Middleborough Public Schools: School Committee Meeting - November 6, 2025

001call this school committee meeting to order. Uh would you all please join me if you can in pledge allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, first on this evening's agenda is uh a reorganization of our committee. Um, I hope that you saw I received today the official letter from Zeke from the uh town clerk that uh stated his resignation as of November 1st. Um, and for that reason also in in the drive you saw I put a copy of uh our policies that govern how we reorg when there is a resignation. And um Jess, you'll be very proud of me that I'll be able to

002say it is policy BDA, school committee organizational meeting, and that we follow the same procedures that we do um for the beginning of the year. Um and so with that, I am serving as the chair for now um as the vice chair uh in Zeke's absence. So, first order of business is to call for nominations for the role of chair of school committee. >> Allan, >> I'd like to nominate uh Jess as chair. >> Do I hear any seconds? >> Second. >> Any other nominations? >> I'd like to nominate nominate Sue Panini. >> Do I hear any seconds? One more time, I need to ask, do I uh hear any further nominations? Actually, before I do that, um because I have been nominated, I'd like to uh release my role as chair to Allen. >>

003All right. Um just as a point of order, you can second your own nomination if you want, if you'd like. Um, with that, do I hear any other nominations for the role of chair? >> All right. Uh, we'll start with the first nomination. Um, all those in favor of Jess, please say I. >> I. >> All those in favor? Oh, well, that's it. We We didn't have a second on the other nomination. So, Jess, you are now. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Um, now you up to you. I would switch seats and then uh call for nominations for vice chair. >> Certainly. >> Thank you. >> Y >> Oh, I left my pens down there. >> Yeah, I left all my stuff down there. >> Be careful. your treat. That wasn't >> mine. >> Thank you

004for the nomination. I am honored by the opportunity to serve as the facilitator and the organizer for the committee. Um, and I guess the first order of business is for nominations for the position of vice chair. Do I hear any nominations for vice chair? >> I'd like to nominate Sue Panini. >> Second. >> Any other nominations? All right. All those in favor of Sue as vice chair >> I believe that's unanimous. >> I abstain. >> You abstain. Thank you. So four and an abstension. Chris dosy do or >> would you like to stay put for now? >> Push you over. >> That's a I think we can stay away. >> Stay put. All right. Um, just for the uh wrapup, the only other role we have is our uh clerk who is currently uh Christine

005Brun. I would accept nominations for uh secretary. Clerk, I believe we've renamed it clerk in our policy. So, clerk. >> So moved >> to retain Christine as chair. Second. Second. Any additional nominations? All those in favor? I >> I All right. Any opposed? >> Unanimous. All right, Sue, because you uh helped set the agenda and organize this meeting, I will rely on you heavily throughout this meeting to help facilitate. Um, so, thank you for uh putting this on. Was there anything else you had when you planned the organizational meeting to uh vote on? >> Nope. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right. So, the next order of business is filling of a vacancy. Um and I know Sue has that policy as well, but that one is BBBC and um currently we have it combined

006with I think it's BB BB. Um but the policy itself does state the process that we need to fill that we need to follow for filling a vacancy. Um and basically we've received the written notice and within a month we have to officially notify the select board and then um we have a meeting where anyone who is interested in filling a candidate we are able to proceed with a joint meeting or a joint vote um dependent upon how we choose to structure the process in collaboration with the select board. Um Sue I believe you've spoken with the select board already. >> I have. Would you care to just give us an update on your discussion? >> Sure. Um, what I did was I contacted uh Mark and uh Teresa and had a conversation about just

007the how the policy works. Uh so that we try to assure that we move together in concert. Uh that we had a similar understanding. uh and they were um excited about the the working together on this. Uh, one of the recommendations that I would have as a result of those that conversation is that um that you sit down with them >> and talk about procedurally uh first how we go about uh together seeking applicants and uh and setting up the process for how we would take those in. Uh the the policy itself is a little unclear with that one week the oneweek notification. Uh as I said, it was today that we we received the official notification that uh as is stated in the policy from the clerk that they also received officially. Uh so

008as far as timing is concerned the I think that the language is a little bit vague enough that we can set up a timeline that makes sense that we're really uh advertising and allowing people to uh express their interest, get whatever materials and then uh go forward with the meeting to interview and take the vote. >> Okay. Um, Sue, I would like to invite you to continue to participate in that process with me if you're interested in in meeting with the the select board to to work through it. Um I do know from uh discussing with MASD that there are some options that we can consider with the select board of either um creating like a ad hoc subcommittee so that we could have two members from the school committee and the select board conduct

009the interviews and make a recommendation back to a joint meeting of the boards or we could do everything just as a full joint meeting of the board. So that'll be something that we want to come to an agreement with with the select board and >> and amongst ourselves. >> Yep. you know whether whether everyone wants to participate in that process or whether it be a subcommittee. Agreed. >> So with that being said um just a a brief discussion if um you to make sure that going into any discussion with the select board that we know opinions of the full school committee. Um would you prefer to go in and have a candidates interview process with the full board or with a subset? It would have to be two from each board. >> You asking all

010of us? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> What would you prefer, >> please? >> Um, I think I've mentioned this to a few people, but I I think five I think remaining at five until the next election is probably the best way to go. If that's not possible, I understand. But there was a motion at town meeting by a member of the select board to reduce the school committee to five and we had a motion at the time meeting to go to seven to avoid this three on three. So we have an opportunity at 5 now to go until the next town election. I think that would be the most prudent way to go. But if I'm the only one who thinks that way or if I'm in the minority, that's I completely understand. And then uh

011>> opinion-wise, I totally understand your opinion. I'm just looking at what the letter of the the law says in terms of filling the vacancy. We can definitely check with um I would probably need to be the town lawyer and our lawyer since the motion was made at town meeting um for the increase in August. But right now, the policy does state that if there is a vacancy, it must be filled. And if we do not have the meeting to fill it within 30 days, then it can be filled. So uh within the 30 days and the week, if we don't notify within 30 days, then it can be filled. So >> but yeah, I think that I would appreciate it if we have that discussion about the five of the seven. >> We can do

012that with the select board. Um >> can we have that conversation here first >> of what we want to do five or seven? So, I don't think the option >> Oh, okay. I thought you said I thought she was just referring it to the selectman. I think it'd be good to hear other people's thoughts on that. >> Well, the the question is the the going up to seven is what was already motioned for for at the town election. So, that's a separate discussion than filling the vacancy at a certain point. um filling the vacancy there is the the regulation that we need to follow but we can absolutely discuss with the select board if because it's vague as you said Sue you know if we don't have the meeting and they don't nominate someone then

013we don't have a candidate so I do think it's one of those things that it's vague enough that we just have to be careful about how we proceed with that >> I just want to be really clear I'm not really emotionally invested in If we go another route that is fine with me. I don't have any problem with going to six till. >> Okay. >> I mean we've been doing six for >> So the question >> how many years now? >> Thank you. So the question I um posed was >> when if we do have the interviews of the candidates to choose a candidate to recommend. Would you prefer that we do all five of us, all five of the select board and everybody gets one vote and we all 10 of us interview the

014candidates or that we have a ad hoc subcommittee of the school committee and an ad hoc subcommittee of the select board. So two and two that would conduct the interviews and make a recommendation that would then come back to the full meeting of a school committee and select board joint meeting to vote upon that recommendation. So, do you prefer all five of us to interview candidates or a subcommittee? >> I mean, I personally prefer for all of us to be part of that process. >> I agree with that. >> Okay. >> I agree. Also, >> great. So, that's something that when we go to the select board to have the discussion. We know that we would prefer for a full committee meeting. So, I appreciate knowing everybody's opinions so that we can share that when

015we have the joint discussion. I'm sorry, Sam. I'm moving my microphone. Could we follow up though on Allen's request? >> Yes, I need to check with legal. >> Even before we check with legal, it might may or may not be something we want to do. I I would recommend that I guess my point being this. No matter what, I think we should fill the position now. There's enough work to go around that I think uh it also would give somebody an opportunity that wants to run u to get their feet wet. Uh so I I really feel that we should fill the position. >> Okay. Any other opinions? Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um so with that being said, we will obviously bring this back. Um it will be a a time-sensitive meeting. Um it

016would be lovely, I think, with the way everything times out to uh have enough information that we can proceed. So, um, within the month, um, plan to hear more as soon as we can get more information. So, the next order of business on the agenda is public comment. Uh, any speakers for public comment? >> Good evening. >> I just appreciate just one moment because new to this. Just want to remind everyone approximately three minutes for your comment. Thank you. I should be done by then. John Burbage, 2406 Green Street. Um the current uh elected president of the Oakpoint Homeowners Scholarship Fund. I'm here just to talk for a second about the success of the of our yard sale recently. I hope uh some or all of you had a chance to be there. Uh we

017netted about $46,000 in case you hadn't heard. uh all of which is earmarked for the Middleboro class of 26. Uh that is usually a fraction of what we give. Uh we will be meeting as an organization. Uh our annual meeting is this Sunday. Uh we'll be voting on our gift to the class. Uh as I told uh principal Branigan will be notifying the high school uh BP Tech and Bristol Aggie uh of how much in scholarships and tool ships they'll be receiving. Um and we will announce that to the town at the select board meeting uh on the 17th. Um, I expect uh Kathy Linatra, Norman Orl, and Kelly Duner all to be there uh for this. Um, I've been doing this now for four going on four years as the president. We've been pretty

018successful in growing this. I've had a number of white whales that I've been chasing. Uh, I've accomplished all but one so far and next year I'm going to be full bent on that. And that's I don't understand why any of the major television stations haven't come out to cover a senior community that's the biggest source of financial aid to the town that it that it resides in. just uh uh if you know anybody uh cuz I do too and I've been knocking on their doors, but I'm stunned that they haven't been out to do a positively Massachusetts a game changers or something about the Oakpoint community. Uh I hope that all of you will be at least watching. If you don't come to the meeting on the 17th, uh I promise you you'll be shocked.

