001all the meaning to order um I'd ask you to join me and Rise if you're able and say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands indivisible with liberty and justice for all good morning everybody um hold on a second I just gotta get to that pitch first item on our agenda is public comment anyone who wishes to speak on something not on tonight's agenda is more than welcome to see no one then I will move on discussion items reports from school committee members go ahead Jess [Music] uh cooler fair that was held on Saturday and I thought the yes club and the all the other groups did a wonderful job there was so many crafts and activities for
002kids to do it looked like people are having a really good time so it was a well done event thank you um I saw your come up um so just a couple of things about uh public comment one is that the I need to point out that the SJC recently ruled that people have the right to speak a public comment on anything they wish what they require of the chair is to make things equal and so what we're going to do is give three minutes to everybody to speak um and so I'll just end it when the three minutes are up and I would remind people that it's public comment is not for things on tonight's agenda and so we can't comment on questions or things like that but with that go right ahead if
003your religion requires you to hate someone you need a new religion the member posted this statement as an elected official at the Middleboro school committee coincidentally this was posted just hours after receiving an email from a concerned Heron regarding their religious beliefs by making this statement I believe they are implying in this post that an organized religious belief is comparable to hate speech I would like to know does this member represent the view of the entire committee as it appears to be the case since they made this post on their official school committee page where it remains to this day or is this their own religious bias based on personal interests or agenda I would like to hear from each individual School Committee Member as to whether you agree with this statement or not I
004would appreciate a response now although I do know that you chairman young although you have the ability to allow them to answer you typically require them to remain silent and if this Remains the case tonight I will expect an email response so that each of your individual positions may be appropriately recorded if you remain silent on this matter I will consider that to mean that you agree with Mr friley's statement is it funny now thank you anybody else good evening Bridget Kearns um I'm here to stand with Liam tonight because I feel that the Middleboro school and the community in the their actions are failing them he is being made an example in marginalized for his beliefs he is told that his shirt States uh his shirt that states his belief that there are only
005two genders is a disruption and violates the dress code that implies hate speech towards a protected class this is a manipulation of the words on his shirt and imply has no place in the dress code nor should hate speech only apply to those in a protected class hate speech is hate speech and it applies to everybody you created rules that only apply to certain children While exempting others from being held to the same standard as I've said before creating policy that establishes two sets of rules is segregation if you allow shirts that state a belief that there are many genders then you must allow a shirt that states there are two genders neither indicates hate towards another group unless you twist it by implying or inferring something to further your agenda both statements are a
006statement of belief of which conflicting can peacefully coexist his first amendment rights do not end at the school door and his 14th Amendment rights afford him equal protection under the law recognizing and honoring diversity is not demanding that one group's beliefs win over the others it recognizes that our differences can be celebrated and peacefully coexist one group should not be allowed to be loud and proud about their belief while the other group remains silent nothing on his shirt was vulgar threatening or profane he did not act in a way that was threatening he if people felt unsafe it was not because of Liam's words or actions but an incorrect inference children and adults need help understanding the difference between an actual threat that makes them unsafe and feeling offended that someone else Dare Challenge their
007belief does the cross around my neck apply hate to non-christians who do not believe that Jesus is the son of God does it make people who are Jewish feel unsafe who implies that it's not me I don't have hate in my heart and I don't believe that it's okay for you to imply that this little boy has hate in his heart for anybody else superintendent Lions they are actual threats going on that are being ignored disruptions and learning that are left unchecked you are so busy taking action against a 12 year old boy for words on his shirt that you have turned a blind eye to actual bullying harassment and sexual harassment that is occurring across this District No effective disciplinary response has happened to prevent ongoing safety concerns from aggressors the overarching message I
008keep hearing from this community is that you are concerned about the mental health and safety of children but this is often in lockstep with the references to groups of one protected class all children are at risk of bullying and harassment all children are at risk of mental health struggles all children are at risk for suicide and suicide ideation and I have news for you this is not a unique issue for the lgbtq community all parents have primary concerns about safety for their children thank you that's three minutes thank you very much thank you hello I'm Melissa Odie Morrison I am also a parent of a transgender child when I tell you kids wear Rock shirts I've been also a teacher here for 14 years I don't teach her anymore and we were always very careful
