Middleborough Public Schools: School Committee Meeting - October 9, 2025

001Thanks, Jess. I guess I could my phone. No, it's already up. Don't worry about it. >> You guys good? >> Are you good up there? All right. >> All right. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order of the school committee. Um, our first order of business is I would like to vote to enter into executive session for the following reason. Purpose one, to discuss the reputation, character, physical condition or mental health rather than professional competence of an individual. Purpose B, which is number three, to discuss strategy and respect to collective bargaining or litigation. If an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares health insurance C purpose seven to comply with or act under the authority of any general

002or special law or federal grant and aid requirements. Executive session uh also we will be looking at the minutes of September 11th, 2025. I look for a motion to approve. >> So move >> second. >> Uh this is a roll call vote. Shannon >> I. >> Allan >> I. >> Chess >> I. >> And Chris >> I. You have to vote. >> I uh we now will move into executive session. Anyway, that will be better. Appreciate it. Yeah, you go unlock the black box. Yeah, thank you. I'm not I don't know. Am I coming up now? Right, mom? >> No. >> Come on. >> Oh, sorry. >> I'd like to call the public meeting back to order. Um, and would you join me in the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the

003United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Uh before we move to public comment uh from the executive session, uh I would like to uh comment that uh Carolyn Lions will continue on medical leave and we are very thankful that Mike has agreed to continue on as the acting superintendent. Thank you. And now we are moving. First, also I should probably say as as you can see, Zeke is not here tonight and as vice chair, I'm taking on that responsibility. It'll be the first time that I've chaired school committee me meeting. So, I'm sure that um you'll let me know if there are things that I should be doing differently. And so, we move on to public comment. Um before we

004bring begin this section of the agenda, a couple of comments that I would like to make. Um first is that as you know public comment is a time that we really want to hear from our community. Um thoughts that you might want to share with us uh any information that you want to give to us. On our agenda we provide two different times that the community can give uh comment. One is during this public comment um which uh can be on anything that is related to the work that we do here in the school committee. That is what we would hope that you would do. Um I can assure you that we will always uh treat you respectfully and I would hope that any comments that are made during this time are given respectfully. Uh

005we also have the policy of the three minute time frame for your comments during the public comment se section. Uh this is to allow enough time for anyone that might want to get up. Uh as has been Zeke's practice, it won't be held to a strict three minutes. I'll try to give you a nod if it's going over that. And so I really hope that you will work with me to stay within that that three minute time frame. Uh, and so I open the time for public comment. Is there anyone that would wish to speak after I said all of that? No one wants to speak. One more minute. All right. Thank you. Um that moves us on to the discussion items and the first one is a report from student representatives Jackson Collins and

006Mason Techara. Gentlemen, what do you have for us this evening? >> Uh all right, so we have some district-wide events. Uh tomorrow is high- five Friday. Um the middle world police, fire, and EMS personnel will be at morning drop off to greet all of our students. Uh this allows the first responders to build positive connections with students in a welcoming and supportive environment. And I just want to give a little reminder that tomorrow is an early release day and that we have school off on Monday. >> All right. And now to move on to our kindergarten and prek the mech. Uh they are looking to their looking forward to their first book fair of the year which will be the which is this week. And their open house was yesterday from 5:30 to 7:00. And

007it was a time for their kids to show off all their classrooms and all the work that they've done so far. And they're looking forward to their fire station visits at the end of this month for their fire safety month. All right. And then we will move on to uh MKG. Uh Principal White wants to thank the Middleboro Fire Department for their presentations in uh first, second, and fourth grade. And the harvest dance for grades first, second, and third is coming up on October 24th. and at the HPB uh they want to extend a thank you to everyone who came to PTA's filib which was Saturday September 27th and they are very excited to kick off their annual pie and cookie fundraiser which is put on by their amazing PTA. They are raising money for

008the HBB's field trips and they need everyone in the district's help to raise their goal of $8,000. Principal Daniels is very confident they can raise the money. And be on the lookout for a flyer and an order form in the Tuesday folders that go back every week. >> And for uh Nicholls Middle School, progress reports for trimester 1 are going out uh next Wednesday, October 15th. Uh their they had their uh multilingual learner family night yesterday at the Middleboro Public Library from 5:30 to 6:30. And the PTA meeting was two days ago from 6:00 to 7:00. All right. And from the high school, uh, we want to thank Atly Finny for representing our school at the annual MASSE state president's dinner, which was, I think, two Thursdays ago now. Brand, one Thursday. Thank you, Brand,

009you were there, too. Thank you, Brand. Uh, congratulations to Lily Brhan for being named a commended student for the National Merit Scholarship Program. Uh, she was commended for her excellent PSAT score. Uh, shout out to Nina Travers for her leadership on the MH MHS school council. this past year. And the student council has had two meetings since we last met. They had their kickoff meeting for the class of 2029, which was September 24th, and the most recent was October 1st. And these meetings showcased the energy enthusiasm of the student council, and we are in for a very good year. Uh we want to thank everyone who helped at the Oak Point yard sale. It was this past Saturday on the 4th, and all the money will go to scholarships for college students from Middleboro. Um,

010high school parent teacher conferences were held yesterday and parents had the opportunity to meet with teachers and discuss classroom activities and grades and behaviors. Uh, chair was were school committee members present at this event? >> Yes. Uh, at the high school uh there Shannon and myself were there. Uh Jess was at the mech for last for the one for last night and then at the other ones we've had Chris and Jess and myself have been at other ones too and I want to say how wonderful it is to see the parents come in and after talking with um teachers how many uh talked about the positive interactions that they had with them. So thanks for asking. >> Thank you. The camask conference is going to be held tomorrow. 50 students from Middleboro High School will

011go to NSET High School and they will take part in a leadership in multiple leadership workshops and collaborate with other student councils from around Southeastern MA. There are multiple of these events every year. This is the first one we have had and there will also be a general MASC gathering. Uh coming up next week is the homecoming spirit week. It will consist of our homecoming dinner on Thursday, October 16th. The >> Wasn't me. The homecoming game will be Friday on the 17th and there will be a tailgate beforehand where the each of the grades get to do a little decorating contest. >> It's always very cool. >> It's always been a very fun event. And then of course we end the week with our homecoming dance which will be the 18th here at the high

012school. And for the last item from the high school, a new club has been formed, the MHS chess club and it will meet every Tuesday. And I do not remember what teacher is Mr. Miller. So Mr. Miller is the adviser for that club if anyone is interested. All right. And then we'll be moving on to uh major athletics or upcoming events. So cross country had their senior night tonight actually just recently um finished up. The boys and the girls team both secured the win against Rockland. Uh golf senior night was postponed to tomorrow at Lakeville, so show up in support if you can. Volleyball senior night is the 14th against Dery. Field hockey is going up against Aponoquit for their senior night on the 20th. Unified basketball has their senior night against Dery on the

01322nd. Girls soccer is going up against Rocklin for theirs on the 27th with boys soccer just three days later on the 30th. and football cheer and the majors also have a game that night for their senior celebration. >> That's all. >> And that's all we got. >> Any questions? Chess >> uh through you, Madam Chair. Um I just wanted to add on to the homecoming dinner announcement. It went out on social media today um that the spaghetti supper for the homecoming dinner um is going to have all the proceeds going to support Lori Curtain. Lori's been a member of our MPS food services department for 12 years and is currently battling pancreatic cancer. So all of the funds from that dinner will go towards uh supporting her. Um, and I wasn't aware that that's been