019>> Thank you so much. And as always, we continue to thank you for all of the efforts of the Oakpoint community. So, thank you. Any other speakers for public comment? >> Yes, Bridget Karns. Um, I'm going to ask this committee to send policies AC, ACA, ACA, and ACE back to the subcommittee for re review and revote for their approval. In particular, the policies non-discrimination on the basis of sex and disability had substantial changes that were presented as minor changes that should be looked at more closely. These two protected classes have standalone policies. The function of these policies appear to establish procedure around additional protections that these two groups have under federal law. Those being Title 9 and Title 2 under ADA. The red flag I saw was when you struck the line in accordance with

020Title 9 and then inserted sexual orientation and gender identity because in doing so, you're telling me that you're writing a policy that is not in accordance with Title 9. This policy is not a general declaration of what the district does not discriminate against, but rather one that directs the school on how to carry out Title N procedures. Sexual orientation and gender identity, and this policy is arbitrary, as sex is a protected class in its own right, and is not coupled with any other class inherently. The confusion is likely a reflection of changes made by the Biden administration, but were vacated by a federal court of January in January. So, it's unreasonable that this is being passed in October. This policy was reviewed by Jessica as well as title N investigator Kevin Abatabi and the legal

021council uh back in May and as title N investigator you should have known but certainly your legal counsel should have advised you differently. They fail to be your fail safe again and I call on you to remove them as your counsel. Leaving these two groups in this policy only serves to confuse and misrepresent what non-discrimination on the basis of sex covers. This policy should be written so that it is clear for everyone. As a parent, I want to know that all staff, including the Title N investigator, are not giving difference to sexual orientation or gender identity when investigating cases of sex discrimination. I continue to be deeply concerned about the way handbook language, school committee, and school policies are being written to mislead people from staff, parents, students through the inclusion and mislication of the

022wrong law to the misrepresentation of what protected classes are included under non-discrimination on the basis of sex. To be clear, everyone is protected by Title N when they experience discrimination on the basis of being male or female. This does not take rights away from anybody. Each time I stand here, after untangling a complex web of lies, misrepresentation, coercive actions, I'm left questioning the motives of the people who are directing them, writing them, reviewing them, and passing them. Your position on this committee is not to advance some social justice agenda. It's to set an example to any of our students. It does not set an example to our students when you quietly manipulate policy. It only serves to create more division in this community. I'm calling for radical transparency and accountability from this committee moving forward.

023No more sweeping things under the rug or leaving the new superintendent to swap out the wrong law with the right law with zero explanation. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Kim Jones, 79 Clay Street. Um, just here to hear what you're going to speak about later on with another five resignations from the school committee. Uh, well, not school committee, the schools. Um, I do have concerns with that. I was happy to see that there were five new employees that were replacing it, but again, we all we got to do is look 15 miles down the road at Whitman and the mess that they're in with finances and teachers leaving. And I just hope the school really takes a look at this closely and maybe even unfortunately take an opportunity from another school who's losing staff

024to maybe enhance our school program. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments from the public? >> All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to the discussion items. First order of business is a report from student representatives Jackson and Mason. >> All right. So, our first announcement is districtwide. Um, just a reminder that there's no school on the 11th for Veterans Day and no school the 26th through the 28th for Thanksgiving break. to move to the mech. The kindergarteners had their first field trip of the year. Uh they it was on Wednesday and Thursday and they went to the Benson's Pond Cranberry Bog. So they got some hands-on experience and learning about the Middle Brows historical roots in cranberries. The mech word of the month for November is gratitude. And students and staff are talking

025about things that they are grateful for. And picture retake is November 19th for anyone who missed a picture or wants a retake. All right. And then for MKG, uh, Principal White just wants to extend a thank you to everyone that contributed to the MKG fund run. It was a huge success. And also a thank you to any PTA and the volunteers for supporting the students. The fundraising goal was met. So, Principal White is going to be duct taped to the wall by the the grade three students. >> Nice. >> Uh, MKG picture retake day is November 18th. And just a reminder that parent teacher conferences are held the week of November 17th if you have not already received information from your child's teacher about scheduling an appointment. So at the HBB they had a great

026spirit week from the from October 27th to the 31st. Monday was wear a Halloween shirt day. Tuesday was crazy hair day. Wednesday was pajama day. Thursday was wear black and orange day. And on Friday, they wore their Halloween costumes to end the week in style. And they want to thank everyone who supported the PTA's pie and cookie fundraiser. They raised a lot of money. And you can pick up your goodies November 17th, 4 to 6:00 p.m. in the HBB main lobby. The big blast is tomorrow, the 7th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. We'll have games, food, and just some good fun. There is a cost for tickets, which is $20 at the door, I believe. And November 17th through the 20th is parent teacher conference week and they look forward to meeting with parents. >>

027All right. Uh not a lot from uh NMS. Um just a reminder that parent teacher conferences are taking place on the 19th and the 20th. So to move on to the high school, we want want to congratulate the student council and speech and theater workshop for their outstanding job and collaboration in hosting the new annual Halloween funfest last week. This is the second time we have collaborated and this year we had our haunted hallway put on by SCW. We had the games and the crafts for the kids in the rotunda and cafeteria for uh put on by the stucco. And we also had a carved pumpkins display with games from the note performing arts booster club. Uh so congratulations and thank you to everyone who helped with that. Uh the New England Association of Schools

028and Colleges called NIASK completed their dicenial is that how you say I think that's right. accreditation visit on October 29th, 27th through the 29th. Uh, and job well done to the entire student body and staff. Uh, special thank you to Atly Finny, Nina Travers, Natalie Corey, and Alex Cimeian for serving as tour guides to the NASC visiting team. Thank you to the many students who participated in the focus groups and student showcase during the NASC visit. I walked around and I managed to see a few of them before they were presenting and it seemed to like every single area of the school was covered. Uh, and I managed to speak with Principal Brandan last night and he said he could not have been more proud of our school. He thinks we did exactly what we

029needed to do and the visiting team was extremely impressed by the student body as well as the faculty and staff. He also would like it to be known that the school still has room for improvement and he will take the recommendations to heart and we'll work to be better at our next visit. Uh once he has the official report and can share it out, there will be more to come on that. The class of 2026 had a amazing senior mystery ride on Tuesday of last week. It ended up being a trip to Bodaborg, which is a physical escape room place in Malden. I know a few people came away with some nice bruises, but a lot of smiles. Uh, Middle High School Performing Arts Department is proud to present Hadestown Teen Edition. This musical adapts

030classical Greek mythology into a meaningful and heart heart-wrenching story about love, loss, and what happens when doubt comes in. Shows will be on Friday, November 21st, and Saturday the 22nd. Both will be 6:30 p.m. and a Sunday matinea at two at on the 23rd at 3 p.m. Tickets will be $10. They are sold at the door and for I think the first time we have online ticket sales through GoFan. So that's exciting. And to conclude for known events at the high school, the Thanksgiving spirit week will be coming up. It will be running from November 17th to the end of that week and then November the 24th and the 25th before we go on break. I will conclude with our annual pep rally which will be on the 25th during the school day. And we

031are adding a new decorating contest this year. It's not really new. It used to be something that was huge at the high school but faded out over time. And each grade will be decorating a different area of the school with a theme that they picked out at our student council meeting last night. So, we're excited to see how that turns out. >> All right. And then we're moving on to uh any major wins or uh events in athletics. Uh girls soccer had their senior night against Rockland on the 27th, ending with a score of 2 to1 and securing the win. Boys soccer played their senior night against Bristol Plymouth just three days later on the 30th. Football also had their senior night on the 30th as well as securing the win with a score of

0322013. And with that win, they made the playoffs as the 15th seed in the Division 4 uh MIAA tournament. Powderpuff is starting up. So, please sign up as soon as possible if you would like to participate in that event. Uh whether as a player or a cheerleader. And if you do want to be a player, please order a shirt by this Sunday the 9th from the link sent out at is as it is required to participate. >> Is that everything? >> Yep. >> All right. And just a plug that Hades Town does have both of our student reps in it. So very cool. >> Please uh consider attending just so that we have a lively discussion available at our December meeting with them. >> So thank you gentlemen. Appreciate it. Uh next order of business

033is the superintendence report. >> Good evening. Um to start we have a MCAST presentation by Dr. Marculinis. If you would come up testing. >> Good evening, Chair Chartoff and the rest of the school committee. Thank you for having me in this evening. I'm looking forward to sharing our MCCAST. I can only see close with these and not far, so I'm gonna take them off so I can say hi to everybody. Um, I'm looking forward to sharing our MCCAST data with all of you this evening. Um, there's a lot of information. It's very dense. If you can hold off on questions until the end, I would appreciate it. >> Hey Sam, it's not moving. >> Are you going through your phone? Got it. >> Thanks. >> Um, okay. So, I'm just going to go over the

034agenda. I'm going to provide a brief explanation of the Department of Elementary and Secondary's education education's accountability process, which is um very confusing, so I'll try to simplify it as best I can. I'm going to give an overview of our data, talking about our areas of strength and our opportunities for growth. I'm going to share with you some um datadriven decisions that we have been making and then there will be an opportunity for questions. Okay, moving into the accountability from the department of education. So I did explain this last year. I'm going to run through it again because it is confusing. So the state has two categories for accountability. one is districts and schools requiring assistance or intervention and the other one is those districts and schools not requiring assistance or intervention. Um so that's

035a pretty simple idea but the way they figure out whether or not you need intervention or support is through their um criterion referenced target percentage. Um, and this combines multiple years of data related to achievement growth, high school completion, English learner progress, advanced coursework completion, and chronic absenteeism. And the state looks at that over years. Um the accountability percentile, the number is an indication of the school's overall performance relative to schools other districts that serve similar grades. Um and as I mentioned, multiple years for all accountability indicators. The next slide is actually our um overall progress towards our improvement targets. When you look at this, it seems very strange that last year we had 70% towards our target percentage and 29 this year. Um overall we were 45% uh which means we made moderate progress

036towards our targets. You might be wondering why we dropped from 70% to 29. And it is because we did so well last year that they significantly raised our targets. And so because of that, we received a lower score. Next year, our targets will be different and we will have a higher score. It is how the state does it. I'm going to move into an overview of the data. And I'm going to start with our access data. So our access data, um, we've been doing access testing for, geez, I think probably 15 years. We've just recently started reporting out on it. Federal and state laws require that English learners um be assessed annually to measure their proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking English, as well as the progress they are making overall in learning English.