009about what children would say and it was always the thing about kindness maybe being in kidney Garden but we always try to teach them about being kind and careful to everyone and yes something's going to be come out that may not be very nice and we talk about it but let me tell you about the gender thing this is not about your kid being um separated because this shirt this is about a parent and other parents who are afraid for their kids lives this is not a little a little incident and this is not the child who did it there are parents behind this and this is about their views and where they put them I was afraid that day I had to go to work I had to get up at 6 00 a.m
010go out on my front walk and write a big sign that said protect our transgender children you know have something on hate on it or your house or you have to tell your child keep your head down this is his choice what he wanted to do it wasn't my choice but this is what my kid needed to do to feel like a human being who felt comfortable in his skin and let me tell you if this happened four or five years ago when my son was there he was suicidal his grades were so low and we couldn't figure out because he is smart as anything anybody who knows Zayn he is smart and I couldn't figure out why I could not figure out why and if you think I wanted this path to him hell
011no it was awful it's hard it's tumultuous all your friends who were your friends are not your friends anymore parents don't want to be friends with you that might be catchy those kids can't understand it's hard for us to understand how can you understand if you are not in that situation or you don't have that imagine and this is an awful a comparison but imagine you're in a wool sweater and it's so itchy and you can't take it off but you're gonna wear it every day you're gonna go in the shower with it you go everywhere you go to go you have to wear it and you cannot stand that skin you're in that is what it's like but ten times worse according to my kid I still don't get it and I've had to
012do things that were so hard for me this whole time all these things I've had to go through all the things he's had to go through and all these bills that are going on right now 118 out there right now against transgender children and right now if they pulled some of the things my kids in the middle of some of those things and do I understand it I still don't it's very difficult but what I do understand is I love my kid I love my kid I'll do anything for them and even though it's not the kids because of the problem good evening I'm Sarah zagoras I was up here a couple weeks ago and I read a statement I was asked to email that statement to the school committee I understand you can't respond
013via email but I was asked to be to send in that statement which I did and the um there's no mention on the agenda tonight so I would like it put on public record that I am asking for the bullying policy to be put on the agenda to be discussed it'll be on next week's next meetings okay and I would also like for the emails that are part of that the emails that you can send in Anonymous or you can send in um they're still not getting answered so I would like to know who is in charge of those emails and so those to be addressed so students can feel safe um and just an overall um safety at the schools from bullying to the safety at the elementary schools as far as the entrances
014and getting that really addressed and it just feels like another school year is going to go by and we're just kind of saying well it's the end of the year now so we'll deal with it next year and next year comes and nothing gets addressed so it's long overdue and things need to happen to now not next year thank you thank you anybody else Theresa Farley I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say been a member of this community for 25 years and I've raised my children here and I'm actually really emotional tonight because so much is going on in this in this community that it's just making me really sad and um I've raised my children to be good to everyone I don't care who they are if they're good to
015you you'd be good to them you show them kindness every day I look on my left and I see Melissa who's a friend well I consider her a friend I look to my right and I see others who I consider a friend I love their kids for who they are I that none of that matters to me but what I hear and I see is that where we have all this talk we talk about Dei task forces and and pledges and but we're not doing the work we're not having the conversations we're not putting people together there's people on that side of the room and there's people on that side of the room and no one is sitting in the middle willing to have a conversation so my call to action to you superintendent Lyons
016is to make that happen thank you anyone else see no one oh I see somebody coming down so I'll give you a second go right ahead hi sorry I came in late I didn't mean to disrupt anything I don't know if and if any of this was said um but I'm here to address everyone's superintendent school committee administration of all of our schools the incident that everyone knows that occurred here with the boy with the shirt it was really a really a great Injustice I think and slightly maybe an abusive power um I know that many people don't like the shirt that he wore and I'm not really saying whether I think it was right or it was wrong or anything but what I did want to address is that we do have freedom of