014a tradition um that that dinner always goes towards a cause. So, just another wonderful um part of homecoming week to to give back as part of that celebration. So, >> thank you. >> Any other further comments or questions for these gentlemen? Thank you very much. Moving on in the discussion items. Before we move on, I want to circle back to community input regarding uh agenda items. Uh we currently as I said at the beginning um this is another time that if you have something specific to an agenda item that uh a question to be asked or a comment to be made uh you'll we will invite you to do so after the school committee has had a conversation we'll open it up uh for community members. Uh I would ask that any question or comment

015that's made uh be done through the chair. Uh and at that time there will be one of three answers. Either we'll say that that is a question that we can answer right now or that it's a question that we really don't have the ability to answer uh for specific reasons or third that we'll have to get back to you with the answer of that because we don't have with with us right now. Uh and so I just wanted to make that clear before we moved on. So, next is a superintendence report. Mike? >> Yes. So, we're going to start with uh school improvement plans from the middle and the high school, Mr. Branigan and Mr. Mclofflin. So, if you'd come up [Music] Good evening. >> Good evening. Thanks for being here with us. >> Of

016course. >> I have to tell you that these school improvement plans is one of the things I've enjoyed the most during um my tenure on the school committee. >> Great. Excellent. And I think it's a fantastic way to, you know, get a broad look at what's going on in the school at the beginning of the year and a perfect way to reflect on how it went at the end of the year. So, >> completely agreed. Thank you. I know it takes a lot of time to put these together. >> Yes. Thank you. All right. Um, so my school improvement plan in uh full disclosure was partially crafted prior to uh my becoming principal. Um some of my work um this summer was to dissect the work of the previous year's school council, look at some

017MCCAST data, get my own uh view of what's going on in the school, and I did make some amendments and adjustments to what I felt were the priority areas and um areas of growth um for the middle school. So >> that's great. >> Thank you. Um so, so just for some highlights, we're going to get into it a little bit more. Um, I'm going to focus a lot on talking about how we use data as a school and more importantly what we do with it after we analyze it because I think that really is the key to growing a school is not necessarily being able to look at data but now what I think is the question you need to be asking. Um, we have um a schedule that is built to support our kids

018and we just need a process by which how we decide how to do that. So, that's what I'll focus on. And then, um, we're going to talk a little bit about the culture, growing, the appropriate culture that we want to have at the middle school for our children and, um, communication from my end in as a school and how that's going to work, um, with our families. So, we have four goals. Um, our first goal, uh, in order to increase student achievement as measured by the content area, common assessments, and benchmarks in Panorama, the Nichols Middle School will continue to implement a multi-tered system of support for all learners. School sent spent significant time last year talking about what MTSS is, what it means, what it looks like in a school. Um, and so, you

019know, our teachers understand the foundations of what intervention um, and and tiered support is. And now our next step is how do we do it? Like how do we get a group of 25 students in front of us and decide what it is they need and then craft a plan to go about and and do that thing. Um there is currently no real data team process at the Nichols Middle School. We give beginning of the year benchmark and end of the year assessments. um and teachers have their own formative and summitative assessments um in their classes, but we don't have any kind of an ongoing data cycle at the school where we're continually reassessing and refining what we do with our kids. So, um the first step is is um training our teachers on what

020the reports and data we collect, what it means, what it looks like, how to aggregate the students in front of you into their needs and to come up with a plan, uh an intervention plan to support those needs. um and then six to eight weeks later going back to the well gathering more data on our students and then saying now what because intervention is not a year-long um uh stamp that you put on what a child needs. It's an ongoing need as a school. So we're going to work on kind of creating and then refining that data cycle as a school. That's not a easy or quick process. It's not flipping a light switch. There's a lot that goes into that, especially when you're talking about multiple departments, you know, so kind of getting everyone

021on the same page with each other will be a lot of our ongoing work this year. Um, and then we have our intervention blocks. I'm going to talk a little bit about them in the next school, but we have our win blocks and our advisory blocks, which is a perfect time to support what our kids need, but you know, it's not always intuitive into how to structure that for our teachers. So data will be the primary focus of goal one and the collection of it and the anal an analyzing of it and the creating of interventions behind it. Goal two, in order to increase student achievement, the Nichols Middle School will design and implement structures to examine multiple ways of monitoring student success to implement enrichments, supports or interventions to meet the academic, social, emotional

022and physical needs of the students. So, uh, the core of this goal is the use of our advisory and wind blocks in our schedule. A lot of time and effort was built into remaking the Nickels schedule over the last several years, and it it's a it's actually a fantastic schedule that we have now for our kids. It really provides the ability to meet whatever need we're going to have. We just need to now utilize it to its its highest capabilities. So, you have these wind blocks, you have these advisory blocks. Teachers naturally ask, "What do I do with this time?" and how do I know to prioritize the needs of my students? So advisory is not a daily thing. Advisory happens for our students um I believe it's three days every six um in schedule.

023Um so that's not necessarily a whole group or even an opportunity for small group instruction because who you have um shifts from day to day. So that's a time for um um SEAL lessons um which is incredibly important for helping our kids learn emotional regulation and and um building friendships and maintaining friendships. You know really that is one of the most important things we do as a middle school. Um counseling pushins tier 2 interventions um you know it's um when you're not doing these SEAL or counseling goals you still have students in front of you with an academic um opportunity in front of them. Um, so we want to make sure that, you know, if I'm a teacher, I know on a C day during advisory, who are going to be the 22 kids in

024front of me. So I need to be able to look at the data and know how I'm going to support that group of kids. So So that's kind of a shifting block. It's kind of difficult to plan out right now. So we're going to work on that as the time goes on. If it were a daily block, if it was consistent who were in front of the kids, it would be much easier to plan out. But we have to be really strategic about that. Win is actually a much easier block for us to support at the school. It's daily. the cons the kids who are in front of each student in each team is consistent. Um so that's really more more of a core academic block. That's really the the tier 2 and tier three

025um interventions that we're going to be providing come from that period. >> Um >> would you could I interrupt just a second just to make sure I'm >> staying with you? >> Sure. >> Um so when is an acronym for >> what I need? >> Okay. >> And it's it's once a day and it's 37 36 minutes every day. >> Okay. Okay. And it's with uh students that are are in a specific academic classes with that teacher. >> Sure. So whatever um so it happens every day before lunch. It's the 36 minutes before lunch. So whatever class a teacher has right before when those kids stay with them for that period. Now they don't have to. They can still be moved within their team. That's where they're assigned. So that's where the team will have

026to work together to decide I need these 14 kids and these 12 kids can go over here and here's what this teacher is going to focus you know. So it's kind of a it's a shifting answer for what you support for the children but in its core is it's this time of of day and you know where the kids are going to be like where they'll be available during that time of day. So, um, a a standard, um, uh, consistent intervention block is really key to having successful tier two and three interventions like that that you don't want to be pulling core class time for for that type of work with our students. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Um, so that's going to be that's a that's a complicated task this year. It's going to

027be a year-long task. It may not be complete at the end of the year in terms of our process for that, but um kind of getting our our core four classes on the same page with each other on that is is really going to be central to our work this year as a school. Um goal three, in order to cultivate a sense of belonging, the Nichols Middle School will further develop student engagement in their learning, their governance, and their MPS experience. Um, I spent a lot of time this summer reviewing our end of the year panorama data and our students experience at the Nicholas Middle School and to be perfectly frank, it was heartbreaking. Um, our students as a whole do not feel connected to their school. I mean, I know there's going to be