037Students are able to test out the ELE program when they earn a 3.9 in literacy on the access test and a 4.2 overall. The scores that follow on the next page include all of our EL students or MLL students, multilingual learners who were part of the program as of January 2025. We had 82 students who sat for the access test, a 95% participation rate, which is really wonderful. Um, and I think the greatest part of this is that 59% of our students made progress, significant progress. Um, and the majority of our students are falling within the developing and expanding range for their overall score. On this slide, we have our ML teachers throughout the district. We have one in each school. Um, we hold ML nights twice a year so that we can increase our

038outreach to community members to enhance the education experience for all students. Um, we had about 60 families come this year and we hosted it at the Middleboro Public Library so that we could also provide exposure to other resources that are available in our community. All right, I'm going to dive into English language arts MCCAST test. But before I do that, I want to explain how I'm going to present the data. So, we compare our data to the state, which provides us crucial context. It helps us identify areas for improvement and it serves as a benchmark for accountability. The state average provides a baseline for us to measure our performance. The analysis of this data allows us to pinpoint specific subject areas, certain grade levels, andor subgroups where the district excels or faces challenges. For each

039of the content areas, I will present the data for all students and then I will parse out the data for students with disabilities so we can ensure equity, accountability, and targeted support. So in ELA, the percentage of our students who are meeting or exceeding is what this graph shows. In grade three, we are on par with the state. 43% of our students were exceeding or meeting. And you can see in grades four through eight, we are slightly below the state. In grade 10, we are just above the state. in ELA, the percentage of students with disabilities meeting and exceeding. As you can see from this graph, this is an area that we know we have some work to do and we are doing it. I don't want you to think that you're looking at these

040numbers and they are just numbers. These are our students and we are making sure that the instruction and the curriculum that we are giving them meets their needs. math MCCAST. So it looks pretty similar to English. Um in grade three we have 45% of our students who were meeting or exceeding the standard um which was slightly above the state and then you will see the dip in grades four through eight and then again we are above the state in grade 10. for our students with disabilities in math who are meeting and exceeding the standard. Grade four was our standout here and we will be looking to see what they did to get those results um because it's pretty impressive in a year when um we had a new test um the state partnered with a

041new um provider. The test has changed. We were prepared for it, but until we actually sit and see all of the questions, we don't know exactly what is coming at our students other than teaching to the standards, which we do. I'm going to move into science, technology, and engineering. I'd like to remind you that this test um is grade five, grade eight, and grade 10. Grade 10 is actually biology but it's included in this grouping. Um grade eight and grade 10 did very well. Um grade five is the culmination of three four five. Grade eight is 678 science. So they have a lot of standards to cover in those years. and our students with disabilities. It looks pretty much like we have seen in all the other content areas and we are aware of the

042work that we have to do. The state introduced a new MCCAST last year and that is civics which is taken at grade 8. Just for your reference, our eighth grade students take four content area tests. It's significant. And so when I look at this, this is the first year we took it, but this is a lot on our eighth grade students. And I just think we need to appreciate that. It's also a lot on the educators. It's a lot of work. So the percentage of students meeting or exceeding slightly below the state there. And then our students with disabilities again slightly below the state. I am not going to walk us through all of the comparisons. It is there for you to look at. But I do want to take you through the first slide

043so I can provide an explanation for our community about what these slides actually mean. So all of this information is available on Desessie's website. If you go into the accountability report from Middleboro, you can find that there. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. I am happy to answer them. So, when I talked about our MCCAST performance, I only talked about students meeting or exceeding the standard in these graphs for all of our tested grades. This includes all of the domains. So you will see exceeding is in the blue, meeting is in the green, partially meeting is in the orange and not meeting is in the red. This is a 4year comparison that the state provides us. You will notice it goes up and it goes down and it goes up and

044it goes down. It is consistent in that way. We are never too far. Please notice that the orange bucket, for lack of a better word, the partially meeting is a place where we focus a lot of energy because sometimes those students are one point away from meeting the standard. And so we really dig deep into this data and we look at how can we move those students into that meeting bucket and out of the partially meeting bucket. We do the same with a not meeting. Ideally to move them into the meeting, but always happy when we move them into the partially meeting knowing that we're making progress and our students are experiencing growth. I'm going to just quickly run through the next slide so that you can get an idea that it looks pretty similar

045in grades three through 10. English is on the left, math is on the right. This is grade four. Grade five, science and technology. Grade six, ELA and math. Grade seven, ELA and math. Grade eight, science and technology in grade eight. I did not include civics because it was the first year we took the test. There's no comparisons. Grade 10 ELA and math and grade 10 science. So we are very datari but that is really not the point. We don't ever want to just stay with the data. What do we do with the data? I want to talk about some commendations that our district should be celebrating. So we had consistent performance on MCCAST tests at all levels when compared over the last three years. Grades three and 10 are on par with the state in

046ELA. Grade three and 10. Grades three and 10 outperform the state in math. Students with disability in grade four outperform the state in math. We outperform the state on science and technology in grades eight and 10. High school testing remained consistent despite the fact that MCCAST exam, the MCCAST exam, no longer counts towards graduation. I do want to stress that it still counts in our accountability rating. So, it's really important that our students still sit for that. Um, it also gives us a great deal of data for which to plan our instruction and our curriculum. Um, we do have high participation rate on the MCCAST test at all grade levels. So, opportunities for growth. We always want to sit here. We always have room for improvement and we just looked at scores so we know

047there's room for improvement. Um, we continue to look at achievement at the elementary level, ELA and math for students with disabilities in all grade levels. We need to look at supports for students with disabilities to attain meeting or exceeding achievement levels. That means looking at inclusion and pullout services. We need to look to decrease the number of students in the partially meeting categories. through targeted instruction and support. And we need to look at student growth at the high school and the middle school levels. So while I said there's always cont there's always opportunities for growth, I want to speak to the continuous improvement that we strive for in this district. So we are providing continued training on data which includes screening tools and progress monitoring for our administrators so they can lead this work. We

048have PLC time which is professional learning communities to review data to determine the next steps for classroom instruction. We started to build data teams at the classroom level, but we lost funding this year from the federal government. So, those are on hold until next year. We're still doing the data work, but we're doing it in a smaller um smaller way through professional learning communities. We are working with the department of elementary and second education to identify root causes for our needs assistance determination in special education. We are continuing our training on the science of reading and professional development for improving literacy. There is a link there so that you can see our plan if you are interested. We are also doing UDL, which is universal design for learning at the secondary level for the year

0492526. We will be adding that to elementary next year. I'm going to give you a little more information about that in just a moment because I know it's something that many of us aren't familiar with. Um, at the elementary level, we have interventionists and instructional coaches at all three elementary schools. They are there to support our students and our educators. We use STAR data to identify small groups for targeted instruction. The middle school is also using STAR data to build intervention and enrichment groups during their win block. WIND stands for what does >> What I need? Thank you. Um, we have for math to provide personalized instruction at the appropriate level. That's an adaptive program. It works with each student at their ability. We have power up for literacy for targeted support in grammar, vocabulary,

050also known as word study at this level, and comprehension. The high school has implemented math and literacy labs which provide shortterm intervention courses. We also have licenses which are used during success block for indiv individual support in math and literacy. And we use STAR 360 data to drive our instruction. Here's the fun part for me. We had professional development on Tuesday. It was a full day of professional development. Our teachers were engaged in UDL training. Um literacy training. We were working with several um outside providers who came in um and really supported all of our educators. So right here this was um the science of reading at the foundational level. So really looking at moving from level text to skillbased instruction. This was K through two. The next two slides we worked with fifth grade

051who has moved to a teameing model. So they have just asked for some additional support with their content to really make sure that they are doing the very best they can for their students. Um we had training with investigating history with the humanities teacher teachers and then in grades one through f actually I think it might have been K through five that we were working on math stations. One through five we were working on math stations. So, as promised, I said I was going to speak a little bit to universal design for learning, which is taking place at the middle school, which is the picture that you see here, and also at the high school. So, universal design for learning is something that um it has been around for a really long time. It is

052researchbased, is evidence-based. What it does is reduces barriers to learning that may exist for students. Removes unnecessary hurdles, makes learning accessible to a wider range of students, including those with disabilities, language barriers, and other challenge challenges, excuse me. It creates a more inclusive learning environment by acknowledging and accommodating the diverse needs of learners. It helps students with specific needs, but it also provides flexibility for stu for all students, allowing them to engage with materials in ways that benefit them. It also gives them more choice and more agency. It shifts the focus from changing the learner to changing the curriculum and the learning environment which is more effective for addressing diverse needs. This is the high school. It's a terrible picture from a terrible photographer and that is myself. So I apologize for that but I