017speech here and that extends to all of our students as well um I don't believe that anything on the shirt explicitly said anything violent or incited any violence against anyone suggested any hate the sentence on the shirt stated what some people believed to be a factual statement maybe even a scientific factual statement many people wear things that on shirts all the time that they believe to be factual statements you know I believe in science love is love my body my choice all sorts of things that can be considered very um what's we're looking for debatable if you will um I don't necessarily think that anything that was on that shirt was hate speech I think that a lot of people's feelings on either side get really fired up over things like this but just because
018he's a child doesn't mean that he doesn't have rights under the First Amendment like everybody else um you know free speech is good for all of us everyone no matter what side of this you're on and I really would like to see everybody's rights be upheld thank you thank you [Applause] anybody else seeing no one I'm going to move back to the committee does anyone any member of the committee have anything they wish to bring up Chris yeah I get a couple things uh first I just wanted to just because it's been a few weeks I wanted to Circle back to the the safety audit and see what the progress is on that is still the vetting of the Galaxy group I talked about before um and quite honestly that's that's where it sits right
019now I'm in contact with them and trying to determine if they're the right group and trying to get additional groups to consider if not that group so that we have a couple to choose from okay thank you sure uh also I spoke with mass higher this week um or actually it was last week but they expressed how impressed they were they did a tour of the my lab and they just reached out to me to say they're very excited about the youth Works program and what's happening in the my lab and uh they wanted to commend uh Tony CUPE and Josh Porter for their work so I you know just wanted to put that on record and then the only other thing I have we've said the The Bullying uh plan to be on the
020next agenda I think that's extremely important to look at it and just make sure staff is being trained and the policies are being followed as it's almost a weekly occurrence where a frustrated parent reaches out to me with a sense of a lack of accountability on our part so I I really hope we can get that on next Edition thank you Chris anybody else um I just want to bring up something today decept this morning the superintendent and I attended Mass Association of school committees day on the hill and one thing that should be noted that everyone's aware of um that that's really important we had a conversation with both the house chair of education and the Senate chair of Education so we're into May um the um the tax revenue for the state came
021out for end of April um a tax revenue was down one point uh four billion dollars April is the singular most important month of the year for tax revenue because if you think about it that's when people pay their taxes right that's a 31 percent decline from the previous year so he is concerned about how it funds education the governor submitted her bill the house passed their bill for the budget the Senate hasn't presented a budget yet I believe the Senate's budget is due next week and then what happens is they go to a joint committee after the Senate publishes but the Senate side is relatively concerned about the money I would also add to that um the Senate tends to be much more conservative Senator Rodriguez from Dartmouth is the chair of the budget
022committee um so I just wanted to bring that up from a conversation that we were a part of today so any other questions correct just to clarify with the potential impact of that is that for the upcoming school budget that just got approved at the time so the school budget from the town is the school budget from the town and as you can imagine part of what happens with the town is the town bases the the town manager bases everything on projections that they see and revenue that he has and and money that's in the bank I think the biggest thing becomes we also base it on what we assume is going to come from the state if money is lessened from the state then the town has to look and see if it has
023other ways to fund that or it has to at times readjust we've had to do that in the past we've had special Town meetings that have looked at Readjustment for line items and stuff like that I just raise it as a concern because obviously it was a major concern today for both the Senate and the house side and how the Senate and House the house and Governor chose to fund education you could see things different and it also pertains to Grants and sources that come out and so it is important and so I just wanted to raise it here so people knew thank you other questions it's a quick question on the bullying policy when that's on the agenda next week are we going to allow Community input on that yeah I mean we always
024have you know as with all the agenda items people can talk and have conversations so yes absolutely um anybody else seeing it Nate I'm going to turn it over to you okay so starting off with them hello okay so starting off with the Kinder starting off in the mech the kindergarten has a field trip to the zaitarian theater Monday May 8th it is the first field trip in a few years and they are super excited uh they're planning something special for the pre-k this is teacher appreciation week and our PTA has been amazing at making it special for our staff and like to thank them for their creativity generosity and time for the mkg we have had four of the five of the six third grade plays we look forward to our final production next