028examples where, you know, there's variances from the norm, but as a population, our students do not feel connected to their school. They do not feel a sense of community. They do not sense feel a sense of safety. Um, they do not enjoy their time at the Nichols Middle School. And that breaks my heart. Um, very frankly, it's not this Nicholas Middle School I left in 2015. And and my goal is to really focus on um the student experience. Um, I'm lucky enough to have Mr. Brandan here to my right and my students feed into his school at the end of every year and um, it would be silly of me to not focus on how I can work closer with him in terms of replicating as much as possible the type of community that he's

029built at the high school for our middle school. So, um, I want to work on things that are going to make our kids feel like Nicholls is an experience that they're going to talk about years from now. Um, and right now I don't feel that that's the case. Um, and so that will be, um, again, that's how I'm going to judge a lot of the success of my work at the school. Um, few things for this year. Um, I'm going to be working to research to bring Junior National Honor Society to the Nichols Middle School. We spend a lot of time recognizing a lot of different things that our kids do and short of end of the year awards that the kids get at their graduation, we don't do a whole lot of recognition of

030core academic excellence. Um, and I think National Honor Society does a lot to bring kids that that's that community building that you're talking about. It makes the kids feel proud of accomplishment. It helps teach them um service. It tells teach them how to be part of what you want the school to be. Um and it recognizes kids who really achieve um at a level to be proud of. And so um this year it it would not be a this school year that we implement it. My goal is to have National Honor Society as a part of the Nichols culture for the beginning of the following school year and that we accept classes of kids to be um a part of that for the following school year. Um student celebrations, we're going to continue with a

031lot of what worked and create some things that um will um hopefully amplify that. um our trimester awards, content superstars, unified arts awards. We do positivity awards every week where teachers recognize kids for doing the right thing. I'm bringing back an award that I created in 2013 called the ROAR award that I'm a huge fan of. Um and um it sadly faded away over time, but I actually loved it. So, we're going to go back to that um this year. Um our student, we have a um student council at our school, and I'm I've already had conversations with Mr. Brandan about how we can amplify our student council at the Nichols Middle School and I want to work with his adviserss to help grow our student council and make that really a a core part

032of of the Nicholls experience. Um and then you know we continue to provide honestly I love the activities that we provide at Nichols. I think our afterchool options for our kids I I I'll hold up what we do against any other middle school I know. I think we have such a wide range of options and opportunities for our kids. Our sports are robust. Um, you know, we have inter murals for kids that aren't necessarily inclined to be a part of rigorous team sports. So many clubs. Um, our theater enrollment is wild. I it's it's it's 20% of our school is involved in our play. It's absolutely amazing. Um, and so I want to continue all of those things and look for opportunities to grow those as well. And then goal four, um, this is built

033around communication. You know, I sent out a parent survey about what's worked and not worked from a parent end at Nicholls in the past. And the consistent theme almost to every single answer was better communication. And in a lot of cases, it didn't specify what parents meant by that, but it was broadly stated that better communication needed to come from the Nickels. So, our goal is in order to establish meaningful family and community partnerships, the Nichols Middle School will continue to design and implement communication processes and protocols to engage and consult with parents and community members to support excellence in academic skills, knowledge, and mindsets. Now, there's a couple ways that we do that that are easy and a couple ways that are not so easy. The easy ones is um how we are visible

034face to face for the community. We have our open houses. Um turnout at the open house last month was fantastic and and the vibe was was so positive. I was really happy to see our teachers were excited to talk about what kids are going to be learning this year. Parents were excited to come in and hear about it. Um parent conferences, we're frontloading more conferences the beginning of the year uh in November rather than spreading them out over the course of the year because I think parents want to know really once you get into the meat of the year, how's my child doing? So rather than waiting till March or April to find out things are or aren't going well, let's have those conversations in November. So, we're going to be doing more of those.

035There will be a unified sign up for parent conferences this year because another piece of feedback I got was individual teams sending out individual signups using all different platforms. All of our parents are going to get one uniform signup form from me with each teacher's name linked on it around the beginning of November. Um, it's going to be a much smoother process, hopefully more um familyfriendly. Um, I believe in a very visible leadership style in the school. Some of this the district has helped me out with our move to Parent Square this summer was uh fantastic. Um I'm a parent in East Bridgewater and we made the move to East to Parent Square about three years ago and I can't say enough about what it allows us to do in terms of outreach to our

036families. That's been huge. Um we're going to be starting I'm going to be starting some programs at the school. Um coffee with the principal. We're going to be having one uh a week from this coming Tuesday at the school. It'll go out my newsletter tomorrow. I'll be holding morning hours where parents at drop off want to stop out and have a donut and some coffee with me out in the street and chat about the school. Um being out there at dismissal for pickup just kind of hey I'll beat you out there five minutes early. Let's talk about what's working. I mean I want to be not someone that you have to track down on the phone all day like someone who you know where to find me and and you know where to find me.

037Um curriculum showcase. We're going to redesign that. It was was a successful event last year. I want to have it be a more studentled um event. um it's not necessarily the teacher showcasing what they taught, it's about the students showcasing what they learned. And so we're going to rethink that event this year and the students are going to be there to show and demonstrate what they learned and what they're proud of that year. and and um some of the other things, you know, are less tangible. You know, quickly answering emails, quickly getting the phone calls back, being open and available to meet with parents. Things that I really want to make sure that we're doing so that there's a lot of stresses and struggles with raising middle school children and I don't want accessing the

038leadership at the school to be a barrier to supporting those students. So, um so we're on our well on our way in that goal. Um but I think the measure of success will be I'm going to do a parent survey at the end of the year and compare the results to what we sent out in um August. So yeah, just to recap, future focus for this year, goal number one, deep dive into data analysis um and then applying that analysis during our professional learning community meetings um to talk about how we support the kids. Um goal two developing a standard expectation on advisory period use. I meant to add also for win um and to begin to implement that um expectation the second half of the year. Goal three I I hope to come before

039you in the spring were the recommendation for the adoption of Junior National Honor Society at Nichols Middle School. Um and also working to develop um more building culture programming um and student leadership opportunities within our building um to help grow their positive Nichols experience. And then goal four um just to be clear and consistent about our communication practices. It's not even just about me. It's about what I expect of our teachers, our counselors, our nurse, everyone that works in the building. We have to be transparent. We have to get communicate with parents quickly and and openly. And that's my my expectation to lead them in that direction. So questions, >> Jess? Uh so fantastic, all wonderful ideas. I think um your energy and enthusiasm that you bring to this presentation just bodess so well for

040the success of this endeavor. Um you mentioned at the end the the parent survey and that you know you'll use that to gauge your success. Um but I think the true success of it will be the panorama survey at the end of the school year. Um, and you know, I'm excited to hear what you bring back and and report at the beginning of or over the summer or beginning of next year with, you know, what you've learned and and how it's um enhanced the school process hopefully. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Other thoughts? I'm going to finish here and then we'll we'll get to her. Alan, >> um, everything sounds great. Everything I've seen has been a a positive uh influence. Um the only thing I would ask is uh it's just

