would make the big meeting very long to say the least if we went through that at one of our larger meetings so those working groups really are very helpful you know the school committee uh I'm sorry the Outreach engagement that's what kind of was the Genesis of why we're here tonight you know this was something that that working group said hey this could be a good a good thing and they kind of came up with the plan for it and presented it back at our larger committee meeting so when we get to that point in the agenda which see a sample agenda shortly um
030there's always a spot if there were any subcommittee or working groups that met there's time for them to share out and that does open up our conversation at our meetings to kind of ask the people on those subcommittees or working groups hey like did you talk about this okay you did what was said like and kind of get kind of get better information so that when we do have to make Act take action or vote on something we are pretty well informed as best we can be so any qu um I don't know if you want to go back for a second does anyone have any questions so far on any of this I don't want to go too fast or not give time for questions but okay if you do just raise your hand
031or shout out okay we can go to the next one so I as I just said this is what our sample this is one of our sample agendas it's actually our agenda from this past our last meeting we had um typically follows the same um the same order you know you'll see at the top that it's the business agenda with the date the time we do um have our land acknowledgement that we read at every meeting because it's important and we as a school committee have decided it's important to acknowledge you know where we are and um the significance of the land that we have our meetings on so we do include that in every meeting for the uh tribe as well as for the people who might not be aware of that and to
032be aware of that um we also have our mission and our value our vision which we went over at the beginning so they're at the top of every single one of our agendas so that we are seeing it and are reminded why we are having these meetings we also then have our pillars from our plan for Success again all of these pieces they may seem like they're just taking up space on a page but they really are there for us and for anyone who might be curious what we're working on to see the bigger picture of what we're all working toward so that's kind of what that top section of our agenda is geared toward um then below you'll see kind of our items one by one again pretty basic you know call meeting order
033Pledge of Allegiance land acknowledgement I won't go through the whole thing but you can see there's various things we do have public comment as Brian mentioned we did just change that um we are finding we weren't getting a lot of public comment at the end um plus if we have it at the beginning it does give us time um for the items chair did not reasonably know in advance to maybe discuss some of that or ask for an agenda item to be added later on um but you know we get presentations from the very schools which are really great you know the kids get to come in and tell us what they're working on or teachers come in and and tell us what different um projects or um clubs have been doing those are great
034times to kind of see what our kids are doing and what they're learning and just get that dose of like Good Feeling warm fuzzies because you know they're they're sharing and last month we got to learn about uh second grade math which was really awesome um we go through viw minutes we have a standing agenda item for a representative from the mash fog tribal education department so we make sure that we leave space every meeting for someone from their education department to come and give us an update on what's going on in the tribes side of things um our student advisory committee um as I said our rep Andrew Kelly he has time to present anything specific he might need to then we kind of get into the report of the superintendent where that update
035from the superintendent on Personnel on any any upcoming things that are coming um from her uh we get administrator updates if our principles have something going on and they want to share we have space for them to to share with the committee as well and then um we go into the Director of Finance that's where we kind of look at the budget ask any questions we do also um allow for questions to be emailed to our finance director in advance of um the meeting those questions if they are and when they are emailed in do get posted on our website also so again if you see that in the meeting we're not really asking a lot of questions it's not that the questions aren't being asked it's just they're being asked outside of that meeting
036but we do for full transparency post those questions and answers I believe correct Patty the answers also posted so yes the questions and answers that do get asked prior to the meeting are posted and you can look through them anytime as well to see hey they didn't ask this question I wondered did somebody else did you can always go go and look on the website and see that um after that like I said there's that subcommittee's working group updates where they share out anything that happened then any un unfinished or un um specifically assigned business that needs to be discussed any votes policy changes different things might be in there new business again kind of self-explanatory and then by then we get to items the chair did not know and adjourn if we're if we
