001foreign and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I'd ask you to remain standing for just a minute um unfortunately this week we lost a student Dylan Levesque so if we could just have a brief moment of silence for Dylan and hoping the best for his family so thank you thank you very much everybody with that we're going to start with recognition okay I'd like to call Heather Tucker to the table so we can celebrate some students at the John T Nichols Middle School this evening who participated in a program called IXL this is a math platform that asks students to complete math equations math problems and it's something that they do and they complete in their own time it's something they have used
002school time to complete and our students really to perform at a remarkable level so with that said I'll turn it over to Heather Tucker our principal of the Nichols Middle School to introduce our students and talk a little bit about their performance here to be able to talk about our sixth grade Nichols Middle School students in one seventh grader IXL is a math program that's used by more than 14 million students in more than 900 000 teachers as well as at home by families worldwide during the month of April IXL runs a contest to see which classes can answer the most questions students have to follow a set of rules in order for the questions to count there are three categories for the April contest Pre-K to fourth grade fifth to 8th grade and 9th
003to 12th grade over 43 000 classes registered to participate including all three categories Team USA was first in Massachusetts 13th in the United States in 22nd in the world for the highest average of questions per student that right there so our Team USA consisted of 13 6th graders and one seventh grader who were registered into the fifth to 8th grade category by Mr Michael lapino who is a sixth grade math teacher in this category Team USA was first in Massachusetts oh I read that again sorry uh our 14 members of this Team USA answered questions in class during homeroom at lunch at home during April vacation and on the weekends their achievement during this contest is even more impressive considering they had two days of MCAS during April that's something that not all states have
004and countries do not have April vacation so I am going to announce the awards so when I say your name I'm going to hand you your award okay all right very first we have greats Atkin she's not here okay Samantha America Penelope ferrard Jadis Carlton Molly drevich Jalen golf we have Vincent graca Ella McCauley Brianna Perkins Emily plan Rose price yeah Anthony Sophia Drizzy thank you Sophia Morgan trip um we have a war that we will be hanging in our school building I wanted to let you know that team Perkins was led by Team USA was led by Brianna Perkins Morgan Tripp and Anthony's bracon who answered over 12 10 000 questions each wow and as a little extra we're going to do a Tucker time fun time on Tuesday during extension block to celebrate
005all of our students so another big round of applause we're so proud of you sure come on up guys thank you [Applause] thank you guys we appreciate all your hard work foreign number two next I wanted to recognize two of our administrative team members this week who presented to the Massachusetts Association of school business officials anytime members of our team are presenting across the state not only does it reflect poor I mean reflect positively on the Middleboro Public Schools but it's showing you the depth of skill that the administrative team possesses director of business and finance Sarah hickey and director of curriculum and instruction Dr Terry marcolitis presented to this group as I said with members across the state this week on two distinct topics Ms hickey presented on how School business managers can use
006assessment data more effectively and Dr marcolitis presented to the whole group on the drafting of what's called smart goals in terms of performance so I wanted to congratulate both of them and if you would just stand for a minute so we can applaud thank you and the last item I wanted to recognize this evening involves one of our school resource officers who is part of the Middleboro Police Department Officer Scott Phillips he was recently awarded the exceptional service award for 2023 by the Massachusetts juvenile police officers Association as I said he is a school resource officer officer Phillips is one of our sros and he serves at the Nichols Middle School and also at other schools as needed including the Brookland Elementary School Massachusetts juvenile police officers Association has been in existence for over 50
007years mjpoa is a combination of hard-working and dedicated school resource officers juvenile officers dare officers detectives supervisors youth officers probation officers principals assistant principals teachers counselors and school safety security Personnel all working together this group provides information and training for law enforcement personnel and school Personnel keeping our members up to date on juvenile issues School issues and recent Court decisions so I wanted to just recognize officer Scott Phillips this evening thank him for his continued service and offer him also a round of applause [Applause] anything else my friend that's it thank you thank you next item on the agenda is public comment as we said last time any person who wishes to speak in public comment will have three minutes welcome good evening I'm here to speak regarding the lawsuit brought against the town and
008the school committee as well as two employees of the district it is the duty of the superintendent and employee of the school committee not their boss to make decisions that are not based on personal feelings rather what is best for the district and the students of Middleboro as a whole last meeting I put a call to action to superintendent Lyons asking her to make the change offer opportunities for conversation this was missed yet again and here we are standing in the face of a lawsuit that was avoidable personal feelings aside you had an opportunity to effectively bring together students and families who are either offended or hurt by the shirt worn by another student your response has been to stand your ground and refuse to have the conversation the chair also missed an opportunity to
009seek counsel and allow the board to have a conversation regarding their opinions on this matter by refusing this he has put this District at risk our children deserve leaders who speak for them and make decisions based on their best interests for these Reasons I'm asking for the resignation of the superintendent and the chair I no longer trust that either of you have our children's best interests in mind [Applause] anyone else wishes to speak thank you go right ahead good evening I'm here give some praise and gratitude to Mrs Tucker at the middle school there was an incident with my son recently at the middle school and I'm not going to talk about that at all I respect the process and the privacy of all the parties involved but it was something that we needed to
010discuss and have an open and transparent clear conversation about the expectations for everyone involved which we 100 percent received it was impressive it was reassuring it was calming both my husband myself my husband and I and our son were there Mrs Tucker spoke to my son directly she asked him for his personal input he responded honestly and openly he felt heard he felt validated and he really truly felt like the resolution was something that he could accept let go of the incident and move forward with the remaining 20 days of the school year in addition to that Mrs Tucker helped us Identify some opportunities that are written into his 504 for when he moves up to the high school next year which were things that we had not at the time even considered as I
011don't want to say gaps but opportunities to make sure that there was additional protections for him with the 504 that he does have in place in the midst of the conversation that we had it came to my attention that we really need to Rally around the middle school right now and I think that it's really important that parents especially those of us who have students in the eighth grade they have an opportunity in the last 20 days of school to really set the tone about what they want the middle school to be for them and for the six or for the sixth and seventh graders that are moving up in the incoming sixth grade because I know that when they get up to the high school and they reach Mr Branigan that this is going
012to be a whole new world for them and I think that as parents we should be encouraging our students that are in the eighth grade to really genuinely raise the bar for the students that will still be there as they come into September because they need to pull together as well we talk about it all the time we have to have conversations we have to be honest with each other we have to work together and I think that as parents we should really be encouraging our students to do the same thing and also to be mindful of the fact that as peers to the younger classes in the building they're going to have a larger impact than anything that we can do or say at home and it's a really awesome opportunity that's available to
013them and I would highly encourage anyone that has not had the opportunity to speak to Mrs Tucker really to do so because she's making me feel much better about the way that things are there for my seventh grader who will be rising to eighth grade and it just it's encouraging and I just wanted to say thank you to her and to you guys for bringing her in because I think that she's needed and she's very much appreciated by our family that was all thank you thank you anyone else wish to bring up something not attendance agenda please do welcome sir can I ask that you just state your name for me James thank you James thank you members of the school committee for listening to me my name is James and I am in the
014fifth grade next year I'll be going to Nichols Middle School my my beautiful mom told me about Liam how about how Liam was made to go home because of a shirt saying that there are only two genders no no disrespect but have you heard of this of the First Amendment do you do you know about the freedoms do you know about freedom of speech we can we can wear what we want as long as it's not racist sexist inappropriate or offensive this does not fit those restrictions Liam Liam has every right to share his opinion and beliefs and beliefs I'm sure you guys are a good committee but this is not right when when we lose our rights to debate or disagree we stop we will stop learning when when I don't want I don't
015want to feel like my opinions make me a bad person we are told to be inclusive to everyone but this is an example of how Nichols Middle School isn't is not being inclusive to all people regards of their beliefs thank you thank you James [Applause] anyone else this is Morrison welcome oh Lord Melissa Morrison and no I didn't intend to do this just like the last time I didn't intend on coming I was actually supporting a friend I'm just a little disheartened because I feel like kids are being influenced by their parents and by people having them write notes and things about this what they're not understanding the kids are not understanding is it's a hate shirt it's hatred toward other people who feel like their genders do not match who they are and by
016them wearing them they are hurting students people of the lgbtq people like my son I don't mind people wearing different shirts but saying that this is the only way it is it's it's a hateful shirt you want to wear other things of your opinion what your political party is what your religion I really don't care but when you wear a shirt that's full of hate messages and that's what it is and if you think it doesn't cause pain it causes pain it causes pain to families it causes pains to kids kids who are in Middle School are very volatile and their age many of them do think about suicide and things like that and people in the algebra Community are very the the transgender Community has a lot of suicide I hate to see that
017especially in the Middle School when they're so fragile so I just want to say in rebuttal to some of these things I feel for these kids who feel their first amendment as being violated and I get and I'm you know it's good that they're going to stand up for myself but if it's not them and their parents are actually stating this this is not okay and I hope that there should can be some sort of ground that we can meet on I do think the school committee and the superintendent should come together we have to have a conversation because this is not going away my son gets to go off to college I'm like go be who you're going to be you don't have to deal with this but his little sister is going to
018have to still deal with us at the high school and actually I have to tell you the kids navigate this all by themselves they don't need anybody here to help them these kids are like so what you like a girl you like a boy I really don't care they don't care you know who cares the adults care I don't know why they're doing this all by themselves when I told my son about what's happening and I went to the sun he goes do whatever you want to do and we want a Senior Skip Day he was being who he was supposed to be a normal teenage boy and that's what we want we want to keep putting emphasis on this I don't want to have to keep coming and standing up here just let them
019be kids if they want to like who they like they want to love who they want to love who cares life is hard enough as it is let them be who they want to be girl boy whatever whatever gender and by the way we're talking about science look it up is a fish that actually changes its gender halfway through its life cycle so there's your science thank you thank you very much next up good evening I'm here to comment about the violation of First Amendment rights this happened at nickel missile Nichols Middle School and the subsequent lawsuit that has now been filed against the town with all due respect Madam superintendent you are doing an enormous disservice to our students and Community by not only violating this particular student's rights but also potentially costing the
020taxpayers of our town a lot of money because of litigation our town of Middleboro that you do not live in we need to keep laser point focus on the issue at hand freedom of speech we all have a right to it and it's good for all of us freedom of speech brings opportunity to spark discussions and cause people to find out more about each other's differences and isn't this one of the big issues of our current ERA respecting everyone for who they are and what their differences are even if you don't agree these students are insulated in these buildings once they leave these four walls they will experience what real life is people do not have to agree with you or your opinion or feelings these students will also hopefully realize that if someone doesn't
021agree with you it doesn't mean they hate you or want you to do do any harm to you in any way it's okay to disagree you should not be violating some students rights to insulate other students feelings different opinions disagreements healthy debate these are all things that cause us to reflect research and use our brains we can't have that if we don't have freedom of speech I urge you to stop this lawsuit and the subsequent harm it will do to all of us uphold the students and all students right to freedom of speech thank you [Applause] next up good evening Bridget Kearns here um chairman young you were quoted in the paper as saying that the district has been repeatedly reminded that Massachusetts schools have deemed transgendered students in protected class the school is doing
022what it's supposed to do to protect those children I would like you to substantiate the statement with documentation from whomever it is that is reminding you of this I find it very strange that you suggest that you have to protect some students I would think that all students are worthy of protection and the right to be safe and protected for who they are regardless of whether they fit into a protected class category or not it is clear that this district is not only protecting some more than others they are also protecting some at the expense of others and this is unacceptable the superintendent stated that the dividing line for her was when all students are not protected or accepted for who they are either directly or indirectly superintendent the actions again against Liam and many
023other students across the district clearly demonstrate how truly empty those words are Liam is not accepted Liam is not protected to remain silent about your beliefs your opinions or who you are is not okay and that goes for members of the LGBT community and everybody else the constructive dialogue that is needed to bring us together is not that one side wins while the other side concedes being good Role Models is teaching children that you can treat others with dignity and respect even when you don't hold the same beliefs you do not get to make unilateral decisions on what constitutes hate speech that is exactly why our constitution is framed the way it is to protect free speech to everyone to suggest that words on Liam's shirt are in the same category as the n-word and
024a swastika is so far out of lying to your mignon it is manipulation of language to suit your agenda this is a slippery slope and it is time to swallow your pride and your ego and stop this lawsuit from going forward for centuries the words sex and gender have been interchangeable they have been they are even listed as synonyms in the dictionary students only have to look at your handbook to see that there too it refers to both sexes and either gender both means to and either one of two I guess the hand book either supports Liam or is filled with hate speech targeting the very students you are claiming to protect Mr avatably has reminded me frequently in recent weeks that change takes time and forcing people to share your belief or try to
025navigate a relatively new and complex culture that has ever-changing rules is not going to happen with an aggressive action against those who hold sincere beliefs that are protected in the same non-discrimination category thank you [Applause] so hi my name is Jody Jans Carlton and I wasn't going to speak here tonight I wasn't going to be here tonight my daughter received an award for Math and I'm here to support Tucker and her goals for the new year but when people started to speak I felt I needed to be heard as well is that my children are two of three Jewish students in the junior high in sixth grade and I will tell you that there is a difference big difference between freedom of speech and having it plastered in words on a t-shirt there are people
026that don't believe the Holocaust happened that's true I've been told that the Holocaust never happened six million Jews died in the Holocaust that's the truth of it I have had my house egged I've had my decorations torn down because I'm Jewish my family is Jewish I am proud to be Jewish I am a proud to be friends with anybody that is okay with my religion if they are okay with me I am okay with them I'm even okay if they have the belief that the Holocaust didn't happen that's their belief they have the right to speak of it am I okay if a student walks into the building was something that said the Nazis were right no I'm not and I refuse to be so and if that means that I cannot support a child
027walking in saying that there are only two genders because yes there are right the clownfish changes gender depending upon and I know I have them in my house which one of them grows bigger the bigger one is the female they're all born boys the female the bigger one that's the girl the boy stays small the girl gets bigger so there are animals that change gender so I want to tell you right now there is freedom of speech any one of you right now could tell me I'm wrong that I'm bad because I'm a Jew and I'm going to hell guess what Jews don't believe in hell it's all good with me but I'll also tell you you wear it to my house you wear a shirt that says that to my house and I will