041a personal experience that my family's had is sometimes our email our emails go to junk mail. I ask your teachers to check their spam folders every now and then. I don't know how to fix that. We have to check our spam folders for school committee as well. >> Yes. >> So it's just something to keep in mind. >> I actually learned a hard lesson about that this summer. I sent something out about open house and uh Mr. Benson shot me an email saying, "Hey, we've been reaching out to you." And I went, "Sure enough, in this junk folder, there's there's some messages." So, thank you. >> That's a good reminder. >> Happens. >> Thank you. >> You know, >> thank you. >> Um, I have a thought and a question. Uh, my thought, and take

042this in the spirit as intended, that your heartbreaking over the survey that you received is very heartening to me. Um, that you care that much uh about that. um also I think bodess very well for the uh middle schooler. Uh the second is a question uh when you talk about uh the data which is also near and dear to my heart. Um previously I've heard about a data team that is districtwide. Um, and what I'm wondering is if you have a building specific data team and does that connect to the district-wide data team or how that works? >> Yeah. So, the building district team would real data team would really focus on a at a student to student level in terms of, you know, by classroom teacher by by cluster, you know, what are we

043doing with these where a district data team would focus more on trends, the larger student achievement picture, growth picture, things like that. So yes, our core our our data team will involve core members that are a part of all the different meetings depending on which cluster it is, administrators, guidance counselors, um curriculum directors, you know, depending on who the meeting is with. >> Um but then it would also involve the teachers either in that subject area or on that cluster where we're talking about those specific students. >> Okay, great. Thank you. The parts a whole and that is important in that the way the common data sets that people are looking at. the district team kind of informs my conversations at the cluster level with what we're what we really need to focus on. >>

044Great. Thank you. >> Can I just ask a quick question through you? >> Um I'm a big fan of positive reinforcement. You mentioned the roar award. Can you explain a little bit? >> Yeah, it's more um it's uh a monthly certificate picture with me, lunch with me. We do a little pizza party on the first Friday of every month. Uh sometimes we go out and play a little kickball. The newsletter gets sent out. It's more than just a handshake and a high five. It's it's kind of a half hour to recognize that you worked hard this year and your your or this month and your your teachers recognize you for going above and beyond. >> It's a selfish little moment for me to get some time to spend some time with the kids that I

045might not otherwise get to do. >> But yeah, >> thank you. >> May I make a followup to that? As someone who >> was when we were in the middle school, the ROA still existed, >> but it did not sound as cool as that. So, I would have loved that. >> Yeah. Great. >> So if I if I can sure >> so just going back to the win and advisory um sessions that are currently built into the schedule now. So if the goal is to kind of get them to more to where you want to see them for the next half of the year. >> What's the primary focus this half of the year for those blocks? >> Yeah. So it's really not so so for the first half of the year right now they're

046working on like social emotional growth for the students. you know, there really isn't an academic um consistent academic use of that time. And I'm okay with that for right now. Like that's actually an appropriate way to use the beginning of the year in terms of social regulation um learning, you know, peer to navigate through peer issues. We do some anti-bullying work, things like that. Um so, you know, once we again, we're really now starting to get into the meat of the school year and we actually have data that's actionable. Um, you know, so we'll really slowly start turning it from once as we get closer to November, December into a, you know, now that you have this time every six days with this group of kids, now how do you want to use it? I'm

047actually completely fine with the first 20% of the year being on SEAL topics. >> Perfect. >> Yep. >> And will the board awards take place with a positive? >> No, we'll do them both. >> Okay. >> Hello. How are you? >> Good. How are you? Uh, could you give us your name? >> Yep. Sarah Ziggores. Um, I just wanted to say I've been a parent at Nicholls. This is my fifth year in a row. Um, and third principal. Um, and it's this year has already started off being the best year of that I've been there. Um, and it's because of the leadership of Mr. Mclofflin. Um, it starts at the top down and if you don't have that leadership, if there's not that. I came up here many years ago and said it was, you

048know, we had Teacher Island and Admin Island and there was no bridge and the kids were drowning. Um, and that's that that bridge is being built. Um, I don't think it's just because he's been there before. I think it's because he leads. Um, and he's focused on communication and being transparent and being available. Um, so I just really want to thank him for a great start to the year. I think the entire um, vibe in the building is much different. Um, and I just think it gives me a lot of hope for what can still come from that. So, thank you. >> Thank you for the feedback. >> Hi. How are you? And your name? >> Kim Jones. And I just want to say I'm three years removed and a year and a half of

049it was COVID. So, I am totally throwing out the experience that my child had, but I would like to see um some more talk about special ed. Um, I don't know if how the rooms are, but while he was there, it was the bottom basement corner, which out of sight, out of mind. So, please keep that open. I like how you're talking about bringing up with the high school with Principal Branigan. I'd like to see the two of you work together, get some more unified down there because that was something that I think my son would have done really good with and more cohesion. Again, co threw everything out. So, you know, we got take that into concern, but also maybe really work on the best buddies, too. We've got that up here. I don't

050know if we can do some merging with it. I know ages you have to be careful with that, but please, you know, I like coming and hearing positive things, but I often hear neurotypical, neurotypical, neurotypical. Thank you. >> I agree. And thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you again. >> Thank you. You want to >> um moving on to Mr. Pan again. >> Hi everyone. Good evening. Um I'm really excited to be able to share with you our goals for this year. Um first I just want to thank our school council for the work they did last year and this fall of finalizing our document. And especially I think it would be um I'd be remiss not to recognize Heather Montra who has been our chair for for as long as I can

051remember. and she has finally decided it was time to move on. So, I just wanted to thank her for her years of service to our school and our school council because it's she's made a significant difference. But I you can see here that we have six goals for this year. And one of the things you may notice is that some of the goals are the same as last year. and because we really felt as a council that we really need to be working to create um capacity but really to be able to see the results instead of every year coming in with a new goal and really never feeling like we actually were meeting the goals we had hoped to meet. And so what you're going to see tonight is really just the next chapter

052of really the work we're doing. taking the assessments that we looked at last year, looking at what we accomplished, what we didn't accomplish, and making sure the fact that that we were able to re um design and to make sure we were in a good form to go. So, the first goal is our instructional practices. Um, and it's really this is the big goal. When you look at all of the others tonight, um, they're going to look very different compared to this one goal. And it's really meaty because of the work that we have been working at at the high school to ensure the fact that our instructional practices our level of engagement have been significantly increased. The first one is looking at our curriculum basing guides through the work of our curriculum team looking

053at all the curriculum at the high school really through the whole district is that every content area is in the renewal process. So it's taking everybody where they are whether midpoint or just starting or bringing to a close. It's making sure that our entry point is in relation to where we are in those goals which is really important work because the curriculum drives the instruction in the classroom. The high level engagement last year you might have heard from us a lot that we talked a lot about engagement at the high school. It was really looking how the teachers engage the students but more importantly how the students are engaging in the classroom. And so now it is really taking it from what we were able to accomplish and now moving it to the next phase.

054And you're going to see in the parentheses here the universal design for learning or UDL. And that it's really about taking the the the journey of a student and really putting them really in the driver's seat. Giving them the menu of options at the high school level to make sure the fact that their entry point of learning doesn't have to be just one way and that it really is about creating opportunities within the classroom environment for them to be able to really um enhance their learning and really make that engagement to be as high level as we can possibly get it. The relevance piece is really the world world application. Um, one of the things that we are really looking at this year is the word rigor. And rigor can be a really complicated word

055because I think if we all looked at and said what's the definition of that, we'd all have something vastly different. But really, this concept of relevance really works very closely with what we're doing with the word rigor. And I'll share that in just a moment. But really from there, it's really looking at AP and our advanced placement calibration. We're taking all the grades that our students got this year, this past school year, and looking at what they got in the classroom and how does it relate to the AP actually score on the exam. What is the correlation of that? Is there some real sustainability of looking at that what those students are getting in the classroom really mirrors what they're getting on the exam? And if so, well, then what do we do with that?