037get through all of that we can adjourn and and all go home and get ready for the next month's meeting Brian did you want to add anything to this I mean again it's pretty self-explanatory but feel free to add on I will say the Highlight um for the meetings are definitely when our students come in um and do presentations um or a hearing from um our high school students after they return from a trip that we approved um you know and they thank us for you know allowing them to go on that trip and the educational experiences um and the school committee has gotten effective even to the point with the agenda uh previously we did have like time slots and limits um on there um and we actually took them away and found that
038we were like running more efficient meetings and um kind of getting out a little bit earlier um and kind of you know going through the agenda um versus following you know the line item time bytime slots that we did have previously so I think collectively like everyone is definitely working together to make sure that we handle the business but also make sure that we do get in and out um because we are volunteers at the end of the day um just like everyone else we have outside jobs family obligations and so on and so forth so it is helpful um to you know just change some of the minor things um can definitely go a long way so just wanted to mention that as well thank you for putting that out can I add something
039too in the fact that when the agenda is developed um it sort of starts in my office with whatever might have been discussed at the prior month's meeting that is a carry over over and then we also have which I'm going to link into here um a year-long calendar that sort of makes sure we don't forget some things so if you look here we always highlight the month that's coming up so for the next meeting it's a Native American presentation because it is Native American Heritage Month um I will be talking more about our fy2 budget and I actually will have our narrative to share um the Massachusetts Association of school superintendent AC ademic Excellence award presentation is given at this meeting so that the recipient can um make sure it gets on her College
040hers or his college applications uh we do in November have an initial calendar review for um fy2 and I will say tomorrow morning when I meet with the chair I have two versions for her to look at there as well um and then the conference that the chair mentioned which is next week they'll have an opportunity to share out from that experience and then mmhs will be presenting um and I believe it is some Native American students sharing out some of the work they're doing with um Nature's rights um but I also wanted to say that the agenda in draft form we do our best to try to get it to all five members in advance enough so that anybody who wants to add something or has a comment or change to make they let
041us know and we generally try to get the agenda well obviously it has to be posted 48 hours with the town we try to have it go out on a Friday um before a Wednesday meeting and then sometimes the packet itself is more on a Monday but we we're trying to do a better job of making sure particularly in my Friday communication that prior to that Wednesday the upcoming Wednesday meeting that we can share with our mashby community what's on the agenda for the next week yeah and that that last bit um about the agenda that is something that came out of our annual uh Retreat where we were talking about how to improve our communication and transparency with families and and the public because realistically you know while our main focus is the students
042we recognize that you know majority Mash voters who help fund the schools through the town meeting votes might not have children in the schools so we want transparency not just for the parents but also for those who are you know voting to approve the budget um and having this transparency but also giving people a chance to understand what's being discussed um maybe if they have public comment um they might want to come and plan it if they can see what's being spoken about so that's something that's a little bit new in in terms of our practices is making sure that that's available prior to the meeting but I think it's it's pretty helpful for the public to know and that way again if they do want to talk excuse me if they do want to
043talk or they do want to come and make comment they're they're able to be well prepared so um that is that is our agenda and that's kind of how they look so um I don't know if you want to go to the next slide sure okay so we talked a little bit about um how we kind of work on our our goals and our missions as a school committee and one of I don't want to say buzzword but one of our big words is alignment um we need to make sure that we are aligned not only with the superintendent goals but also with the goals of the district as a whole and back in 2020 2019 2020 the school district started to develop this plan for Success um it was approved by the school committee
044June 16th 2021 we're in year three of this fiveyear District Improvement plan and during those workshops we had stakeholders from through the entire masch Community we had teachers students administrators school committee members parents business owners and I believe some select board members as well um all participate in a bunch of workshops that were facilitated by a professional um who does these types of District Improvement plans um a former educator who who understands like what schools need to do and how to really help hone that Vision in a sense so again as you can see at the top you've got the mission you've got the vision you've got the core values of what Mash Public School really stands for and then our theory of action which basically is explaining how you know how are we going