028personally take it off your back thank you sorry excuse me um Ashley away good evening tonight I wanted to address the entire school committee and superintendent lions first amendment protection of free speech is essential for all the actions of the Middleboro Public School administration against Liam was not a reasonable limitation of his first amendment rights and the town is facing a lawsuit to suggest that there are only two genders is comparable to racial slurs and symbols of the German Nazi party is not only absurd but insulting to those who suffered and endure legitimate hatred opposing points of view are not threats of violence or proclamations of hate and we need to model healthy acceptance for all equal protection and opportunity for all to have their voices heard the chair is on record stating that he
029has not sought the Council of the firm assigned to the school committee and that this matter can only be discussed in executive session y has no executive session been called prior to today why hasn't the law firm that represents the school committee been consulted prior to the suit being filed and why have the other school committee members not been given the opportunity to be heard about this matter the school committee has officially been listed as a defendant in the lawsuit and the plaintiffs are seeking nominal damages these nominal damages and costs of litigation will be at the expense of the taxpayers in Middleboro you were given the opportunity to do right by the town and District but instead chose to stand your ground and risk the now filed lawsuit chairman young your duty now is
030to protect the fellow members of the school committee and the taxpayers of Middleboro not the superintendent school committee members per the board governance and operations of the school committee policy manual quote the committee is responsible for the development of policies as guides for administration administrative action and for employing a superintendent who will Implement its policies end quote you're not only able but are expected to question District policies as well as the superintendent and for anyone to suggest otherwise is nothing but an attempt to silence you you are able and allowed to engage with members of the public and open comment with privileged information excluded and you cannot be silenced by the chair speak up apathetic committee members will no longer be tolerated staying silent will only allow the insanity of fighting a lawsuit all the
031way up to the Supreme Court to continue all to indulge the superintendent and chairs principled stand superintendent lions and chairman young you clearly have not prioritized the best interest of the town in the district as a whole and my family calls for your resignation thank you anyone else welcome hi I'm Jalen Goff if I go to school at Nichols Middle School and I'm also a sixth grader this is my friend Emily and we've been getting bullied and I've been getting like harassed and getting racial comments about how I'm Asian and I know there's Asian hate going around and like in this world and I feel like we should change that and I have confronted a lot of teachers about this problem in the school how I'm getting called a and how they're saying ching chong
032pulling their eyes back and calling me a dog eater I think that's really disrespectful and most teachers weren't doing anything about it there was like only two other teachers that would talk to them or have consequences with them but my friend Emily is also getting fat shamed and getting other things thrown at her and stuff and I don't want to see her like going through this it really breaks my heart and sorry uh thank you thank you anybody else you can't go a second time you've had your three minutes no that's that's why we've already gone once you're all set anybody else see no one I'll move on uh next item on the agenda is reports from school committee members let's see go right ahead uh so I had two things um yesterday the day
033before I had the pleasure of attending advisory Council kind of for interviewing for the new principal for nms which was great and something had come up uh there that I just wanted to talk about um which was that there has been some major Improvement in the cafeteria and that the students are cleaning up after themselves and and a lot of the teachers there have been praising uh principal Tucker interim principal Tucker for all the work that she's been doing so I want to thank her for all of that hard work and I also want to congratulate the students for Learning and evolving along in these difficult times because they deserve a lot of credit excuse me anybody else Chris granite I also have two items uh the first just a request of any updates on
034the safety audit that we've been talking about I forwarded a list of potential providers to all three school resource officers and our dirt leader Andrew dizelle they are vetting those companies actually I spoke with Brian wickston this week who told me SRO Brian wixton that he would review the companies and be back in touch he also had conducted some research on on his own and received information from a vendor one of his concerns which has been one of my concerns is the qualifications of someone to conduct these audits so I anticipate talking with him early next week so that we can move forward with the selection for a company okay do you just happen to know um is it mostly procedural audits or will they conduct an actual structural physical each company offers a range
035of products to depending on the price point but it did range from not just policy or procedure review but actual facility walk through an analysis of um like the the physical plant so I would I was looking at an audit that would Encompass both facets it wouldn't just be a physical walkthrough and it wouldn't just be looking at procedures in people thank you I agree with that and the second I just want to motion for an emergency executive session following the conclusion of this meeting to discuss litigation I can't because it's not on the agenda can I get a roll call vote okay I mean we can do the real call that's fine but but you want to do it after this session yeah we haven't had a chance to actually have an executive session
036yet okay and again we haven't listed it that's fine Chris uh yes Jessica can do we have a discussion before a vote uh we can't on Executive session motions okay okay I don't know what the rules are so I'm going to abstain because I don't want to go against rules and I don't know what they are okay Al uh it's just for clarification if we have a roll call vote that is in favor of having the executive session can we have it or I mean well so there's two things one is we didn't put it on the agenda and the second piece is we don't have our attorney here to have a discussion about what's going on I yeah to be honest with you I don't have any information so it'd be very difficult to
037have a discussion in that regard all right yes I see uh I was waiting on a Friday Flash Friday flashes come on Friday for more information and like you said we need our attorney in order so we don't so yeah no and I'll share about snow motion fast three to two with one exceptions thank you one abstentions excuse me probably schedule one for next no well what we did what I've you know I said was we're going to try to have I'm trying I had a conversation with our attorney yesterday we're trying to set up a meeting to be honest with you there's it's going through who's taking over or who's doing it and there hasn't been a decision made as of yet the whole entire school committee was named in the complaint that was
038filed um so I think even prior to having the attorney present we need to speak because we have members of the committee that are speaking to the Press making statements and then we're being told we're not supposed to be making statements to the Press so I think we all need to be discussed this discuss what the issues are going to be and um some game plan going forward for the entire committee on what we should be doing and what we should not be doing right and the notice that was sent out about not meeting with the Press came from the town manager and so we sent that to everybody and the second piece is again it it doesn't in my mind make sense to not have the attorney here to have this conversation that's all
039Jessica I was not abstaining from the desire to have an executive session to discuss it I was abstaining from voting on having one without knowing what the rules are for when one can occur I absolutely agree that we need one but I do think that us all talking about what our options are without having legal counsel present just means we have to have another meeting and go over those things with the legal counsel present so I think it's more efficient to wait for the legal counsel to be assigned and then hold the executive session thank you anybody else have anything they wish to say yeah sorry I just have one more thing regarding uh the interview process that I did I was asked as as many of the other members that were on that uh
040interview committee um to talk to the community about um the interviewees and so I would like to have a a one-on-one conversation with the committee because of course that would cause some some problems in terms of the law there so I need to talk to each of you individually and I would like to do that and I would also like to invite um any of the members of the public between you know the end of this meeting whenever that is and uh probably I think Saturday evening because I do need to get an email out to uh Kevin Avatar to let him know um what what everyone's thinking so if you want to know about um the interviewees I can't give you specifics but I can give you my my feelings and opinions on them
041and what I learned from them and I would love to have that conversation with with anyone and everyone thank you thank you clarify your about the Nichols Middle School principle correct yes correct thank you so any other school Committee Member have anything that we should say with that Nate I'll turn it over to you my friend so starting off with the Mech uh the case students went on a field trip to the zaitarian theater and thoroughly enjoyed it many of the students enjoyed their first bus ride for some and it was the first time on the bus on the highway a Pre-K was a visit planned at the mech from Barn babies that we are looking forward to and the K is planning a second field trip to the balmy Acres Farm that this time
042of year is very busy with visits the library fire station and as and as well as the musical performances book fair and field day we're also planning on our parade to first grade for our k-students for the mkg we're very excited to have completed the 2023 MCAS on Friday May 19th from 5 30 to 7. we have a camp reads a lot for grades one and two grade two we'll be visiting the Middleboro public library next week grade four will be having their living wax museum showcase on Wednesday May 24th for Mr Messier Miss Amato and miss cronin's classes and Then followed by Miss Penny Miss Grady and Miss Russell's class on Thursday both days will be 11 15 to 12 30. grade 2 will be visiting Roger Williams Zoo on May 31st and in
043grade 5 we'll be having their annual Science Fair May 31st will be Miss kukats Miss Baldwin and Mr O'Brien's classes on June 1st will be miss marinelli's miss winterbottoms and miss Goldman's classes both days will be from 2 to 2 45. and then for the MHS congratulations to the 58 new members of the Middleboro High School National Honor Society who are inducted on Monday evening in Bravo to the MHS music program the annual spring concert was outstanding congratulations to the MHS class of 2024 for the amazing Junior Prom the starry night was just awesome congratulations to the unified track team for winning the division one South sectional Championship on Wednesday thank you and then a job well done and thank you to the hundreds of student athletes who volunteered at the track meet and a
044job well done to the many students who engage in their AP exams this past week thank you my friend any questions for Nate how's traffic going um it's going pretty good we're I think there's like one event left I gotta go back out there to your mom but um pretty good so far so Nate we wanted to say goodbye to you um we know this is your last meeting and you'll be graduating next week going two weeks so um Jessica if you want to we have a little present for you and measure of knowing you even before you took on this role and I I got to see you grow um I find you to be a remarkable person um the the Grace and maturity in which you have always held yourself and your willingness
045to help others has always just been such a big part of your character and so I know you will do well but we also wish you the best of luck at Franklin Pierce and in your continued Adventures thank you so much should we get a picture yeah definitely a picture my friend [Music] foreign with that I'll turn it over the superintendents report okay thank you chairman young members of the school committee tonight I have a couple of items to address and I'm going to start with new positions for the 2023-2024 school year these are positions that have been posted and I'm going to break down each one here the first is a position that actually represents two positions at the John C Nichols Middle School there are three grade levels at the Nickels 6th 7th
046and eighth and currently two of those grade levels function with three teams of teachers where one grade level has two teams of teachers this has led to as enrollment has increased large class size in whatever grade level is selected to be the grade with two teams so the addition of two teachers will allow there to be three teams at each grade level which will reduce class size this has been made possible in part by the project at school Street School which has taken Administration out of those offices and allowed the building to maximize that space for students similarly there is the addition of it's really 0.5 time of a music teacher at the John T Nichols Middle School right now we have a 0.5 position this increases that position to full time the reason for
047this Edition has to do with growing a robust and important music program to this District as we've seen increasing numbers at the elementary level with students playing instruments getting involved with music and some of the professional development with our unified arts department and vertical articulation teams it's been made very clear that this is something that is essential to watching this program grow so that's the justification for this position and then lastly is the additional classroom teacher at the Henry Berglund Elementary School and again this is also driven by increases in enrollment and a desire to keep class size at a manageable number so these are the new positions before I move on to anything else I didn't know if there were questions about these positions teacher at HPB allocated for a specific grade or will
048it wait to see numbers and then figure out how everything gets shuffled Mr Thompson I mean so so the reality is is it it is earmarked for a particular grade level right now and it's the this time of year is famous for moves and then also increases in enrollment so while I know principal Thompson has an idea of where that position is going to be I don't want to lock us into a particular grade level Shuffle then figure out gotcha but that is always based on truthfully class size and so managing the Personnel that he has in that building in order to best meet the needs of the numbers in front of him so without additional questions I'm going to move on to school choice and what I want to talk about tonight is a
049data collection process our school registrar Katie godine and director of communications Sean sesiliano helped collect information that I sent to the school committee because I think it's important that whatever decision gets made you base it on information that we can collect share and talk about what's going on in terms of numbers in our school district and what I can tell you is the data that I included involves a longer look at enrollment data for years between 2018 to the present I purposefully selected years before the pandemic because we did see some fluctuations in numbers during the pandemic and I didn't want to just use two years or three years so I went as far back as 2018. we also looked at projections versus actual enrollment Every Spring there is a desire to try to project
050what are enrollment's going to be that number doesn't become actual until a reporting gets completed by msgadyne in October of every year so it's important to know is that projection accurate are we falling short or are we enrolling more than what we're projecting projections are just that it's very hard to get that number correct and it's based on a lot of different factors class size or an approximation of class size is also an important data point because you need to understand how many students are in each classroom because the number of students in a classroom is a pretty big factor in terms of instruction and a teacher's ability to reach all those students next is what I call transfers and withdrawals whenever you're going to look at enrollment data you should be looking at and
051asking well how many kids transferred either you know into our district or withdrew out of our district and went somewhere else and what's that net gain is it are we negative on the year when you look at those numbers are we positive on the year when you look at those numbers and then finally building projects the reason I included building projects is because if there is development happening presently it's conceivable that there are residents who haven't yet moved here who are about to that would need to have seats come fall particularly this time of year so I was talking with Bob Whalen at the town about what the ongoing projects are and I included that data for you as well so I'm going to go into some of that data now the first thing I
052want to talk about is the MPS District enrollment from 2018 um you know current including some projections for 2024. and what you'll see this is broken down by the secondary level enrollment grid 6 through 12 Elementary enrollment as evidenced by grades one through five k Pre-K and then totals so what I want to point your attention to is the fact that we are on an upward trend what we saw in 2018 was a number under 3 000 students which had started to increase in 2019. during 2020 that number declined rose again in 2021 and you can see between October of 2022 and 2023 it is somewhat level so I wanted to give you this information so that you could see what's been going on over a period of time with our enrollment data next I
053want to talk about what I'm calling plus or minus student moves these are those transfers the withdrawals that I was talking about earlier kids who are transferring into our district and students who are withdrawing out of our district so if you look at this data this is just over the last three years 2021 21 22 and 22 23. and what this is also broken down by building so you can see and you'll note I did not include Mech in these numbers what you'll see is ultimately that there is if you go back to 2021 a net loss of 60 students for that school year as of 2021 a net gain of 81 students and as of this school year a net gain of 71 students so what's important for you to know is that there's