025week and they are confident that next week's play will be just as amazing as the last two and next week they'll finish up the math section of the MCAS test they are excited about the mkg's ptas touch a truck event this Saturday this is a wonderful Community event and we look forward to seeing families from across Middleboro class pictures will be taken on May 17th our grade one and two families are invited to join on Friday May 19th for camp read-alots this is an event that our first and second grade staff put together to promote the joy of reading through the camping theme and for the hbb it's been a busy week and they're in the midst of MCAS testing right now and last week to get kids excited and ready we hosted a really
026fun math Spirit Week the kids loved getting dressed up every day but they especially loved the visits from Gigi the penguin from ST Math last week they also hosted the annual family art night and had a great turnout kids and families had a blast making art in a variety of formats and had a huge shout out to Mr Donovan oh miss Donovan sorry and her team of volunteers for organizing this amazing event the coming weeks promised to be lots of fun as we have lots of events plays concerts and field trips planned and most importantly the annual hbb lip dub now finally for the MHS congratulations to the yes club for the outstanding job with the cooler Middleboro event that was held at MHS on Saturday the programming and the collaboration with the numerous Community
027stakeholders was awesome so a job well done thank you to the members of the student council executive board who volunteered at the town meeting to serve as tellers for voting uh congratulations to the MHS product television production program for winning six to 2023 New England student production Awards and earning five additional honorable mentions Middleboro High Middleborough High TV production won more video awards than any other school in New England a job well done to the music program for wonderful Pops concert it was a wonderful night and then finally thank you to Izzy Mosley Lila Petty and Faith Williams for representing our school at the woman in sports and Athletics leadership day in Boston on Friday any questions for Nick Nate thanks a lot I know you have one more meeting left so I know I'm
028only one the mea co-presidents are not here tonight they sent their they couldn't attend and with that I'll turn over superintendents report chairman young I have a few items for this evening the first is the announcement of a community Forum to discuss the entry plan of findings in Greater detail this event will occur on Tuesday May 16 2023 here at the high school and I'm going to ask that we break into two groups it'll all told happen from six to eight but from six to seven will be the secondary level if you're a parent you can come to both sessions of course but we'll be focusing a secondary level from six to seven and the elementary level from seven to eight this is an opportunity to meet with the entire executive committee talk about the
029information that's been collected and have input on the strategy that is that is to come so with that I will call principal brain again up to talk about our High School class of 2023 Senior Week and final activities for this coming spring very shortly thank you hey everyone good evening and it's exciting to be back with you as we told our seniors that three weeks from today is their final day and they would be celebrating with their senior barbecue and um the end of senior year so I came back I came to the committee months ago with really the proposed schedule that you so um wonderfully approved in time dispatch to just make sure that our community knows of the upcoming events um the week of the 19th excuse me the week of the 15th
030of May really is the exciting time where the energy gets built in terms of the end of senior year Friday the 19th of May is our future signing day and we encourage all of our seniors to take their place here in the auditorium for their picture of where they'll celebrate their next step of life as they start strong or whatever their next step will be and those photos will be taken and then placed up on the second floor of the academic center outside of school counseling office and we're looking looking forward to doing that the week of the 22nd Begins the final week of school with exams and that is something that is an update from when I was here before as we didn't know about color days we would be having at that time
031so on Monday the 22nd of May will be the beginning of exams for seniors for Orange Day classes it is a full day of school on Tuesday the 23rd of May is a black day and that will be exams on blocks three and four I mean it is also a full day of school for seniors on Wednesday the 24th is also a black day as we will continue with the completion of exams seniors will have exams blocks one and two and then they will be dismissed at 10 15 as it is a tradition on Thursday the 25th will be a makeup day for seniors for in exams or any other work they need to complete there will be a senior class meeting which allows for me to go over all of the events that are
032coming up my expectations as such and then it'll be followed by the senior barbecue out here on the quad as well as the yearbook distribution so we're excited for that day to come on Friday the 26th is our senior memory night that will take place at 7 pm that is an unschool day for the seniors they will come to the high school at seven o'clock it's with great pleasure and a thank you to the station Pride alumni foundation for sponsoring this event with the ice cream truck from Plymouth party that will be coming to serve ice cream to all the seniors it's dinner and obviously a memory night here in the auditorium of a montage of their history in Middleboro um we go into the major Senior Week on the week of after Memorial Day