053did my best. So our next steps, we are continuing to work on the development of district and building data teams. We will be selecting a core ELA program for K through 6 in January of 2026. We have an ongoing ELA curriculum review and I just want to give a little plug to the community. You're going to be seeing surveys coming out. Please respond to them. We need your input. Um, we are increasing and elevating interventions at all levels. We are training for the application of data at middle and high school. That's ongoing training with department heads and the coordinators. We are continuing our focus on reviewing state, national, and district data to close learning gaps and target instruction. And we will continue to analyze our instructional practices to determine their effectiveness, questions. Dr. Marculitis. Um

054I know that the curriculum review was underway long before this data came out. >> Yes. >> Um is there is there the ability to utilize the findings from this round of testing to help inform >> um the curriculum review? >> So we will definitely look at this round of testing. Really what has informed our review thus far is our scores from the past. Um, and so we have I'll just start from a couple years ago when I arrived in Middbor and we looked at our foundational literacy and we realized we had to make immediate changes. So we implemented a very scripted structured phonics program in EUI. You've heard me talk about this for the past few years. What I did not share with you tonight because it there is no comparison for it other than

055our own data is our UFly data is reaping great results. We hear it from our teachers. We see it in our students. The K teachers are see it when the students are leaving. The first grade teachers are saying, "Wow, second grade, third grade." Our second grade students this year are the first group that has had it for all three years, K1 and two. Um, as you go up, they've had it for two years, one year. So each year we are going to see the benefits of that program. Adding a core um full ELA program is going to enhance the work that is being done. It's really going to provide us an opportunity to have everybody start from a similar place and then after full implementation of that program, we will look to fine-tune it and

056make sure that it works for us and all of our students because they are different from year to year. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions from the committee? >> Alan. >> Um, and please bear with me because I don't have an education background. Uh, I don't understand the different like the scores between like the eighth grade and the 10th grade. I have a 10th grade student and an eighth grade student. Yeah. And they logically have had the same experience going through school up to this point. >> So why is the 10th grade above state average >> and the eighth grade so below state average? I mean is nth grade just awesome? >> Is that the difference or >> we No. No, that is not the difference. Although ninth grade is

057awesome. We have awesome educators everywhere. um our eighth the eighth grade test is the hardest test that our students will take and I did tell you that they take four of them right so we always see a dip in performance in eighth grade there's also a maturity piece with students that by the time they get to 10th grade they've sat for these tests they know what to expect and it's sort of the sol I guess solidifying all of the learning that has happened, it spirals. Um, and so it is years and years of building up to this. And that is why 10th grade typically looks better. And that is statewide. It's not just Middleboro. >> So if we like if we looked at the same data points from five years ago, we'd see a similar

058curve going up to 10. >> You would. Yep. So, uh, I something that we we talked about before, uh, the subpopul of our special ed students, and I see sprinkled in here some things that help to address that. Um, I also am thinking about uh the recent special ed report that we received from the state and some significant concerns that have been expressed there. uh and I'm wondering how uh we are using the crossover information that we are receiving from that report and that how we're going to really target um our education of our students with special our special needs students uh so that um they are performing closer at least closer to the state average of special needs students. Uh how is that crosswalked? So in multiple ways to be honest with you, we

059have to first look at achievement. We have to look at curriculum. We have to look at instruction. There's a lot of pieces that are going to go into that. I think this is an opportunity for us. Um we have an acting director of um special education who I am working very closely with. um instead of us working in silos as we have done in the past, we are really getting together to talk about how can we make this work for all of our students. Um for a long time we have in PD, special ed went here, general ed went here, and we didn't often do things together. um we are changing that and um I'm very excited about those changes because I think it gives us an opportunity um to have everybody's input on what

060is best to move our students forward and close those learning gaps. >> That's very good to hear. Um I also, you know, it also is reflective of some of the concerns that we've heard from families. uh and I would hope in the near future that we would see a report that's based a presentation to us based on the report that came from the state uh similarly of what are our next steps how what what specifically are we doing to address the concerns that have come forward from that report that is now being reflected in um our achievements on the MCCAST. >> Yeah. And that report is actually based on our data from 2023 24 school year. It is not based on our data from this year. Um acting superintendent Peron, acting director um special ed

061director Deutschman and myself um have several meetings coming up where we are going to discuss exactly what this is and what our next steps are. We have not solidified all that. we have to first listen to what the state has to say to us. Um, and that is looking at root causes. We're doing a full root cause analysis with the state's guidance. Um, and until we have that work done, I think presenting to you all about what we're going to do um might be premature, >> but I do hear your request that uh once that root cause analysis is completed that >> I think we have that plan in place, but we just don't have the information yet. >> Absolutely. It would be here good to hear about what the report had to say. Maybe

062it's in two pieces. what did the report have to say so we can digest that a little bit and then um now what are we going to do about it because actually that would give us some more time to really digest what is what is going on and I guess a follow-up question would be you referred to the data before do you think that the subgroup data of our MCCAST tests in the previous year would be that much different than in terms of the comp comparison of special needs students to >> so I I did present that data last year I presented did it in exactly the same way last year. So, we did have that data. Um I don't know that we focused on it um as much as we should have last year.

063>> Yeah. I'm just saying is it similar because when you said this was based the report is based on the data from last year. So, it's so it's similar. Okay. That's all >> it is similar. In fact, it's even more concerning this year which means the state is doing what they should be doing. >> Thank you. >> Bringing that to our attention. >> Shannon, go ahead. So you mentioned that there was a huge focus on those partially meeting expectation students and kind of getting them to that meeting expectation level. >> What my concern is more the students who are not meeting expectations and what what are the next steps the continuous improvement for those students because a lot of these things in place like those have been around for quite some time. >> Yeah. >>

064So is there more programs that we're looking into to kind of assist those students to get them to where they need to be? So yes, but I think we do have to wait until we work with the state on this because we don't want to make a mistake and purchase something reactively. We want to make sure that we do our due diligence and really research what is going to support us in this work. Um, and when I said I we focused on those, it's not that we don't focus on the not meeting. It's just that we try to do those quick fixes. If we can move a student with one point up a category, that's something we can do pretty easily. Um, the other ones require a little bit more attention. Have you noticed any

065correlation between how students score in access and MCCAST? Are they the ones who are achieving high on access? Are they also achieving on the MCCAST? >> No. Um, so our students who take the access test, English is not their first language. MCCAST is an English test. And so our students who um where English is their second language, they are doing well. And I actually can parse that out for you if you are interested. Um, but you know, they're right in that bucket. And um so when you look at the data, there is a high needs category which includes students with disabilities, lowincome students, English language learners, all of our subgroups. Um and in that category, it was higher than students with disabilities, but not um all not the same as all students. That makes sense.

066>> Yeah. >> Thank you. I do appreciate the challenge that that brings of having the different the different levels of need and the different levels that um not everybody's the same. Everybody doesn't learn the same and that makes what you're trying to do especially challenging. So I commend everybody for >> Thank you. >> and analyzing the data because the the solution isn't going to be a one-sizefits-all. >> No, it's not. And it's also not going to be immediate. The solution is not immediate. This data has looked like this for quite some time and so we have some work to do. >> Any other questions from the committee from the floor? Go ahead. >> Hi Bridget K. Um thank you Sue for asking some of those questions on special ed. That was helpful. Um because that's

067kind of where my concern is. I understand MCCAST is not really a reflection of um our students progress per per se, but how our school is doing in helping our students achieve. Yes. And that's where we're seeing in that special ed population is really struggling. And I appreciate that you pointed out that this this data is from what seems to be in the in the last six months or year where we've kind of had this mass exodus of um our special ed staff from director to coordinators to teach teachers. How do we anticipate that this is could have a direct act uh impact on our students when we don't have um like classroom I mean I've been listening to this parent for several weeks talk about her um you know not having a teacher in

068the classroom. So how do we expect our special education students to um get adequate instruction to be successful if we don't even have those um pieces in place? So, I can speak to part of this, but I certainly cannot speak to all of it. Sure. >> Um, I am the director of curriculum and instruction. So, I am responsible for all students, all learners in this district, and I take that to heart. Um, the loss of staff is something we always want to avoid, but sometimes with a loss of staff, it affords us an ability to look at things differently and do things better. And I'm hoping that is what's going to happen here. Um I think you know if we look at the changes that have happened, we have brought in two really wonderful coordinators

069at the middle school and the high school level. Um the changes that they are already bringing are just wonderful. they are identifying um some of our needs that may have been overlooked and addressing them immediately. Um so I am really optimistic about the changes that have happened. I do just want to say one other thing. Um our educators in this district are fantastic. they are doing really wonderful work and as um Jess pointed out it's not easy because every classroom has you know 20 to 25 kids who learn differently and our teachers really have to address all of those needs. Um, and sometimes they are uber prepared and sometimes they're thrown a curveball and they do their very best and we are here to support them in this work. Um, but I want you all

070to know that they are amazing. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. It is um I think that uh teachers that teach to the special needs population are um some of the most wonderful teachers and um to the extreme of how they need to adjust their teaching more so um because you don't have readily adaptable learners. And so that challenge is so hard for those teachers um much more so than our educators who are teaching our gened population. And it's really important and I did hear you say that some of that root technology or or work that you need to do is looking at their IEPs and and looking at whether you're doing pull out versus um um more u in-class instruction which is always important and I think that um working in that area I

071understand how important and figuring those things out and sometimes we get stuck in ruts which um you know working with a special needs population you kind of go by you just keep kind of prescribing the same thing and you're not taking that individual need so it's I agree that is a nice way to look at it when you're um replacing staff that hopefully you're bringing in um kind of a new mindset, a new shift, um a new lens, and an opportunity to really um look at what your practices are and kind of um shake them up. So, I think that's a that was a great way to look at it and hopefully we'll see that um um in real time soon so that we can get some of these kiddos teachers. >> Thank you. Any