054projections and enrollment over the course of the year but because enrollment is rolling you know anytime a student moves or goes away you have to look at what's the net effect on the district and what what is evidenced here at least for the last two years is picking up a considerable number of students throughout the school year um I also shared data regarding students who transferred to private schools and from private schools over the last three years I don't have a slide on it but I want to talk with you a little bit about that concept because there are students who transfer out of our school system and go to a private school so I to be clear I'm not talking about Bristol Plymouth or Bristol Aggie or Norfolk Aggie what I'm talking about is
055an a private institution okay and similarly students who were coming back into district from an institution like that and what I can tell you is in 2021 we had 24 students transfer two private institutions who had previously been on our rolls in 2021 2022 that number dropped to 11 and it was zero this year zero students had that that kind of motion out of the district when I look at students transferring from private into the school district I'm seeing those numbers at an at an increasing rate so you know and I won't go through each number but what I want you to to take note of is that ultimately we're retaining students throughout the school year um more so than we were in previous years um and I think that's part of the story in
056terms of what's happening with our enrollment next I want to talk about class size and I want to be very careful with this this particular slide because class size is not an exact science when you're talking about an entire grade level and that's for a variety of factors I'll start with the high school because you'll see the class sizes listed in 9th 10th and 11th these are a general average it's not an actual number and that's because let's just look at the high school there are different classes if you look at an English class which is what these numbers were based upon English was selected because of the frequency at which students must take English um it's going to vary depending on what topic you're in and what level you're in so that's not to
057say that every 9th grade class has 19 students in it but it is used as an average if you look at the middle school you'll see the justification for the third team right here in terms of you know the class size beings so much higher at grade six that is a function of fewer personnel um and then if you go to the elementary level you can see the class sizes there the other thing that's important to note particularly at the elementary level when you're trying to count class size we also have specialized programs and students that may be assigned a homeroom in a specialized program but those students may be inside the other classrooms as well so trying to account for class sizes not in exact science I share these numbers with you so that
058they are instructional but class sizes particularly instructive when you're looking at what's going on with our enrollment how full our classes are and whether or not to assess whether or not there's ultimately space for others um and that's my data on school choice oh wait I have one more piece of information I did want to talk with you about what Mr Whalen explained to me in terms of development because the thing about town development is that it isn't real until it happens and even once it happens it isn't real for the school system until children are in those homes they're in occupancy and enrolling into our district so this is also not an exact science but he offers to me that there are 50 single-family homes currently under construction he also has indicated that the
059planning board has two subdivisions getting approvals for a total of 38 homes and the 40b apartment building on West Grove Street will include three buildings of 160 units with a total of 214 bedrooms he notes that there are additional proposed apartments at the Friedman junkyard on East Grove Street as well so that's what's going on with development what this doesn't tell us is how many children will move in and how many of those children are going to go to our schools so that's information again that I offer to you um as you Ponder the decision as to what to how to approach uh school choice so with that I'll I'll answer any questions you have about either the data or or anything else related to enrollment the secret um I was going to ask is
060the net loss in 2020 to 2021 do you believe that's from covid yeah well so yeah I mean I I do think that what was happening in 2021 there was a couple of factors we were seeing increases of students who were homeschooled right and we also saw increases of students who you know were going to school elsewhere so yes I personally think it's impacted by covid but I don't have the reasons do you know what I mean I didn't In fairness my data doesn't didn't ask you know what the reason for exit was thank you yeah oh sorry um in terms of the private schools transferring to and from I know covet hit a lot of private Souls hard and some of them had to close their doors do anybody have a sense of from
061the private schools that students usually transfer to and from are they still in existence so is that still a population to evaluate or are there fewer that are still operational um I only know of of one closure that likely impacted these numbers but that doesn't again my numbers don't call Cassidy coil capacity exactly which is why when you look at the numbers transferred from private there was a very high number in 2021 and 2122 and I think that does coincide with the closure of coil um but I don't I haven't heard of additional closures and if you look at this year's data only for students transferred from private which tells me their private schools are happening and we're not seeing a major influx of students return from private settings okay my other question was do
062we have estimates of how many home school students we have enrolled in the district right now I do not have that number in front of me I do have the ability to give you that information and our homeschool coordinator happens to be my director of curriculum and instruction last I checked that number hovered around 80 to 90. it's significantly higher right now that she's reporting can do you have that number handy 100 and 50. thank you do we know if these numbers include homeschool children who for example come into school for various I know in the past we've had homeschools children come in for maybe Spanish class or physics or something like that so by virtue of being on the home school list all all homeschool students are offered opportunities right I'm just wondering do
063these numbers include any of the coming into classes and doing it that would okay good but only likely if they from the high school level only if they came in for an English class right since that's where it was based on but well it could happen at any level there you we've off we've made that offer to kids over the years you know even at elementary levels if it's helpful to come in for a period of the day then that that's certainly you know an offer I could get that information if you were interested in getting more specifics but well you mentioned for the high school the average class size was based on the English classes because that makes sense for the rest of them or those based on homerooms um well it's different so
064I mean yes and no so when you when you look at kindergarten for example they're in their classroom all day right so that number is a lot more reliable because I we know how many children are enrolled in kindergarten and we know how many classrooms we have um with the exception of again specialized programming when you look at grades first through fifth it's pretty much same rules apply because there is one classroom and one teacher so you know what I mean in terms of your assignment where that goes a little crazier is at secondary um so homeroom was what was used in terms of you know Personnel for grades six through eight and then 9 through 12th was um English class I just think my my point was a home school enrolled student is less
065likely to be counted in the existing averages for the numbers of correct K through um K-8 it's a little harder to know for sure correct but that's still a potential of 150 students to consider okay okay so that's another 100 50 schools in the students potentially in the area but I also don't want to overstate how many home school students come into the district because that number is not 150. yep that that is the offer but that doesn't mean all families Avail themselves of that offer understood okay of Alan can I ask you a question since you said on the planning board too do you know when the West Grove Street um comes online or supposed to uh no not off the top of my head I do know that the uh the Freeman junky
066ad is going to be a little bit because there's some uh contamination in the soil issues okay that's what I wasn't sure about Greg Marshall um what is the financial benefit to the district um right now if we allow school choice children per child what would that benefit be so we'll defer to miss hickey we get a per student rate for every seat that we offer for school choice if the student is eligible for special education there is an additional incremental form that you can seek additional funding for it is not a straight line equation in terms of the cost of educating the state doesn't reimburse at a 100 percent rate of the cost of educating students eligible for special education but the but for school choice do you know there are five thousand dollars
067per student so it hasn't changed five thousand per head in its renewable each year anybody else have a question here I just had a quick question um so sixth grade seems to have 28 well it does have 28 students per class is that the uh the two teams that's right all right and then we're going to rectify that with this that should be rectified because these last moves to seventh grade next year we probably won't see the 28 per student right the reason the class size is so high is because sixth grade operated with two teams had there been three teams that class size would have been a lower number beautiful thank you anybody in the community have questions Teresa a couple questions um do we I apologize if I missed it because that was
068a lot of data there do we have a number of current uh school choice students in the districts like What's the total number that are currently here you know what I didn't I did not pull that number of school choice currently we do have some we do have some seats and all regardless of decision those seats are permanent until that student graduates right so that brings me to my next piece which would be the data collected on these particular children in who are in our districts who have been welcomed into Middleboro in the past through school choice last year's decision was very abrupt for families who had siblings that they had in intended to also send to Middleborough or had hoped that they would have that that seat so I feel as though we should
069be at least looking at the possibility of phasing school choice out and rather than being so abrupt with that so look at how many you have look at how many are graduating I happen to know of at least one but perhaps more who are graduating this year and so they're out of the district and they're no longer going to be here next year look at all those students who are who are here as school choice students and what their sibling situation looks like they are students in this District so they have been given that opportunity to be here and I feel as though we should at least honor their families and give them a chance to keep their children together rather than have to separate them into two separate districts so I would just ask
070that before you make a decision you get that in information in front of you and you look at how that does impact the district how many are leaving how many will be coming in that's all thank you hi Sarah zagoras um I also wanted to make a comment about school choice and how last year's decision um to mirror the words of Teresa was very abrupt and it really left families that had children in the district that were already accepted that had siblings that they were expecting to send really put them in a very bad situation so I would really like to for it to be considered that siblings of current current accepted school choice people that are already enrolled here that have been coming here for years that their siblings be included in part of
071that school choice to bring the families together otherwise you're at risk of losing those school choice kids and having their families pull them to keep them in the same district so thank you if if I remember correctly last year we voted not to you know go forward with um Choice um so to my understanding though that although we wanted to support those families we couldn't for whatever reason well so numbers had increased so for example in the kindergarten the numbers went up from uh 2 30 to 2 40 and now they're up to 250. right we have an increased we have an increased the size we haven't added teachers stuff like that the you know the Pre-K has gone up high the secondary and Elementary have roughly stayed the same I think part of what
072we're seeing is more kids for example go to the high school in the past we would lose more students to BP um students have tend to stay there's also I think part of the reason we get um the transfer of backs is because the way the system structured at BP in the sense that if depending on how well you do in your first year then you get to choose what you want moving forward and in some cases kids went to school hoping for x and didn't get X so then they decided to come back so we've seen an influx I mean the other problem to be quite frankly is that is the housing development in Melbourne the number of houses has increased tremendously and continue we continue to see more students from there I think
073and correctly if I'm wrong um we went to the planting board Brian had sets the numbers I think with a house in town it averages about one student per house on average and then in an apartment in town it's something like point something per apartment the way the averages worked out if I remember that conversation correct so I mean we get it from both sides we we've built a beautiful high school that people like to stay at we've continued growing and so I think part of it is I mean again if you look at projections right if you look at last year they projected to 9 to 29.95 and by the end of last year it was 30 60. so those numbers went up over projections because we continue to get in that would be
074a concern I know the year before it was a little off but um yeah it's a tough it's a tough piece do we choose how many positions are available for school we have yeah so we chose based on um is that per school basis or per grade basis well to be honest with you if I'm if I'm correct and please tell me if I'm not when we did the elementary school we've set numbers for the kindergarten we've set numbers for the elementary school the vast majority of elementary school students went to hbb because HPB has lesser students than mkg and so all it even though we're setting an elementary number it's not it's not one school it's you're you're going to the population of one particular school sam applied to the number for nickels and
075here we've had a sort of a smaller number at times too based on the fact that uh again this the volume here is increased greatly primarily because we're at in in theory we're not we're at capacity but we're not at capacity because this place was built with a percentage increase that we're still not under but but still you know it creates some problems in various places right on piggyback on that and what others have said I would like the committee to just consider to allow siblings of students currently on school choice here I think a lot of families last year with the decision that was made by the committee pulled all of their kids so I don't even know how many families we have currently that have younger siblings that want to come in and
076also after reviewing our policy and speaking with some employees within the district I would also like the committee to consider that we allow school choice for employees of the Middleboro Public Schools we can't it's in here it states that we all applicants who parents are employed by Middleboro Public Schools will be placed prior to an enrollment Lottery yeah it can't it can't anymore it used to be that way and then in actuality when we were it was it was part of the teacher's contract at one point and so we were looking at the teacher's contract they pointed that was pointed out to us that it was no longer legal that's the way it was set up school choice policy was set up that staff had priority because part of it was you know bringing students
077in bringing students in you had a parent who worked here but that can't be part of the priority anymore so if it's illegal it's illegal by state law yeah and what that it's under Desi the rules for school choice the ability to prioritize them so that they can still be in the lottery they just can't be prioritized correct they can't be prioritized it's a priority prioritization not not saying that they can't be part of it but it's a prioritization do we know I'm just curious why was that change made that feels rather important to teachers it was a I think what happened was people included in contracts and then to decimate a decision that it wasn't going to be that way because that's not what um they wanted to make sure that there were opportunities
078for students every student yeah that's all makes sense it started that way it was always that way it was sort of a nugget for student teachers and and staff but that had since changed and to be honest with you we hadn't heard about it until we had that discussion about it in the most recent negotiations I think it might have been before that to be honest with you I gotta remember but I remember we had that conversation all right thank you in order to honor the request to in I we can't make any decision until we have some sense of how many students are currently enrolled in school choice how many siblings there are what grades those siblings are in and at a certain point with the parents want those students to be eligible for
079school choice or not because if we're going to vote on school choice and we have to decide numbers and placement numbers and placement don't necessarily help siblings unless they align with where the siblings would need to end up so I I feel like if that's the request we don't have the necessary data in order to determine if the request is feasible so the only other thing the committee needs to be aware of is that in there is a form due to the state on June 1st so I would recommend trying to get together prior to June 1st because the way school choice works is you're automatically enrolled unless you affirmatively tell the state you're not enrolled so I can certainly gather that data before June 1st but when we would be able to vote on
080that because we won't have a meeting in between we can have a meeting we can have them you know depending on what people but we need but we need 10 days or how many how many days for three oh only three days okay okay I thought for some reason I had in my head that it was more to establish an agenda okay and if we're gonna need to have a copy of the law from Desi that yeah I'll find that piece that's not a problem employees I think I think everyone here wants to try and make that work um so yeah if we could just get the that kind of data is you know what how many siblings how sorry how many how many students are there that are in school choice that have siblings
081I think that's really just I believe that law is Mass General Law chapter 76 section 12 today I'll double check uh 12 B it's either 71 or 76. it's 76. there we go thank you is it on I just trying to think back to what's on the enrollment paperwork when you enroll I I recall having to put siblings down as of the time the paperwork is filed so hopefully we have at least for the current school choice students um lists on the paperwork that information is obtainable okay so is a vote required right now to to delay no um if we don't vote before June 1st we're part of it and then it's it's the setup of numbers more than anything else all right so we're automatically enrolled in school choice correct so if that