056If it's not, well, how are we engaging with that? And so, really, we started this work with the AP teachers last year. And it's really about not only what we're looking at when the students are done with it, but it's also making sure that they're ready. This goal is about instruction. So, it's really about when a student enters the ninth grade of really what is the work we're doing with them to make sure that when they get to that doorstep that they can go into an AP course, they have the skill set to be ready to do that. So the jump from a college preparatory program into an advanced placement isn't a monumental leap that they're able to do it because we've embedded the preap skills within the lower grades. Um really the big ticket

057with this one is what you see is the four levels levers of growth and achievement. This goal this year really the mantra of the high school is how are we going to grow and how are we going to help our students achieve more. And these are the four areas that we're doing it. It's ensuring the fact that this year that all of our students are doing consistent grade level assignments. It's really bringing them up and really making sure we know that they can do it and ensuring the fact that we're following those grade level standards. Really ensuring strong instruction in the classroom. What does that look like? What does it smell like? What does it look like going from class to class and content to content? Deep engagement. Really, this is in the seat in

058the in the hands of the students. You know, we did some research this past school year of everything we did with engagement was about the teacher. What is the teacher doing in the classroom? How is the teacher engaging? And really what we realized is that we really have to be intentional with our students about what does engagement look like as a student? What do we expect in the classroom when you come into the classroom of what that will actually be? And that is really one of the areas that we're looking at. On top of that is high expectation. we really deeply believe is that when you take these four levers and you really put them together that you'll actually get that growth and achievement and really with the work we're trying to do there. Um

059Mrs. Bini had asked the question about data and that's something we're doing here as well. Um is really looking at all of our data points that we possibly can with our leadership team from the leadership team into the classrooms through the content areas. Um, and we've been really fortunate this past school year to actually have for the first time actually a beginning of the year, a middle of the year, and an end of the year assessment. The high school never had that. We'd always looked at carcass at the end of the year. To be able to have something that we can look at knowing the students are directly sitting in front of us, we think it's just great. So, starting tomorrow actually, we're doing our data dive of looking at all of our testing, all

060of that from last year and really beginning to look at really what is the entry point, looking at the incoming nth grade or our rising nth grade, excuse me, but also our older students as well. Collaboration between stu humanities and STEM. Last year, we did so much work in content areas. This is the year we're branching off to make sure humanities can be working together and STEM can be working together to really see where they can cross col um kind of with strategies and lessons and all of that. And the last one is really special education. This is a major one for us because we know the fact that with all of our students that we need to make sure the fact that our inclusion classes to our programs are all receiving the highest of

061instruction we can. they go right back to those core levers, grade level assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and high expectation. And so really, our second goal is fed from this first goal, which you'll see in just a moment. Um, but really, this is our most um significant goal this year. And through special education, it's looking at our curriculum, how do we modify the curriculum to ensure the fact that they're meeting the standards as well, but also through the lens of the instructional tool as well. and really through the lens predominantly through our inclusion teams in math, in English, in science, in history as well as our inclusion specialist as well. Our second goal is really about um our professional learning communities. I'm really excited by this goal because it really is the the kind of

062the the work of getting that first goal to really grow. And so last year we actually launched our professional learning communities here at the high school. I had shared with you as a committee that we eliminated faculty meetings. We gave all of that time back to the faculty to create professional learning teams and department meetings. Um all of our common planning time because of the new schedule that it actually gives teachers almost 40 hours in a school year to really do the good work during a school day. And then what we decided to do this year is we wanted to avoid confusion. So in our school we no longer have department meetings because what I found or what we found we were still doing the stop and the start and stop and start and stop

063and we want this work to be a continuum. So really this year it is that all of our work becomes a professional learning community. So the language becomes that the agendas become in really in Q because of that. Um and this is really the next phase. You're going to notice the fact that it's really about creating a much deeper shift in our instructional practices at the high school. For example, we had a lot of times last year where our special ed department was work only with their special ed counterparts. They shouldn't be our inclusion teachers should be working within the content, working within math and English and science and history. Our programming teachers not only should be collaborating together, but they should be part of the conversations that are happening within the content because they're

064also teaching the same content. So, it's really about growing the capacity of a PLC and no longer having it be just the English department working at it. It's now creating a true grade nine PLC where all the ninth grade teachers can be coming together to talk about what are we seeing in the trends of our ninth graders to be able to address an issue potentially that could be universal instead of waiting till the end of the year and say my goodness we wish they could have done it. looking at special education inclusion, creating their own professional learning community to really be talking about what are we seeing across content area um the good and the bad and the ugly humanity STEM and then really once a month bringing the entire faculty together to do best

065practices from what we're learning and seeing in our professional learning communities. How can that become the best practice session where we can come in and share with each other of what actually we're seeing in our classrooms that is working to again to go right in line with high level expectation or high level instruction. One thing I did want to share is that I mentioned to you a little while ago about rigor and that we're launching a a focus group within our um leadership team which has become its own professional learning community and it's all researchbased onto researchers called Fiser and Frey and they have redesigned the whole concept of rigor and that all of our um leaders in the building have this kind of workbook that we're working from. This is going to become the

066channel in which we are working as a leadership team, as an administrative team, which then will trickle down into the professional learning communities, which then will trickle into the classrooms. So, we're really quite excited by the work, and it really focuses on relationships, instruction, goals, organization, and relevance, which actually is the acronym for rigor. So, it really blows up that term, and it really puts it into the hands of teachers to talk about the environment in which we're creating for our students. We're really quite excited by this. Tomorrow we will launch this for our data dive that we're doing. We'll be breaking the entire faculty into a STEM team into a humanities team. From there, um, our really great coordinators of STEM and humanities will lead a protocol with them where they'll be identifying the

067entry points because we know really good professional learning communities are not driven by me. They're driven by the staff. And so to create those entry points, it will become their their benchmark between now and Thanksgiving to be able to look at what are the things we're going to focus on and do in the immediate so we can come back at Thanksgiving and right after that assess it and then come up with goals again from Thanksgiving to the PD days in January. And goal number three um is really our future ready program. And we're really excited by this because it really is making sure that all of our students when they graduate from Midabar High School are future ready. This year we have launched a really updated redesign of our senior internship program and really under

068a future ready model that students had to make sure the fact that their internships in order to have one were really linked to something they thought about doing or hoped to do instead of just having an internship for the sake of having one. that has been a gamecher. We have a number of students who come into our building from math, English, and fizzed, which is the three requirements you need in senior year if you've met all the requirements. And they're actually out in a trade and they're working and they're earning hours and credential, which is actually what we wanted to see happen as our school. And it's all really leading towards our future ready 2030, which is really our strategic plan of really what does middlear high school look like by the year 2030. And

069lastly, our project lead program. Last year, we had the good news to share about our innovative pathways and our designation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We now need to start working at our Project Lead the Way program, which is very popular here at the high school, the biomedical program, the engineering program, and the computer science program. What we're doing this year is we're pretty much blowing it up, and it's going to go back to the roots of why we brought this program in. our redesign, our reccalibration, making sure we're doing offering the courses we should be, but more importantly that every student who goes through the project lead the way program will end with a capstone because in senior year it's about creating something out of all the things that you have learned that then