072other questions? >> Great. Thank you, Dr. Mark. >> Thank you. >> This is not my fault. >> Just the first calendars. >> No, he just mentioned the middle world. >> Okay. >> I will. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Next up. >> Okay. So, we have uh the calendar for next year. Uh we originally uh started with three drafts and we still have three drafts. However, we uh pulled one uh and replaced it with a second draft. And so let me explain the first uh number two that was in your Dropbox. We have changed that. Um the first draft um um yeah draft it was draft number two uh and that one uh had an issue because the start date uh for the teachers was uh outside of the contract. Uh they have we

073have to have their first start date uh no uh more than one week out before Labor Day. So, we replaced number two, but I'll go back and we'll we'll just go quickly through uh all three. So, the first draft, and I'm I'm really just going to start on the first day and the last day. Uh everything else in between could be moved around and that's stuff that will will happen. Um so, in draft number one, first day of school is 92. the uh teachers are back on August 31st, which uh is a week before uh the holiday. So that works. The last day of school would be 6:21. Uh so basically that is um draft number one, the short version. In the new number two uh we had in in the original draft number two

074as I said it was the first day teachers was the 24th of August and we cannot do that contractually. Um so draft number two again the start date for teachers is 31st students is the 2nd. Um and actually I said I was not going to talk about stuff in the middle but I I am going to do that now. So in nine uh in in draft number one um in December you see that on the the 11th is a half day and the break starts from the 23rd of December and goes through the 31st and again the last day then is the 21st of June. In the new draft number two, again, we're on the 31st with teachers, the second with students, but we've taken the half day from the 11th of December and made

075the 23rd of December a half day instead of start a vacation. So, in draft number one, there is a longer uh winter break by one day. Basically, that's the the uh difference other than the last day of school on draft number two is 617. That gives us more play in terms of weather and all that. So, just keep that in mind. And then on the third draft, um the teachers come back on the first uh the students first day is the 8th day after Labor Day and the last day is the 23rd. Contractually we uh have folks that would be working till the 29th and that's quite close to uh July. And if you add the maybe five days, we're going to the 29th. Um so that is um something to consider. It works if

076weather is fine. >> So those are your three. >> Quick question on that, Mike. When you say contractually, you have people going to the 29th. Um is that they are required for 4 days after the last day? >> Some of them five. Yeah. >> Um so if the last day of school is the 23rd, does that put them through the 30th? >> Sorry. Um, so and that's the 30th without a single snow day. So, one snow day and then are those folks contractually allowed to work into July or are they not allowed to? >> I'm not even sure I can answer that, but no, I don't I don't believe because then they're >> usually the contracts are through June. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Any questions before we just have a discussion about the >> I

077I'm think I'm being thick. So, I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you can have a first day of school on 92 and then one draft you can finish on 617 and the other draft you finish on 623. >> It's the difference of the 23rd of December. >> There's there's a couple things. Yeah, it's um because we moved the half day >> because I'm sorry I didn't hear you. >> We moved the half day that was on the 11th. >> Okay. >> And we we moved that and um took away the 23rd. >> Okay. >> So, it's got >> one less vacation day, which one day is Monday. And then I believe a weekend and don't forget uh Junth is on a Saturday and so we would uh honor that on the Friday the 18th.

078So that wouldn't be a a um a day there. The other thing to keep in mind, I'm sorry, just um is that uh the first is a voting day >> and that was another thing that we had to work around. You can't obviously have school, we could have teachers in which we do on a couple of the drafts, but we could not have students on. It is an official voting day where they'll be closed. So between the late start uh or the late um date of uh Labor Day, the contractual obligations, the voting day um and then the end ofear contractual uh were what uh gave us the limitations on how many different uh drafts we could give you. >> Any other questions for Mike before we discuss Um, one more. Okay. It's only on

079one of the drafts, but having a professional day on the 23rd of >> which month? >> December. I don't know how effective a professional day on the 23rd of December is going to be. >> Something to consider. >> And I think that that given what we've just heard, I think that that's a real consideration. So, we are uh this year the students are in the 23rd. We're off the 24th, but it's it um the same number of vacation days. So, we wanted to honor >> I I just wanted to point out that >> given what we're hearing, uh I think having a professional development day on the 23rd of December is not wise. >> My concern is that Junth with them having a half day on the 21st. I mean, I don't I don't foresee

080a lot of students coming to school that day >> being that it's the last day after the holiday, the Junth holiday. Um, I think we had a similar situation this year, if I recall, too, with the the 20th coming back for that one day. I don't think there I mean, I haven't talked to the principles, but I don't think the the abs I think the absences were quite high. Half day after a weekend, regardless of whether it's a long weekend or not, is always >> the last day. >> To Sue's point, I do understand what you're saying about the 23rd of having a half day right before Christmasy. >> Alan, did you have a question? >> No. >> Okay. Tough choices. >> Sarah Sarah Sarah Zorus. Um, so couple questions. So, well, just something to

081mention is Labor Day is really late this year. So that's why so we're actually starting before Labor Day even though it's the 2nd. The Labor Day is actually the 7th. Yes. >> Um >> will this be made public for people to look at um after meeting? >> So one of the things we did last year is we put out a poll to allow people to weigh in. So my next question actually to the committee was do we want to wean down any of these things um before we put something out there for a vote? But yes, what we did last year was put things out there and let people weigh in and get feedback before we had a final vote. >> Yeah. So last year there was the three and people gave their opinions on

082three >> and then we narrowed it down to two. >> I don't think so. I think we saw all three and we voted for three from the Google the Google form if I remember correctly. >> There was people voted on three different ones >> but then we narrowed it down to two from that feedback and then we went back. >> But you still gave you still gave people the opportunity on three to give their feedback. But I don't know if we if the committee as a whole has concerns about one of these then maybe we can make it a little easier to get more direct feedback. So >> but these will be available um soon. >> I believe the materials are already posted in that folder. Um I can show everybody where that folder is

083again. So we have here >> middle bar public school site. >> It's on the middle public school sites on the school committee under meetings and materials for today. I think all three drafts are available there. And so when is the final vote on this? >> Um this was the first presentation. So we have the discussion today and then we do the poll and then we get the feedback from the poll and then we >> probably January February. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, definitely. I think we did it >> January or February. Yeah. Because we only have one more meeting before the end of the year anyway. So um so I personally have concerns about draft three. I feel like it's pushing the start up relatively late and I do worry about extending

084into a butdding against July because I know in other districts if you go too late then you end up in that position in like April where you're like oh we have to cut a day off of a vacation week in order to make sure we don't go too far until the end of the year. So my concern about draft three is not preference about starting before after Labor Day. It's the risk at the end of the year of us possibly abutdding against a contractual stop date and having to go to school on what would otherwise be a vacation day. >> Anybody else share that concern? >> I don't share it, but I >> you understand it. >> There you go. I'm not willing to make a a stand for stopping after Labor Day this year.

085>> I still have the real concern about we only have five professional days and I really think you're just plain giving up one by having it on the 23rd of December. >> Okay, >> Chris, >> I would say um I would like to see drafts two and three move on. Uh if you look, draft one starts the same as two, but you're you're stilling only two days before if we go back after Labor Day. Uh so I would say even though I prefer to go back after Labor Day, I understand your concerns, but I think those are the two um that to me seem the most reasonable. >> Do you and three even though two has the professional development before winter break? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> How would you as an educator feel about

086a professional development day before winter break? I depends on the PD. Um, but teachers and and professionals can kind of hold together the the holiday enjoyment better than if it's a full day of class. So, a half day with PD seems like it would be more productive than >> trying to get through the whole day before vacation. Okay, fair. >> Anyone else? All right. So, I know last year one of the things we did was we also pulled the teachers, not just parents. So, I do think in this instance there's a lot of need for pulling the the educators in the district to weigh in on um specifically weighing in on the half day and the the end of school. Um so, I would ask that before we post anything for um for a a

087survey that we first double check the the folks that are contractually required to stay for the five days after and find out for sure if their contracts included can't work into July. Um if we do find out that those folks who have to work the five days after are not allowed to work into July, do we feel that draft three is even viable? because that doesn't even give us one day, one snow day, one emergency weather day, one anything. >> Yeah. I mean, that's a that's a concern that there's no clear winners, >> you know. Um I'm going to kind of defer to the teacher feedback and public feedback to be honest with you. >> Okay. >> Because I don't see any clear wins here. I I I didn't think of it till Sue said

088it, but I absolutely share her concern about professional days, especially coming on the heels of what we just said, just like she said. Um, so yeah, I'd be very interested to hear what teachers have to say, what our contractual obligations are, and what the public has to say. Um, yeah, it's just this is a rough year. >> Can we also solicit feedback from non studentf facing staff and faculty, too? Absolutely. >> I think all staff, >> you know. Yeah, they should be >> unders agreed completely. >> All staff. Um, so before we ask Sean to help with a survey of the public, may I propose that we start by one, double-checking the contracts, and two, starting the poll to the staff in the district about that half day because we can use that regardless of

089which calendar we end up with start and end date. So, if we can do the poll through the staff in the district about the half day on the 23rd of December and double check the contract and then once we know if draft three is a viable option, if it is a viable option, then we can proceed with a poll. If it's not, then we would have to proceed with a poll of one or two doesn't really change much in terms of >> the start date, but we can come back to >> uh a poll to the public once we know for sure about the contract. >> That sound reasonable to everybody? >> I think we should we should be honest that if we pick one, the last day of school is going to be the

09017th anyway. May I make a comment from the student body? >> Yes, please. >> Um, this is both kind of from when I >> Are you a senior? >> I am a senior. >> So, you don't the last day of school? >> Well, last year I believe the last day of school >> it was a Monday and from what I heard. I mean, I am a bit of a hypocrite speaking here because I was on a college tour that day, but not a lot of people actually wanted to go. And I don't think a lot of those people went. And the teachers seemed to share a similar feeling of not feeling that the day was worth getting up to go to, but they went um and the limited amount of teachers I've talked to is