082happens can you just set the Open Enrollment to zero at every school or no wow it'll right it you can't bypass it by setting it to zero okay so you would have to allow is there a minimum number of children that have to be I don't believe I can check but I don't believe that there is a minimum okay all right so theoretically we could just set the minimum to the number of siblings that are on the list I believe that would be permissible yeah yeah you'd have to open that to everything there is a lottery well is where that rule comes there is sibling preference right well I think that's what chairman young was saying is that the siblings cannot sit ahead of there is a lottery Preference they can be have preference but
083um teachers oh teachers children's don't get preference but siblings get preference siblings of current school choice students get preferenced so so what's the so so what's the difference explain to me what's the difference when when a student is preferred over over the lottery so for example let's say in kindergarten there were two slots open if 10 children apply and two are siblings those two take the two slots okay if there are three siblings there'll be a lottery for the three not for the ten that would be the difference okay but the reality is if we open it up because we believe there are three siblings who are coming into kindergarten and of the parents they do not wish to have their The Sibling into the program if we've opened up three slots then we have
084three slots and somebody can take that slot and now we have another student in the program that is a non-sibling yes that's correct that would be the requirement other questions okay um so I will move on and I would invite all of the principals up actually I'll start with the elementary principles so we're going to speak first to talk about our school Improvement presentation this evening by way of review in October of 2022 our principles came to school committee meeting to talk about their school Improvement plans for the 22-23 school year tonight they'll be reviewing the work that occurred over this school year and giving you a preview about the school Improvement plan to come next school year this is work that's done alongside with their school councils and they'll be back in October of
0852023 to present next year's plan in full so with that I will turn to Elementary and we'll go from there welcome Mr gobiel and Mr Thompson thank you good evening this is why it'll be in here in a minute so I'm just kidding um so this is an update on our current plan and the work that we've been doing this year on the plan that we presented in the beginning of the fall and just a quick thank you to the school committee members who have joined us this year Mrs Adler Mrs Rowan Mrs Alshon his parents and um this is Cooney Ms Del Vecchio Mrs litender Mrs Madigan staff members that have joined this year as we've been working on checking in on our current plan and developing our plan for next year our goal
086this year we have three goals in total at hbb the first is to improve student performance and literacy and we've had a couple sub goals I guess underneath that we've been trying to work to improve teacher skill sets in the areas of writing word study reading foundational skills in handwriting increased engagement in our students as readers and writers and ensure all students are on a path of growth we've also been working on updating curriculum so this year there's been a lot of differentiated PD especially targeted towards teachers in their first three years one big accomplishment has been the selection of a foundational literacy program for next year which we're going to be using which is called you fly which is a University of Florida literacy Institute that's going to be something we're working on in
087all three schools going forward next year one thing I've been doing a lot of this year which has been kind of fun is publishing student writing which is a really for kids to see themselves as writers feel like it's really important opportunity for kids to publish their writings so we've been in the newsletter every week taking different selections of kids writing and Publishing it's been a lot of fun we do have a lot of curriculum writing going on this this year it's really started this year it's going to be working all summer we have curriculum articulation teams vertical articulation teams and curriculum writing teams going on we've implemented the Handwriting Without Tears program this year and we've continued our work in our professional learning communities really looking at student data making sure all of our
088students are on a path of growth and providing interventions as needed in literacy in math very similar to our goal in literacy we're trying to expand our teachers skill set in a variety of areas in math really we just want our teachers to be able to meet the needs of kids as mathematicians also increasing engagement in math so we've done some we just recently completed a maths themed spirit week was which was a lot of fun we've been doing a lot with st math and GG we actually won a GiGi costume this year the kids have loved it so staff members dress up like Gigi walk around for different celebrations and similar to literacy we've been really committed and focused on keying in on kids that are struggling and we do that work in professional
089learning communities we look at our assessments we figure out which kids are struggling and then we provide interventions from there and also we've been doing some curriculum work in led by Kelly stukenberg that works really been looking at different programs for next year and really mapping out what our plan for curriculum is going to be as we move forward our third goal is to Foster an inclusive environment for students and families so that all students feel like they belong and are equipped with the social emotional learning skills required to meet success some of the things we've been working hard to improve is really teacher and student competencies in a number of different areas also our home school partnership because this is really where our work with parents intersect in a lot of different ways and
090also ensuring that all students are on a path to growth so we also spend a lot of time looking at data we have a number of different supports for kids that are struggling in different areas we created a new student group this year that our adjustment counselors run we have intervention groups in the morning for kids that are maybe struggling making friends might be struggling controlling their emotions things and one of the big projects that we have been working on we're going to touch on after Mrs White presents her slides because it's something we've been working on across complex thank you so at Mary Kay good our new school council members for this year we added Suzy went to bottom who is a teacher Meg Larson a teacher Linda Lincoln a parent and Emily Temple
091who is a parent so what I did here is I I kept kind of the presentation as I did in in the fall when we put our goals forward um our Improvement of our instruction in literacy We are continuing to work on our workshop model providing professional development for our new teachers especially in their first three years with balanced literacy making sure that they have the components of the writing especially the foundational literacy that Mr Thompson had mentioned that we're looking at you fly for next year we have our job embedded professional development with coaching and our professional learning communities and this is provided by the coaches so what I was able to do this year was I added an additional 45 minute professional development session in the morning so our town meeting we added
092an additional we have a town meeting and then we have a we call it the extra special and we're able to add an additional time for teachers it's a kind of a combination we do during that time we do either professional development or it's an an additional team time for teachers to work together at their grade levels for for curriculum conversations um develop curriculum excuse me develop and refine our Curriculum maps and trajectories this is work that our teachers are doing with the curriculum team it started and it's still ongoing and we look forward to that work over the summer our Focus uh being on the foundational literacy skills in grades one and two and we're looking at the focus being writing in grades three through five our assessment our benchmark assessments are star 360
093our early bird dyslexia screening screening these are on ongoing and this gives us important data for our students and decisions um really about curriculum and also about the instruction and the learning that's going on it provides us with information on student groupings and meeting our student needs at an individual and also group levels for our students we have our multi-tiered system of support our mtss Academy which we have a group of teachers that are involved with our tiered level of support for English language arts our child study team when we have a student in a classroom that may be struggling in a particular area the teachers will bring a student forward to a team um that may be admin or maybe our school adjustment counselor our special education department our OT speech to have conversations
094about what we can do to meet the needs of the child in a different way everyone you know bringing all the great minds to the table to have a conversation we're also doing our positive behavioral intervention supports our PBIS and this team is done a fabulous job this year not only with introducing we're we're just rolling out our student student positive behavioral referrals that we're rolling out right now but we started with the staff you know it's important staff morale and staff culture is important as well for a positive environment for our kids and we really have focused a lot on our staff to share with some fun activities that they've planned throughout the course of the Year our implementation of Handwriting Without Tears that's been implemented by our classroom teachers and I know handwriting
095has been an issue and I know it is one of those things that you know we've talked about that's kind of fallen off the Wayside in the last you know especially through covid and we saw that happen so that was something that we definitely thought was important to have so our students have that structure and have the the techniques for writing the actual craft of uh responding to reading benchmarks and monitoring and analyzing calibration this is uh writing this is really looking at there's different types of writing there's writing you know writing a story because it's just fun to read there's reading something and being able to take pieces of text and anal having a student analyze them and be able to respond to that so we're looking at all of these different benchmarks and
096monitoring our next goal is a math goal and it's to improve and ensure our Improvement of growth in grades one to five in mathematics so again we're refining our curriculum apps this is also going with going on with our curriculum teams it's ongoing and it's going to be some work that continues our professional development provided by our coaches and with Kelly stukenberg who really I I will tell you our teachers are really getting a lot from I've heard some great feedback from from our teachers about this professional development in math it's really teaching content and skill and manipulatives and how do we embed this all in our classrooms and having a workshop model in our classroom so we're meeting all of the the diverse needs for mathematics in our classrooms um again with um not
097only the the outside time that we spend in professional development but having coaches go into the classroom so they're working alongside the teacher so they're seeing the students and how they're working and the the ways that we can enhance and even further differentiate and enrich our mathematics we're using our star 360 assessment um our teachers are implementing those and we are analyzing that data Again part of our mtss and our child study team with looking at math data looking at student work and how do we enrich it how do we make it better I will say you might have got a costume we got a skateboard for St Math we got a golden skateboard this year that is a state recognition from St Math we developed and Jessica Hilton actually one of our math Champions
098created I think I might have shown you are if you've been at mkg our giant poster of Gigi where every time a student hits a 10 level they get a black dot and we are filling in Gigi that was presented at a a state conference and our school won the golden skateboard which is a high level of achievement in Massachusetts it's pretty cool so we're very excited about that excuse me thank you I'm not riding it down the hallway um also we've made it a point with our after school clubs to make sure that we're increasing our science and our mathematics we have a we we have a new um excuse me Club coordinator and you know we're really looking at the clubs and making sure that we're meeting diverse needs of of math and
099science fostering our inclusive environment for students and families our students feel like they belong for our students to feel like they belong and are equipped with the social emotional learning skills required to meet with success professional learning professional development time spent to look at different topics that our kids are looking at providing feedback and Analysis through our early bird data is important to us looking at our screeners which is very helpful for us when our school adjustment counselors are pulling groups and being able to um lunch groups and intervention groups common Choice was expanded to grades one to five as Mr Thompson mentioned we're going to talk about upgrading our learning behaviors and expectations on our report card so that's something that our teachers at all grade levels and across the schools are actually working
100on we're still working with character strong and our purposeful people and our teachers are working with our words of the month our child study team this is a real crucial uh piece of what we do during child study um we not only look at the math the science the social studies but also how does um behavior and how do those components fit into our tiered system we did have our parent nights with Internet safety I know that was Mr Siciliano had helped us provide important information regarding Internet safety for our students um something that we did start off with our diversity Equity inclusion parent committee we've had a few meetings not as many as I would like to share unfortunately schedules get in the way we I have to look at the schedule for next
101year and see how we can get a better we had four three meetings three meetings three yeah you have parents here that were on it and I thank them you know this is hard work and I appreciated everyone's time to sit and have a conversation about some tough topics and it's something that I do look forward to expanding um next year and maybe looking at it a little differently so so that way I do thank the committee and and appreciate the time that went into the meeting with me we are redesigning our child study team we're in the process of that now to better meet the needs of creating um a through line through our school adjustment counselor with our child study team we're going to be continuing with our town meetings next year with
102our students that's our grade level meetings that we have as I said where we changed it up a little bit that our town meetings are going to be with our school adjustment counselors and our psychologists and we also do it with our assistant principal we go over school rules we go over the bus rules we go over the recess rules we go over cafeteria rules we have to continue teaching those throughout the course of the school year we also as I said every other month we do an extra special and the students are assigned to us um whether it be gym art music and that gives the teachers in time during that that town meeting time to have important professional development or team time and we do that because and you guys you guys have
103time meaning too um every grade level is different and every grade level has its own unique set of things we have to do as far as rules on the playground and such so this gives that individual time for each grade level so one of the projects that we've been engaged in we wanted to talk about briefly tonight and so this is a super rough draft right now of the grade one and two expectations but we are working on updating the Elementary report card specific to the areas that lay out the skills of so lay out the social skills the emotional skills and the learner behaviors that we're hoping our kids acquire by the end of their time with us this is one of the areas where I think we have long felt we are a
104little all over the place and we need to do a better job clearly articulating for everyone for parents for teachers what it is that we're expecting and hoping for what it is we're focusing on what we're not focusing on as a results as it relates to these skills these skills are really the foundational skills for our kids one good example is organization um you know we have five different approaches on one grade level in terms of what we're doing to teach kids to organize themselves we need to be more consistent more thoughtful more planful and sequential in how we approach teaching kids how to be organized and prepared for middle school when they leave the elementary complex what does that look like in fifth grade what does that look like in fourth grade so what
105we're doing here and you see spelled out here on this is the beginning of our effort to spell out what those expectations are each of these expectations will have a rubric that will go along with it not a rubric like in a traditional sense where you'll have like four different scales but a rubric that would say what does organization look like in first grade second grade third grade fourth grade and fifth grade that we would then share with parents it would go along with the report card so everybody can be clear about what it is that we're aiming for and how it is that we're reporting on these categories yep so the process um this uh began uh shortly after the New Year in in January um and this is this came from our teachers
106we had a group of teachers that met um with Mr Thompson and I january-ish um really about what is this you know we've said many times when we started working together that it doesn't matter what elementary school your child goes to they're getting the same education and our teachers are so thankful that we're working on this together as a complex because it it really doesn't matter and they sat by grade level they sat by teams it started with teams of teachers from each school then it expanded to include all of the teachers at every grade level meeting and really taking the time the teachers really you know took took this task and really spent the the conversations were probably the richest I've heard in it was it was just it was mind-blowing um and this
107is like really a draft form but we're going to be digging deeper into these rubrics because we we want to make sure that we're being clear as to what this looks like first grade doesn't look as Mr Thompson said doesn't look like fifth grade but it does need to look the same whether from mkg to hbb with with whatever grade we're looking at so this is fifth three through five in the span um and they're not going to get graded if you want to go to the that slide thank you so what we're looking at and again draft draft these are some proposed scoring categories that students aren't getting a number grade they're not getting a letter grade it's where are they are they at an independent level or with support or approaching the skill