045to do all the things that we're saying in our mission and our vision and our core values how are we doing that and we came up with four four pillars portrait of a graduate diversity equity and inclusion teaching and learning and then Mash viia connected community and underneath that we have strategic objectives and then strategic initiatives um and this document it's a living document it changes it can be updated um as you can see our outcomes we do list them those little yellow boxes show what year we've worked on different pieces of it so anywhere you see FY 24 those are things that we have set or the school has set to focus on the a successful school district has every piece in line so they'll have their plan for Success the superintendent will then
046make his or her goals or their goals off of that plan the school committee then also makes their goals off of this plan and um Administration as a whole like principles The Faculty the staff everybody should be working kind of off of this plan to make their goals for the year if everybody's doing that theoretically we will have a successful school system that is moving forward and going in the in the direction of achieving these goals and that's kind of this that's why this document is so pivotal to what we as a school committee do and how we evaluate the superintendent and how we are evaluating um the policies and the curriculum and all of the things that school committee looks at the budget making sure that things are funded in order to achieve these
047goals so this is a really interesting document if you've never read it give it a quick scan you know if you have questions about it feel free to ask the school committee or ask any one of us to explain it a little bit better but um I was part of that as a parent I started out as a parent working on this and then I was elected so then I shifted to school committee representative on this when it was developed and the conversations you know they were they were very in-depth conversations and I think I think covered a lot of different um aspects of what we want our schools to be and what how we want our students to leave our schools and what we want them to know what we want them to gain
048from being in our schools so again if you haven't read this before highly recommend taking a look at it these are the things again as Brian said earlier we are trying to keep these at the Forefront of everything we are doing um are we perfect at it no but are we open to learning from where we might stumble or slip yes um always at least that's my take on it Brian you can correct me if you feel if I'm if I'm off base here but I do feel like we we really hold these four pillars very very dear to what our work as a school committee is I know Brian did you want to add anything to the plan for Success no I think that this is um you know one of the most important
049documents um that we do have um and it is great to kind of have this uh road map if you will um to see you know where we want mashby to go um and it's a beautiful thing to see the collaboration between um the school committee and the superintendent um to make sure that we're all on the same page um and I believe that this has you know been successful um obviously um jumping into this um kind of halfway through um but it is something that I think is uh really important for people to really understand um because this goes back to a lot of the reasons why we might look into curriculum um in different areas and different aspects um and also bring in um certain par professionals or professional development days so on
050and so forth um to make sure that we're really um making sure we meet the mark when we talk about um investing into these objectives and these goals um and make sure that we work together thank you anybody have any questions on the plan for Success before we move on I'll just add that from my perspective with um the leadership team and the teachers like our decision making for me starts at those four pillars which one does it fit under and why are we going to be doing it so it is been a very helpful um guide or plan for and um helping us make the decisions that are going to move us in the right direction sorry thank you no great we go to the next slide and as I said so we we
051take excuse me every year the school committee we try to have um we try to have a retreat where we get together and typically it's after we've gotten the um Family surveys so you know we send those family surveys out in February we asked that families take them we um two years ago decided to extend it to students and ask the students um I believe we did grades 5 through 12 this past year yes um and ask them to take a pretty much the same survey with maybe one or two questions change so because parents might be asked it slightly differently um we take that information and data we take the um plan for Success we take our past goals that we had from the year before and we kind of start looking at where
052are we and where do we want to go um and using that document and that information at our ret treat we develop our goals um which then are provided with the action steps um and you can see here we did develop three goals um we talked about the standards that we wanted to hit from the uh plan for Success so you know this document also does live on our website so if you ever wanted to dig in and see what we have set for our goals for the 23 24 school year you can go and look but what we found was a lot of people one didn't really know what school committees do so we figured we should we should fix that um which is again why we're here tonight uh we found that communication
053needed to be improved not just with the families but also with the students so we wanted to increase student voice but we also want to make sure that families understand how to communicate what to communicate um where to communicate um and kind of get get things back to more level um in terms of how families and people who have students in the district know how to communicate with the school committee but also that can extend like I said to other stakeholders in our community who might be curious as to what's going on in the school um so that is kind of where our goals germinate from and what we work toward um they're not the only things we work towards but they are kind of our bigger goals that we kind of are trying to