091their opinion is they liked going back after Labor Day. So, I'm sure the survey or the talks you have will illuminate that, but just thought I'd put it on your table now. >> Thank you. And I do think we have to recognize that even if we go with draft two, you get one one snow day and you're you're back to the Monday anyway. It's just a question of what do you plan for? So, >> it doesn't even have to be snow day anymore. It can be a a high wind day. >> High wind day. Yep. >> Power out to the schools, you know. >> Please. Uh Kim Jones again. Um, two questions. With the Junth day being on a Saturday and you mentioned having to give the Friday, which is very common with um, holidays

092that fall on the weekends. Do we also do that for Veterans Day? If it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday that they get the Friday or Monday, I don't remember. >> Yes. Usually, if it's a Sunday, you take it Monday, honor it on Monday. And, uh, Saturday is Friday. With Junth on a Saturday, we do not have to. >> Okay. If it's a Sunday, we have to do it on Monday. >> Okay. >> My other thought, which I know other state districts do it differently than us, is has there ever been consideration of getting rid of the February and April vacation and doing a one week in March, uh, similar to what the college kids do. Um, I know in other parts of the country this works quite well and um allows that time

093to start after Labor Day consistently and still get out before the high heat of the summer comes in. Just ideas to throw up. I and I do think that we we talked about that might have been before I was on the committee and I think some of the concerns that were raised with changing it is um making a change in this town but without other agencies and towns makes uh child care during vacation weeks very difficult sometimes. So, um, the areas that I know do that, it tends to be a breadth of towns that do it. So, that those types of things come into play. So, it's I'm not opposed to the idea. I just think it's difficult to do it as a single town without having all the resources for parents in that week

094in March. It's also true that um for colleges that they have a vacation at the uh mid- winter after the holidays for almost a month. So um trading off our week uh and then going back and having nothing until March I think is a is a really long is a long stretch. And I believe that other states that go on a different cycle, they also incorporate some summer days. So it's just a very very different cycle. The same number of days, just a very different cycle. >> All right. Anything else on this, Mike? >> No. >> All right. So we'll find out about the contract. We'll start the poll on the teachers and then once we know about the contract, we can figure out how to properly pull everyone else. All right. Does that end

095your report there? Mr. Superintendent acting. >> Okay. So, next item is the subcommittee updates and the first item is the reorganization of the subcommittees. Um I know again Sue, you did a lot of work on this um leading up to this meeting. Um, one of the things that, um, I did speak with you about is the fact that as of right now, we are a committee of five and so a quorum is three and therefore we cannot have any subcommittees with three people on them for the time being. Um, so that is something that we have to keep in mind. Um, Sue, I'd love to hear your presentation that you I know you prepared on the the subcommittees. >> Yes. So, uh, when I contacted you, Jess, it was that that we're we are also,

096um, we can't have more than two right now until we fill that position. And also with Zeke no longer, um, uh, on the board that he was the chair of some and he participated in some. So, uh I took a look and I have this also came as a result of um some conversations about in our policy subcommittee that we thought that maybe we could combine policy and um policy and protocols protocols and operations as one. Uh and it gave me the thought that I spoke to Allan about that maybe we could combine master plan facilities and equipment into one. Uh and so as a result of those that thinking um what you have in your hand is uh a reconsideration of populating the different uh subcommittees. The one that remains without a second person

097is budget and it's the second person is TBA because we have some technicalities that we need to follow up on um around who that second person might be. Uh I think we have a little bit of time uh Mike and Chris before the next budget meeting is when? Not for a little while, right? Um >> looks like uh December. >> Yeah, December 9th. >> Yeah. So, um and the the question can be resolved before then and then we can figure out who that second person would be. So, um I thought I'd bring this forward as a proposed uh reorganization. >> So, moved. >> Do I hear a second? >> Second. discussion. Um, what do folks think about where you ended up? >> So, I just I want to say I mean I know I was

098the second member on the budget subcommittee and obviously for extenduating circumstances the timeline of when the budget has to be done. I mean, I'm all for giving birth during the budget presentation if you want me to. But I have no issue also attending the December 9th meeting until we figure this out. At least >> I think the question that we have is can be resolved fairly quickly and then um we can make the decision about who the second person's going to be. But thank thank you. >> I'm just saying it's not a big it's not a big >> question that just needs to be answered. >> It would certainly add some excitement to the meeting. >> But it's true giving >> I'm not sure that the board would agree with that. I think I would

099prefer if you are willing that we we reorganize to keep Shannon on budget and then we can have another adjustment once we know who the new member is and make some changes um as as be fits. But because we did also talk about the potential of figuring out if we can stay a five, we got to make sure that we have uh somebody else on budget because it is >> Yeah. If there's like a extenduating circumstantial we need to meet, we need to have a two people. >> Yes, I agree. Um so um my other question and concern though is negotiations. um because negotiations does sometimes not always lead to a large number of meetings um and I know budget does as well. So Chris just in terms of of availability with your schedule um

100around work and and all of those things. Do you think those are two committees that you could have the time to dedicate to? >> Yeah, I can make it work. >> Okay. Anyone else have any thoughts? >> All right. So, if everybody is agreeable, then um we can um vote to I would prefer to vote. I know in the past people have just been informed, but I would prefer to vote to accept these um proposed reorganization of the subcommittees with um Shannon in as the second member of budget for for the foreseeable months. Um, so I would entertain a motion to approve this reorganization of the subcommittees. >> So there is a motion on the table already. So we just have to amend it. >> Yes. Thank you. >> To include Shannon as the second

101member of budget. >> Appreciate. Thank you. >> Which is what you just did. So I second >> the amendment. >> I second the amendment. So now we'll vote on the amendment. >> Can I please um Sorry, that's our amendment. um on that. Um I volunteered to to be the second person on the >> on budget. So to take that, you know, off of it. >> Okay. So we're going to table I think is the right word. The amendment. >> I'm gonna uh >> can you accept? >> I'm going to resend my original motion and we're going to start all over. >> All right. So I will then entertain a motion to accept the proposed reorganization with replacing TBA on budget with Sue. >> So move. >> Do I have a second? Second. All those in

102favor? >> I I Any opposed? >> Passes unanimously. Sue, thank you for the work to propose this >> um Also under that um when I put this on uh I was planning on um making having us be sure that we have meetings of those all of those meeting committees before the next school committee meeting. So, I do think that having as many as possible, I know with the Thanksgiving break that schedules that week get tough, but I do uh agree and hope that as many as possible can meet in terms of negotiations. We're going to talk at the end of this meeting with Mr. Peron over here because we got to get those scheduled sooner rather than later. >> Yeah. So yes, if the chairs of the different committees could make sure that if you

103have not met already that we do so. I appreciate that. All right. Next item is public relations. And I think that uh Sue, you were and continue to be the chair of that committee. I I just wanted to report that uh we did have our initial meeting um and we discussed the goals that have been presented to us of uh enhancing communication both with uh stakeholders within the community as well as the various branches and parts of our local government. Uh and we came up began to build strategies of how we might do that. we will meet again and um solidify those and bring them forward as a recommendation. >> Great. Thank you. Um and one item to mention that kind of relates to a policy that we'll be discussing is the consideration of that

104public relations also connecting with the the student uh population because as you will see when we get to uh policy JIB that's something that will come up for discussion. >> I'm very excited about that. >> Great. Wonderful. Anything else, Sue? >> That's it. >> All right. Wonderful. And thank you for having that meeting and getting everything started. So, that brings us to policy. Everybody's least favorite portion of the agenda. I know, but uh it is important work and hopefully we can get through this in the least painful method possible. Um so, with that being said, let's see if this plays nice. Put a breeze on it. >> Do we let it shut down? Would you two like to do a little song and dance for us? >> You plugged in? >> I am. I am

105on duplicate. There we go. >> All right. So, I know it's small. I'm going to try to Somebody over there hit focus on that thing. That's a little bit better. >> Okay. Um I'm not going to go based on my eyes because no. Um so this was feedback that we received and uh this auditorium doesn't facilitate it as best, but we will attempt to um bring up the policies as we talk about them moving forward. Um when we're in a bigger screen, it'll be a little bit easier. Um so the first policies the first two policies for first reads they have a caveat to them. Um so the state as everyone knows changed MCCAST voted all of that. Um and part of that came around um just a few months ago or or beginning of

106the school year that DESIE is requiring um every district to send them by December 31st their policies on graduation requirements and competency determinations. So we do have as our first reads today policy IKF for graduation requirements and IKFE for competency determinations. And while today is just a first read, I just do need to make a note that when these continue in if these continue into December, we will need to expedite them to ensure that with only one meeting in December, we get the policies voted and approved in order for them to be submitted by the end of the year to DESIE. Um, so because of that, I'm just going to quickly touch on what we did with the graduation requirements. Uh, Principal Branigan and Dr. Maritus created a a draft based on all of the

107work that they had done last year, plus some of the additional information uh, that came about of just a general protocol for the district to follow. And then I use that information to populate the templates that MASC came out with and make adjustments where necessary to utilize the information that Dr. Maritus and principal Branigan put together. Um so you'll notice for IKF graduation requirements. Uh this one is in that everything here came from MASC unless it's a blue highlight. Blue highlight means MPS middle specific. So you can see the credits are different, which classes are required are different. All of these are in the um program of studies that MHS publishes and the handbook already. So these are not this is nothing different and nothing new for anyone within the district. It's just updating the

108policy to match or creating a policy that we will add to our policy manual that matches what we already have in those other documents. So you can see here, three years lab science, four years of PE, all of that. Um, and then we were all slightly amused by the credit for foreign study. We figured might as well keep it. Um, if we ever get foreign exchange programs up and running in the high school again, hey, look, we already have a policy ready and waiting, but it is not something that's happened within our district for a very long time. Any questions on this policy? Okay. And it goes hands inand with IKFE which is the competency determination. This one is a little different. This one needed a little more mpsing. Um so you'll see everything at