108these are some just a few of the words that we've kind of tossed around um we are going to be holding a community Forum this summer to further this conversation because families we want to hear from families and on their thoughts and you know before we get to that report card gets on the report card we do have learner behaviors on the report card now we're just trying to make this a little bit more easier for families to understand and what we're doing and what we're looking at with our students so big just the last part I just wanted to say about that Community forum is we're hoping to hear from parents to help develop what that rubric looks like to make sure that we're on the same page you know with what we think
109is appropriate expectations in terms of organization um in the in those kinds of topics so we're looking forward to this and again I just want to reiterate Mrs White's point this is a section of the report card we're hoping to use to report to parents what we see how kids are doing it's not so much about grading kids as it is about reporting and letting people know because at the end of the day as a parent of three kids these are the things that I care the most about I do want my kids to be good readers and writers and mathematicians but I really want to know are they are they being a good kid are they working hard are they trying their hardest are they being respectful do they get along with other kids
110things like that so that's what we're aiming for I don't know if we should take questions at this point or keep going Mr abiel people have questions Jessica so as you're looking at implementing this rubric have you thought about how to utilize it across the kind of trimester schedule because I know that's always something that can cause some confusion or can dishearten kids when they get like their their term one report card and they're not meeting expectations but it's because the skill isn't something they're expected to know until the end of the year so are you looking at kind of adjusting making sure that the rubric is covering kind of by trimester what those skills are so they're not getting that confusion of a skill they're not expected to have yet that is a fantastic
111question and we just haven't even gotten that far yet but we talked we actually were just talking about this just in relation to our report card in general which we do believe needs to be updated because I agree we currently our report card is end of the year standards and that's the way we report on it and I agree it becomes really confusing and I think we have oftentimes parents like what does this mean like you know that's an end the year I don't even know what you're saying to me right now sometimes so I think we need to update it across the board but that's a great question and goal I think for us and part of the reason why we need to have a larger conversation yeah you know because we all look
112at it through one lens but parents are looking at the report card through a completely different lens it's like and the students too because I know the students really care when they look at it I want it to make sense to them as well I agree right it can be it can be deflating when they look at it that way absolutely other questions good evening excuse me thank you for having us here tonight I do want to thank our my school counsel for this current year myself Mrs Bagnell Mrs tullish Mrs Lord Mrs Condrey as our teachers Mrs Carol Carver who's our community representative and then Mrs treasure Gonzalez who's one of our parents as well they worked really hard this year and ultimately what we ended up figuring out was that a lot of
113the things that were part of our school Improvement plan really we're not going to be accomplished in one year and so a lot of our goals for next year are pretty similar to the current goals that we have for this this current year or that they build upon those but I did want to review some of the things that that and highlight some of the things that we did do this year um I think one of the biggest things that we did this year was was really introducing coaching Cycles we're very fortunate in having Mrs Santos who's our instructional coach who has really fostered some great relationships in the building and and really built some some some clout and sort of Credo with our teachers and having been a classroom teacher she's just the right
114person for this for this position and one of the things that she's helped organize was what we called learning walks it's not technically learning walks but it was an opportunity for teachers to visit other teachers classrooms in very small groups and look for specific things so a group of teachers wanted to look for support on interactive read-alouds and so they would work with Mr Santos they'd get together she would go and find a teacher that would be willing to have those other teachers come into their class her classroom and observe an interactive read aloud then go with that teacher and have a debrief session where the teachers could ask questions about well how come you did this and what did this look like what were your you know how did you plan this and it
115worked really really well in that the teachers that were hosting these were were looking for feedback so they not only were like looking looking at themselves as exemplars but they were looking at please come into my classroom because I want some feedback and so part of the debriefing process was you know tell me what you think I could have done differently so it was a really nice give and take and that to me is really important in the coaching in the coaching aspect and that's something we're going to continue to continue to work on we did do some inventory of the books in our book room um we looked at our literacy Curriculum maps and and some refinement of that and that's certainly the work that's going to continue over the next year um we
116were we did we were pretty limited in our math PD we did have some with Mrs stuckenborg um she came to the school a few times and did some PD and as Mrs Whitehead says very well received by our teachers a very engaging professional development another big thing that we started this year was our PBIS team as I've been this is my third year finishing up as a principal at Mac and the first couple years were kind of a mess with covid but one of the things that was clear is that and I guess this is pretty historic at MEC is that there are pockets of people doing their own sort of positive behavioral interventions and supports and and some people are using Second Step some people are using Bucket Fillers some people are using
117responsive classroom and one of our goals for the next few years and particularly being part of the PBIS team in the academy is to really sort of streamline that so that we're all doing very consistent things across the school and that allowing for teachers to have their autonomy in regard to their own sort of classroom reward systems but having things that we can that we can do across the board for the entire School part of that process is and again with our PBIS team and with our teacher leaders talking about sort of rebranding Mech in regard to our our mascot or or how we how we look at ourselves and so we're looking at a few different ideas of what that looks like and that will that will really strongly closely tie into our PBIS
118system and our student recognition we could we have continued to do social emotional learning lessons with our school adjustment counselor and our school psychologists with the expectation that teachers have follow-up lessons that they can do on everything from frustration management and self-regulation and organization and all of those aspects of being of learner behaviors we did partner with Commerce choice this year we hadn't the previous year and then we also had introduced the social emotional screening for all of our students and that was the teacher perception surveys um again I'm not going to go through all these but we will continue with a lot of the work that we started this year in regard to our goals a big part of that will be our literacy and math curriculum writing and our particular our vertical articulation
119teams and I know that as a district we've talked quite a bit about this year and our goal is to really align what's happening from pre-k all the way through grade 12. and that's going to be a big part of a big part of what we're doing for the next few years so we had a literacy goal we have a math goal and again a sort of a inclusive environment for students families staff and visitors and a lot of these things will just continue for for the next year looking forward to it any questions thank you Elementary principals would that will turn to the middle school and Heather Tucker to come and talk about school Improvement for the Middle School good evening I did have two school council members here but I think it must
120have been time for children's bedtimes and they did have to go um so I'm here to present the John T Nichols Middle School school Improvement plan and what is important to know about this plan it's not one that I wrote it is one that um had been in place and we've had a couple school council meetings so I am really thankful to Shelley Berard Crystal Silva Jody Jance Carlton and then the teachers Wendy Conant Krista Medeiros and Kathy kubek for continuing to support the work of the school council as there was a transition in leadership and I think one of the things to really note is [Music] um being really appreciative the work of the Nichols Middle School to keep going even though there was you know a little bit of Gap of consistent leadership
121and I think that really speaks to the strengths the talents in the drive of the Educators the district supports and the families this school Improvement plan we did as a council revise to narrow it down previously each action step had about 10 or 13 steps underneath it and that's actually quite a few action steps for a school council plan so in discussion we decided to narrow down the focus in order to be able to Target our expectations to make sure that we were able to report on what is happening here at Nichols okay um the goal itself did not change and actually a lot of the targets under the goal did not change but it is to improve our instructional routines in order to better support student learning engagement and continuous achievement so um in
122collaboration with the curriculum and instruction um there's been a lot of focus on the evidence-based inclusive practices particularly with a focused on tier one and tier two interventions and supports for all Learners this type of discussion and the work is being done through the department head meetings so the department heads all gathered together to look at continuity and consistency across their curriculum departments once you enter a middle school it is different from that of the elementary schools instead of having grade level teams really we work in departments and then also our cluster teams look a little bit more social emotionally at students where the Departments look more at that curricular instruction some of the um things that are new is star 360 is a is a math and an Ela um Baseline measurement and what
123we do is we look to see how students progress through a school year from the start of the year to the midpoint to towards the end and right now we just opened up our star 360 Benchmark assessment this is a tool that I think we're able to explore to use even more effectively as a progress monitoring tool I know the English Department even had a department meeting today and they were talking about the writing um the writing Benchmark and the rubric and to ensure we're able to look at student progress as students grow hopefully over the rubric measuring their writing for each of the three grade levels um one of the things that is something that I noticed that is really seems to be um very well utilized is the tutoring program based on the
124grant funding that the Nichols Middle School had received and there's tutoring on Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school which is when there's the late bus and it is staffed with Educators and students are able to come in to complete work that they need help on to get extra practice to work with an educator on something they may be confused or just need some more time to help and I I'm actually working with those Educators to actually identify how many students are coming how many students or repeat students coming just to look at the efficacy efficiency of the program because I understand that the grant itself does have a Time limitation on it but if the program is something that really is working to support students particularly in those tiered interventions it's something that I would
125Nichols consider doing the second goal is to promote and Implement social emotional learning strategies into our student school-wide experiences throughout the school year and I know the target of the Nichols Middle School with the district has been to implement that mass tiered system of support programs and supports to develop the whole student I know there was a development of a PBIS committee one of the things that seems to be very entrenched and important in the life of the Nichols Middle School is earning tiger stripes for when students are caught being good I know that there was some partnership between the PBIS committee and the PTA to purchase a tiger mascot costume to help build some additional School support which seems to be an exciting thing and looking at the after school in Richmond what I
126learned is we have Roar Awards and we are due for our next Roar award delivery to students which will be putting names into the tiger times uh not this week but next week because that will happen on May 23rd whatever 24th the Wednesday the staff have been receiving ongoing professional development in mtss Panorama is a new data collection tool that pulls in a variety of data sources that helps us to look at the efficacy and efficiency of our programming and I know there's been some discussions around ensuring the continuity and consistency of how and what data is being entered into Panorama to make sure that that as a data source is really robust in helping us to assess our progress and growth and to see what our areas of need are our character strong has
127continued the PBIS committee had identified sixth grade as empowerment seventh grade is growth and eighth grade is success is Target terms and setting expectations for students to progress and to try and continue to build that um sort of gradual release of expectations of students as individuals and as Learners in the context of the Nicholas Middle School um the third goal has been to re-establish a school culture built on maintaining class team grade and school-wide agreements and expectations that strengthen our community of Learners and Educators while building positive relationships within our school Community I know the previous principal had conducted surveys of parents students and staff and the school council will be further analyzing that data to talk about what the school Improvement plan goals for the following school year ought to be just with some
128considerations one of the things I think is really helpful and I think is a great kudos to all of you sitting up there is creating that third sixth grade team for the 23-24 school year class size really does impact how a community functions reallocating the social science unified arts teacher to a stem position and that's for the 23-24 school year which is really important so it'll help address that curriculum content area one of the things to note is in eighth grade you're assessed on all three years of science standards and it's important to actually give students that Hands-On more practical application of the science standards and the Nichols is undergoing a schedule revision to increase time on learning and looking at reallocating the two home rooms and how the extension block time is utilized in
129order to promote more time on learning some of the fun and exciting things are the student council sitting in and listening to this group of students in their brainchild of how to make the nickel School a better place is really impressive the students really with their thought process their analyzation what they see has been great but they also they also look at the Spirit weeks and have been planning we have another spirit week that is to start next week on the 22nd and there's been some discussions in the different departments and the different teams department head meetings and in um I think the school council itself is talking about how are we sort of calibrating our expectations of skilled Development Across the three grade levels in planning what would look like a gradual release of
130skills from say the start of sixth grade to the end of sixth grade and what does that look like and where would seventh grade pick up to gradual release to eighth grade so that way we're preparing students for the high school to be you know autonomous Learners in um ready the other thing that we have been discussing at Nichols Middle School is putting into writing what I've called the standard operating procedures Sops there's a lot of practices that are really great but aren't necessarily in writing so we've been working collaboratively across all of the different groups that I've mentioned throughout this plan to create a list of the standard operating procedures that actually should be memorialized in writing to build that content continuity to build that consistency and that is something the Educators have seemed
131to find really helpful and it's something that Nichols is working on but that is Oh wrong direction okay so that's it for Nichols Middle School uh thank you very much questions oh sure thank you we appreciate it thank you with that we'll turn to the high school um and I'll call up Mr Paul Branigan to come and talk about his progress at the Middleboro high school and where we're headed into the the year that awaits hey everyone good evening and I'm really excited to be sharing with you just some of the highlights of our year and then also just some of the trajectory of where the high school will go in the upcoming year you just note I just want to take an opportunity to see how the principals have to be thanking the members
132of our school council at the high school at the mantras who has been the chair um Sam desharness Brandon ketzemian who's here tonight I'm Cassandra Lemieux I'm Colleen Perillo Joanne Salamone Kendall Santos who is our student rep Bonnie Sol as a member of the committee it has been really an unbelievable group to work with um some of the highlights that I just want to share with the committee that I'm really quite proud of this year with our school is um first and foremost was really our engage in a pre-ap strategies that one of the goals for us as a school is to make sure that when we look at our leveling practices from our students who enroll in college preparatory honors or AP the fact that if a student who starts in college prep the
133fact that the bridge is to go to honors to AP become seamless and so it's not they have to climb to be able to get to get enroll in an AP course at some point during their Journey so these pre-ap strategies that we started to embed in grades 9 and 10 allows them to get a little bit of us the skill set of really what an AP student is like so if they decide and choose to go in that direction that they have at least some skill behind them a redesign of our Freshman Academy that we launched last summer and implemented this fall has really been something about really what does it look like in a classroom and really what do we want for our students to be and really what those skills we want