054measure to make sure that we can show our work toward them and and hopefully improve upon um as we work through the year so Brian did you you helped kind of develop these action stats did you want to add anything to this no I think um Kathy touched based on um you know majority of the stuff um that we are trying to work on um and one of these obviously this uh evening's event that we putting on um that's one of the biggest barriers that we see sometimes is just um the lack of um communication or education um between the stakeholders and um us as a school committee um if we don't hear from people at our meetings and so on and so forth um you know even if there's not a lot of people
055on tonight um please make sure you know you do get the word out we will have more of these um and we're trying it out this year if it doesn't work then you know we'll go back to the drawing board but just want to make sure that we have that open communication and uh let you know exactly what our roles are um and what our Duties are and know that um we are here for you if you do need us um and the superintendent um does a phenomenal job at making sure that um you know the community input is also represented in the school um with community outreach um so on and so forth and just attending a lot of our community events um I know we try to push to have a table at
056um open house and things like that from the school committee um if there's other events in the community that you feel like we should be at as well um or want to encourage us please don't hesitate to reach out um to us and send us an email or reach out to superintendent dbor um she does come out with uh a list of events um and she does you know highlight some of the events that she feels school committee members should be at but if there's other things in other ways we can be supportive to the community um and other things that are going on please you know let us know so that we can be there to help represent not only the district but you know the families as well yeah sorry go ahead did
057you want to say silly Patty all I was going to say was that this particular um action you know step that the Outreach working group developed this recording can also be something that we share with our students because I don't think our students fully understand the role of the school committee as well and we obviously can't get them to come to meetings necessarily so hopefully this will be something that maybe we can get shared in a couple of uh classroom settings that'd be great I just want to touch back on something Brian kind of said you know if there are events that you think it could benefit having a school committee there I mean we're currently every one of us is a parent at different stages in our our journey as parents um but you
058know that's a place that people might feel comfortable coming to us to talk about things and they're not comfortable coming to a meeting that's fine you know like I can't stress enough that my email inbox is always open Brian's email inbox is always open like we are we serve at at your pleasure basically in the sense that you've elected us and you know we want we want to hear from you and not just the good I mean we we do hear the good from our presentations but you know something's not necessarily working or you have questions on how it works or you're trying to go through a process that you've never been through before you know and and trying to figure out well who do I contact like we can help with that we might
059not be able to like you know go Full Tilt for you in terms of like doing it you know we might have to say well you really should start with you know your classroom teacher or you should start with you know this person and this department but we can at least help answer those questions as a school committee member um and I just want to make sure that people understand that you know a lot of times I think people think oh they're elected they're on a committee we're like in an ivory Tower so to speak but I think from my work with the four other gentlemen that I am on this committee with we are like Patty said earlier too we're all connected to different parts of mash Bing some of them overlap some of
060them don't but I think we pride ourselves on being able to and I I hate saying pride ourselves but I think we all try our best to make sure that people know they can approach us if they have something they need to talk about so just keep that in mind and again as you go through some of these things tonight you get off this and you go right to our website and start poking around you have a question about things shoot an email we try to answer as fast as we can and and pass on what we can and help where we can so kind of why we all got into it I think ultimately for the kids because they're at the Forefront here is what we're working on so this is just the second
061page of the goals um I'm not going to go too much through it but if you want to read through it it does have all of the action steps outlined in various um ways that we're going to continue to work on these goals so I don't you want to go to the next one the only thing I wanted to say sort of change in our practice is that like in that yellow making sure that in that Friday communication we're a little bit more explicit with what the school committee talked about at their previous meeting because that's just one way of trying to make sure it's as easy as possible for stakehold ERS to know what's going on um and I did notice I don't know if you watched the mash me minute that the high