109the beginning is rewritten based on again the information that Dr. Molitus and principal Branigan put together. The raw data of the MASC model policy is posted at the end and highlighted in yellow. So, this just covers a lot of the same information that we already put out at the end of last year that we approved with the new uh determinations for graduation. Um, it includes the um the methodology that you'll notice that certain things are xed out. That is thanks to a meeting we just had at four o'clock today to make some adjustments to this. So those are real time changes that you'll notice. Um and then this includes the minimum passing grades. And then the competency determinations are grade nine and grade 10 English, algebra 1 or algebra 2 and geometry. And that's because

110if you are a student who takes algebra 1 and middle school, then the requirement is geometry and algebra 2. If you don't take algebra 1 in middle school, it's algebra 1 and geometry, science is biology, and then US history beginning in 2027 is US history 1 and two. Um, and then there's the additional considerations for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and then transfer students. There is also a section on the appeals process, um, which is something that the state requires us to have. So, all of this is something that I do urge you, if you didn't already get a chance to review, please review carefully because we will need to expedite it at the meeting in December. >> Any questions? >> I have a quick one regarding the classes listed. >> Yes. >> Um, as

111of this year, 10th grade students are allowed to take AP in United States History instead of uh US 2. So will that count if taking a push instead of US2 will that still fulfill that competency requirement? >> Yep. >> Making a note. >> Okay. >> All right. The next first read policy is um JIB which is student involvement in decisionmaking. Um and this is the reason why Mason and Jackson are still here. Um so this policy doesn't have a lot of changes from my review with MASC. Um but there is this uh student advisory committee that is uh part of this policy. And so, um, I just invite, uh, our representatives to speak a little bit about what they've done so far this year to create their student advisory committee. >> Thank you. So, I

112won't go on about all the legal stuff and all the jargon and everything. Um, basically the cliffnotes version is members of the school committee will meet with members of our student body to discuss basically anything that is determined to be needed to be discussed at that time. Whether it be a policy, a like I don't think we'll have any interest in budgets, but if you wanted to ask us questions, we'd be sure to answer them. But so the first step obviously was to find members to fulfill the five slots. Jackson and I have already taken two and we will be serving as co-chairs because it in the fine print of the law it says the chairs of the committee will be non- voting members of the school committee. So that will be us. And to

113fill the remaining three slots, we picked the member at largestges from the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade classes. Uh, and I would like to make it known that even though the members of the committee are all high school students, we are open to discussion from middle school and elementary school students and families as well. Um, the only reason the high school students were selected is because it's frankly the easiest to coordinate a meeting with people you go to school with. But again, if you have anything that you want the students to to think about, talk to the chair, talk to any member of school committee and we'll get that through. And basically our not really our agenda but our plan is to meet outside of the times we meet with school committee members to get

114a head start on policies that are coming up like if there is a school committee meeting on a Thursday and next one will be in December. I hope to try and we have the success blocks in the directed studies and five minutes after school in a random teacher's classroom that we can just ask to meet in and we can talk look over things that are on the agenda and come prepared with something to say if there is something that is deemed important. >> You have anything? >> I could I ask a question? >> Absolutely. Are you saying that's when you would meet with your fellow students or is that okay? >> Um the meeting was thinking that's when you're going to meet with us. >> Yeah, >> that might not work. >> Yeah, the meetings

115with members of the committee, however it is deemed to be done, that is something that Jackson and I will help make work and we will serve as the communication with Bram to figure out how that will go. >> Great. Thank you. Um I do know that there are some options that can be considered, you know, so either the subcommittee can meet with the um either the subcommittee can meet with the entirety of the student advisory committee or um we can work out some different options and then have a presentation every couple months of specific things that were discussed as well as allow the kind of ad hoc things coming up on the fly of we were discussing this that was on the agenda and here's the feedback from the student advisory committee. So, I look

116forward to further engagement and um Sue, I know you were excited about that as well. >> And I think the more these are the more structured means of communication from for different constituencies and different stakeholders that I think is um something that will really help move us together forward as a district. And I really look forward to it. And one last thing to add for it is I don't want this just to be a we spew all of our opinions about everything that we find on the agenda that I I I will send you guys a lot of emails asking hey what is this what is what does this word mean? What are is at stake here? But I also want questions from members of the school committee during those policy meetings, during those like

117negotiations, whatever to ask the students questions of over what they're actually interested in because we hear a lot I hear a lot about students and what they want to see done in the school. I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to get that done directly. >> Wonderful. Wonderful. Could I just ask for you to share the names of the other three members? >> Absolutely. So, as I stated earlier, me and Jackson will be serving as the co-chairs as we are the student school committee reps, and the other three members will be Megan Kennedy who is the 11th grade member at large, Keny who is the 10th grade member at large, and Rose Price, who is the ninth grade member at large. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Any other questions for Go ahead, Sue. I wonder

118if there's some kind of a equivalency of a lift list serve um with other student advisory groups from other high schools or some way to get connected to find that have this up and running and kind of and this really worked and this uh something you might want to reach out and find out about. So, I actually had a this is a quick anecdote. I actually had a very entertaining conversation at work about this because one of the people who I work with, he is actively involved in Plymouth North Student Council, right? >> And he just recently found out about this as well. So, he and his school created one and made it work. And they have a lot more strict rules that they follow. So I can see where they're getting theirs from and

119we can build from there. And I'm sure there's something on >> there's I believe there's actually a a a a student rep state group uh similar to MASC. So, um, we can try to find out if there are references and and resources for for you all to reach out to to find manuals and protocols and and other people to talk to. So, >> yeah, I'm happy to do that within the subcommittee. I just thought that's a good role for them also from their side to be talking directly with >> um some of their student colleagues. We'll find another acronym to have to >> know what they stand for >> because that's what we need is more acronyms. >> Right. Right. >> But I I do think that you should per peruse the open meeting law

120because I'm pretty sure somewhere in there there's a rule that you can't give your mother a hard time about this stuff over dinner. >> Too late. Um all right. Thank you both. meanwhile applies to my school. >> I appreciate that and I know you two both are uh anxious to get to homework hopefully. >> No, I don't have any. >> Likewise, I think that's part of open meeting law that you can't harass your son. >> All right, so moving on. Thank you, gentlemen. Um I am going to switch over to the next round of policies. These are our second reads. So, these are the same lists that we brought up for those who are um looking for the files. These were the first reads that we talked about at the meeting on October 23rd. So,

121they're all in the materials folder for October 23rd. Um so, uh policy KBA is school parent relation goals and uh following the same convention that we've done um to date or I've done to date. the the yellow are the um changes that I have made to our current policy based on the MASC guidance. Um you'll notice a lot of what it is in this one is just incorporating better language to note guardians, not just parents. Um and to use some um improved language for other terms throughout, but it doesn't change the the gist of the policy. So, um, is there any questions or discussion that anybody would like to have on policy KBA? All right. KBBA is uh non-custodial parents rights. Um, these again minor changes. Um, in general, you'll notice throughout that there are

122times where the uh the law may have been referenced within the um the body of the policy and the the trend is. Don't reference the specific law in the body of the policy. Just reference it in the legal reference because we can update illegal references without having to go through all of the rigor of updating a policy. So, anytime you see that, usually it's been fixed in the legal references below. So, in this instance, this is something that I know everybody already follows and and there's strict rules and procedures that are already in place, but this one just kind of changes anything relating to a regulation or law and then added everything into the legal references. Any questions or discussion on KBBA? All right. KBE. KBE is um slightly different because KBE goes right along

123with KJA. So KBE was our policy that had been relations with parent organizations and then KJA was relations with booster organizations and the recommendation from MASC is to change KBE to be relations with parent/Booster organizations just to organize things a little better and for consistency. So there are some differences that are significant, but um the the gist of everything comes down to um talking about uh communication and um making sure that the there is availability of those organizations to meet at the schools um to be recognized and to have that information. Um there's also parent organizations um such as our MASBA and our MPABC should obtain the 501c3 status which I know both of those organizations have. Um and just put in our fun raffles information just to remind everybody if you do a raffle

124what those rules are. Um and then all of the legal references were updated as well. Um, so there you are. If you have any questions, please let me know. Okay, moving along. KBG is parent advisory councils. This would be a new policy for MPS. Um this is just noting that the law requires certain committee councils to be formed. Uh one of them is uh what's referred to often as CPAC which I know is active in our district. And then there's also that um English learner or multil- language learner parent advisory committees um and uh that one is based on the percentage in the district. Um, I did not get an opportunity, but I will ask um, Director Maralitus if we have a percentage. I know that they've had all of the outreach and those events,

125but I will check in to see if we have a multilingual advisory committee. Um, I know that we've had lots of events to reach out to those families, but I don't know if we have an advisory. So, I'll double check on that one and whether or not we reach the percentage that requires us to have one. Any other questions about that one? Okay. KBD public's right to know So in this instance um the major changes that were here is relating to the public records noting confidentiality um and then again just making sure that we're referencing parent guardian throughout the the document. Any questions? All right, rolling right along. KDDD, news, media relations, news releases. I did meet with um the acting superintendent, our director of uh communications just to double check that there's nothing in

126this one that goes against any practices. Um so in this instance we did um make some changes here just to specify that in general media is responsibility of the superintendent or designate. Um MAC does say that there is a process there could be a process with uh school specific um but the practice in our district is always that everything goes through central office and the the discussion was to keep it that way. So you can see in here are some of the changes that we made based on what was there previously and what the current recommendation the current request from our director of communications is to just have everything come through the superintendent's office. Any questions on that one? All right. K public complaints. So there were not many changes to this one um other