134students to know but also one of the things that I want to talk um thank Dr michaelitis is really the creation of vertical teams between the middle and the high school this has really been something that is new for us that has been really so welcomed in watching and being a part of some of the professional development over the course of this year Watching The Middle School teachers and the high school teachers really talking about really what they're doing and what the two schools are doing and to ensure the fact that the the um strategies and the skills students are learning are really just flowing from grade to grade in that beginning of that work is so important I challenged all of our content areas to engage in a three-year strategic plan for each content
135area what I mean by that is is that especially coming into this new school is really no longer do we have limitations so I really wanted them to start to be thinking about really where do you see your content area in three years what is history and social studies look like three years from now what does English look like what is science at a stem program look like and that these strategic plans have been really exciting because it's really been a nice lunch for our work with our NEOS preparation which I'll share with you in just a moment the implementation of Panorama and what this has done for us as a school is to be able to really get a snapshot of really where our students are at we're able to be looking at where
136they are from an academic standpoint from a behavioral standpoint and then really from us as a group of adults to be able to say all right what are the next steps one of our students need at this time and the data is so real and that has been something I've been really happy with seeing the beginning stages of really looking at our use of Panorama but then also our restructuring our child study team and I really want to thank people like Mr daisal Mr avocado and Miss Bowen because that team has really begun the process of really restructuring the engagement of teacher voice around the table really looking at our child study team which really begins to look at really how do we support students in moments in time where they need it the most
137and really just love the professional development this year and trauma-informed classrooms of really looking at strategies of really identifying our students that are coming into our school that maybe have had an impact of trauma and what does that look like and what are the signs that are there that we may not be seeing and to be able to allow them to be able to take those strategies and then embed that into really their engagement in the classroom but also too our inter our use of tiered interventions really what do those simple strategies that teachers can be doing in really a tier one for example something as simple as standing at the door and the students come in and students leave the research shows that that is tremendous success of really students walking into a room
138knowing that someone is greeting them at the door each and every day it may sound fairly simple but it's these simple strategies for us to make sure the teachers can have refilling this toolbox which we really felt that this level had been somewhat depleted with the experience of the pandemic one of the things that I'm so excited by is really just a relaunch of the family strong program as you know the high school doesn't have a formal PTA and it really became something as really bringing parents together to talk about really what do they see and their high school students in this really relaunch of the family strong program has allowed to bring professionals into our school to talk about issues that our families at this level are really facing in terms of Mental Health
139um in particular and we're really excited about where that program will go over the next year what we just learned over which has been something we've been working towards for the year we just learned back at the end of March early April that we are one of the brand new schools to be entered into an Innovative pathway School through the department of Elementary and secondary education and we were given the designation as a school for manufacturing and really a special thanks to Tony CUPE for really being the real kind of um Captain of this ship to get this designation by the state and it really allows for us to make sure the fact that we can engage students into real some technical courses as well and really the the the real full use of the
140Innovation lab and the last three things you see have been a body of work over the last many years and it's really come to our fruition the vision of The Graduate will first of all do the Future Ready program I'm sorry the Future Ready program has been something that we have been talking about at this level for at least two years and it's finally in a play place where we will launch our kickoff will happen on June 14th we'll be inviting Community stakeholders from in our community and Alum to come in and really talk about in a think tank because really what do our employers look for in students or employers when they are hiring and one of the things we're hoping to do is to really create the word relevance in our classes you
141hear all the time the word rigor and now we have to bring in the word relevance because when you're teaching students content areas and topics why do they need to be learning this why are they doing these projects in a classroom and then be able to make sure that the skills that they're learning become transferable into really a potential employment in this Future Ready program that we will launch starting in September really excited by and I'm really excited to bring it to all of you at some point to really share the tenets of it but it's really going to be taking when you hear concept of College and Career ready that is a wonderful thing but we're also finding the fact that it creates a pathway either you're College ready or you're career ready but
142you can't be both and that really the um changing of our vocabulary away from really this college career Readiness piece to really being making all of our students Future Ready it doesn't matter what their pathways are going to be they can step into the world and be ready to go and it starts um this spring our vision of The Graduate has been a body of work we started in 2020 and I want to thank the school district for really allowing a high school project to become really a district-wide project this vision of The Graduate is really our body of work to say that all of our students when they enter this building what is the vision that they have what do we have for those students when they graduate and ultimately what I'm so excited
143by is this has now become a district initiative so the vision of a graduate Begins the moment the youngest of our students enter the school system and we'll be sharing more of that out as we go we've had some unbelievable work as a team this as a faculty at the high school this year are really looking at really what this vision is that we want for our graduates our self-reflection is close to done as part of our checkoff for niask we as you know in 2025 we'll go through our decennial visit for our reaccreditation and they've changed the construct of it and the self-reflection has been a body of work that our teachers have been working on for the last year collecting evidence through the five standards of neonsk and that we will be completing
144this process throughout the summer as we get ready for our collaborative concept visit which is the first stage of our accreditation in November and lastly as you know we'll be launching a brand new schedule for the high school in the fall and that this monster of a task is close to completion and we're really quite proud of the body of work that it's become and really just the goals and focus through our work this year through a lot of our NEOS data that if you for many of our families and students that we launched back in the fall are really comprehensive survey that went out to all teachers students and families and all the questions are very similar to each other to each other but as from the lens in which they were in a
145lot of these particular goals really come out of that one looking at is our instructional practices we realize at the high school the fact that the strategies that we have been employing many of them are tried and true but we also know the fact that we need to sharpen the tools of really making our instructional practices really truly relevant you see the work we've been doing in curriculum especially with the anticipation of a new schedule of really looking at our assessment practices and so on the relevance piece across curricular project-based learning and what I really like to call a deeper shift in practice which is really looking at the strategies that we're using each and every day in our classrooms and really how do we make sure that our students become engaged the moment they
146walk in the door our school culture piece looking at the revamping again because it's a body of work that will keep going it's our Freshman Academy the look at our advisory we have we're really excited by the 18 advisories we'll offer next year that will become really part of the foundational work of our future ready program level of Engagement in all classrooms and what I call the Three A's the activities the Athletics and the Arts of really putting some energy into those three areas making sure we're building leadership skills into all three arenas for students who say they're leaders what does leadership truly mean looking at wellness and of course our ongoing work of the sense of belonging our future ready program that college career Readiness I have that language in there but again this
147whole concept of being Future Ready our my cap training that we have had a team of us working on this all year and it's quite exciting work of really having students really begin to learn how their academic work plays into their career Readiness and also the whole concept of Innovation the vision of The Graduate its implementation it's collaborative consult and the next steps from that and lastly we thought it was important as a school council to make sure that we had the goal of the new high school schedule for in full Focus as it will be something that we will need to analyze and to assess in the upcoming year to make sure it's truly meeting the needs of our students I can take any questions you may have questions for Paul the niask evaluation
148sure what's the once you finally get it done when's the next one start right so every 10 years we should have had our visit in this year in 2023 but because of covid all the schools got moved out so we're actually being our our accreditation will happen in October of 2025. but what they've done is they've changed the entire process so what we're preparing for Now is really the completion of our self-reflection which is a document where we as a faculty identify where we fall into those five standards are we progressing are we meeting the expectation are we exceeding the expectation of that particular standard then what will happen is is that a team from niask which is a New England Association of schools and colleges will come here to Middleboro and they will analyze
149our self-reflection they will either say to us you're right on point you're honest about where you're at or you know what you were too hard on yourself or you know what you really need to take a deeper dive into that area and then they will give us the springboard and that springboard will take us from no this November to next to 2025 the idea is is the fact that instead of the oldness way which was was they told us what we needed to be doing now they meet us where we're at we're identifying what we're good at what we're not and what we need work on and then really they hold us accountable for Meeting those goals when they come back in 2025. from there it'll be another 10 years after that so you get
150to take a breath in 2025. that's it okay that's it yep hold on it'll come correct so uh the just to reiterate so the kickoff meeting for the stakeholders for the Future Ready program you had a date for that do you have a time for that yeah so the date is June 14th and we're just finalizing the invitations that will be going out and the stakeholders are all the stakeholders that we have used historically through the senior internship program which there are many and then also the new Pathways and new Partnerships that have been forged and created through the Innovative to the um Innovation lab here at the high school and it's also working with this agent Pride alumni Foundation to bring all of those people together to really talk about really what do we
151do what do what do employers look for in their future of their employees some more to come on that good point Thank you Mr burning again actually doing anyway but I would invite the principals up just to the table as I move into this last item as I get into actually once you put up my slide deck we're going to be discussing ongoing progress on bullying and intervention or bullying prevention and intervention procedure here in the district um while I wait for those slides what I wanted to start by saying was that it was the meeting in April it was April 13th when I presented my entry plan of findings and really identified this area as an area of critical need for our district recall that the entry plan identifies you know Trends and items
152that we have to address as soon as possible but doesn't necessarily propose complete Solutions and that's because Solutions need to come from not just process but consultation so I'm calling this presentation this evening part one of two so that I can go through what has been the ongoing work but also what work needs to be done still so with that I will turn into just a brief history of what has been going on for the last few years in this domain in August of 2020 this was the last time the district had a review of its bullying prevention and intervention plan and it's important to know what was happening in August of 2020 because that was when schools were reopening so that is why you wouldn't have seen the same level of Engagement that I'm
153about to on you know go through here this evening that said there were still ongoing work that I'll go through here in November of 2020 Houston Kraft actually came from character strong and presented on his book deep kindness but also character strong which is one of the pieces of how this district has addressed character development in bullying prevention across multiple levels here in the district beginning in the school year of 2020 there have been ongoing building based initiatives directly related to students when I get to the next slide I'll break down what initiatives have been going on at each level so that you can those of you who are parents are saying okay I remember hearing about that and tying the connection between what was going on and how that relates to bullying prevention in
154January of 2021 there was updated professional development that was provided to all staff and actually is listed on the website but that marked a shift in updating information that we were giving not just to families and students but also our Educators because training of Educators in this domain is also important in addition there was more character strong professional development we had school-wide presentations and district-wide presentations over the last few years with character strong and then beginning in this school year the 22-23 school year we began the process of identifying concerns in areas of improvement for the district specifically in the areas of bullying prevention and intervention it also included a review of The Bullying prevention and intervention plan which is in draft mode so the building approach to this work involves really looking at how
155you unpack how to work with kids and how to work with staff on this issue at the elementary schools they used the character word of the week if you ever remember hearing about these these units this is an initiative directed at student Behavior purposeful people which is actually curriculum associated with the character strong program used in all three elementary schools and then positive behavior expectations as well you heard the principles present tonight on tiered systems of approach through PBIS or positive behavioral intervention systems these are also methodologies that are used to address Behavior at the student level moving into the high school there are several approaches to how to address behavior that include tiger stripes which is awarding students for positive behavior Boston versus bullies which is a bullying prevention program that's presented by the
156sports museum in the Boston Sports Community to kind of take a stand against bullying that's an initiative that you'll see at the Nichols Middle School character strong which is alive and well at both the actually it's at all all of our buildings but Middle School is where it really takes shape and continues that work at the high school level Middle School also engaged guest speakers in presentations to specifically promote a positive School environment when I turned to the high school I wanted to highlight the students strong Awards which again is a similar concept to the tiger stripes program the character strong programming that's unrolled here tiered into intervention through PBIS and lastly The Advisory block at that high school if you ever hear your students talk about what you're doing what they're doing in advisory
157that's team in relationship building which is really that prevention side of bullying prevention and intervention to talk a little bit about what's been going on this year I've created this timeline along with the help of Kevin avatable who couldn't be here this evening in December of 2022 this was where we really mapped out the next steps as to how we would tackle this issue and it began with conversation and leadership team meetings and some honest and Earnest introspection about what was facing our students and how we were tackling it as an administrative team in January of 2023 the director of student services organized an administrative PLC to review the plan and begin working on updates in February of 2023 there was research conducted in the area of bullying intervention plans to determine what curriculums were
158be were being used locally and around the state at that time Kevin avatable also spoke with Mark bullying at Bridgewater State University to determine some resources regarding a curriculum that we might be considering onboarding here at the district and then a review of additional trainings in PD for students and staff in March of 2023 that planned the draft plan has has been updated and presented to the principals for their review and the reason it has to be done that way is because this is something that is a very building based initiative and it really can't be done as a central Office Team and dispense this is something that has to be owned acknowledged and and absorbed by each of the five buildings the principles of uh in March started to provide feedback on the plan
159continuing into April as I referenced earlier the entry plan of findings identified this plan as an area of concern and in May here tonight presenting the work that we've done and the future work that we will do so in June coming very soon there will be Community feedback culminating in a community feedback session on June 20th at 5 pm and that feedback is sought to help finalize the district plan and get it out of draft mode so that by summer of 2023 a new plan will be finalized with administrative and Community input with a rollout plan with commitment for training and resources before we start the next school year there are some threshold issues that through these conversations and research are important to note the first one is how bullying defines is defined is is