033weekend we start with senior breakfast on the 30th followed by graduation rehearsal and we'll start getting the seniors organized to graduate and then of course that evening is the senior prom at Granite Links in Quincy that event will start at six o'clock and end to ten I had to make a correction when I came to you months ago I had the prom beginning at 5 pm and that was a mistake on my part so the problem will go from 6 to 10 at Granite Links and tickets will go on sale for the senior prom starting on May 15th and all that information is inside Brannigan's bulletin on Wednesday the 31st is scholarship night and that is an invite event only for those seniors who will be receiving a scholarship and that those who were in
034the final stages of compiling all of the information from the sponsors and Foundations on their awardees for this year June 1st is seen is senior last assembly it's followed with a graduate before with a graduation rehearsal and then of course we'll distribute captain caps and Gardens that day and we're hoping that that will be the day that we'll have a really special event as the adopt a senior program will come to completion that day and I just want to thank Teresa Farley and so many other members of the community who came together to really ensure that every member of the class of 2023 is adopted for this year a tradition that started out of such a need back in 2020. senior last assembly will take place that evening starting at six o'clock in here in
035the auditorium Friday June 2nd is graduation rehearsal this is the final main rehearsal before all students graduate and then of course the wonderful tradition of the Senior Walk that will take place throughout all of our schools here in Middleboro and that will begin at approximately 10 30 leaving here and then making our way to all five schools in the district where the seniors will arrive back here to the high school and lastly the most important day is Saturday June 3rd which is the class of 2023 graduation exercises with a 6 PM start out in the middle bar High School stadium in the event of rain we would be moving the event into the gym right now that event is there's no tickets anymore for the stadium it's open seating but student seniors will receive tickets
036if in the event we go to a Rain event in which case it'll be set up very similar to the old high school where graduation was in the gym and overflow is in the auditorium so I can certainly take any questions anything the committee may have but I can tell I can tell you that this particular senior class is incredibly special they all are but this one in particular they were ninth graders coming in the door for an unbelievable experience and boy did they have an experience in the middle of grade nine but this class stayed together they've helped open a new high school and they will be really sorely missed so just an exciting few weeks ahead to be able to have the honor of celebrating this Dynamic class questions for Paul so just
037a couple of things for especially new school committee members I I meet with Marsha when I sign diplomas and Marcia reminds me to send each of your note if you're going to attend graduation in March marcher makes you part of the graduation ceremony you'll hand out diplomas um it has always been in Paul correct if I'm wrong that school community members are invited to the sort of the except for the prom the other members of the piece so you can be part of the RNC and witness it it's a for having had two children who went through this it's a very exciting and fun week Paul one thing not on there that I is not senior week but if you could mention is the photographs of seniors who are going into the military yeah thank
038you um Mr Young so part of that future Signing Day is um where our students will take pictures for the next step and we'll have all of our students who are committing to going to the Armed Forces to also sit and have their photo done as well and if you have not been in the academic center yet that started in the old building we had a wall of honor where those seniors photos are placed and so their senior picture is play their picture from this future Signing Day is placed there and then we always ask for them when they have their photo taken after boot camp is all over that we then replace that photo with their actual military photo and it stays on that wall through their military service so we started the the
039um The Honorable in 2016 and it has been going ever since so it will be something we will continue thank you Paul other questions for Paul thank you everyone thank you um with that I'll turn to the next item which is the reads collaborative board of directors under chapter 40 section 4E as amended by chapter 43 of the acts of 2012 members of the board of directors for this collaborative have to be appointed annually as part of my role I serve as one of the members of the board of directors at at reads and it requires that this board vote to approve that that appointment so but that'll turn it over to you chairman young so chair will entertain a motion to allow me to sign to appoint Carolyn to the board of directors for
040the collaborative for our second discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed unanimous thank you very much and so I'll sign this away which is the new grants Management program I've asked Miss Sarah hickey our business manager director of business and finance to present out on this new platform thank you superintendent lions and school committee members the department of Elementary and secondary education in keeping in alignment with advances in technology are moving to a cloud-based grants Management program so this involves myself and Brianna Bernard who is our grant specialist doing a lot of training on the new platform the new grants Management program will roll out in July so our entitlement grants our Title One title two title four and our idea Grant will all be held for fy24 will all be housed in