127than this additional paragraph that complaints will be investigated fully and fairly um and for complaints to be submitted in writing. But everything else is still in line with what was previously posted and made available in our policies. Any questions? Okay, KLJ, relations with planning authorities. This would be a new one. This one I mentioned at the first read I found to be interesting. Um, and I think this is a good one to to fall under the um advice of our our master planning and facilities uh subcommittee here. Um but basically we should have um participation in the the planning functions that could affect the schools. So it's pretty straightforward but it basically just says we we need to know when uh when somebody is planning something that could infect us. All right. LB relations with

128other schools and school districts. So, this policy um basically just says that we're going to play nice with others. Um and that um in addition that we have cooperative programs and collaboratives that we participate in, the only thing that's uh specific in this one that really changed was um at the recommendation of a note in the MASCU policy to specifically list the um the different organizations or schools that we're affiliated with. Um I double checked with the folks in the central office again to see if we missed any but these are the organizations. So um uh Bristol Aggie BP and the Reeds collaborative are the organizations that others that students within our our district are predominantly able to take um advantage of. All right, if no questions on that one, um LBC relations with non-public

129schools. Um so this one was um just an interesting learning opportunity for me. Um, so there is this process that if a private school wants to um have students within our district attended, there is an approval process um and there is a a checklist that I've confirmed with our registar that they have available to them um to go through that if somebody were to want to open a private school um we kind of vet it to make sure that it meets the standards that we would want the students in our town to take advantage of. So there were a lot of changes to this policy based on the MASSE recommendations and most of what I did in reviewing this was to just make sure that these are already practices that were in place in central

130office and that there wasn't anything we needed to tweak. All right. And then our final policy for today in our second read is student teaching and internships. Um and this is LDA and um there's again just minor changes to the language to call us a district not a system and that the school administrators will ensure their procedures for evaluating student teachers. So any questions on this? All right. So, um, with that being said, unless there is any objection, we'll push these for the third read and vote at the next meeting. But at the same time, we will continue to look at the other three that we talked to for first reads, and those may need an expedited vote just to make sure that we can implement our our processes and get everything submitted to Desi.

131Sounds good. >> All right. Thank you all for policy review for the day. Um, item number eight is just a reminder. I believe when this went on the agenda, Sue, we're just reminding everybody that we have our annual conference coming up next week, this 12th, 13th, and 14th. Um I know a few of us are attending and uh I look forward to um getting a chance to attend those sessions and um I always find it a very valuable experience not just for learning but also for networking and um everybody knows it's always great to hear from other districts how they're handling handling handling things and either learn new ways new ideas or to just commiserate. Was there anything else you wanted to address on that one? Anyone? All right. Next is the consent agenda. So,

132I'm just going to read off what we have on the consent agenda because there are a number of things here. Um, so the first item for the consent agenda is the donation of two American flags for the flag poles at the Mary Kay. Good and the Henry B. Berkeland Elementary Schools and those were donated by Plymouth Pest Control. Uh item B is approval of the meeting minutes from September 25th. >> Yes, please. >> I I on that. May I make a comment? >> Yes, please. >> Um I would like to um propose that we strike all reference to interim superintendent and replace it with acting superintendent within those minutes. So item B was approval of the meeting minutes. >> I'm sorry, I thought that's what you were on. >> Yep. Nope, that's fine. So item

133B, the approval of the meeting minutes for September 25th and October 9th. Um, and I am going to amend those to as Sue recommended that we request those get updated to uh we'll be voting to approve them as uh acting, not interim. Item C is approval of warrants as posted in our shared Google Drive. And then item D is grant information for the 2025 to 2026 school year. This isn't something we've done before, but there is a policy that says that all grants must be approved by the school committee before they can be expended. Um, and I know that was something that, uh, Mike, you said came around, um, in the finance community of the school districts as well. >> Yes. Um, so I'm just going to quickly read out what we are going to

134be voting on and the dollar amount. So an innovative pathways grant for $50,000 title one for $534,000 title two 69,392 title three 10,020 title 4 35,985 240 IDEA 98,942 262 IDEA 23,720 20 Youthworks 135,887 connecting activities 3000 supporting students seal behavioral mental health and wellness 44,910 comprehensive school health services CHS affiliated 16,750 workforce planning and resource development 24,000 I will pause briefly to just thank all of those in our district to apply for these grants and manage them. Um I know they are a significant part of helping our budget and um allowing us to do what we need to do to operate. So thanks to all of those folks who applied and did all of the work to get us these grants. Any questions on any of the items >> on the consent agenda? Go

135ahead, Sue. >> Okay. Um so agreed completely. I think that we've done a wonderful job um and that our our grant uh activity has increased over the years and that has served us very well. Um obviously title one, title two, title three, title four, those are things that are kind of integrated into those programs when we're doing our when the presentations are done. Um I'm out of interest I'm really interested to know in terms of the in innovative pathways because I'm assuming that the that it's those are that's a program that we've tried to really be growing um as well as um I don't know as much about the youth works and maybe I I maybe it was told to us before but now seeing the dollars that we're getting for grants as well as

136the workforce planning and resource I want wondering if we could have copies of the grants or some summary of and this is how we're enhancing what we're doing um as a result of receiving these grants. Uh I it's for me it's a way that we as a school committee can champion the kinds of um growth and enhancements that we're making uh for what's happening in the system. >> We talked about this um because we wanted to get them on quickly. Yeah, >> but we talked about the fact that we have no backup as to what these are and what they do. So, we're going to have a synopsis of what it covers, but I can give you more detail. >> That'd be great. >> And maybe even a report out from the different because some

137of these are by the same people. Kevin Avatav has a number of these on the one just mentioned on the bottom that he applies for. >> So, um we could have a report out on what actually is happening with those dollars. Yeah, it'll be great to see how we're making enhancements through these grants and and really gives more credit gives that much more credit to the people that have >> when you see what's happening with the dollars and cents. >> All right, but let's get them approved so that all those dollars and cents can be spent legally. >> Um, so with that being said, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So move. >> Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> approved

138unanimously. Thank you. Um on the agenda, we have a list of retirements, resignations, and new hires. It's wonderful to see a number of the slots get filled uh in the same amount of time as it gets to go between meetings. So, thank you to everyone in the district who work so hard to to fill those spots. Um and then we have someformational items. So, as >> I I have questions on that. Go ahead. >> Sorry. Well, first a comment on the retirements. Uh again, there are names in there that I just think uh >> Would you like me to read them out? >> Yeah. Um >> Okay. >> So, MKG teacher, Michelle Boden, Julie Garber, um MKG uh ESP teacher, Paula Hart, and Joanne Tarcanian. Uh all who have given real dedicated service to Middleboro.

139And um I think it's good we pause for a moment to really thank them for what they've done. >> I agree. Thank you for that reminder. >> And then secondly, I just want to ask Mike, we've had this conversation in passing, >> but uh with just how are we doing in filling slots? >> I I know that we having resignations and all and I'm sure it must be a stress. U so I'm just wondering how >> Yeah, we're filling them unfortunately who are losing them at the same time. Some of them are new hires that we're losing. Um, so we just keep posting and interviewing and filling the positions. And Dr. Marles is right. We have uh benefited from some in in the sense that we've hired and and gotten some really good candidates. Um,

140and it's just that it's just the way it is right now. Um, the vacancies are coming. I I can't explain it, but it's it's and again it's not unique to Middle especially in the in this area special. >> Um Okay. Thank you. I I do want to follow up by saying I know that there's been and far as u people leaving the system there have been a lot of questions about our turnover and I did and we are going to have do a more in-depth look at u our teacher retention but I did look it up on the desi site and we are still above state average for retaining our teachers um and we want to improve and we dropped just a tiny bit last year and I know we're doing things to try to

141improve and I'm not saying that that we shouldn't keep trying to improve but um when you see these names you you start thinking that we are really you know dropping significantly but we still uh we I believe we're 86 4% retaining um our teachers um which is um like 4.4% um above the state average. So um you know we aren't dropping precipitously but we do need to keep moving forward. >> I think we should repeat that we are above the state average in retention and we have been for quite some time. So the idea that people are fleeing the system is a false one and it's a negative perception. >> Yeah. And um and that's specifically for teachers. Um I haven't found a good way that we compare in terms of staff positions. There is

142one for principles but it's so you know we only have five principles. So if you loot I think it's uh >> lose once 20%. >> Yeah. So and then you compare that to some other town that has 10. Uh so it's a tough it's a tough comparison. uh but how how we are doing with our executive staff and our staff it's um I've been trying to figure out a way that we take a look at that comparatively speaking uh but at least with our teachers and I echo what you say we want to improve of course um but uh we are above the state average >> okay and I know this is something that's important to all of us and we've talked about a number of times so I do think it's important and for

143us to to keep keep focus on it and um you know keep keep our eye out for any trends that we can >> and Mike will you be calling together that exit interview group >> excuse me >> the exit interview advisory committee we were going to get that started again are you are you going to pull that group together great >> thank you >> all right so the last um item on the agenda before adjournment is justformational for um a fundraiser. So there's the Memorial Early Childhood Center PTA fundraiser for their change war. I know this is always a a fun one for the students and that's November 12th through the 19th. I always look forward to hearing about what fun activities they do for the uh classes that are successful. And then uh John

144T. Nichols Middle School is having a veterans relief project, which I think is a wonderful idea, and there's donations of goods accepted for that project. So, please keep your your eyes out for the information that's going to be coming out for those um to participate as possible. And with that being said, yes, >> Tim Het 5K is on November 23rd, 10 a.m. at the high school. >> There you go. Uh the information is definitely out there. Um, I know it went out on uh parent square for anyone who is interested in participating and you don't have to run. You can walk. Anybody have any otherformational items to share? All right. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> So approved. Have a good night, everyone.