160a pretty significant threshold issue these are terms that are legally defined but that doesn't mean that a it doesn't happen or that b it doesn't need to be addressed and regardless whether a behavior is termed or found to be bullying or not still May and more likely will warrant some type of response properly identifying bullying remains a concern the principals have provided robust feedback all schools report an over-representation of what bullying is and is not that said I am not of the minds and I don't believe anybody else is that all incidences of bullying are being reported and so you have a double-ended issue you have to make sure that it is an overrepresented and you want to make sure for particularly students that would otherwise remain silent there are vehicles for getting that information
161out um it's important to note that not all conflict is bullying and so Kevin provided key elements here and this is going to kind of form the basis of that Community forum and stakeholder feedback next month so I'm not going to go through all the elements of bullying only because I think that you know that conversation is is needed at a more substantial level and regardless when bullying has occurred and has been substantiated effective intervention is needed so those are threshold issues I also wanted to share there was an email that went around I think it was maybe in March if not February where the district was seeking input and sharing with families about how discipline laws have changed at this at the state level I offer it here because how the the progression of
162what's happened in discipline law has changed and impacted how districts respond to student Behavior schools must take additional steps to re-engage students before using suspension and expulsion as disciplinary measures so when the Massachusetts legislature amended mgl 7137h and three quarters and it includes now subsection B that has new language relevant to student discipline and now that language indicates that before suspending or expelling students students schools must consider ways to re-engage the student and in certain circumstances Implement alternative remedies effectively what the state is saying through the the changes in this law is that suspension and expulsion though available is becoming less available and in more limited Fashions so if you're sitting and thinking well what happens if there's bullying does can can you take action the answer is yes but I offer this information because
163it gives context for the climate in which you that we will be addressing it efforts for re-engagement for students could look like many different forms it could include restorative practices like educational opportunities like reflective practices like community services so it's important to know well what does that mean what is that re-engagement if the student isn't going to be suspended what might those behaviors or steps to take look like the laws ultimately dictate to some degree our response and what we're able to do but particularly with respect to student disciplinary measures then finally we can never share what is actually done to the other party and I know this is a sticking point and an area of concern for many families when there is a conflict whether it's bullying or not there is a strong desire
164to know what's going to happen and there is are a limited sense of ability in what can be shared so with that said I want to talk a little bit about our role and what our district plan you know will include and what we've sort of already seen what was interesting is we saw a decline in the 1920 and 2021 school years in behaviors and incidents but I don't think that that decline in Behavior was because there were no problems there was a lot going on in our schools during covid there was social distancing there were a lot of reasons why behaviors decreased you actually saw that that statistic over the state it wasn't unique to Middleborough and unsurprisingly as schools have returned so have behaviors because students are now together again and engaging you
165know now and worse it wasn't that anything had been solved during those years more than it was really just masked um it's necessary to offer vehicles for Community input as we move forward in part to make sure we're all talking the same language and understanding the terms in a similar fashion as Educators what we identified is that we need to develop a system that responds with urgency to these reports so that they're managed in a timely fashion we also will be looking at identifying a challenging and engaging age-appropriate curriculum that meets the needs of Middleborough so we had that conversation with Mark which is an acronym but I don't know what the acronym stands for at this moment in time Mark is widely used across the state but that doesn't mean that we'll just adopt
166Mark and that will be the end of it Mr Thompson has talked a little bit about how his building has used pieces of that curriculum and supplemented with other pieces of curriculum that have been useful to his building this is exactly the type of conversation we want to be having across all five buildings so that what we're creating is specific to the needs here in this District we want to create those open discussions with families and students in increased professional development and training for our teachers and administrators there are also structural changes that are needed including adding staff presence where students are most vulnerable that includes areas like hallways like the cafeteria at recess some schedule changes will accomplish this at the secondary level you heard Mrs Tucker talk about an impending change in the
167schedule at the middle school and you heard Mr Brannigan talk about a change in schedule at the high school and we're we're confident that those changes will result in a positive impact additionally we want to look at emphasis on early intervention in grades pre-k through five so that this is not something that kind of crops up in the middle of you know secondary education but is a running thread throughout our district we want to increase our restorative practices and knowledge on intervening with students so that we have a robust toolkit for how to engage we also want to ensure appropriate reporting and investigations are taking place undocumented so some of the things we've talked about are developing a district drive to house reports so that we can track all of the incidents in one spot
168to help determine if it meets that threshold of bullying an effort to really align practices and Analysis to take some of that subjective guesswork out of you know really what what amounts to an analysis and then lastly reviewing methods for parent students and staff to report bullying we've heard that be articulated before in this meeting here with what's the most effective way to report that what does it look like is it user friendly is it something that that leads to to a timely response so we do need that Community feedback on what our families would prefer so I talked about it a little bit earlier about what's coming in June of 2023 is this community Forum to discuss the bullying intervention and prevention draft plan this plan is going to be posted on our website
169on June 8th and we'll be looking for the community to review that plan prior to the June 20th Community Forum that way you can come with specific feedback I am concerned about this part or I like this part or have you thought about this part that Forum will take place at 5 PM in the Nichols Middle School library and we will use that in that input before finalizing our plan it would be at that point over the summer where I'd come back to give you an update on where this stands the last item in final thoughts really really involves a whole child's approach to it to tackling this particular issue all adults in a child's life regardless of the role that they play play a part in preventing and responding to bullying behaviors what we
170know is that these behaviors don't just happen in school they don't just happen on the field you know they they happen Across the Life of a child validating a child's experience and modeling positive responses dramatically changes the outcome for children who either bully or have been bullied the difference between positive and negative mental health outcomes for students who bully or have been bullied are largely affected by levels of adult support so it's particularly crucial that however we respond is effective for children understanding that we all play a role in how children treat each other helps support a positive community and one that we all want to belong and then lastly bullying requires a comprehensive and collaborative response inside and outside of school settings true bullying is pervasive by definition it's pervasive and can and likely
171does spread to outside areas of the school which is one of the reasons cyber bullying is now included in the definition of bullying without Community Support the problem simply can't be solved so with that we'll take questions and if you have questions about the process or a specific building I think that would be helpful to just specify in terms of the Staffing in the spaces that are considered problematic I know that there are issues raised at a previous meeting about the bathroom so is that on the list of areas to evaluate yes so one of the major changes and Mr Brannigan you can speak to this if you want but one of the major changes at the high school schedule was to better provide supervision at at times like lunch and bathrooms to include duties
172so that these spaces I mean that doesn't mean someone's like standing in the bathroom just to be perfectly clear but right now without a mechanism to do that it's you know it provides opportunity for student Behavior to go unchecked or unnoticed so there have been efforts at both the high school schedule committee and the Middle School scheduling process to tackle those specifically okay I have two other things um you mentioned that it's very difficult to kind of balance the I want to know what actions being taken and the law so out of this forum and everything I know with your communication plan you've tried to establish what transparent communication can be versus cannot so I think that would be a an important piece to come out of this is what could you actually expect to
173be told um versus specifics as to what you could not be told just so that people have awareness of what those expectations are and then the other piece in terms of expectations is if behavior is deemed to not meet bullying criteria what are the next steps then because obviously there are still a griefed parties and there is still Discord to handle so what are the steps if it doesn't get evaluated as bullying by whatever the the new policies and everything are but what are then the steps that are taken to handle those situations as well yes this is an area that's been identified by the team you know whether there's a bullying investigation and shouldn't end the inquiry oh there's no bullying Ergo there's no problem it should be that whether it's termed to be
174bullying or not there's still a response what are we going to do about that what does that conversation look like what is the restorative practice and what are the communication expectations to parents as well in that in in that instance yep thank you hi um so a couple things um I just want to say that no matter what type of plan is developed it's only as good as the execution it's only as good as the people that can carry it out you can put whatever you want in writing it's not followed doesn't matter and that's what's been happening so another thing I want to say is that the bathrooms are a huge problem and I want it to be looked into is how much money is being spent to repair the damage that students are
175doing in the bathroom particularly at Nichols Middle School because I understand a plumber had to be brought in for a pipe that was kicked off in an eighth grade bathroom these behaviors cannot continue and I think part of it is that nobody is held accountable for their behaviors they're not it's a slap on the wrist because of this new whole no suspension no keep learning it's not always the kids that show that they're getting bad grades and things that are doing this stuff it's kids that are maybe excelling in other areas and are kind of allowed to just float around as they want and do what they want because maybe they're a sports star or maybe they get great grades and it's not okay at this bullying goes it it spans all educational it expands
176everything so I think really we have to re-look at how are we identifying these bullies yeah they're a good kid their parents say they're a good kid the teachers say they're a good kid but they're choosing to bully somebody it's not okay and I want to also focus on yes you're restoring the bully and restoring behavior and trying to implement better behaviors but what's being done to make those targets those victims feel safe because I know that they don't feel safe I'm told a lot that people don't feel safe and if part of Middleboro Public Schools is to provide a safe educational opportunity for all students that's not happening we need to do better um I would also like something looked at for the bathrooms to a better monitoring system because yes you can hire
177staff but if that staff get called away for other things there's nobody to monitor the bathrooms it's kind of a secondary situation so I think a better they use the e-haul pass which is limiting because it times out at 30 minutes so if people aren't checking themselves back in and the teacher doesn't check them back in you don't know when they came back so I think there needs to be some type of scanning system for the bathrooms to determine where this these children are going because once they get an e-haul pass technically they can go where they want they're not supposed to but technically they can so we need to really determine okay what bathroom are you in what vandalism is being done in this bathroom how many ceiling tiles are being taken off today
178and defecated on how many calculators or Foods items need to be put on the toilets so kids can't use the toilets we need to address those issues what's happening is these behaviors are going unaddressed they are inciting kids to ramp it up to let's see what we can do next let's see how we can escalate this and that's what's happening you're having these escalating issues it's out of control it's not safe I mean beyond anything else that's going on there this needs to be addressed it's not a safe place to be whether they need recess or something to burn off some excess energy I don't know more learning time to me doesn't I mean I get that that morning time is is very um loose with the extra Home Room maybe add in some time
179that they can go run a lap around the school burn off some of that energy that they're using kicking pipes off the wall so I really think that this plan needs to look at bullying but it also needs to look at particular behaviors that are out of control thank you so if I could just respond to that and I would also like Mrs Tucker to respond to that I I don't agree that there is no accountability at the Nichols Middle School an example of that you would referenced damage to the bathroom and families are now being billed for damage that's occurring at the Nichols Middle School bathrooms I approved the drafting of an invoice because I agree with you if a child is in a bathroom and doing something that warrants that we have to
180bring in Personnel to repair it stands only to reason that that expense should not be born by the district so I wanted to start with that that that's something that's new and is occurring and I know that you know Mrs Tucker will speak a little bit about some of the changes that are occurring what I can tell you is the situation did not become this way overnight and it is not going to be fixed overnight so I think having collaboration with the building principle to allow her to you know really start to put in systems of accountability would go a long way so with that Mrs Tucker if you want to talk a little bit about some of the things that you've been doing at the middle school I think that might be helpful so
181like you said it's taken a Nichols didn't end up this way overnight it's been like this for quite some time I think it's fair to say you spoke to that in your entry plan I think the surveys that were sent out by the previous principal spoke to the fact that the nickels school is a place that has been considered out of control feedback from families has been seeking stronger discipline stronger consequences stronger responses and that there needs to be rules consistency and expectations that are held firm um with that I know prior to me coming the principal ship had decided to change lunches because one grade level in all together in the lunch was too much so there was a plan that was discussed and I believe presented to the ptea in February about changing
182grade level lunches to mix the grades in order to separate some of the clusters of students who were not interacting appropriately um and yes I talked about this we talked about this at PTA the fact not in February not in February this past one now we because I have found that if we aren't labeling to the level to the marked degree that these unacceptable behaviors are are occurring this is more than just students being students this is targeted destruction of the building this is uh by some students flagrant disregard for any rules I do have to say that between myself and the assistant principals we have been calling parents we've been asking families to come in there are some places where we have some students who are pervasive lunch tables that are I'll call it
183there are some pervasive tables that are being more destructive such as um a group that ripped a bench off the cafeteria table that's one that I know we have an invoice for and we'll be going to families of the students um there are some students that are just constantly touching pushing shoving this that every other thing and just aren't in self-control and when you separate them and try and move them they're still trying to reach one another there's there's those are still within a more of a minor because it's more fooling around but what ends up happening is somebody falls off the bench somebody this the the food throwing is definitely a problem somebody threw an apple and hit a child and she bruised two weeks ago and the thing is if you say remove
184just the students I did go through the cafeteria about a week ago with a clipboard to try and get the names of the students at the pervasive tables because me coming into this school I haven't been here eight weeks yet so I've not memorized all 702 students the 200 staff plus the rest of you that's over a thousand people that I can't memorize in in in you know seven weeks it's just not feasible so I did take class lists into the cafeteria and I started writing names down because I need to be able to address the students who are sitting at the chronic tables now I'm starting with the families of the students who are more destructive versus more horsing around because we have to start more more pervasively one of the things that we
185have done that the Nichols Middle School started prior to me coming is actually taking somebody and Staffing what's a lunch detention and that's an administrative lunch detention that is somebody who is not making those great choices in the cafeteria and we are removing them from the cafeteria and some students are learning quick some students don't like it and it happens fast in students in Middle School are allowed to make mistakes we are not calling some a parent every time there is a smaller minor issue but for the students who are receiving lunch detention repetitiously or seem to be multiple days in a row we are calling those families and one of the things I really have to say thank you to the community because the families that we are bringing in to engage in discussions