041this new Grant system Brianna and I actually have to do a training on May 26th and if we don't do that training then we can't apply for the grants it's I can't imagine why we wouldn't do the training anyways but we've been threatened so of course we're going to do it um so the old grants management system is still going to be online for the life of the grant so for example our Title One Grant rfy 23 Title One Grant has money left in it right now we are going to roll over funds into a second year and we can roll over funds into a third year from that Grant so the old grants management system may be what will be around through fy26 hopefully we'll have our grants spent and closed before that and
042move smoothly into the new system again it's a it's a new computer program it's the same things for the grant just it looks different on the computer I'm sorry about the grants Senator uh aside from being housed in a new place how does it change the business office at all as far as the grants itself there are minor changes the minor changes are with timelines for some of the things so for example grants can be amended and in the old system grants were amended the first through the 15th of a month and then you draw down money from the from the from Desi and drawdowns had to be done the 16th through the end of the month with the new system we can do amendments and drawdowns at any point in time and so everything
043is going to be a little bit more real time for us does it make it easier for you to some extent um is that the dream it makes it different but still going to be the same process we're going to get federal and state monies and we're going to have uh reasons that we're going to spend the money uh and the process will stay the same we'll have some staff we'll have some supplies Etc okay I can't imagine that the fundamental um purpose of Grants would change in any way any other questions I was going to ask what was the what was the reason for this change being made in the first place there in my opinion there's a couple of reasons first of all this we're moving to a web-based program so now the
044Department of Education doesn't have to maintain a server farm for all of the grant um data and the second reason is this is a grants Management program that is used widely throughout the country so this we're moving from Massachusetts grants Management program which is a great program to a grant program that's used by Tennessee it's used in Kentucky it's used by the not just by education but by all federal grants does this allow you to have access to uh more grants in in that way we still have all we'll still have access to all the grants we always have had access to right and we'll still with the addition of Brianna Bernard to the business office one of the things that I have tasked her with is getting us certified in the business office so
045that we can actively seek federal grants there are federal and I know I mentioned federal grants for that we have grants that we're entitled to that the federal government gives the department of Ed for us every year but there are other grants that are out there at the federal level that are competitive and within the next two years we're going to start competing thank you anybody else thank you everyone and that completes my report for this evening thank you um MSA msba High School building project we actually haven't had a meeting in the next meeting is Wednesday so at the next meeting I'll have better info for where we're at on that one um just as a reminder I sent everybody the list of school committee subcommittee assignments so thank you to those who have
046sent me their note what they're interested in the others just take a look at it if there's any questions just let me know and we'll go from there next up is consent agenda uh child entertain a motion to approve consent agenda we'll move during our second discussion all that's on percentage consent agenda is the March 2nd meeting minutes and uh warrants all those in favor say aye opposed unanimous we took care of the action item for an informational piece the Mec appalooza is Friday May 12th from 5 to 7 at Camp yamikus so just reminding everybody that that's there just so everyone knows originally there had a potential to be a a conflict with the next school committee meeting that conflict doesn't exist so we are going to meet the 18th but with that the
047chair would like to change our meetings for June we generally meet the first and third first is senior week so we tend to avoid that so with no one's objection I would like to change that to the second and fourth week and then for it has always been our usual for the summer time to meet once a month and if you've fallen out that way I think it makes sense to meet the third week in July and August because that brings us to right before school and then we'll be on the first and third Thursday again once school starts so does anyone have any problems with all that again moving the first and third in June to the second and fourth that's the 9th and the 30th and then for the summer months we'll meet
048the third week obviously if there's something else that comes up I'll ask for a meeting from you all but it's just how we have normally done summer uh vacation I see no one objecting so we'll I'll just make that change and put it down okay um with that that's all I have today um chair will take a motion to adjourn during a second second all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you very much everybody have a nice night