070you can go out into the community and share what you have invented or created. So really quite excited by this work this year with PLTW and then also the vision of the graduate. Um this year if you walk around our building you can see elements of the vision of the graduate that we really took last year to really take it back in and do a lot of analysis and assessment of things we learned from the year prior and we as a faculty decided we were not ready to share our vision we are now. So this year it is the full implementation of the vision of the graduate assessing our current programs how that links in. We have a whole team of teachers that are experimenting with protocols of magnets in the classroom where when they're

071doing a certain lesson or activity, they can immediately go up and show the um the icon that goes with that particular um um kind of character trait for our school and to make sure the fact that our students can see the connection as well. And lastly, um create the benchmark. So hopefully this will be the connection with this whole school district about really creating what does it mean to persevere in K through2 to persevere in 3 through 5 and 6 through 8 and ultimately 9 through 12. Um so really quite excited by by this. We know the fact that it starts as a student in kindergarten with the vision when they graduate they are now the portrait of the graduate. So we're quite excited by that. And number five is really our school culture, which

072is really something that is never is never work that is done and it is something that we're continually working at, but we took a lot of the um items from last year and really did some analysis. Tim, Mr. Laughlin had spoken earlier about his panorama data and we at the high school have done the same and there were areas that we're really happy with but there were also areas that we were not and so we needed to go back and figure out well what is that entry point and the area for us quite candidly was about belongingness and really that some students felt really a strong sense of it but we have many students that did not and we needed to really unpack that to determine is it really they don't feel belonging anywhere in

073the school or when they walk into the theater that's where that's where they feel it or when they walk onto the football field, that's where they feel it. And so we need to kind of peer that back a little bit and determine was it more universal or is it really about really understanding what that word means. So what you have here is really some elements of that. The freshman academy is something that is an ongoing project. We don't have a section of the building. It's really about habits of mind. It's behaviors in the classroom in this year with having a grade nine professional learning community. It could be really we're building the plane while we're flying it. But sometimes that can be a good thing because we're going to be taking what our students need

074and implementing it in the immediate creating a student activities page. It is something as as Mason and and Jackson mentioned about new organizations and all of really finding the entry points for our students and what the needs are and that is something that will continue the principles round table but more importantly the launch of our nation. This was an element that was in relation to our need for belongingness. We brought a consultant in last June based upon our data points. Um, and boy was it something. It was a complete analysis of our culture of a school, our climate. And really the summer became the good work of our students to really say if we want to have a great culture, we need to be part of owning that as well. And the launch of our

075nation began. And if you've been to a football game, um, you have seen it. If you've been to, um, the theater program at that's entertainment in June, you saw it. And even now we have um the concert choirs at every single home senior game they're singing the national anthem. Something we've never done. But it's really about supporting each other. Peer-to-peer engagement. It's the constant work about making sure that our students can engage with each other, be kind to each other, but more importantly have conversations with each other as well. And that is something that we are working at continuously. senior last assembly. The last two we did a meeting at the end of the school year of really and with feedback from our council about really looking at senior events, especially the senior left assembly.

076Um, and really taking a deep dive to say we've done this really traditional program and it's not going away. But my goodness, there's so many more things we could be doing in that program to make sure all students are recognized for four years of hard work. And lastly, bringing back the underassman awards night. We had it for years. um co put a a pin in it and it's about time we bring it back again but really do it in an organic way to make sure the fact that our students can be recognized for the good work each year. And then lastly, we added this goal because for as long as I've served in this role, it has always been something on the school improvement plan and I thought it was important for accountability is our

077NAS denial visit. Um they will be here in three weeks um for their their study of our school. The team has been established and we'll learn next week of who is coming. But I do know that when they came in 2023, many of those team members are returning, which is wonderful because they can see what we where we were and now where we are at this time later. The report was submitted on September 26. So now it is being reviewed by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. And that we're preparing for the visit which will include classroom observations. It will include focus group meetings with faculty and students. And what I'm most excited by is a student showcase. So all last year we were c create collecting student samples of work. Everything from

078the my lab to an essay to a play to you name it we have it and that during the visit they will be doing a showcase where our students will be able to demonstrate what they have learned and to be able to explain actually what they took away from it but actually how they own their own learning as well. really quite excited by that and part of their visit we'll be reviewing all of our evidence to make sure that we are in good form. I want to just say because I think it's just a testament to the faculty and staff here that in 2012 was our last visit they came in 2013. So we prepared in 2012 and in 2013 that they when they sent our report back we had over 70 recommendations that we

079needed to address. Um and we were placed on warning for everything. Um, now we have five and five of them are things that we have identified ourselves to say that we need to work in this area. So really quite excited by this visit because I think this time we have a school that is in really a good spot. We're not perfect. We're far from it, but we really have the ingredients for the growth that we need. So we thought it was important to have this as our final goal and our school council concurred. And lastly, just our immediate next steps, establishing norms and expectations. I wanted to share this with you because part of the protocol of that first goal um is is really having the students become owners of their environment. And one of

080the things we asked all of our teachers to do is to create norms in the classroom. And it's not the teacher norms, it's the class norms. Really a shared experience of really what our students would want out of the classroom, what they want from the teacher and what the teacher wants from them. It became a conversation about expectation which became a partnership between the classroom teacher and the students. We really got some good results of that. Our professional learning communities, the first ones of organizations started in September within content and we will blow the doors open starting tomorrow with our data unpacking that will happen. Our PLC engagement of engagement and rigor which goes right along with this kind of guide that we're doing. Our PLTW engagement experiences for students. We're really excited by that.

081This team of teachers that are working at it are all of our PLTW teachers. So engineering, biomedical, computer science, the science department chair, and Kelly Stukenberg, the STEM director are all working collaboratively to really do this analysis. A vision of the graduate and um ultimately our continued work on school culture. I want to go back to PLTW for a minute because thanks to um Mr. her own and the school district. We've been able to work with a consultant um through that really helps us look at our career guidance and really creating community partnerships and we have an entire team of engineering students um going to Gillette Stadium on the 20th for what is called a mashup where it is an actual where you put all these engineering students in a space together and they have

082to solve problems. You can't get into this unless you're invited. Um and so because now that we're in, we're now permanently in. So, we're really quite excited by the group of juniors that will be going uh on the 21st of October. And I just thought that was how I wanted to end with that. So, I could take any questions. >> Anyone have questions for Mr. Bernigan? >> Sounds great. >> Uh c can I give him a quick school culture shout out? Um few nights ago as I was laying in bed death scrolling through Facebook instead of going to bed um I found um a video from someone that I follow on the west coast who does a lot of posting about school culture and the video was titled every school everywhere should do this and

083it was a video of our kindergarteners on the football field running out to meet the seniors and I actually showed my wife and brought tears to her eyes about what a sweet moment it was and I just want to recognize Bran you're you're nationally known. I mean that's you should be very proud of that. >> Thank you for that. I I do want to say and I should have started at the beginning. I really want to thank Mrs. Goris for saying what she said because I can't echo it enough. I it has been really quite wonderful to partner with Tim and to really talk about how to align our schools to really work together to make sure that the leap from grade 8 to 9 is not monumental and that with the systems and philosophies