062school produces but they had a nice segment this past Friday um that was from Eve Mayan who is one of the um school committee student advisory committee members and it was talking all about what that their role is and so hopefully that was something that also uh connected with some of the kids this just is the third page that shows the goal which has to do with the student advisory committee and then also in the monthly Enterprise articles that we do we have a specific section or couple paragraphs highlighting school committee um work so that we're trying to reach Beyond just the people that get my Friday publication with what the school committee is uh working on yeah thanks for pointing that out so um and I I am interested if people are noticing it
063you know I don't again we don't always get the feedback but if you find that that yellow box is helping you understand let us know and like briyan said if it's not we'll go back to the drawing board you know we want to engage the families and make sure they understand what our work is and how we're helping their children in this District so if there's a better way for us to do it please share it we're we're open to ideas but this is our this is what we're starting with so hopefully we'll see some improvement as we work through this year so um you want to go to the next slide please so we wanted to talk to a little bit about the election schedule and the process of being elected to school committee
064like Brian said we're elected volunteers there is no stien there is no full we don't you know quit our jobs to do this full-time we all have full-time jobs and we do this outside of that um which is kind of amazing to consider the dedication of Volunteers in our town who step up to this role who've done it before and who will do it you know who will come up after um it's not easy work I won't lie to you but it is very rewarding um to know that you know you are you are doing good work um but the process for election in mashby February 5th that date is already on the calendar that is when nomination papers will be available in the town clerk's office basically you go to town hall you go
065see the town clerk dead K she'll give you she's our current town clerk she will give you two sheets of papers with I believe it's what 35 or 30 I think it's 35 signatures each you basically need 50 signatures she recommends getting both Pages filled if you can great um it kind of gives you that safeguard for the person who scribbles their name and you can't really tell who they are and then you'll return that typically there's I believe there is a state law that says how many days after nominations are pulled that date is not yet on the calendar but um once you get both of those sheets filled out you bring them back she puts you on you know on the ballot you have so many days that if you change your mind
066and go what am I doing like no you have time to pull your name off the ballot but you know if once you turned them in you are able to appear on the ballot they list them they pull names it's very random it's not necessarily a set or order that they n they put you on the ballot it's basically a name poll to list you on the ballot and then you go usually there's somewhere between that time and the town election there's usually a candidates Forum if it's necessary um and during that candidates Forum you'll be asked questions kind of about your background just your basic you know candidates Forum school committee is not um really political in the sense in mashby that you have to declare what party you were a part of so
067if anyone was ever worried like oh I couldn't do that because it's too politicized school committee M like in mashy is not politicized so you run as yourself um without any of that other conversation really around you unless you want it to be around you um and it's kind of what you're willing to disclose as a candidate in a sense but you know me you probably know I'm an open book and I'll tell you anything but that's uh that's how the nomin that's how this election schedule works and then on May 11th of 2024 we'll be having our town election where um I believe this term we have two seats up um and you know we're not sure yet who will be going for those seats but we do have two of our members who
068are up should they choose to run for re-election um but the process it's it's relatively painless I I will admit I don't know Brian do you have thoughts on that on the process that you'd like to share no okay so yeah that's that's the process and uh pretty straightforward so if you're ever thinking about it I'm happy to talk to anybody who's interested I know um other members are also happy to talk to people if you're interested and you have questions like what's it really like being on the committee hopefully this presentation's helped a little but I'm always happy to talk to anybody who's interested in running um just because I I think you know it's good to know what you don't know and if you don't know what it's like to be on a
069committee or how to run you know I'm happy to talk to anybody who's curious so and also just to share from my perspective I have had candidates in the past reach out to me and I'm happy to meet with anyone as well sometimes they're in the stage of thinking about running sometimes they've taken out papers I don't know if they always return them but they're always welcome to come and have a conversation and um better understand you know the school district and and how it functions and what the role of school committee is so we've had that yes important also to uh stay um up to date with like the campaign um Finance laws um you know if you are going to run like an actual campaign um and go out and get um donations