186around their student Behavior has been phenomenal their parents say no in my house we do not throw food on the floor we do not push our family member or friend onto the floor we do not flick food at the ceilings that is not acceptable in my house and that should not be acceptable at school so I first and foremost want to say thank you to the families who are supporting us and are engaging in these really robust conversations the other thing that I think we we have more you know I'm calling it whack-a-mole right now because there are so many different things that are popping up across the school the three of us are Non-Stop which is fine because I do think we are starting to make some changes and in the the feel of
187the building and I know it's really hard to measure a feel but I have families saying to us it feels different or somebody who hasn't been in the building who's been in the building before says well it feels different we are looking for students to be walking in the hallway not jumping up and down keep your feet on the floor those different parts and pieces but with regard to the bathrooms we did hire an ESP for our in-school suspension that that hire was prior to my coming on board but if that person is not has has a student in school suspension and we don't have somebody there every day so I think that's important to note but we are utilizing that person and that does exist because we are addressing behaviors in that manner but
188that's coming after we have tried to do some of those other restorative approaches suspending a student right off the bat especially at middle school is not the way to teach Behavior it is not the way we need to find the consequence and the repair to try and build the understanding and the skill set and with that we do different types of Investigations and in conversations with some parents I agree we miss what I'm calling closing the loop at times because we get a report and we get into investigation mode and sometimes it takes time if we are looking at a day's worth of camera video to see who enters say the seventh grade C cluster bathroom that has the art room right across from it it is in a central main hallway you have a
189lot of students coming in and out and to look at eight hours worth of tape to see who came in who's the student if I don't know asking one of the assistant principals if they don't know we need to get a UA teacher like it takes time which is fine and we don't mind taking the time to do that but what we need to be able to do and it's something that actually we've started in the past few weeks and hearing feedback of but we don't know what happens next no we cannot tell you what happens next but what we can tell you is with an email of thank you for bringing this to our attention we have investigated it and it has been addressed because I think that's a fair piece of closure to
190know that something has been done even though we can't tell you the who or the what but at least lets you know that we have completed an investigation and we've had addressed it and I think that's fair I understand that families are looking for this type of information that's fair um oh I was going with the ISS person we've been strategically placing that person outside different bathrooms to be able to monitor that so there are a lot of things that need to happen and the continuity and consistency but we cannot do this alone Nichols cannot do this alone and I have been making a call to action to school council to PTA and I'm doing it to the community now in this public forum we are asking for your help to engage in conversations with
191your students about expected School Behavior because this is greater than just kids being kids this is an environment that if in the cafeteria of almost 300 students we need people to stop talking so as an administrator or a staff member can stop the conversation so we could safely evacuate you and I can't tell you right now if I were to get into second lunch and speak on the microphone that every student would stop speaking I can pretty much guarantee you only 50 percent of that build of that cafeteria at that time would stop speaking so if there was a fire I'd be concerned about getting your students out safely because students level of what is acceptable behavior is not something I think any person in this room or listening would allow to happen in their
192homes at all and I am calling to action your support to have conversations with students about what is acceptable behavior there shouldn't be running there shouldn't be pushing there shouldn't be throwing food and when I'm talking about families of names that I collected on that Monday probably of 50 names 50 names of students who are sitting at pervasively challenged lunch tables that is not enough that we can take and put into our 10 person in school suspension lunch it's just not enough we can't do that and the other thing is I actually went around and I have a list of 200 names of students that I'm trying to send those emails to those families to let those families know that it is not your child because I did I took every name of all 700
193students and what lunch they sat at and I was ready to take my weekend to do assigned seating and I said that's wrong why am I punishing hundreds of other students for about 50 that's not fair and that's not appropriate and that's where I'm engaging in conversations with families and again I cannot thank the families enough for their support for their collaboration and for their willingness to come in and have open honest conversations about what we need to do to make this a safe place to learn sorry that was my soapbox I apologize um I just want to add I don't my intention here is not to push this on Miss Tucker she has not been here very long this problem has been going on for far too long so the school district as a
194whole has failed the students of Nichols Middle School absolutely failed that place is seen as just a lost cause honestly and I think that District resources need to be put into helping what they're trying to do there what changes they're trying to make it has to be done it's it's too much for three people to take on you have to stop putting a Band-Aid on things and actually fix the problem which they're trying to do I understand that but three people can't do it alone this has been an ongoing problem for years and what's going to happen if she isn't the principal that you choose we start all over again in the fall I have a kid there that's had the worst experience there says seventh grader horrible I would uphold them horrible it's not
195okay to just say just get oh we're almost done with the school year that to what to what end okay not okay and I think communication has to happen I had no idea parents were being invoiced for that I understand you can't tell the behavior say who it was but we should know that kids are being held accountable for that we should know that it's not being put on the school district we should be told that you know what you mess and kids should be told that because then you know what it may actually stop some of those behaviors this is part of the problem is the accountability is the communication it's just not there and it really needs to improve so I have some very similar concerns to this woman who I just met
196for the first time last school committee meeting and I'm really going to reiterate pretty much what she said but I first want to address what the principal just said and I think we really need to start at the middle school with respecting our students first so if you come in and you do not earn the respect of the students or their trust you will be working against the tide and so when you come in disrespectful that's where they're not working towards a common good they're not and so even when you have children who are good kids who apparently are sitting at bad tables but it sounds like all the tables are bad where would you like them to sit where is their proximity that is now causing them to be the problem so now they're
197not just guilty of wrongdoing they're guilty of sitting near somebody who's doing something wrong and I will start by saying no child is is responsible for the behavior of another child they can engage in modeling and influencing and they can try to be a good student but that's not their responsibility they are not responsible for the actions of another child so that's where we need to start we need to start building Trust of Children and Families through respect and that includes respect from adults to Children we've talked a lot about modeling Behavior modeling behavior and modeling behavior and you know what I've seen I see really poor modeling of behavior from adults and that includes school committee members who choose to cyber bully people so we have people who like to get online they like
198to bully that way we have people who like to share confidential emails with their spouses with other people in the community when people come to the community or come to the school committee with a concern it is part of public record but there's a way to access that public record and it is not through school committee members forwarding it to other people in the community while laughing with their own comment mocking families who bring concerns to school committee members so we need to start with the adults who are not modeling proper behavior and you are not going to see change if that continues to be allowed so what sorry and that goes for our former school committee members who like to take to their social media platform and post things about parents about parents who
199disagree with them because they don't have constructive dialogue so they take to a monologue and they like to just go on and and Bully and cyber bully parents who have concerns who bring them forward in proper mechanisms so these school committee members were the big former or present are not engaging in the modeling behavior that we want our children to demonstrate so we're going to start there with the modeling I hear a lot about modeling so that's an issue for me um the handbook needs to be gone over I mean with a fine tooth comb you have things in here that says retaliation is not tolerated it's empty words there's nothing behind that what does that mean retaliation is tolerated it is and if it isn't there's nothing in the handbook that says if you
200retaliate this is what happens so you need to strengthen your language in your handbook because retaliation is happening um the consequences of bullying harassment sexual harassment are completely left out of the code of conduct so that means you can do zero consequences theoretically zero um there needs to be a really clear designated person who's talking to these children when they are investigating them this is an issue it can't just be any random person these people need to be skilled at these conversations these investigations you can't just allow any staff member to just conduct it because they're not skilled they're not Gathering the right information or they're inappropriate in what they're doing or suggesting as a resolution to the child um victims do need visible and tangible support it doesn't mean you have to tell us
201what the consequence is but you're leaving all of this addresses the bullying and the dresses the aggressor but none of this policy talks about how you support the other child on the other end what is the visible and tangible support you are giving that other child and it needs to be more significant um the school needs to be accountable for the expectations that they set forth for themselves in the handbook so if you step forth an expectation that you are going to deliver a report to a parent on an investigation and you have a timeline of seven days or ten days and you're 20 plus days out and you're like we don't know when are we going to get that to you because you are not accountable for your own handbook policy so how do
202we hold you accountable for your end of the policy I guess there's no accountability because when you ask it's like wow when we get to it we get to it I guess [Music] um staff that aren't reporting it so when staff children come to staff and they don't they either fail I don't know whether it's because they're being lazy I don't know because they don't know who to go to but if you're not documenting the incident that is not yet bullying but maybe it is the start because you have repeated patterns that is what contributes to bullying if you're not documenting it from the first time by the time you do actually get to bullying you're saying well there's no history in this child's file we can't do any discipline well that's the problem you
203haven't documented it you have to document the incident even when it doesn't meet the threshold of bullying so that when it does meet the threshold of bullying you can have a threshold if your staff aren't taking the actions they need to do then that's a problem so the staff are accountable uh I think that's about everything um did I cover it at all all right I think I covered it so yeah there needs to be some real accountability I think there's a lack of accountability on the school there's lack of modeling from adults there's lack of support for the children who are on the receiving end of the issues um oh and you might as well maybe want to Loop your athletic policy in to this whole bullying policy because in that policy it says
204that this is a privilege that being an athlete is a privilege but just like Sarah said there's a lot of double standards that are being doled out so when you have a kid that is a star athlete they become this double standard they're Untouchable and that privilege doesn't seem to go away when that whole investigation happens it's not a it's not even part of the disciplinary action it's just like a good teaching practice it's a good coaching practice and yet that doesn't happen so that double standard is exists and and that needs to be addressed so those kids who seem to be oh they're the good kid or they you have the good parent or they're the star athlete they're not being impacted the same way another child is so I think there's a lot
205of work to be done around this and the conversation doesn't need to end at the consequence for the bully it needs to start about how you help the other child on the other end thank you hello I also have a seventh grader at the Nichols Middle School and one of her issues is the cafeteria however like Sarah had stated Mrs Tucker just arrived seven weeks ago Mrs Lyons it's her first year as well this problem is not something that just started it has happened for a long time and if we stop and we look the adults in these students life the longest is us as parents so I do think it's time to listen to the call from Mrs Tucker to the parents I know that other schools have asked for volunteers during lunch time
206to actually come in and see I don't know if that's something that you'd be willing to do I know that you came to the PTA meeting you asked for the help you you spoke upon the incident maybe it is time because some parents are blind to it right they're sitting at home at their dinner table eating with a normal Fork not flinging food some of us could never imagine that our child would go to school to do it so maybe it is time I don't know the Comfort level I don't know what your thoughts are but maybe that's something you can think of you know start opening it up for volunteers to come in sadly I know you addressed it at the school committee but out of our what three thousand families 10 show up
207so maybe it's time to have a bigger voice to ask for our help [Applause] that completes my report this evening so it seems a lot of people are having different experiences depending on the different school or the individual incident of what the process is uh sometimes they're being asked to fill out a bullying incident report sometimes that's not there can you just quickly walk us through um what it what is until we get the new plan finished what should a victim expect if they report bullying what's the kind of the steps of of protocol yeah well it has to be reported to Administration or any adults in the building but I mean ultimately the building principles take lead and an investigation will be conducted families and students will be contacted interviewed investigated that's really the
208best way to describe it so should they all be given the incident report to create a record there doesn't need to be it can be orally communicated it just needs to be communicated it doesn't have to take a specific form it doesn't have to be emailed it doesn't have to be in writing the information just needs to get to the building principle and principles weigh in if you feel differently but I but I've talked with them all about that and that's really the big ask as long as they know all five of them have made it crystal clear that they and their teams will be investigating and looking into every single indicator okay sort of practices um does the victim have any Say in any of this so are we reaching out to somebody that's
209reporting bullying and say we confirm that there's bullying are they having any saying if they feel like the punishment fits and so they feel safe that they feel supported at school is there any I know that there's things where you can't tell them but for some kids they have to see that this person faced consequences for their behaviors and I think a lot of these kids are feeling like the bullies are not getting the consequences because they don't see any changes the answer is a little bit yes and no students are are not a consultative body about discipline for another student that will never happen that said the student who's been the Target and their comfort is hugely important so for example one of the restorative practices might be to sit down and have like
210a mediated conversation not every scenario is good for that and it always turns on if the student if the target is saying I wouldn't want to do that you would never force that on a student so they do have the say in what gets decided particularly as it pertains to support for them students are usually pretty good about saying that doesn't work for me or that does work for me but just to be clear they aren't they aren't consulted about whether or not they think the punishment fits the crime item on our agenda is msba this High School building project we had a meeting just a couple things it looks like everything will be finished in August the main things that went on essentially the biggest thing that went on was the reworking of the
211drainage in the soccer fields to make sure they met certain were much better and they've been better especially since the rain has come we're still in the in the we have very few pieces left to finish and some of them are going to be finished over the summer because the kids are out of school to finish some minor pieces here and there but did I miss anything and so just a reminder to everybody I've gotten most about the school subcommittee assignments it's kind of late and we're going to meet next week so we can do the msac at mesc designate thing there that's not a problem uh chair and thin emotion to approve the consent agenda discussion it's meaning minutes warrants and a donation from well it's a donation from up a pill Prince all
212those in favor say hi I opposed unanimous the other action item we need to take is there's an out-of-state field trip to the breakers uh Channel entertain a motion to approve the field trip so moved to our second second discussion hearing none others in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous we will meet next Thursday to finish off the discussion about um school choice I would point out that our next meeting won't be the eighth there's a building problem here and at Nichols so we'll move since we're doing an extra meeting this month we'll do the final one of the 22nd um in June uh take care of that way okay Fest to continue with the addenda items from today and then no meeting on the 8th yeah and we'll meet the 22nd because this
213will add a couple of other things that we have to the next meeting and we'll go from there okay thank you opposed it's unanimous thank you very much everybody