084that we really can make sure that's done. So it's just really been a really a great connection so far. So, just wanted to thank you for that. >> Sorry, when you're done, one quick thing. >> No, go ahead. Just >> I I do want to mention that Tim, you have the the inevit in unenviable challenge of also having to look at the transition from fifth grade to sixth grade. So, um you know, making sure that that kind of figuring out this transition and then figuring out how you then move that in the other direction. >> I don't want to take your time. Do you mind if I just speak to that? So, yeah, we're going to be super visible um both at MKG and HBB from an administrative teacher um level inviting parents up to

085our school. We're going to have like a March parent night at the school just for me to meet the parents and let them ask the thousand questions they're probably going to have. >> I actually got to be um acting principal at MKG for a couple hours yesterday and uh went around and met all the uh fifth graders just to say hello and they were just jaws dropped. Oh my goodness, that's our new principal next year. So, yeah, we want there to be a visible clear connection. >> Thrilled to hear that that's already in the plans. >> Uh, one last follow-up question for me. Sure, Paul. Um, when you were talking about the visit, the NASK visit, any role or visibility that you would be um appropriate or appreciated from the school committee? Yeah, actually that

086visit. >> That is a great question because there is a part for all of you and so I'm just waiting to find out when and how. Um there is a time where they do want to meet with the school committee. Um and it will either be virtual or it could be in person. So in other schools they do it on the Sunday evening. So they arrive on Sunday but they do not come onto the campus that Sunday. They start Monday morning. But in many school districts, they would have the the school committee meet virtually or in person on Sunday, but many towns, they want to do it on Monday because they can come into the building and meet face to face. So, we're meeting with our chair um on Thursday of next week. And so,

087we'll know then what they would like to see happen and then really coming to all of you to see what your schedules will allow for either a Sunday night virtual meeting or it would be the Monday and what your preference would be. So I'll certainly reach out um to see kind of what your preference would be collectively and if your schedule allowed um it would be a great opportunity to meet with them. >> And do we know that at least that those dates? >> Yeah. So it would either be the 26th which is that Sunday or it'd be Monday the 27th. So I know it would be one of those two days if it is the Sunday it would be an evening because the team mobilizes um that night and it would be either that

088or it'd be sometime during the day on the Monday. So, >> thank you. >> Thanks. >> Anything from the community? >> All right. Thank you both. >> Thank you. Thanks for everything. >> Back to the hot sheet. Michael. >> Uh, next we have a special ed update from Mike. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um we continue to be uh staffed up in our special ed and professional positions. Uh and that includes our um uh temporary um positions due to um leave and so the substitute positions are uh currently filled. Um, but we mentioned at the last meeting that those were somewhat problematic to fill because they are part-time. They're positions held by other employees that are just out. Um, so we have a proposal uh I think um there we go. um to uh increase

089the substitute rate for our um certified with valid moderate disabilities andor severe special edi um candidates. And we raised that uh from one the they mirrored the two above the two yellow uh highlighted amounts the 140 and 145. Those uh were what we um were at. And what we're proposing is to raise from the 140 to 175 and the 145 to 182 for um individuals who hold those certifications. Uh we think that that will uh help us in terms of getting uh more and um qualified candidates. Um so we're it's one step in trying to uh alleviate that situation that we uh had over the summer. So, um that is a action item. Um and if anybody has any questions on that proposal, I will take them. >> Any questions about the proposal to increase

090the rate for the substitute teachers as described? >> Jeff? >> Yes. Do you, Madam Chair? Um Mike, just in terms of kind of comparable amounts for surrounding districts and that kind of thing, do you have any sense? We were um we raised them a couple years ago when we were still below, but we became much closer. This will put us really uh competitively with our neighbors. So, I think we'll be helpful. >> Other questions for Mike specifically about the uh increase in salary? Hearing? None. This is uh requires a vote uh and it's a straight majority. Uh do I hear a second for? >> How about I make a motion to approve the uh >> Thank you. >> the increase rate for substitutes um as described. >> Do I hear a second? Thank you. >>

091All those in favor? I >> I >> opposed. It passes unanimously. Uh thank you Mike for the update uh specifically around the uh that we now have those positions filled which I I am sure is a relief to you and but most importantly to the kids that are in those classes and the parents. So I really appreciate the efforts that um put into uh filling those up. Uh would you mind speaking a little bit to uh the coordination of communication that you uh wrote to us about? >> So um in terms of uh staff working with uh parents and students. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, our new um uh acting uh special ed director uh is starting uh a new kind of communication plan to be more transparent with parents uh and the services that

092their students are receiving and with uh more updates and it seems to be uh working pretty well. It's not finalized and it will continue and I think it will get better. Um, so I'm excited for that and uh I've already seen some positive changes with that. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> Any questions or comments from the community? >> Hearing none, we can move along. Uh, and that is to the Lincoln D. Lynch roof update. So, the Lincoln D. Lynch roof update. Uh, in the, uh, most recent Friday, uh, notification from me to the committee, uh, I notified you that, um, we had, um, lost our, uh, appeal. Uh, to reject the, uh, low bid and go with the next bidder. Uh, the AG's office uh, ruled in favor of the bidder. Um, and

093so, uh, Mr. Farley, Director Farley, um, uh, sent out a notification to, uh, the original and the, uh, low bidder, um, a notification to proceed, but, um, with some stipulations and, uh, put in some uh, parameters that were set by the AG that allow was allowable by the AG. We literally just received that this afternoon. So, I can't comment much on it because we forwarded it on to KP Law uh for our next steps. I'm not sure uh what we are are at liberty to do with that. I will say that um should we move forward, we're um pressed again on time, but we do have an open window if we are going to move on with the project um at the end of December into late January. The problem with that is the weather's

094not always cooperating at that time >> for roofs. Time to do a roof. >> So, we will keep an eye on that. If it works, it does. If not, we will have to push it off until the weather's warmer and when students aren't in. So, we are quite limited there. Um, so I will again keep you updated once we get uh word back from legal on um you know after they analyze the response from um WPI Construction, the roofing company, and we'll see where we go from there. >> Thank you. Any questions about the roof? I Yes. Um, if we do have to push out till springish, um, I know you don't likely have this information right now, but it would be helpful to find out from, um, Director Farley if there's any kind of

095temporary protection from winter weather and whatever might be needed to make sure that the the project doesn't blow up exponentially costwise. over any potential winter damage and what that costs to do any kind of temporary stop gap measure might be. >> That conversation is underway with our consultant. Um uh Mr. Farley mentioned he can go up there and do as much as he can and I don't really want him doing that. I'd rather the consultant go in. And I he threw out some numbers around $20,000 that we could do some uh preventative measures that would help. And you know, the times when we get rain, sometimes we get rain and doesn't leak. Sometimes it rains a little and we get a lot. So, it's you just don't know with water and roof. >> Kind of

096like my basement. >> Yeah. So, um, we are definitely having those conversations and and because of the fact that the likelihood of January 22nd to I mean December 22nd to January 21st I think are the times where students aren't in. You got the holidays and you have the worst uh weather month of the year, but you never know. We've had some mild winters, so maybe we can get it done. >> Thank you. Any other questions, comments? >> Thank you, Mike. >> Thank you. >> I believe that moves us on to subcommittee updates >> policy. >> All right. >> So, we have uh five items for second reads tonight. I'd like to start with uh JJ, which is the student fundraising activities. This is the one where all we're doing. We have already approved it recently