070and things like that uh make sure that you do do the proper paperwork that does need to be filed um and so on and so forth um but also sometimes I think um the biggest hurdle is the signatures um as much as you might be intimidated by that um I know people that have gone to stop and shop uh you know the post office the library and have gotten signatures within a couple hours and brought them right back so um please don't hesitate to reach out to any of us like we said if you do have questions about that process or anything else that comes with the position yeah to Brian's point standing outside stop shop you can have some pretty interesting conversations with mashby voters and answer a lot of interesting questions um so
071you know again if you have questions we're all here to probably you know we have no problem sharing our experience and what worked and what didn't and how to how to get your name on a ballot if you're interested um and so here's another example these kids came and talked about um Camp was it called was it called Camp Falcon Discovery Camp Falcon Discovery Camp Camp sorry it changed names it was Camp Falcon once upon a time but they they went to our summer camp and uh shared their experiences and we got to hear about it and it sounded like a great time great way to spend your summer so um we do have like I said we have lots of presentations like Brian said it's kind of the highlight of every meeting this particular
072meeting we had a presentation from the Vex robotic Club um and they're frisbee golf robots um they went they are that was last year's no that was last year's game that was well it was they came to us in either May or June it looks like June yeah yeah yeah yeah four of those five of those kids have graduated yeah so they went to the world competition um and competed and they built and ran those robots and played frisbee golf with them so it was pretty neat to watch them do that and explain their experience so um it was it was great but also it gives us a chance to say okay when we budget for the robotics team this is what the money is going towards it kind of reinforces that yes this program
073is valuable these students are getting experiences that are valuable and it is worth you know making sure that we are able to continue to fund such programs so the next slide I think that was the last one that's it okay I'm GNA stop sharing those so can sort of go to a different uh so I guess you know what time we have left I know that kind of ran pretty close to8 but I'm GNA open it up if you have any questions um or anything that we didn't cover about what school committee does um I'm happy to answer Brian's here we're happy to answer them but okay oh did you have one Rick you can unmute yourself yeah you're you're muted so that's Rick yep no you're still muted I don't know paty can you
074unmute him is the organizer I don't uh ask to unmute let's see allow to mute we need all right we'll get there there you go I think are you hear me now can you hear me yes okay I'm just a casual Observer here I moved in mashby in January I was on the board of ed in New Jersey in our smaller town our mission was clear like yours is the overarching mission was not to run the schools but to ensure that they're well-run and my nine 10 months in mashby I'm just amazed that so all this is is a comment that's all um is the schools are unbelievably well-run you guys do an amazing job at the school commit I had to learn the difference between a school committee and a board of ed um
075just again because I'm interested but even uh in the mash P Enterprise of weekly paper to read the summary of what's going on in the schools and the way that comes in handy for me in a sort of ridiculous way is I was having a discussion with a friend who also lives on the cape I actually grew up with her in New Jersey but um she was talking about her pessimism at the future of the world and what are we leaving the world kind of shape we're leaving it in and who are we leaving it to I sent her a copy of the latest on this past Friday in the summary of what you all are doing with the schools and I said if this does not give you optimism I don't know what does
076about what kind of world we're building and who we're leaving it to um you you guys do an amazing job I did not I did not start my video because at the beginning of this I sat down to a while I watched you a warm meal and I'm thinking I got an instant PTSD thinking about to my years at the on the board thinking no these guys have not had dinner yet they're probably starving their families are probably crawling all over them so I understand the time the commitment The Passion of what you're all doing and I just wanted to thank you that's all and I I'll shut up now and let you let you go on but no thank you I appreciate your comments I think you know like I said earlier you mash
077P isn't just the families there are a lot of stakeholders who don't have children in our district but they're you know we are the biggest line item on the town meeting budget so keeping that in mind having people like yourself who are seeing what our schools are doing who are seeing what our children are achieving and what our students are are interested in like whether it's the Vex robotics or whether it's you know what they're doing in their ST Math in second grade with Gigi the penguin like I think that's very important for the community as a whole to understand and why we do you know like like you said why we do what we do so thank you for sharing Brian if you anything else you wanted to yeah no thank you Rick I
078really appreciate it and we know everyone's time is definitely valuable so thank you for your work that you've also done as well well thank you anybody else no all right well if if you do have any other comments or anything you think of after feel free again my email is open you can email all five of us and we'll do our best to get back to you but you know feel free to share thoughts comments anything you think of after this and um if not thank you for your time and for sitting through our little presentation here and hopefully you learned something tonight so all right thank you everyone have a great evening thank you