097um back in April. Um and all we were really doing was adding the additional clause related to raffles. Um I was able to speak to someone in the town clerk's office today. Um and we are not the only group that has questions about raffles. Um there is a potential that they're going to be putting an information packet together. So, I'll try to keep checking back with them to see if they're going to do that. But, in the meantime, um, if you go to the middlemad.gov website and then at the top you go to departments and then you find the town clerk. If you scroll down on the town clerk page, there's actually a raffle permits button right there. And when you go to that page, it has all the information. Um, it talks about it's

098a $25 fee and the permit covers a year. Um there is accounting and that kind of thing that is required. Um and the permit must be issued or denied within 30 days of applying. So the form is there. It looks like a pretty straightforward form. Um but it is something that the town clerk's office um I know you had interest from the perspective of the PTA. So it is something that uh there is information available through the town. Um and I'm sure the town clerk's office can help if you have more questions. But with that being said, >> uh, for before you move on, thank you very much for following up on that and I think it's a great example of sometimes when a question comes up that can't be answered that night. Um, it's

099one of those that we can circle back at the next meeting. So, and thank you very much for doing that, Jess. >> You're welcome. Um, so with that being said, any questions about the additional language being added to JJ? No. Okay. So moving on to the next policy which is AC. So policy AC is a non-discrimination policy including harassment and retaliation. Uh this is one that I had reviewed by our legal team. Um it had previously been updated back in 2019. So um pretty much everything is just completely scrap what we had. take the additional take the new version from MASC because it is all based on state laws and regulations and this gets us up to up to code I guess is a good way to say it. It gets us aligned with any

100changes that have already happened through all of those updates and that is the recommendation of our legal team as well as our internal staff here at the the school district. Any questions on that policy? >> Any questions on that policy? All right. ACA is non-discrimination on the basis of sex. That one also had been um last updated. This one was a little more recent. So that was 2014. Um this has been updated within the 2025 year by MASC uh because of changes on the federal regulatory side. So with the changes to title 9 um that did update this policy. So if we accept these updates they are less um you know basically what we had was already um very aligned with what it is now. It just if we had updated it before January it

101would have been different and now then we would have had to update it again. So it just puts the language in line with the current federal and state statutes. Any questions, comment? Thank you. >> ACAB is sexual harassment. Um, this one had this one is another scrap it and start all over again preference. Uh, so this had also last been updated in 2014. Um, this new policy again aligns with state and federal statutes. It has additional language. It is quite lengthy um but it doesn't include um how the policy will be implemented. We already have all of that information related to title 9 on our website is all updated regularly within um Kevin Albatab and the the office of people and personnel services. So everything we have that we implement is up to date. Our

102policy is just lacking behind. So this would get our policy up to date as well. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. >> And then ACCE is non-discrimination on the basis of disability. Uh ours had been in place since 2014, I believe. Um the changes in this one are not as extensive due to not as many changes being um put in place but there had been some amendments to a few of the legal references. Um so the biggest change here is that um the first two uh paragraphs of our initial our existing policy would be struck um in we would just focus on um the different the rest of the pieces um within the policy and other than that there is just a mostly grammatical changes um within the rest of the language of the policy.

103Any questions there? Okay. So, those are the five. Um, this is the the second read so that we do have the ability to wait until a third read and we can um have the third read at the next session. Um, I believe we could also decide if we wanted to to have a motion to expedite and vote to approve as is today and move forward with these policies as proposed. >> A motion to expedite Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> This would be a majority vote. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. >> And that will be unanimous. >> All right. Great. Thank you all so much. I'll have another batch for you for the next meeting. >> Uh again, thank you, Jess. And uh one I have had some

104questions and comments about why our agendas are so full of policy review. Uh and so I would like to re reiterate something that Jess had said previously and that is that as you're hearing on the updates of some of these policies that there was not a full review of the policies some going back to 2013 and is really a requirement that every year we review our policies. And so we're trying to get up to date, get them all um within a current period of review and then after we complete that um it should not be so lengthy, but it is Thank you again, Jess. It's a it's a yman's work, but it is something to keep us in compliance uh with what our responsibilities are. So that is the reason why we have so many

105policies on our agenda. >> Um we do have a subcommittee meeting next week. Um and part of what I have on the agenda for the subcommittee meeting is um a proposed process for moving forward once this initial review has been done. Um so once we've discussed that at the subcommittee um I do want to bring that back. So even if it's none of us who are still on the committee, I'd like to make sure that we leave with a process recommendation for uh constant evaluation and review of the policies moving forward on it every year. take a chunk and keep going. I also like to take the opportunity to reinforce what Zeke had asked us before and that um we be hearing from all of the subcommittees uh of when their initial meetings are uh

106and responding to his request of reviewing the goals and purposes and plan within those subcommittees. And so hopefully we can do that at the finish doing that at the next meeting. Speaking of the next meeting, uh the next meeting uh just officially to uh announce that we are needing to move that meeting to Thursday, November 6. Uh it will be at 700 p.m. unless something happens before that that uh requires an executive session and it will need to be held at the um at the middle school auditorium uh because this uh auditorium is being used on that time. So again, that will be on November 6th at 7 o'clock at the Nichols Middle School auditorium. Uh next is the annual town meeting update as it relates to the school committee. We had a warrant uh

107at that meeting that to request to move to seven a seven person uh school committee and that was uh uh approved and passed at that meeting and so um because of that Jess I need to uh charge the >> it's on the agenda for the 15th to review that >> because the way that the process works is that we requested through the town meeting town meeting approves it and then we need to change that within our um bylaws or policies. >> Yep. It is on there for us to review on the 15th so that we should be able to take action on it at the next meeting. >> Okay. Uh the consent agenda that's before >> Hold on. Sorry. Sorry. >> Um you announced the November meeting is the 6th, but that's not the next

108meeting, right? I think it's the 23rd of October. >> Yes, we have an October meeting. >> We have an October meeting just that we're changing the the first meeting in November. Thanks to >> You're welcome. >> And the date of the October meeting is >> 23rd. >> October 23rd. And is that going to be here? Was there some question of whether that was going to be here or not? >> I think we're all clear for it to be here. Um I can't see the booth is dark, but I was pretty sure that uh they were going to be able to touch everything. There's a thumbs up. Um, everything above the curtain line will be able to be secured, but they'll leave us enough space and they'll secure everything else after, which is why we need

109to move forward. >> Now, I remember. >> Could I just say that the um school improvement plans of the MAC, MKG, and HBB will be at the 23rd. Just we don't do them all in one night for those who uh were wondering. So, we we'll bring those to the next meeting. >> Thank you for that update. Uh on the consent agenda, um we have donations from Ocean Spray to the Mary Q K good school. Uh also uh I need to entertain a motion to approve the minutes of August 28th, 2025. So moved >> to actually may make a motion to approve both consent consent agenda items as noted. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I I >> I oppose. See man, unanimous. Uh for information, we have the fundraiser at the high school students

110council homecoming dinner October 16th. the O I guess we already heard this from our student reps, but to repeat the homecoming dance October 18th and the H Halloween funfest October 29th. We have a fundraiser for the Middle Borough High School class of 2029, which are Boo Kids, which I don't know what that is. Uh and we already um voted on the substitute rate increase. So therefore, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move >> second. All those in favor? >> I Oh, this is the favorite part. >> We are adjourned. >> Thank you.